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Greetings Mortals--
I want to give both shout-out and encouragement to authors and future authors highlighting some encounters that I have particularly enjoyed running as a judge.
In general, superior encounters have some parts of the following 3 concepts:
1) Fun/interesting/different toys for the judge to run for the bad guys
2) Freedom for how the encounter starts/terrain/setting
3) Interesting NPCs
I am not a killer DM, but I *LOVE* have toys and tools during encounters with which to inflict fun, pain, and challenge upon a party. As a judge, I love chances for me to use my creativity or, even better, letting the players use their creativity to get things done (which is great because the more creative my players get, the more creative I get to be). And I love having a good or interesting NPC to interact with party.
Here are a few encounters that I think highlight what I to encourage for PFS mods.
(As a reminder, don't read spoilers unless you've played the mod...don't ruin the best encounters in the game for yourself!)
This encounter is great because it is so open ended and the party has so many options to proceed. The judge is given a map, a scout on the outside, some bad guys on the inside, and brief description of the waterfront and that's about it. The party gets to decide how and when to achieve their goals. I have yet to have two parties do it the same way.
When I was run through it, one of our yahoos flirted with the scout while the rest of the party got into position. Of course that didn't work to well as the scout scouted us scouting him. Chaos ensued. Awesome.
When I ran it, the party split up, some at the front door while other swam under. The swimmers were heard. Chaos ensued. Awesome.
When I ran it again, the party drank itself near silly so it could properly start a drunken brawl on the docks. Chaos ensued. Awesome.
And what makes this encounter extra special, is that the BBEG inside has an artifact at his disposal. The effect is somewhat minor (just freezing death & zombification), but the fact that you get to hit PCs with it? Awesome. Talk about giving the PCs a reason to want to succeed? It does it and adds a lot of urgency to the mod.
I love running this encounter. It's very free and open and lets the party be creative.
This is an early mod, but was my first meeting with Taldan nobility. It certainly left an impression on me when I played it...and I've passed this along as I've run it.
The encounter pits a evil priest and some zombies against a gaggle of Taldan nobility where the party has a chance to step in. I love this fight because one of the nobles is Emperor Stavian's cousin, an incredibly pompous ass....and I love playing fun NPCS. He is one of them.
Nothing makes me happier than being able to say things to PCs like: “A glorious strike, peasant! The divine hand of Emperor Stavian has guided you here to save me!” and "Good hit, slave!!! I'll only have you beaten once tonight after this!!!". Then this noble follows the party, 'helping' as only a pompous ass can help....with 'encouragement'.
It's just a good, flavorful encounter because of the good NPC that encourages roleplaying (especially with Andorans).
Oh poor, lovesick Rale...I hope he finds his true love requited.
I really hope this mod returns from the dead as it is one of my favorites. As a judge, I love that I have the opportunity to use magic to screw around with the party with illusions, sounds, glamors, whatever. It makes me very happy to create a haunted house with things that are not haunted...and to have the 'love' story told out in notes is very cool.
There are just so many options that both Judge and Party can take that it makes things really interesting. I love getting my players to roleplay along with me as they react to different effects.
As a side note, I love that most parties that I ran this for decided to be 'smart' and use the back door to get in. *giggle*
Ah, goodness, I love this encounter.
First, the party is trapped in a distillery. Awesome.
2nd, the distillery is well drawn and has lots of good defensible and indefensible locations. Cool.
3rd, there are waves of bad guys...so that the first set of bad guys might not be so bad compared to what is coming next.
4th, the encounter is quite deadly for parties who play foolishly...I don't like to kill PCs, but I am happy to hand them a rope if they want to tie a noose. Such opportunities make me happy.
5th, there is a 2nd wave of other bad guys assault the party in the distillery.
6th, oh yeah...if the longer the party takes to defeat the bad guys, more townspeople might die.
So good!
This leads to interesting choices and parties deciding different courses of action. It can lead to chaos and some characters doing something that other characters just wouldn't.
Never underestimate the fun of giving the party the chance to make choices, and then making those choices have interesting consequences.
How many of you all know the name Gali Sinquil? If you're like me, you know the name well and have etched his name in fire across the backs of more than a few parties.
This encounter is really well set up. Gali is well hidden and has effects to screw parties over and over again. The tension for me as a judge is using Gali's powers while trying to remain unheard and unseen for as long as possible..that is the key, because once the party figures it out, then he usually doesn't live too long.
As a judge, I like having to play a little sub-game (keeping quiet...yet annoying) while the party explores and investigates. One time, I had the party convinced that the false idol on the desk was the cause of all the problems. *teehee*
A great encounter.
To be honest, the first encounter of Jester's Fraud is the inspiration for this post. At subtier 5-6, the first fight (2 annis hags) is pretty ho-hum, *however*, at 8-9, things get really really really fun. You get 3, count'em, 1-2-3, Annis Hags which makes it an entirely different fight.
Ya'see, 3 hags makes a coven. But a coven > 3 hags. A coven gets the following cool toys: animate dead, baleful polymorph, blight, bestow curse, clairaudience/clairvoyance, charm monster, commune, control weather, dream, forcecage, mind blank, mirage arcana , reincarnate, speak with dead, veil, vision. Look at all those toys!!!
Again, I'm not out to kill PCs (I'll let PCs kill PCs via the Charm Monster spell), but the coven (as a full round action) provides for a lot of fun actions in the combat.
I had the hags each doing a chicken dance (ala Arrested Development) as they tried (and failed) to turn PCs into chickens. I had 5 of the 6 party members in two force cages for a few rounds. Oh, the fun you can have....I didn't even get into the Charm Monstering or high level illusionary stuff that Sir_Wulf talks about here.
I don't think this is a particularly deadly combat (PCs are protected and buffing if they are inside a forcecage), but it so much fun.
This encounter is very similar to the Frozen Finger warehouse encounter: a very open environment...and it's very good. No two parties are going to approach this the same way or in the same order.
The set-up is simple and enhanced by the concept that if the party goes for a full frontal assault, they may bring the entire bandit camp down on them and it would not be pretty. But the party can just walk/bluff in, or sneak in, or whatever else.
Once inside, there are several bandit groups to fight or befriend or whatever. And there is a bandit that is happy to get the party.
Not to mention the BBEG and his flying pet keeping on eye on things. His fight is no easy task. And then there is how the party is going to get the urn. Sneakery? The auction? Fight for it?
But what all this really makes is for an interesting encounter with lots of choices and lots of options.
It's such a good module.
Those are first thoughts...of course, there are many more. Anyone else have some good encounters that they want to appreciate and tell why?
-Pain
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Citadel of Flame:
Mark Moreland ran this for us,
the devil you know the prison encounter(s)
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I absolutely agree on your take in regard to Among the Living. My to Taldoran players still love the adventure for this.
In regard to Citadel of Flames
I did get 4 out of 5 characters down using the colour spray (tier 1-2). I started to harass them with a burning hand that didn't do much damage followed by a Flaming Sphere. It looked bleak when the only third level character got online again.
He then just took out a smoke stick - preventing the sorcerer to see any of his targets. It was a simple item - used in the best possible way. It pretty much bought the time the group needed to regroup / get back on-line.
They prevented any further spells by detecting the spy holes (and blocking them) and didn't leave him any further chances.
I also look back fontly when I played it. I was level 2 in a tier 3-4 game. The sorcerer did some mayhem. A scroll from protection from elements (fire) was my life saver.
The group had big trouble until I managed to throw a thunderstone in the room. It did prevent two spells from the sorcerer. Still - three fighters didn't manage to get him down (it was several rounds of pathetic dice rolling). He didn't have a chance fighting melee - but they just didn't get him down.
So after another round with hardly any damage on him and him trying to escape in his initiative I declare - 'I can't watch this any more'. I go in with my Str. 7 Wizard - swinging a quarterstaff.
A nat20 - confirmed - and he is down. Okay - he was on only 1 or 2 HP when I charged in - but until that time my only other melee kill was a mite.
Venture-Captain, Missouri—Cape Girardeau
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Infernal Vault. Creepy cursed doll. That is all.
Are you sure you're not thinking of Darkest Vengeance?
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One of my favorite parts of Infernal Vault
