Hey all. I was wondering if I could get a thread going here of unconventional encounter objectives. I love pure combat as much as the next DM, but was hoping to whip up a few encounters for my party that were less "reduce all enemies HP to zero" and more time based, or objective based as well. Perhaps there are a set number of rounds to stop something from happening, or ensuring that it DOES happen? Maybe capturing an item and returning it to your base is the primary objective with fighting being a secondary goal? Let's see what we can all come up with!
This thread I found on enworld entitled "Creative combat objectives (other than "kill 'em all")" was a really solid start to inspiration, but I thought I would also see what you fine folks had to say!
I'll start with one I wrote for a one-shot that I really enjoyed:
Scenario: Stop the Spell Objective: The evil wizard is completing a ritual that will cast a miles-wide "Power Word Kill" spell, thus sacrificing enough lives to kick off the apocalypse. You can kill the wizard, but any method of stopping them from enacting this ritual will suffice (pulling them off of the pedestal, restraining them, etc... just keep in mind that any temporary effect can just lead to the wizard resuming the ritual if they break free). Setup: The party begins at the entrance of the ritual chamber. The place is in ruins so broken columns and rough terrain abound. The encounter begins with the evil wizard beginning the ritual and summoning a group of zombies between them and the players. In Play: At the top of every round 2d4 zombies spawn around the players. Additionally at the top of every round a line of necrotic fire crosses in front of/behind the wizard. When completed it will look like a 5-pointed star and the spell will be complete (objective failed, the party dies). This necrotic fire functions as a modified Wall of Fire spell that deals necrotic damage instead of fire, and also makes it harder to attack/approach the wizard. Ancillary Skill Checks: Any rough terrain bypassing could be handled with Acrobatics checks, as well as any abilities to navigate over/through the fire.
Some submitted by others:
Scenario: Hold the Line (Inspired by CharlesThePlant) Objective: Hold off whatever villains are threatening civilians until they can escape to a teleportation circle/safe house/etc... Setup: The party is facing off against a horde of minions (perhaps 2d4 per player), the objective is to combat the minions, and more specifically not let any of them past you to where civilians are fleeing. In Play: When a minion is killed it respawns at the top of the map (for added difficulty perhaps 1d4 minions spawn), this will continue until all of the civilians are off of the map (at which point the party can retreat, the superweapon can fire, help can arrive, whatever fits your story) Ancillary Skill Checks: Grapple checks, strength checks, depends on your terrain set-up
Scenario: Parcel Delivery (Inspired by RexFireheart) Objective: Get the parcel from one end of the map to the other. Setup: "This parcel is too big to carry with one hand, and too fragile to be used as an improvised weapon. The scene is a rooftop chase, where the party has to parkour over a rooftop while being chased by assassins." In Play: Ambushes will occur along the way, and so the party has to protect the person with the parcel, as well as the parcel itself (give it an AC and HP). If the assassins steal it or break it, the party fails the mission. Ancillary Skill Checks: Acrobatics for rooftop antics, perhaps occasional athletics checks to lift the parcel, as well as Dexterity Saves to prevent from dropping it.
Scenario: Damage Control (Inspired by ThorukDuckSlayer) Objective: Minimize the damage to a town/area/populace by a nigh-unstoppable force. Setup: "[A] Tarrasque (or your own kaiju) is rampaging, the party efforts to hurt it mean nothing. Their goal is to limit the damage - distract the beast and lure it away." Note: this could be any sort of destructive force, so long as it can react to/be guided by stimuli provided by the player characters. In Play: Perhaps there is something in the town that is luring the cause of destruction to the town, and it needs to be moved out to pull the creature away. Or a damage threshold needs to be reached within one round to distract it enough to target the party instead. Maybe creating land barriers to slow/stop the advance of the creature (imagine what would be needed to create difficult terrain for a Tarrasque). Ancillary Skill Checks: Depending on the threat you could have anything from Animal Handling to Arcana here to understand the nature of the threat and how to divert it.
Scenario: Damage Control (Inspired by ThorukDuckSlayer) Objective: Minimize the damage to a town/area/populace by a nigh-unstoppable force. Setup: "[A] Tarrasque (or your own kaiju) is rampaging, the party efforts to hurt it mean nothing. Their goal is to limit the damage - distract the beast and lure it away." Note: this could be any sort of destructive force, so long as it can react to/be guided by stimuli provided by the player characters. In Play: Perhaps there is something in the town that is luring the cause of destruction to the town, and it needs to be moved out to pull the creature away. Or a damage threshold needs to be reached within one round to distract it enough to target the party instead. Maybe creating land barriers to slow/stop the advance of the creature (imagine what would be needed to create difficult terrain for a Tarrasque). Ancillary Skill Checks: Depending on the threat you could have anything from Animal Handling to Arcana here to understand the nature of the threat and how to divert it.
The following are taken from the article that inspired this thread (mentioned at the top). It was such a good thread, I want to keep the knowledge going!
Scenario: Last Stand Objective: The players must hold a defensive position (a building, a palisade, a section of castle wall) against a horde of enemy minions for 10 rounds (until activation of a super-weapon, until extraction, until a group of refugees has time to escape). Setup: The party begins inside the defensive position, with 20-25 enemy minions at the edge of the map. At the front is a non-minion ringleader (controller or artillery). The defensive position should be such that party members are (or can be) in an elevated position and have cover bonuses. In Play: The ringleader will lead the minions only as far as just outside a move away from the defenders, from which position he will spur on the minions. If the ringleader dies, all minions are demoralized, and may only take standard actions on their turn until a new ringleader shows up. At the end of the enemies' turn, fallen enemies (including the ringleader) are replaced at the edge of the map. Ancillary Skill Checks: Athletics checks are useful if minions are scaling defenses with ladders. A hard check will push ladders off the walls and stun the climbing minions for a turn.
Scenario: King of the Hill Objective: Last Stand with a twist: players must first assault the defensive position and wrest control of it from enemies before they defend it. Setup: The party begins at the edge of the map. The defensive position is occupied by 5-7 non-minion enemies, which are not yet aware of the PC's presence. In Play: At the first sign of attack, the defenders call out for backup (thus setting the stage for the Last Stand portion of the encounter). Other than that, this is a pretty straight-forward combat encounter. If players elect to damage the defenses during the course of the assault, the difficulty of the second part of the encounter will increase. Ancillary Skill Checks: Stealth will be essential, as will be Athletics (for scaling defenses).
Scenario: Spaced Invaders Objective: The players are forming a thin (but porous) line of defense against single-minded invaders whose only intention is get past them. The players must stop them. They can be plague-bearing zombies heading towards town, wounded enemy couriers on a battlefield trying to get a request for reinforcements out, or cultists of Orcus trying to throw themselves into a black abyss for some terrible ritual. Setup: Divide the mat in half. The players can be anywhere on the side of the mat to which the invaders are streaming. The players should be made aware that they will need maximum coverage and mobility. In Play: There are 20-30 minions who trickle in at the far end of the mat and move unswervingly to the other side. Now because they are either wounded, undead, or encumbered, they only take standard actions. They will prefer flight to fight, but will stop and fight if directly prevented from moving forward. At the beginning of each turn, roll a 1d4. This is the number of enemies that appear that round. For each enemy minion, randomly roll to see which edge square they start at. Ancillary Skill Checks: Perhaps allow Perception roles, and allow players to discover, one round ahead of time, where new enemy minions will appear.
One really simple one that often gets overlooked: protect civilians!
Not all combat takes place on an isolated battlefield where all parties agreed to be part of it. Sometimes it's a town square, a trader caravan, or a temple, and throwing a dozen commoners into the fray can be just the thing to spice up a combat for your (probably good-aligned) party.
I once ran a session against the background of a massive siege against a fortress that the players were inside amongst some allies. I knew it that running 50+ NPCs against the party along with 30+ allies was not viable, so I decided to treat the ongoing combat kind of like a disaster happening all around the party. There was always going to be combat, of course, but I wanted to let the players set the terms, so I did it in the form of two skill challenges. One took place while the party was preparing for the siege, and one happened during the siege itself.
Another thing I was inspired by was flipping the script and having a group of bad guys go into combat with objectives other than "kill em all" and this became evident as the encounter progressed and gave the party the opportunity to modify their tactics and respond to the evolving threat. The group was there to kill one particular PC and the "boss" of the fight had specific legendary actions that happened during the first three rounds of combat.
The gnoll primarch of Yeenoghu can take 1 legendary action, choosing from the options below. Only one legendary action option can be used at a time, and only at the end of another creature's turn. The gnoll shadow of Yeenoghu regains spent legendary actions at the start of its turn.
Round 1 only: Surround them! The gnoll primarch of Yeenoghu barks an order, and each of his allies can move up to their speed into a strategic position.
Round 2 only: Get that guy! The gnoll primarch of Yeenoghu singles out one enemy, and each ally can move up to their speed toward that target.
Round 3 and later: Kill! The gnoll primarch of Yeenoghu yells out in its frenzy and every ally within sight or earshot can make two claw attacks.
Another one that may be coming up soon is that there's a friendly NPC traveling with the party when they come across two other groups of unknown NPCs already engaged in some kind of a discussion. There is a good bit of martial power combined in these groups and the NPC ally will charge into battle against one of them for their own reasons. We roll initiative, and now there's a bit of a standoff as the ally fights against one group while the other group is standing there looking at the party to see who is going to jump in first. Does the party make the first move or do they just position themselves to react? And if the ally begins to lose, that ally will call out to the party for help. If the ally begins to win, the group standing on the sidelines will feel the same pressure to jump in and repel this sudden attack, which could lead to a large melee that could very well end up being more than the party can handle.
So does the party let their ally potentially die? Do they back the ally in combat? Do they just heal the ally to keep them alive? Do they look for a de-escalating solution? Also, who are these two groups of people anyway? Are either or both of them actually enemies of the party? Or is the party's NPC ally just being hot-headed and risking ruin for everyone? So many choices, and the clock is ticking with each turn.
I'm planning to run one where the party has a parcel. The objective is to carry the parcel from one end of the map to the other. This parcel is too big to carry with one hand, and too fragile to be used as an improvised weapon. The scene is a rooftop chase, where the party has to parkour over a rooftop while being chased by assassins. Ambushes will occur along the way, and so the party has to protect the person with the parcel. If the assassins steal it or break it, the party fails the mission. I don't know how fun or interesting this encounter is since I haven't playtested it yet, but hey, at least it's a fun idea.
In a recent game my party ended up in a dragons den being invaded by gnolls, the dragons hired us to stop them because the dragons could be less bothered dealing with them their selves.
My character, Horobak, a gentlemen Thri Kreen vowed never to kill a female, a view point of his is that they are flowers, they shouldn't be picked from the garden to early.
Though the party members ignored his begs and pleas, they killed all the gnolls, now the party is divded between sides.
(Sorry for the rant! just a story)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Anyone can smith at the cosmic anvil, yet only I can forge a weapon as good as thee."
This is all great so far! Thank you to everyone who has contributed. I may try to consolidate some of these up at the original post for easier viewing. If anyone else has any contributions, please feel free to add them!
Well if he is powerful enough to cast a power word kill out to a mile I think the best option would be to run like heck fire and get more than a mile away
Well if he is powerful enough to cast a power word kill out to a mile I think the best option would be to run like heck fire and get more than a mile away
Well, they have 30 seconds to get a mile, so perhaps the better bet is stopping the ritual (too low level for meaningful teleportation).
Well if he is powerful enough to cast a power word kill out to a mile I think the best option would be to run like heck fire and get more than a mile away
Well, they have 30 seconds to get a mile, so perhaps the better bet is stopping the ritual (too low level for meaningful teleportation).
Thirty seconds was something left out of the thread until now. My apologies.
Well if he is powerful enough to cast a power word kill out to a mile I think the best option would be to run like heck fire and get more than a mile away
Well, they have 30 seconds to get a mile, so perhaps the better bet is stopping the ritual (too low level for meaningful teleportation).
Thirty seconds was something left out of the thread until now. My apologies.
At the beginning zombies spawn around them and every 6 seconds 2d4 more. In 30 seconds
Well if he is powerful enough to cast a power word kill out to a mile I think the best option would be to run like heck fire and get more than a mile away
Well, they have 30 seconds to get a mile, so perhaps the better bet is stopping the ritual (too low level for meaningful teleportation).
Thirty seconds was something left out of the thread until now. My apologies.
At the beginning zombies spawn around them and every 6 seconds 2d4 more. In 30 seconds
My apologies if that wasn't clear! Every round the ritual completes one line of the 5 to create the pentagram. Once completed the spell is cast!
Also would love to keep this going if anyone has other contributions!
1: Chase sequence. The party are trying to escape from, or catch up to, an enemy or group of enemies. Chaff soldiers are sent to slow them down, so must be dealt with decisively. Make sure that the chaff have enough health to need resources expending on them to deal with in one turn, and can be dealt with in one turn if resources are expended. Any turn they are not dead, the chaff soldiers jump on the wagon, slowing it down, or grab the reins, or any manner of non-hit-the-party things to slow them down.
2: The Puzzle Clue. I ran a one-room thing in the DM Training ground (an excellent thread and well worth a go), where the "enemy" was powerful and nigh on invulnerable, a walking statue. The weight of the statue would tilt the room, opening doors on the opposite side which had levers behind them, which needed to be pulled to open the door and escape. Fighting the statue was pointless, but luring it around the room was the way to get through.
3: Save the Town. If the Tarrasque (or your own kaiju) is rampaging, the party efforts to hurt it mean nothing. Their goal is to limit the damage - distract the beast and lure it away. This sparks creative roleplay and spell use!
4: Get the Thing. There is one enemy with the thing you need, and too many to just kill them all. You need to try and get the thing - and get away. I have also run this backwards (with the enemies trying to grapple the party and open their bags in the fight) as a plotpoint to make them wonder what they were after.
A salute to the "Mission Impossible" style: Do this in real time; when the time is up, the overwhelming force that the party was hoping to avoid shows up. A chess clock can work brilliantly here, as the characters complete the planning phase, and stops their countdown clock, the DM and the world does their thing, and starts the party's clock again,. . . If the party succeeds in their objective, (before the clock runs out,) then the mission is won. Great for one shots, and when you just don't have the time for a longer session. Choose from any of the above great ideas, or maybe another.
Maybe capturing the enemy alive. Instead of allowing the party to knock them out by getting the target's hp to zero, maybe say that they have to do a certain amount of damage to an enemy in one round to knock him unconscious. The target has valuable information but is unwilling to speak without going down in a fight, so the party has to capture him, but if they knock him to 0 hp then the target dies. Then the party has to decide if they want to try to knock him out by doing a bunch of damage in one round, but they will risk killing him if they drop his hp to 0. Or they can try to grapple, restrain, or knock him unconscious in some other way, but their enemy is trying to kill them and escape at the same time. It might also make sense to make using slashing and piercing weapons a bad idea, while bludgeoning weapons are a safer method.
My brain is weird, so I thought about this. What if a child got access to an incredible power? I think babies are made tiny and weak because otherwise they would kill people without thinking and not on purpose. So what if a small, maybe neglected kid developed powerful telekinetic powers, and began forcing an entire village to play with them. They don't realize they are harming people and what they are doing is wrong, but they are, and the party has to stop them. But, they are an innocent kid, and the party would need to know that it would be wrong to kill the kid. They might be given a device or spell that will take away or weaken the kids powers, but they are also being attacked by the people of the village who are controlled by the child. That way, they can't kill anything, and are working hard to avoid combat, and save the town, while being attacked.
This sounds super weird when I write it out. It would be easy to make this horror, and I don't really like horror. Hope someone found this interesting.
My brain is weird, so I thought about this. What if a child got access to an incredible power? I think babies are made tiny and weak because otherwise they would kill people without thinking and not on purpose. So what if a small, maybe neglected kid developed powerful telekinetic powers, and began forcing an entire village to play with them. They don't realize they are harming people and what they are doing is wrong, but they are, and the party has to stop them. But, they are an innocent kid, and the party would need to know that it would be wrong to kill the kid. They might be given a device or spell that will take away or weaken the kids powers, but they are also being attacked by the people of the village who are controlled by the child. That way, they can't kill anything, and are working hard to avoid combat, and save the town, while being attacked.
This sounds super weird when I write it out. It would be easy to make this horror, and I don't really like horror. Hope someone found this interesting.
That premise was used well, in the original Twilight Zone series. How to actually stop them, and survive, would present some interesting challenges.
I've just run a session involving what's known as the Acting Rooms. The premise is that the characters are given a different "class" and "character" that they act as. The list was:
The half-orc barbarian became Dogood Holyman, the paladin The dwarven life cleric became Fighty McPunchface, the Barbarian The shadar-kai warlock became Lightfoot Silvertongue, the bard (she refused to wear the outfit) The Elf Monk became Brizmathus the Grouchy, the Wizard (he did not like the game. The player loved it!) and the Paladin-artificer became Lonewolf Edgypast, the Rogue.
The encounters featured combat, and thye realised after very quickly ending the lives of some bandits that these were other travelers acting their way through the acting rooms. One of them screamed, dropped his weapons, and immediately disappeared. They had been warned not to break character.
The session involved them struggling with their goals as they tried to play the roles of the heroes without actually killing anyone else!
Hey all. I was wondering if I could get a thread going here of unconventional encounter objectives. I love pure combat as much as the next DM, but was hoping to whip up a few encounters for my party that were less "reduce all enemies HP to zero" and more time based, or objective based as well. Perhaps there are a set number of rounds to stop something from happening, or ensuring that it DOES happen? Maybe capturing an item and returning it to your base is the primary objective with fighting being a secondary goal? Let's see what we can all come up with!
This thread I found on enworld entitled "Creative combat objectives (other than "kill 'em all")" was a really solid start to inspiration, but I thought I would also see what you fine folks had to say!
I'll start with one I wrote for a one-shot that I really enjoyed:
Scenario: Stop the Spell
Objective: The evil wizard is completing a ritual that will cast a miles-wide "Power Word Kill" spell, thus sacrificing enough lives to kick off the apocalypse. You can kill the wizard, but any method of stopping them from enacting this ritual will suffice (pulling them off of the pedestal, restraining them, etc... just keep in mind that any temporary effect can just lead to the wizard resuming the ritual if they break free).
Setup: The party begins at the entrance of the ritual chamber. The place is in ruins so broken columns and rough terrain abound. The encounter begins with the evil wizard beginning the ritual and summoning a group of zombies between them and the players.
In Play: At the top of every round 2d4 zombies spawn around the players. Additionally at the top of every round a line of necrotic fire crosses in front of/behind the wizard. When completed it will look like a 5-pointed star and the spell will be complete (objective failed, the party dies). This necrotic fire functions as a modified Wall of Fire spell that deals necrotic damage instead of fire, and also makes it harder to attack/approach the wizard.
Ancillary Skill Checks: Any rough terrain bypassing could be handled with Acrobatics checks, as well as any abilities to navigate over/through the fire.
Some submitted by others:
Scenario: Hold the Line (Inspired by CharlesThePlant)
Objective: Hold off whatever villains are threatening civilians until they can escape to a teleportation circle/safe house/etc...
Setup: The party is facing off against a horde of minions (perhaps 2d4 per player), the objective is to combat the minions, and more specifically not let any of them past you to where civilians are fleeing.
In Play: When a minion is killed it respawns at the top of the map (for added difficulty perhaps 1d4 minions spawn), this will continue until all of the civilians are off of the map (at which point the party can retreat, the superweapon can fire, help can arrive, whatever fits your story)
Ancillary Skill Checks: Grapple checks, strength checks, depends on your terrain set-up
Scenario: Defend the Target (Inspired by TexasDevin)
Objective: Whether it be a group of assassins, a boss and their horde, or some other threat, a Very Important Person™©® is under threat and must be defended.
Setup: This can take a number of forms. Perhaps you're escorting this person, perhaps they're holed up in a safehouse under siege, perhaps it's in the middle of a big battle with the din of combat creating an entirely new environmental problem.
In Play: This will partly depend on the setup, but having a character who can rally other enemies to their target would be a challenging threat. If it's an escort mission the players and target could be taking fire from enemies on both sides who are behind cover (encouraging creative problem solving).
Ancillary Skill Checks: There any many options here depending.
Scenario: Parcel Delivery (Inspired by RexFireheart)
Objective: Get the parcel from one end of the map to the other.
Setup: "This parcel is too big to carry with one hand, and too fragile to be used as an improvised weapon. The scene is a rooftop chase, where the party has to parkour over a rooftop while being chased by assassins."
In Play: Ambushes will occur along the way, and so the party has to protect the person with the parcel, as well as the parcel itself (give it an AC and HP). If the assassins steal it or break it, the party fails the mission.
Ancillary Skill Checks: Acrobatics for rooftop antics, perhaps occasional athletics checks to lift the parcel, as well as Dexterity Saves to prevent from dropping it.
Scenario: Damage Control (Inspired by ThorukDuckSlayer)
Objective: Minimize the damage to a town/area/populace by a nigh-unstoppable force.
Setup: "[A] Tarrasque (or your own kaiju) is rampaging, the party efforts to hurt it mean nothing. Their goal is to limit the damage - distract the beast and lure it away." Note: this could be any sort of destructive force, so long as it can react to/be guided by stimuli provided by the player characters.
In Play: Perhaps there is something in the town that is luring the cause of destruction to the town, and it needs to be moved out to pull the creature away. Or a damage threshold needs to be reached within one round to distract it enough to target the party instead. Maybe creating land barriers to slow/stop the advance of the creature (imagine what would be needed to create difficult terrain for a Tarrasque).
Ancillary Skill Checks: Depending on the threat you could have anything from Animal Handling to Arcana here to understand the nature of the threat and how to divert it.
Scenario: Damage Control (Inspired by ThorukDuckSlayer)
Objective: Minimize the damage to a town/area/populace by a nigh-unstoppable force.
Setup: "[A] Tarrasque (or your own kaiju) is rampaging, the party efforts to hurt it mean nothing. Their goal is to limit the damage - distract the beast and lure it away." Note: this could be any sort of destructive force, so long as it can react to/be guided by stimuli provided by the player characters.
In Play: Perhaps there is something in the town that is luring the cause of destruction to the town, and it needs to be moved out to pull the creature away. Or a damage threshold needs to be reached within one round to distract it enough to target the party instead. Maybe creating land barriers to slow/stop the advance of the creature (imagine what would be needed to create difficult terrain for a Tarrasque).
Ancillary Skill Checks: Depending on the threat you could have anything from Animal Handling to Arcana here to understand the nature of the threat and how to divert it.
The following are taken from the article that inspired this thread (mentioned at the top). It was such a good thread, I want to keep the knowledge going!
Scenario: Last Stand
Objective: The players must hold a defensive position (a building, a palisade, a section of castle wall) against a horde of enemy minions for 10 rounds (until activation of a super-weapon, until extraction, until a group of refugees has time to escape).
Setup: The party begins inside the defensive position, with 20-25 enemy minions at the edge of the map. At the front is a non-minion ringleader (controller or artillery). The defensive position should be such that party members are (or can be) in an elevated position and have cover bonuses.
In Play: The ringleader will lead the minions only as far as just outside a move away from the defenders, from which position he will spur on the minions. If the ringleader dies, all minions are demoralized, and may only take standard actions on their turn until a new ringleader shows up. At the end of the enemies' turn, fallen enemies (including the ringleader) are replaced at the edge of the map.
Ancillary Skill Checks: Athletics checks are useful if minions are scaling defenses with ladders. A hard check will push ladders off the walls and stun the climbing minions for a turn.
Scenario: King of the Hill
Objective: Last Stand with a twist: players must first assault the defensive position and wrest control of it from enemies before they defend it.
Setup: The party begins at the edge of the map. The defensive position is occupied by 5-7 non-minion enemies, which are not yet aware of the PC's presence.
In Play: At the first sign of attack, the defenders call out for backup (thus setting the stage for the Last Stand portion of the encounter). Other than that, this is a pretty straight-forward combat encounter. If players elect to damage the defenses during the course of the assault, the difficulty of the second part of the encounter will increase.
Ancillary Skill Checks: Stealth will be essential, as will be Athletics (for scaling defenses).
Scenario: Spaced Invaders
Objective: The players are forming a thin (but porous) line of defense against single-minded invaders whose only intention is get past them. The players must stop them. They can be plague-bearing zombies heading towards town, wounded enemy couriers on a battlefield trying to get a request for reinforcements out, or cultists of Orcus trying to throw themselves into a black abyss for some terrible ritual.
Setup: Divide the mat in half. The players can be anywhere on the side of the mat to which the invaders are streaming. The players should be made aware that they will need maximum coverage and mobility.
In Play: There are 20-30 minions who trickle in at the far end of the mat and move unswervingly to the other side. Now because they are either wounded, undead, or encumbered, they only take standard actions. They will prefer flight to fight, but will stop and fight if directly prevented from moving forward. At the beginning of each turn, roll a 1d4. This is the number of enemies that appear that round. For each enemy minion, randomly roll to see which edge square they start at.
Ancillary Skill Checks: Perhaps allow Perception roles, and allow players to discover, one round ahead of time, where new enemy minions will appear.
One really simple one that often gets overlooked: protect civilians!
Not all combat takes place on an isolated battlefield where all parties agreed to be part of it. Sometimes it's a town square, a trader caravan, or a temple, and throwing a dozen commoners into the fray can be just the thing to spice up a combat for your (probably good-aligned) party.
I once ran a session against the background of a massive siege against a fortress that the players were inside amongst some allies. I knew it that running 50+ NPCs against the party along with 30+ allies was not viable, so I decided to treat the ongoing combat kind of like a disaster happening all around the party. There was always going to be combat, of course, but I wanted to let the players set the terms, so I did it in the form of two skill challenges. One took place while the party was preparing for the siege, and one happened during the siege itself.
Another thing I was inspired by was flipping the script and having a group of bad guys go into combat with objectives other than "kill em all" and this became evident as the encounter progressed and gave the party the opportunity to modify their tactics and respond to the evolving threat. The group was there to kill one particular PC and the "boss" of the fight had specific legendary actions that happened during the first three rounds of combat.
Another one that may be coming up soon is that there's a friendly NPC traveling with the party when they come across two other groups of unknown NPCs already engaged in some kind of a discussion. There is a good bit of martial power combined in these groups and the NPC ally will charge into battle against one of them for their own reasons. We roll initiative, and now there's a bit of a standoff as the ally fights against one group while the other group is standing there looking at the party to see who is going to jump in first. Does the party make the first move or do they just position themselves to react? And if the ally begins to lose, that ally will call out to the party for help. If the ally begins to win, the group standing on the sidelines will feel the same pressure to jump in and repel this sudden attack, which could lead to a large melee that could very well end up being more than the party can handle.
So does the party let their ally potentially die? Do they back the ally in combat? Do they just heal the ally to keep them alive? Do they look for a de-escalating solution? Also, who are these two groups of people anyway? Are either or both of them actually enemies of the party? Or is the party's NPC ally just being hot-headed and risking ruin for everyone? So many choices, and the clock is ticking with each turn.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I'm planning to run one where the party has a parcel. The objective is to carry the parcel from one end of the map to the other. This parcel is too big to carry with one hand, and too fragile to be used as an improvised weapon. The scene is a rooftop chase, where the party has to parkour over a rooftop while being chased by assassins. Ambushes will occur along the way, and so the party has to protect the person with the parcel. If the assassins steal it or break it, the party fails the mission. I don't know how fun or interesting this encounter is since I haven't playtested it yet, but hey, at least it's a fun idea.
NOCTURNE OP55N1
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I like scenarios where the party is divided.
In a recent game my party ended up in a dragons den being invaded by gnolls, the dragons hired us to stop them because the dragons could be less bothered dealing with them their selves.
My character, Horobak, a gentlemen Thri Kreen vowed never to kill a female, a view point of his is that they are flowers, they shouldn't be picked from the garden to early.
Though the party members ignored his begs and pleas, they killed all the gnolls, now the party is divded between sides.
(Sorry for the rant! just a story)
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This is all great so far! Thank you to everyone who has contributed. I may try to consolidate some of these up at the original post for easier viewing. If anyone else has any contributions, please feel free to add them!
Nice topic,
Well if he is powerful enough to cast a power word kill out to a mile I think the best option would be to run like heck fire and get more than a mile away
Well, they have 30 seconds to get a mile, so perhaps the better bet is stopping the ritual (too low level for meaningful teleportation).
Also I've updated the top of the post to reflect some of the ideas added, thank you again to those who contributed!
Thirty seconds was something left out of the thread until now. My apologies.
At the beginning zombies spawn around them and every 6 seconds 2d4 more. In 30 seconds
My apologies if that wasn't clear! Every round the ritual completes one line of the 5 to create the pentagram. Once completed the spell is cast!
Also would love to keep this going if anyone has other contributions!
A couple I've either run or pondered:
1: Chase sequence. The party are trying to escape from, or catch up to, an enemy or group of enemies. Chaff soldiers are sent to slow them down, so must be dealt with decisively. Make sure that the chaff have enough health to need resources expending on them to deal with in one turn, and can be dealt with in one turn if resources are expended. Any turn they are not dead, the chaff soldiers jump on the wagon, slowing it down, or grab the reins, or any manner of non-hit-the-party things to slow them down.
2: The Puzzle Clue. I ran a one-room thing in the DM Training ground (an excellent thread and well worth a go), where the "enemy" was powerful and nigh on invulnerable, a walking statue. The weight of the statue would tilt the room, opening doors on the opposite side which had levers behind them, which needed to be pulled to open the door and escape. Fighting the statue was pointless, but luring it around the room was the way to get through.
3: Save the Town. If the Tarrasque (or your own kaiju) is rampaging, the party efforts to hurt it mean nothing. Their goal is to limit the damage - distract the beast and lure it away. This sparks creative roleplay and spell use!
4: Get the Thing. There is one enemy with the thing you need, and too many to just kill them all. You need to try and get the thing - and get away. I have also run this backwards (with the enemies trying to grapple the party and open their bags in the fight) as a plotpoint to make them wonder what they were after.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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A salute to the "Mission Impossible" style: Do this in real time; when the time is up, the overwhelming force that the party was hoping to avoid shows up. A chess clock can work brilliantly here, as the characters complete the planning phase, and stops their countdown clock, the DM and the world does their thing, and starts the party's clock again,. . . If the party succeeds in their objective, (before the clock runs out,) then the mission is won. Great for one shots, and when you just don't have the time for a longer session. Choose from any of the above great ideas, or maybe another.
Maybe capturing the enemy alive. Instead of allowing the party to knock them out by getting the target's hp to zero, maybe say that they have to do a certain amount of damage to an enemy in one round to knock him unconscious. The target has valuable information but is unwilling to speak without going down in a fight, so the party has to capture him, but if they knock him to 0 hp then the target dies. Then the party has to decide if they want to try to knock him out by doing a bunch of damage in one round, but they will risk killing him if they drop his hp to 0. Or they can try to grapple, restrain, or knock him unconscious in some other way, but their enemy is trying to kill them and escape at the same time. It might also make sense to make using slashing and piercing weapons a bad idea, while bludgeoning weapons are a safer method.
My brain is weird, so I thought about this. What if a child got access to an incredible power? I think babies are made tiny and weak because otherwise they would kill people without thinking and not on purpose. So what if a small, maybe neglected kid developed powerful telekinetic powers, and began forcing an entire village to play with them. They don't realize they are harming people and what they are doing is wrong, but they are, and the party has to stop them. But, they are an innocent kid, and the party would need to know that it would be wrong to kill the kid. They might be given a device or spell that will take away or weaken the kids powers, but they are also being attacked by the people of the village who are controlled by the child. That way, they can't kill anything, and are working hard to avoid combat, and save the town, while being attacked.
This sounds super weird when I write it out. It would be easy to make this horror, and I don't really like horror. Hope someone found this interesting.
These have been great, sorry I'm slow with additions, but will finish when I'm not running around with life stuff.
That premise was used well, in the original Twilight Zone series. How to actually stop them, and survive, would present some interesting challenges.
I've just run a session involving what's known as the Acting Rooms. The premise is that the characters are given a different "class" and "character" that they act as. The list was:
The half-orc barbarian became Dogood Holyman, the paladin
The dwarven life cleric became Fighty McPunchface, the Barbarian
The shadar-kai warlock became Lightfoot Silvertongue, the bard (she refused to wear the outfit)
The Elf Monk became Brizmathus the Grouchy, the Wizard (he did not like the game. The player loved it!)
and the Paladin-artificer became Lonewolf Edgypast, the Rogue.
The encounters featured combat, and thye realised after very quickly ending the lives of some bandits that these were other travelers acting their way through the acting rooms. One of them screamed, dropped his weapons, and immediately disappeared. They had been warned not to break character.
The session involved them struggling with their goals as they tried to play the roles of the heroes without actually killing anyone else!
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
DM's Guild Releases on This Thread Or check them all out on DMs Guild!
DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!
Minor update to the initial post!