Wow, these random encounters can be vicious


Kingmaker


My first level PCs got super unlucky with the random encounter rolls. While exploring a single hex, they got two random encounters: a shambling mound and a tatzlwyrm. The druid with the Plant domain managed to convince the mound to leave them alone by offering to leave all of their horses behind for it, then coming back with more food.

While camping later that same night, the same druid was ambushed by the tatzlwyrm. It would have made off with her, but the barbarian luckily took the creature down before it escaped.


Starfinder Superscriber

In my campaign, just to show how dangerous the wilderness could be, when I rolled a troll encounter, the party just saw a mother troll out with her cubs teaching them to hunt. Allowed the party to hide and watch them, but not "encounter". You may want to keep that in mind, the random encounter doesn't have to be a fight, it can be you see it in the distance and have MORE than enough time to flee from it before it notices you.


Yeah random encounters can be really dangerous.

When my party was level 5, we were attacked by 1D4 trolls, DM rolled 4 !! We managed to survive but that was very close.


They kept failing the perception checks to notice the shambler as they approached. They didn't spot it until their third check, at which point they were really close to it.


Adapt or perish!
Tell your players that not everything is "built" for them. If things go bad, they should react accordingly.
Adventurers die, and there is no "Load"-button.

(ps: horses are pretty fast ;) )


The Stolen Lands remain yet untamed for a reason >=)


I like the leathality of many of the random encounters. The only problem is that they can make some of the setpiece encounters seem almost too easy in comparison.


You just need to use your GM judgement. If you roll up d4 dragons(fairly sure i saw that on one of the encounter tables in KM ), it doesn't mean to say they are plummeting down on the pc party ready to fight. Have them hunting, and hopefully the PC's will think "shit, we should hide" then you could turn it into a stealth/chase type thing.

To be fair though i've GM'd on some parties that expect all encounters to be winnable, but nowadays i always prelude all campaigns i run with "You can't win all fights, running away and avoiding fights should be encouraged if it looks grim"


They are dangerous, but that's a nice part of the campaign in my mind. Then again, I'm the GM.

Be sure to use the encounter distance for the terrain type and perception checks. Hopefully the PCs learn to put some ranks in perception so they can avoid a bad random encounter.

And horses. Hopefully the PCs learn that they will need to run away on occasion.

My players encountered both trolls and shambling mound at low levels. The trolls they managed to spot without the trolls spotting them, so they just slunk away. The shambling mound, they had horses and simply out ran it.


blargney the second wrote:

My first level PCs got super unlucky with the random encounter rolls. While exploring a single hex, they got two random encounters: a shambling mound and a tatzlwyrm. The druid with the Plant domain managed to convince the mound to leave them alone by offering to leave all of their horses behind for it, then coming back with more food.

We did some thing similar back in 1e when our 2nd level characters encountered a pair of flying criosphinxes. Upon being noticed, we ditched off our horses and hid in nearby vegetation - leaving the horses as the more attractive and nutritious snack. That set us back a lot of money at the time but we survived.

Silver Crusade

Yep, my 1st levels ran into a werewolf (drove him off barely with use of sorcerer magic missiles) and trolls (fled). My 7th ran into a greater cyclops (fled). It's a dangerous world out there.


Our group is being stalked by a werewolf. He's been leaving "presents" for us. So far the toughest fights have been the tatzlworm fight and Tickleback. Some fights have been easy because my of my cavalier lance charge.


My group ran into a Shambler right after Tuskgutter and a Wisp right after the Thorn River Camp battle. Ended up getting the two together, then ran into the electric Shambler two or three times before finally standing and managing to kill them both. Learned pretty quickly to flee from encounters they couldn't win, though: they fled from the Shambler as well as a pack of trolls they'd encountered earlier, only just now have they gotten confident enough in their ability to stand and fight trolls. Good thing too since we're starting Chapter 2 tonight.

Grand Lodge

Orthos wrote:
My group ran into a Shambler right after Tuskgutter and a Wisp right after the Thorn River Camp battle. Ended up getting the two together, then ran into the electric Shambler two or three times before finally standing and managing to kill them both. Learned pretty quickly to flee from encounters they couldn't win, though: they fled from the Shambler as well as a pack of trolls they'd encountered earlier, only just now have they gotten confident enough in their ability to stand and fight trolls. Good thing too since we're starting Chapter 2 tonight.

Yeah, I had to teach my group the same lesson.


learning to run away is a good lesson that has been lost in the d20 game over the decades.....


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Not in Kingmaker.

I'm running a Kingmaker game with my friends, first campaign I've run or played and first for them as well. First random encounter, one hex away from Oleg's, 4 trolls. I say they spot them in the distance. The druid did get a 26 on her perception after all. Party avoids. Well, a session or two later, I again roll trolls, and again it's 4. I report such the the players. Now they're getting nervous. While trying to figure out how to deal with the Stag Lord, I rolls trolls again. Don't even bother rolling, just tell the druid she sees the same group of female trolls. They appear to be tracking them. Panic ensues. The party is level two after all.

Finally, someone, I don't remember who, gets an idea. If they can't shake the trolls, and by this point everyone is convinced there is a herd of trolls relentlessly tracking them and their tasty herd of a dozen horses, across the wilderness and they will never stop. Then the best the party can do is to led them to the bandit fort. It works.

Chaos, fire, and bloodshed insue. PCs and bandits, who think the pcs are bandits, vs trolls. Party gets to see how dangerous trolls really are and has a reason to believe why the Stag Lord has been able to establish himself here. Critcal hit with bow + sneak attack means he takes down a lightly damaged troll with a single arrow. (His attack did something around 45 points of damage!)

Ye're off the map my friends. Here there be monsters!


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Lloyd Jackson wrote:

Chaos, fire, and bloodshed insue. PCs and bandits, who think the pcs are bandits, vs trolls. Party gets to see how dangerous trolls really are and has a reason to believe why the Stag Lord has been able to establish himself here. Critcal hit with bow + sneak attack means he takes down a lightly damaged troll with a single arrow. (His attack did something around 45 points of damage!)

Ye're off the map my friends. Here there be monsters!

MUAHAHAHAHAH! BEAUTIFUL!

And if you can tie these trolls into Chapter Two (see Dudemeister's "Hargulka's Monster Kingdom" if you want more tips/suggestions/advice on amping that chapter up), so much the better!!

Sovereign Court

Funny. Same thing somewhat happened to my adventuring party but in the reverse.

My group had just finished assisting the Narthropple Expedition (which they got Jubilost on the payroll to make maps) when they decided to finish exploring the remainder of the hex. The group was feeling a little antsy and was wanting a random encounter roll, so I gave it to them. They got the encounter (their roll) and rolled up 5 trolls. Since they were heading back into the forest on horseback, and were not trying to keep quiet, or even having a scout up ahead, I had the trolls and them stumble upon each other. This encounter happened a couple of miles away from the river.

The party decided it was best to run. Most were able to get clear, but the leader lost his horse to a troll attack, and was able to get on his feet to fend off an incoming attack. The nearest PC saw him dismounted and decided to do the classic grab while riding by. The leader lost his shield in the process, but was able to pull himself up onto the horse.

Now here is where the fun begins. The party decided to head back south to where the Expedition was. The reason? They had built a bridge fording that river, knowing that the trolls would be in pursuit, and hoping to use the bridge as a bottleneck to protect their flanks. (Yes the bridge was built prior to the Expedition having their issues. Jubilost reprimanded his team upon hearing about the bridge.) What they forgot though was the Expedition itself. Wagons move very slow and the Expedition was following the riverbank. The party set up on the bridge, starting to fortify what they could with a scout on watch. I had her do perception rolls for upstream, and then for downstream (where the Expedition was). looking upstream was no problem. Downstream was another matter. It seemed that the Expedition was around a bend. I gave another roll to her for passage of time to see if she could see anything. Exact same results. At this point I checked the direction of the wind since the trolls were getting close. The wind was blowing from the south...carrying the scent of the gnomes/ponies to the trolls. The trolls decided to go after easier prey. The party at the time was starting to wonder where the trolls were as a couple of hours had pass by with not a sign of the trolls. The ranger (who wasn't on watch) decided to use his superior perception with his spyglass to check on the river. Of course nothing upstream, but when he looked downstream he caught the sight of trolls feasting on the Expedition.

Oh the Gnomanity! (and hilarity for me)

Sovereign Court

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Oh forgot to mention. The party has stumbled on a hydra in the area a couple of times. So far they have been able to get away from it; with and without it noticing them). I think they are on the verge of naming it.


Duskrunner1 wrote:
I think they are on the verge of naming it.

Do let us know what they come up with! I think my group was on the verge of that if they had had to run from the Lightning Shambler a third time.

Grand Lodge

Lloyd Jackson wrote:

Not in Kingmaker.

I'm running a Kingmaker game with my friends, first campaign I've run or played and first for them as well. First random encounter, one hex away from Oleg's, 4 trolls. I say they spot them in the distance. The druid did get a 26 on her perception after all. Party avoids. Well, a session or two later, I again roll trolls, and again it's 4. I report such the the players. Now they're getting nervous. While trying to figure out how to deal with the Stag Lord, I rolls trolls again. Don't even bother rolling, just tell the druid she sees the same group of female trolls. They appear to be tracking them. Panic ensues. The party is level two after all.

Finally, someone, I don't remember who, gets an idea. If they can't shake the trolls, and by this point everyone is convinced there is a herd of trolls relentlessly tracking them and their tasty herd of a dozen horses, across the wilderness and they will never stop. Then the best the party can do is to led them to the bandit fort. It works.

Chaos, fire, and bloodshed insue. PCs and bandits, who think the pcs are bandits, vs trolls. Party gets to see how dangerous trolls really are and has a reason to believe why the Stag Lord has been able to establish himself here. Critcal hit with bow + sneak attack means he takes down a lightly damaged troll with a single arrow. (His attack did something around 45 points of damage!)

Ye're off the map my friends. Here there be monsters!

Seriously that's fantastic Lloyd. Did you tie them to book 2?


No. :(

I should have though, didn't even think about it, though this was nearly a year ago in real time, and I hadn't discovered the glory that is the paizo boards.

*Edit. Not entirely true about the not connecting. The largest, I described one a being noticeably larger, than the other three, survived the experience. I had a monster event from the kingdom be a family of ogres ransacking the eastern part of the kingdom. They still aren't sure why the ogres attacked, but one of their people did report the ogres mentioning something about a female troll that fire didn't hurt. This perked up the party's interest, but domestic concerns overcame plans for adventure.

We just finished book two and I had Hargulka mention to the party a female that was magnificent. Her being in heat was the reason all the trolls we flocking to the area. Now we are about to begin Varnhold. The party is in Restov getting the owlbear turned into a monument, Magnimar style, and contact with Varnhold has ceased. Reports are the ogre clans living in the mountains are out on the plains. Something has driven them out of their caves, and the swordlords want to know why. A hookmountain/varnhold mashup, with a female, and now mother, troll cleric of Urxehl. And guess whose the daddy?


Hahahah, that is devious.


My Players Please Do Not Read:
The random encounters I rolled up in this hex actually get worse. They got a will-o-wisp at the same time I rolled the shambler. I very briefly considered having the two together. Would've been fun if they were higher level!


Thank you.


Was pretty bad for my Kingmaker group.

Still level 1, the party headed towards the river camp after killing Happs and company. By the time they get into the Narlmarches I managed to roll a shambling mound. Seeing that discretion is the better part of valor, I run the encounter. Everyone failed spot checks (wasn't surprised there)so mound got surprise round and durfed the eidelon (was being nice).

The rest of the party charges the monster, and next thing I know 3 dead heroes and a sorcerer fleeing for her life.

Was quite a terrible experience for all of them, but not it has actually gotten them to create a better party and start to actually work together.
Eventually they managed to take a 4 troll encounter with a rogue/2, druid/2, paladin/2, and sorcerer/3 using teamwork and a healthy amount of bear traps. The party also used all their gold to buy the paladin mwk plate armor before the encounter.

It was also funny having the new heroes sign a charter full of crossed off names. :D

Sovereign Court

Orthos wrote:
Duskrunner1 wrote:
I think they are on the verge of naming it.
Do let us know what they come up with! I think my group was on the verge of that if they had had to run from the Lightning Shambler a third time.

Well the hydra decided it was time to deal with them, and paid the farm hex close to the PCs' capital a visit (thanks to Monster Attack which they rolled for with both the event and the random monster). The party however just did the check to see if their resources could deal with it, with them taking the lead, so sadly no Hydra named Bertha.

I did however replace the Werewolf encounter with a couple of Drekavacs in a house. With some modification I gave the little buggers the ability to revert back to their former childlike selves, especially on death. Got the party weirded out with children saying "Daddy please don't hurt me". Even threw a normal kid into one of the rooms to see if they would blindly kill the child (they didn't). There were a couple of minor powers I gave as well, mostly just to mess with them.


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My party was worse... they kept wandering around alone in the Narlmarches... several characters later they stopped doing that but then the campaign fell apart a bit later over my own GM fatigue.


Random Encounters ended two campaigns for me. :| One was my Necromancer campaign during the Vault of Larrin Kar. The other was a Golarion AP I just don't remember which ATM.
Despite that, I still love the dangerous randoms. If the group is smart, they'll know when discretion is the better part of valor. :P


My group got attacked by a Will-o-Wisp when they were like level 2 or something.

With an insane amount of luck (plus a wand of Magic Missile), they managed to ACTUALLY KILL IT.


Ha ha, just last game the wolf in sheep's clothing got a hold of one of the party archers. He got very lucky to escape.

On the will o wisp encounter, yeah it happened to us at very low level. We just scraped through, but the poor dm led to the collapse of the game after that (we had levelled, then he said, no, you should level slower, so we didn't level after that great hard fight).


That's funny, considering my group had the opposite thing happen during Rivers Run Red with a lack of exp during the mid-ways of the book.


During the second session of our Kingmaker campaign (which I GM), the 1st level party was attacked by a troll. Two PCs were knocked unconscious, and they lost a horse to the creature, but all successfully fled the scene with a bit of teamwork.

When--on the next night--they were able to spy an owlbear coming from a relative distance, they packed up their things and bolted from camp without bothering to stick around for a fight. They're learning! ;)


I've rolled a will-o-wisp at 2nd level, 3 trolls at 4th level.

Last game, party level 7, I rolled 1(!) boar. They called that lunch.

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