Okay so I'm setting up encounters and I need inspiration:
My players are currently attending a brawlers leauge and I need nasty team ideas. So far they have a very good strategy to use greater invisibly on the Rouge and grind all my encounters to the ground. They are 6 vs 6 people fighting against each other so if you have some fun (teams of humanoids ish) just to challenge them a bit that would be nice. I have the nasty supprise for them after the leauge but they all enjoy challenging game play.
6 humanoids, fighting as a team in an enclosed aria, flavored monsters from the monstermanual is also nice. I just need some ideas.
For an interesting encounter, change up the goals.
For example,
Each fight has a referee and two observers (priests of a local religion) in the ring. If any of them are killed, the match ends and both teams lose. The player characters overhear a rival team plotting to kill the observers during the match and make a lot of money from betting on a loss. A bit later, the patron of the characters informs them that a large bet has been placed on them winning.
Now the PCs have to win the match as well as ensuring that the observers survive.
Give some of the opponents true sight, see invisible, counterspell and dispel magic. If the players can use magic then the opponents can also certainly use magic. One of the league rules should be no magic cast before the combat and they have pass through a magic dispelling gate to enter the competition ground.
If it's just a 6 vs 6 on an open field I find the idea kinda boring. I hope you include some interesting terrain or maybe a small dungeon to roam around in.
I'd suggest a party of drow. A Drow Mage, a Drow Elite Warrior, and four Drow Gunslinger's should cause your group some problems. Each of them can cast darkness and faerie fire plus levitate which should give your rogue some issues. Being all capable at range they can levitate then alternate between castings of faerie fire and ranged attacks. If your PC's can't get off the ground they may be in for it.
Darkness levels playing fields fairly well. Enemies that can't dispel or counterspell should probably be targeting the caster of the invisibility to break concentration. Dodging will let you cancel out the advantage and prevent sneak attacks. Shoving and grappling still work against invisible targets.
If the player team is consistently winning, assume other teams have plans specifically to fight them.
(tl;dr: "what monster or npc class should I choose" is limiting yourself as to how to challenge your players, add different complexities to really challenge them.)
In my Saturday game, Adventure of Loromir, I wanted to have the players compete for glory in challenges. They'd compete against other guilds earning ranks and once the year, in game, was over there would be the King's Gift Challenge where the top ranked guilds would compete for a reward from the king himself. However, the whole "gladiator arena" is rather boring since combat is such a common activity in game and arenas, generally, are plain terrains. So I came up with a concept that I presented the players with and it has had a wonderful reception from my players.
First, each challenge has a theme, something to do with the lore of the world. I took that lore and built 3 challenges around it and made a very brief description the "announcer" would say as the challenge was introduced. Then I used a random character generator to make some NPCs that would act as the opposing guild. Finally I wrote up a code of conduct for the challenges.
Guild Challenge Code of Conduct:
The Boar's Head vs. Iron Haven
12 - Mavun, A.T. 920
These guilds, which have confirmed and accepted a sanctioned challenge, hereby agree to the following rules and procedures as have been set forth by the ruling authority:
Thane of Iron Haven Laryngale Aleborn
Opening Confirmation of Special Rules and Challenge Types:
Special Rules:
The receiving guild shall have the privilege of being first to choose two (2) of the three (3) possible “special rules”. The challenging guild shall then choose the final “special rule”.
“Special rules” will have the following limitations, those in breach of these limitations will be void and a new “special rule” may be instituted in its stead.
These rules will be in effect during the entirety of the guild challenge, unless otherwise specified.
No rule shall cause either guild to immediately lose without having recourse to, or a possibility of circumventing, the rule in question.
No rule can involve the death of, or permanent removal of, a guild member, official, or possible opponent in any given challenge.
No rule can be specifically “one sided”, the rule must be usable by either guild.
A guild not utilizing a rule cannot claim a breach of this clause.
Any rule beyond the ability of the Tournament officials will be denied and a new rule must be chosen.
Both guilds will be informed of the “special rules” after they are finalized and before the challenge date.
All "special rules" must be submitted no later than 24 hours before the challenge date or they will not be placed into effect.
Challenge Types:
The challenging guild will have the privilege of being first to choose two (2) of the three (3) challenges to be used. The receiving guild will then choose the third challenge. Decisions will be made in secret.
The challenges will be chosen by type and may include multiples of the same:
Combat
Race
Puzzle
Scenario
The details of each challenge will be determined by the Tournament Officials based on the category chosen. The challenges may not be in the same order chosen and the decisions may not be negotiated.
This information would be agreed upon by the whole of the players, then the remaining information would be up to me. It allowed the players to feel like they had a direct impact on the outcome of the challenges and really made them invest their energy and time into making this work. The limitations and restrictions are in place to make sure the players don't have the ability to force a win, without some serious thought. A very important thing I had to make sure of since I have some intelligent players. As I said, my players thoroughly enjoy this and actually prompted a guild challenge after a mini-story arc.
Examples of previous challenges:
Combat Challenge
Fall of Kadik
Goal:
Defeat the opponent, or opponents to claim victory.
Rules:
The guild with the quickest finish will be the victor.
If the entirety of the guild is eliminated the challenge will reset.
Each guild may use anything at their disposal to complete the challenge.
Phase 1:
4 portals issue forth energy tethers to 4 humanoid creatures.
Red: Immune to physical attacks
Blue: Regenerates 10 HP per turn
Yellow: Immune to magic
Green: 25% more damage
The tethers stop the creatures in such a manner that there will be no less than 20ft between the two creatures.
If a player interrupts the beam, the creature will immediately reappear at the termination of the beam.
When the creatures are killed the tether and creature vanish for 5 rounds at which time they respawn.
Phase 2:
The 4 tethers extend to the center and create a single Huge creature which obtains all 4 of the tether’s effects simultaneously.
Each tether grants the creature a boon
Red: Resistance to Physical damage
Blue: Regenerates 20 HP per turn
Yellow: Resistance to Magic damage
Green: 50% more damage
If a player stands in one of the beams they will receive a boon and condition, as well as removing the boon from the creature in the center.
Red: Doubles Damage, reduces Strength by 1 every round
Blue: Regenerates 10 HP each round, reduces max hp by 2 every round
Yellow: Infinite spell slots, take 1d4 damage each round
Green: Auto Critical, Can only attack every other round
After 2 rounds out of beam the conditions are removed.
Puzzle Challenge
Hoard of Charox
Goal:
Obtain the artifact held deep in the lair of Charox, return to the starting area to claim victory.
Rules:
Guilds will enter separately, the guild not participating in the challenge will not be allowed to spectate on the other.
A guild which returns with the artifact will earn a point
Each surviving member will earn the guild a point.
The guild with the quickest finish will earn a point.
The challenge will have a 4 hour time limit.
Before the challenge begins the participating guild will be able to choose one (1) kit from a selection of three (3) types.
Scout
Includes a backpack, a crowbar, a hammer, 10 pitons, 10 pieces of parchment, a quill, a bottle of ink, 10 torches, a tinderbox, a waterskin, and 50 feet of hempen rope.
Also a shortsword, dagger, shortbow, a quiver of arrows, and leather armor.
Soldier
Includes a backpack, a tinderbox, 10 torches, a waterskin, and 50 feet of hempen rope.
Also a longsword, 4 javelins, shield, light crossbow, 2 quivers of bolts, and chain armor.
Tomb Raider
Includes a backpack, a 10 foot pole, 10 feet of string, chalk, 5 candles, a crowbar, a hammer, 10 pitons, a hooded lantern, 2 flasks of oil, a tinderbox, and a waterskin. The pack also has 50 feet of hempen rope strapped to the side of it.
Also a shortsword, 2 daggers, a hand crossbow, a quiver of bolts, and leather armor.
Black Tread: 1 point for success, 2 points for surviving members, time 1hr 23min.
Race Challenge
Escape from Hurol Peak
Goal:
Use teamwork, quick thinking and strategy to be the first to the end of the challenge.
Rules:
The first guild to cross the finish line will be considered the victor
10 seconds will be added to the final time per guild member lost during the race
1 second will be removed from the final time per artifact collected.
Hidden throughout the course will be golden statuettes
These are not necessary, but can affect the final race results
There are 13 in total
Guilds will compete simultaneously, all guild members will be participating.
Any and all skills and abilities at your disposal may be used to facilitate the challenge.
Course is 1500ft long
Magmaflow moves at the end of every turn, turns 1-3 = 30ft, 4-7 = 40ft, 8+ = 50ft
Anyone caught in the magma flow will immediately die.
Starting on the first round, and every other round after, roll for 1d4 random falling boulders
Flaming Boulder: 20 (4d10) damage and 7 (2d6) damage in a 5ft radius from impact.
On miss roll 1d8 to determine where it falls in relation to target and then 1d4 to determine how many 5ft increments it misses by.
Fire Giants will spawn every 80 feet on the sides of the track. Immune to damage. Stationary.
Flaming Boulder: 20 (4d10) damage
Range 60/240
3 turns of double movement will = 1 point of exhaustion
2 turns of triple movement will = 1 pint of exhaustion
An attack removes half movement
A skill check failed removes 5 ft movement
An action to help a guild member removes 5ft movement
An action to hinder the opposing guild removes 10ft movement
Scenario Challenge
Conflict of Redmarsh
Goal:
Each guild is to traverse the Redmarsh find the missing artifact, return it to their base, and activate its power.
Rules:
Each guild member will be given a band, to be worn visibly on their person, to designate which guild they are representing.
The challenge will last a maximum of 2 hours
Upon successfully activating the artifact there will be a recognizable effect to confirm victory.
If either guild has no more standing members, the remaining guild is considered the victor.
After the 2 hours, if no guild has claimed the artifact, the victor will be decided by who has the most remaining guild members.
If an equal amount of members remain for each guild; another 30 minutes will be allotted, victory will determined after the first elimination or successfully claiming the artifact.
Each member will be given three (3) arcane marks which will be removed each time an attack successfully makes contact.
At such time that all arcane marks are removed that person shall be considered eliminated.
Eliminated members will be immediately removed from the challenge area and placed in their respective staging room to await the conclusion of the challenge.
Attacks include, but are not limited to: Physical, ranged, magical, mundane traps, magical traps, environmental dangers, and creatures of the area.
A person may receive a successful attack from an opponent, from the environment, from a creature of the area, and from friendly fire. It is also possible for a successful attack to be self-inflicted.
A successful attack must be of a nature that could be considered injurious in a combat scenario, any attack considered ineffective will not remove an arcane mark.
The artifact will remain in any location where it has fallen, after 5 minutes of play have passed since it fell the artifact will emanate a light for easier location.
Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu mm163 (with gnoll soldiers)
The last bit I worked into this is that the arena is like your typical Gladiator's Arena, however placed in 4 "corners" are giant magical crystals. These crystals serve to protect the spectators and to create an illusion observable by the spectators and the participating challengers. Basically I created a giant, magical, Virtual Reality dome for the challenges.
They have already been attacked by assassin during the night, because one of the teams are going to to take every advantage they can get. I'm definitely going to throw some nasty spellslingers their way. So far they have only meet brawlers and meatshields. Turning darkness on them might be a great idea! Thanks
They are allowed to cast spells on forehand, a mistake on my part allowing them that (they all need to be visible before entering the ring). But they have lots of fun planing. However this means the other team can use this as well. With all your suggestions I have much clearer view on what to throw at them. I just find it hard to run 6 casters at once 😆
If it's just a 6 vs 6 on an open field I find the idea kinda boring. I hope you include some interesting terrain or maybe a small dungeon to roam around in.
I'd suggest a party of drow. A Drow Mage, a Drow Elite Warrior, and four Drow Gunslinger's should cause your group some problems. Each of them can cast darkness and faerie fire plus levitate which should give your rogue some issues. Being all capable at range they can levitate then alternate between castings of faerie fire and ranged attacks. If your PC's can't get off the ground they may be in for it.
It is a so far just a plain boring fighting cage. However there is a lot of stuff happening before and after the fights. Some scouting, some rp and quite some treachery going about.
I still have some fights to go, but if they start getting bored I have some story reasons how to change the scenario up, generally just take the story in another direction.
If "The Warlocks" are 3rd level or less then pure warlocks ... over 3rd level then multiclasses. Choose hexblades, a celestial for healing. Maybe mix it up more than that since Fey and Fiend warlocks also have some good features.
Every warlock has devils sight and they use upcast darkness to prevent it from being dispelled by light spells. Eldricth blast + hex from the ones not concentrating on darkness. Focus fire down the opponents starting with the most dangerous. Each warlock has backup spells. If they are at least 5th level, one could cast fly to get some of the team airborne, another could use hypnotic pattern to lock down some of the opponents, fiend could fireball. All are variant human with resilient con for the saves (especially concentration) and some extra hit points.
If your team has no counter for magical darkness then "The Warlocks" have a significant advantage. You could make this an out of town team with a reputation :)
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Okay so I'm setting up encounters and I need inspiration:
My players are currently attending a brawlers leauge and I need nasty team ideas. So far they have a very good strategy to use greater invisibly on the Rouge and grind all my encounters to the ground. They are 6 vs 6 people fighting against each other so if you have some fun (teams of humanoids ish) just to challenge them a bit that would be nice. I have the nasty supprise for them after the leauge but they all enjoy challenging game play.
6 humanoids, fighting as a team in an enclosed aria, flavored monsters from the monstermanual is also nice. I just need some ideas.
Fake it til you make it.
If you want a hard fight with non-zero chances of death but still winnable, you can run 2 priests, 2 veterans, a gladiator, and a conjurer.
For an easier time, swap the conjurer and a priest for an illusionist and an archer
For an interesting encounter, change up the goals.
For example,
Each fight has a referee and two observers (priests of a local religion) in the ring. If any of them are killed, the match ends and both teams lose. The player characters overhear a rival team plotting to kill the observers during the match and make a lot of money from betting on a loss. A bit later, the patron of the characters informs them that a large bet has been placed on them winning.
Now the PCs have to win the match as well as ensuring that the observers survive.
Give some of the opponents true sight, see invisible, counterspell and dispel magic. If the players can use magic then the opponents can also certainly use magic. One of the league rules should be no magic cast before the combat and they have pass through a magic dispelling gate to enter the competition ground.
If it's just a 6 vs 6 on an open field I find the idea kinda boring. I hope you include some interesting terrain or maybe a small dungeon to roam around in.
I'd suggest a party of drow. A Drow Mage, a Drow Elite Warrior, and four Drow Gunslinger's should cause your group some problems. Each of them can cast darkness and faerie fire plus levitate which should give your rogue some issues. Being all capable at range they can levitate then alternate between castings of faerie fire and ranged attacks. If your PC's can't get off the ground they may be in for it.
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
Check out my homebrew: Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Feats
Darkness levels playing fields fairly well. Enemies that can't dispel or counterspell should probably be targeting the caster of the invisibility to break concentration. Dodging will let you cancel out the advantage and prevent sneak attacks. Shoving and grappling still work against invisible targets.
If the player team is consistently winning, assume other teams have plans specifically to fight them.
(tl;dr: "what monster or npc class should I choose" is limiting yourself as to how to challenge your players, add different complexities to really challenge them.)
In my Saturday game, Adventure of Loromir, I wanted to have the players compete for glory in challenges. They'd compete against other guilds earning ranks and once the year, in game, was over there would be the King's Gift Challenge where the top ranked guilds would compete for a reward from the king himself. However, the whole "gladiator arena" is rather boring since combat is such a common activity in game and arenas, generally, are plain terrains. So I came up with a concept that I presented the players with and it has had a wonderful reception from my players.
First, each challenge has a theme, something to do with the lore of the world. I took that lore and built 3 challenges around it and made a very brief description the "announcer" would say as the challenge was introduced. Then I used a random character generator to make some NPCs that would act as the opposing guild. Finally I wrote up a code of conduct for the challenges.
Guild Challenge Code of Conduct:
The Boar's Head vs. Iron Haven
12 - Mavun, A.T. 920
These guilds, which have confirmed and accepted a sanctioned challenge, hereby agree to the following rules and procedures as have been set forth by the ruling authority:
Thane of Iron Haven Laryngale Aleborn
Opening Confirmation of Special Rules and Challenge Types:
Special Rules:
Challenge Types:
This information would be agreed upon by the whole of the players, then the remaining information would be up to me. It allowed the players to feel like they had a direct impact on the outcome of the challenges and really made them invest their energy and time into making this work. The limitations and restrictions are in place to make sure the players don't have the ability to force a win, without some serious thought. A very important thing I had to make sure of since I have some intelligent players. As I said, my players thoroughly enjoy this and actually prompted a guild challenge after a mini-story arc.
Examples of previous challenges:
Combat Challenge
Fall of Kadik
Goal:
Defeat the opponent, or opponents to claim victory.
Rules:
Phase 1:
Phase 2:
Puzzle Challenge
Hoard of Charox
Goal:
Obtain the artifact held deep in the lair of Charox, return to the starting area to claim victory.
Rules:
Black Tread: 1 point for success, 2 points for surviving members, time 1hr 23min.
Race Challenge
Escape from Hurol Peak
Goal:
Use teamwork, quick thinking and strategy to be the first to the end of the challenge.
Rules:
Scenario Challenge
Conflict of Redmarsh
Goal:
Each guild is to traverse the Redmarsh find the missing artifact, return it to their base, and activate its power.
Rules:
Are there any questions or clarifications?
Boar’s Head Soldiers:
2x Couatl mm43
Lizardfolk Queen/King mm205 (with lizardfolk soldiers)
Black Tread Soldiers:
Lamia mm201
Ettin mm132
Gnoll Fang of Yeenoghu mm163 (with gnoll soldiers)
The last bit I worked into this is that the arena is like your typical Gladiator's Arena, however placed in 4 "corners" are giant magical crystals. These crystals serve to protect the spectators and to create an illusion observable by the spectators and the participating challengers. Basically I created a giant, magical, Virtual Reality dome for the challenges.
They have already been attacked by assassin during the night, because one of the teams are going to to take every advantage they can get. I'm definitely going to throw some nasty spellslingers their way. So far they have only meet brawlers and meatshields. Turning darkness on them might be a great idea! Thanks
Fake it til you make it.
They are allowed to cast spells on forehand, a mistake on my part allowing them that (they all need to be visible before entering the ring). But they have lots of fun planing. However this means the other team can use this as well. With all your suggestions I have much clearer view on what to throw at them. I just find it hard to run 6 casters at once 😆
Fake it til you make it.
It is a so far just a plain boring fighting cage. However there is a lot of stuff happening before and after the fights. Some scouting, some rp and quite some treachery going about.
I still have some fights to go, but if they start getting bored I have some story reasons how to change the scenario up, generally just take the story in another direction.
Awesome suggestions for teams!
Fake it til you make it.
IF you want them to lose have them face ..
"The Warlocks ... "
If "The Warlocks" are 3rd level or less then pure warlocks ... over 3rd level then multiclasses. Choose hexblades, a celestial for healing. Maybe mix it up more than that since Fey and Fiend warlocks also have some good features.
Every warlock has devils sight and they use upcast darkness to prevent it from being dispelled by light spells. Eldricth blast + hex from the ones not concentrating on darkness. Focus fire down the opponents starting with the most dangerous. Each warlock has backup spells. If they are at least 5th level, one could cast fly to get some of the team airborne, another could use hypnotic pattern to lock down some of the opponents, fiend could fireball. All are variant human with resilient con for the saves (especially concentration) and some extra hit points.
If your team has no counter for magical darkness then "The Warlocks" have a significant advantage. You could make this an out of town team with a reputation :)