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I'm curious as to what other folks see as "classic" encounters and encounter locations. What I mean is, encounters you've had in nearly every campaign or gaming group you've played with.
For example:
The merchant caravan attacked by goblins/kobolds/orcs/bugbears/etc.
The mausoleum hideout of ghouls/ghasts/wights/etc.
The excessively trapped goblin/kobold lair
The obligatory sewer raid full of rats, bats, bugs, and sundry other creepy-crawlies
The remote orc/hill giant/ogre palisade fortress
The lizardfolk swamp village (with or without their black dragon "deity")
The ghost ship, full of moldy, waterlogged zombies (with or without their ghost/wight captain)
I hope you get the idea.
On a second front, I'm curious how many folks would enjoy seeing a product including those encounters with high-quality maps and the stat blocks already figured out.
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On a second front, I'm curious how many folks would enjoy seeing a product including those encounters with high-quality maps and the stat blocks already figured out.
I'd certainly buy a Classic Encounters Revisited product if it was made :)
BAR FIGHT!!!
Pickpocket in the town market.
Giant Squid whenever they get anywhere near a boat.
Giant Squid whenever they get anywhere near a boat.
Adventurer1: (to group, deadpan) "We're banned from every port on the western coast. (looks to party rogue) "Still think insulting the squid deity was a good idea?"
Old house on the edge of town, that is said to be haunted (and actually is)
How could you have forgotten;
Goblin/Gnoll/Kobold raid during the festival (usually harvest related)!
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Giant Squid whenever they get anywhere near a boat.
My group has a joke that whenever someone rolls Profession (Sailor), whatever they rolled was exactly 1 below the DC to not release the kraken.
RELEASE THE KRAKEN
Ambushed in a dark alley by local thugs after getting a bit too close to the truth.
Zo
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Not sure if the OP is looking for stuff that's "Classic" to D&D in general or our own personal favorites that we seem to find a way to put in almost every campaign. . . . Maybe that's just the perspective of a DM as opposed to a Player.
For me, giant frog-riding goblins w/ troll leader is a pretty common "First Encounter." Frogs with sticky tongue-touch attack - disarm attempts, goblin spear throwers, a troll barabarian, some goblins not cool enough to have their own giant frog so they're infantry -- I love it as the "First Fight" in a new adventure or campaign. . . . If I've just used that one I go with ogres.
I luuuv having PCs accidently bump into something they weren't suppose to see and have to make a quick, discreet exit before they're noticed, you know, a pit fiend discussing politics with an ancient blue dragon, a lich deep in study on his own research, a hive of a few hundred beholders buzzing around, a colony of mind flayers conducting scientific experiments on slaves.
Oh yeah, Final Fights where all the interested parties from the campaign show up -- thus a "war of 5 armies." The PCs are fighting the demon binders before they open the portal but... the wizard sage also shows up and joins and so does the clan of drow and, since the BBEG is a Demon Binder a few Bearded Devils show up to kill the demons (not that they want to help the PCs, mind you, but... So each round the PCs have to decide who is the biggest threat that instant and deal with it. These fights have great "uneasy alliance" and "enemy of my enemy" dynamics.
The Wizard's tower of the Evil Necromancer, typically situated in a swamp OR the abandoned tower of the dead wizard, with a generous dungeon below.
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Ruined moathouse or keep filled with giant sized low level nasties -giant frogs, ticks, spiders - maybe a little haunted which is based on its true rep or by bandits perpetuating the illusion.
Fallen temple/church.
Evil beaten back many years ago (20-30 years minimum) but taint and rumors still abound. Do the mysterious figures traveling in the nearby swamp late at night have anything to do with it, or maybe the strange caravans traveling through the hills –none of which stop in town? A group of young adventures was hired to look into some disappearances a few months ago and no one has heard from them.
Haunted tower/castle which only reappears on certain nights or under certain conditions.
Its original owner was an evil stranger/outsider who was killed by locals/died in colossal accident/left to another plane and now many years later the ruins lie abandoned - ready for a set of heroes to risk the challenges which lie within, if they can get in.
Village of the Damned.
Seemingly innocuous village somewhere near the edge of the civilized realm. Nothing too exiting or strange going on around it but the villagers are either creatures (deep ones if coastal) or part of a cult, admission may or may not be voluntary.
Party is supposed to meet up with a contact (maybe a reputable sage who has info on some worthwhile magic/adventure) when he is a few days overdo. Then the weird stuff begins.
Oh yeah, when you spend a night at towns only inn make sure to post a guard lest you end up on the altar.
A big pile of garbage/midden in a dungeon. What could be lurking inside?
PCs discover that the goblin raids on caravans have already been stopped when they find two ogres munching happily on goblin bits.
A Yeti in games with my brothers seems to start to have things like this but was recent so hasn't been in three games yet. Also someone being kidnapped and being rescued.
Undead in a Graveyard. Bonus points if said graveyard includes a mausoleum or other large tomb containing a sprawling complex of undead-laden tunnels or halls, with the named inhabitant of the sepulcher being the strongest undead in the dungeon.
Haunted houses. Specifically old dilapidated houses and haunted ships as already mentioned, but also haunted castles and haunted lighthouses.
On a non-undead example, a cave room or chamber with dripping water from somewhere, but one (or more) of the puddles is always an ooze of some sort.
Arrowhawks as soon as the party gets access to mass flight. (I like airships, so sue me...)
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A black sphere sitting in a devil's head ...
I've altered this over the years since everyone knows it now.
When the PCs approach the Green Devil Face with the "tunnel" mouth they know what it is -- what they DON'T know is that a round after they show up the Black Sphere falls from the mouth and "rolls" toward them making them run away like Indiana Jones in the opening sequence of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
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A big pile of garbage/midden in a dungeon. What could be lurking inside?
I think the question for me is always "What is lurking inside" -- cuz there always seems to be treasure at the bottom of midden heaps in D&D. WTF?!
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A 10 x 10 room with an orc guarding a chest.
Don't you mean an orc guarding PIE?!?
Treasure map to ancient dungeon.
Undead uprising.
Slavers attacked the village and kidnapped a fifth of the town.
Evil cult is inducting (or abducting) new members and needs to be stopped.
Something is killing the miners in the old silver mine.