Play your enemies intelligently, forcing the players to prepare for potential threats. Not just random encounters, but well-prepared groups of enemies working together to take them out.
For the burning forest scenario, the enemies would be aware that letting a forest fire get out of hand is any easy way for them to get themselves killed along with their prey. I can see them digging trenches filled with a flammable, alchemical solution to create controlled fires. Have highly mobile characters use hit and run tactics to pick off the characters from a distance, baiting them to engage. If the characters feel like they need to getaway, have a fire cut off their escape. This strategy, should it work, would lead them into a valley in the forest, where archers can make minced-meat of them from higher ground.
EDIT: Grammar.
:Byronus
Between rounds, giving a description of the looks of your bad guys might be a nice flavorwise addition. A little mocking speech, since if short it's a free action.
Skill checks during a chase if the bad guys make a tactical retreat.
I for one was thinking an enemy who uses invisibility to strike at the players. Catching them the 1st time by surprise, jabbing at the party, vanishing briefly afterwards.
Make "the win" more of a satisfying item.
Take the players out of their comfort zones, then. Your forest fire scenario is okay, but why would the Bad Guys set it on fire if they knew it was harmful for them too? However, change it to setting loose their pet hellhounds to harass the PCs as they try to escape and you have something.
Try water encounters with aquatic enemies, or fighting on a rolling deck of a ship in a storm. Water encounters add a "z" dimension to what is normally a 2D fight. Flying encounters can do the same.
What about ice? Slippery? Or floating, tilting ice flows?
Knee deep mud? Soft sand?
Watch any movie or read any account involving elephant grass.
One of my players most memorable fights was vs scrags while floating on a river barge. Normally scrags would not be a problem for this group, but because they were aquatic, they dragged a few of the PCs into the water, to fight. This split the party (rivers keep flowing, and barges don't have brakes), and completely changed the tactical situation. They still talk about the dwarf fighter hanging on to a rope with one hand, fighting a scrag with the other, while the sorcerer tried to pull him in. All of this as the rogue and some barge crew were repelling other boarding scrags.
Here are some more:
Incorporeal creatures are not restricted by terrain. They move in all dimensions. This means they don't stand in a room and take it to the face. Hands cold with the touch of death reaching from walls, floors and ceilings are certainly memorable.
Just when my WotR players were feeling mythically uber, the shadow demons turned the barbarian killing machine into a foe to be reckoned with. He had to play all of his mythic uberality (yep, making words up now), on his own party.
Use innocents to force hard choices. All the obvious reasons apply here. "Don't take another step, Sir Righteous, or the child gets it!" Sometimes the not so obvious: the PCs can make a choice, fight the monster, or save the innocents. Maybe they split and do both.
Sometimes, it's even a fight they can't win. If you can, check the Black Magga encounter in the RotRL Hook Mountain Massacre.
How about a rooftop chase. The guy/gal they're supposed to catch flees and they have to make acrobatic checks. The chased guy/gal needs to take a breather ever so often, ==>fight with adds to slow the party down.
Switching with flat roofs where they'd have a limited number of rounds to knock down the adds or the guy/gal gets away.
This wont work for all groups, but in my group, we made some really interesting and dynamic encounters by using 3d terrain. Specifically I got the maulifaux terrain from wyrd games. By having actual phyical buildings, platforms, tunnels, etc to interact wiht, players and enemies actually used them. Sure you can just draw this stuff on a white board, or graph paper, but having it stand out makes a big difference to how players interact with it.
For instance, in a recent encounter in my friend's E6 game, our city was attacked by an army of kobolds. In one encounter we were attacked by a massive force of kobolds, but we moved to a stone stairway that led to a raised platform. Had this been a typical encounter, drawn out on a matt, we probably would have just charged and slugged it out with the army. Instead we had a desperate fight(that I am pretty sure the dm kept adding more kobolds to beyond what was planned) with the ranger and fighter desperately trying to hold the stairs, while a few city guard, the sorceror and the alchemist attacked from the raised platform and tried to keep the kobolds from scaling the stone walls.
Had the map been a typical 2D drawing, or flip map, its not likely I would have thought of the tactical choice to go to the stairs. That terrain advantage allowed the dm to ramp up the number of enemies without making the encounter more dangerous, but it did in my view ramp up the excitement and drama of the moment.
Train encounters are my favorite when reaching outside the box. Train cars are typically 10x60', and filled with passengers and seats (difficult terrain). You have potential hostage situations, civilian casualties from AoE spells, and then there's always the iconic fight on top of the cars (no more difficult terrain, but Acrobatics checks required to not fall!).
Train encounters are my favorite when reaching outside the box...
Train Encounters? They're in A Song of Ice and Fire!
I also don't know how much fantastical creatures are being used in such a setting. I would need to know if this is the SoI&F setting while using PF rules or a setting that uses SoI&F setting as a baseline with some elements of PF thrown in like the alchemical components previously mentioned.
Either way, try using more memorable parts of the book/tv series and see how you characters would play it differently. A trap like the Red Wedding springs to mind. A barbarian can survive a lot more crossbow bolts than Robb Stark. Could they survive or even win the Red wedding? Could be memorable. Just don't drop into the direct scenario; another social event could work too. A coronation, a nameday celebration, a funeral, etc.
Make sure to add a bit of flair from the series. Create/adjust somes rules for Whitewalkers, wildfire, Valyrian steel, The faceless, Melisandre's "children," etc. to make it feel more like they're really in the series. All of these can be used to spice up an encounter.
EDIT: Rereading the first post I see he put A Song of Ice and Fire in quotes which could mean that he meant low magic and low fantasy rather than directly adapting the series. I apologize for my rudeness Cuup. I'd like a little clarification from the OP though.
I think that one of the things that makes a combat the most memorable/fantastic is when the bad guys use actual tactics. Especially if they are little used tactics but work well in the situation.
- Let us assume you have rarely had anyone in your group (on either side) use bull rush or reposition type of maneuvers.
So make it a small clump of trees rather than a full fledged forest. that way it can't get out of hand and kill the wrong people. The fight starts with the bad guys hidden wearing water soaked leathers and using air crystals (to protect them from burning and suffocation). They open the fight with throwing oil and alchemist fire at the good guys. Then these nice muscular people use bull rush and/or reposition to keep throwing the party members back into the fire.
- Or if low level group. The bad guys are hiding up a windy twisting steep dirt path through a sparse forest up the side of a mountain. When the good guys show up the dump a couple barrels of water down the path. Now it is a muddy mess. Difficult terrain. Say maybe a DC=15 acrobatics check to move at half speed or fall. Or they can take just a 5' step with no check. Of course the bad guys are lobbing vials of acid (acid won't start a forest fire.)over the rocks at the party while they try to advance. Not huge damage but probably taking some area of effect minor hits. Then they try to bull rush or trip anyone that makes it up to them.
- Or they have something else to worry about. The party or the bad guys are carrying 20 cases each with 12 alchemist fire through a drought weakened forest in the middle of August. When the ambush happens (from either side) they have to be careful of the cargo to not start a forest fire.
Terrain. Even a 20 by 20 room with a couple free standing 10 foot long walls can be interesting.
Maybe someone lobbing regular oil at the PCs, then someone else bullrushing/pushing assaulting them into bonfires? Perhaps somewhere slanty, so spilled oil can cause N/PCs to slip down a square or two?
Maybe a small maze of iron bars and portcullises, with enemy archers or reach weapon warriors on the other side?
Maybe a warren that uses the squeezing rules? Lots of little biteses.
Enemies using Teamwork feats.
Throwing a third party into an encounter can change everything. Maybe there were some caged animals on scene. The fighting starts, and some cages get banged open. Now the PC's are fighting the bad guys while some hungry, pissed off bears are running around. Do you ignore them and hope they'll leave? Do you try to kill them and leave your back open to the bad guys? Do you try some Handle Animal checks? Then throw in some muddy terrain or fire into the mix. Maybe the structure they're in has been burning for a couple minutes and the ceiling/floor is starting to give.
Wanted to mention another thing which can make a fight very memorable for the players. If you can logically make some special quality the player(s) have crucial to the fight, they are likely to remember it.
One of my player had a character that had the ability to see even in complete darkness as a racial quality. But it had almost never come up in the game. I attacked them with a demon. The demon spied on them for a while before attacking, so knew what they typically did and had planned around it. However, since the 'see in complete darkness' had never come up during the time while they were being spied on, it did not know about the ability. The demon is perfectly legitimately known in the write-up to cast deeper darkness and attack from within that for an advantage.
The player was perfectly thrilled when the demon cast deeper darkness and closed with the group thinking he was hidden. The PC then got a couple of serious sword hits on the demon before it could fly away.
The player talked about that fight for quite a while. It validated his rather unique build choices and allowed him to shine without detracting from the others.
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Another thing you can do is anger and enrage them so they will be really be charged up when they win.
Against a low level party that has no magic items, use a few sunder experts. The key here is to use opponents with better gear than the players have. So during the fight the players lost their scale armor, great axe, and wooden shield.
They will be righteously peeved during the fight while losing those items. Afterward the spoils of victory contain a steel shield, MW two-handed sword, and breastplate. So no one should feel robbed by the GM, but they will be howling mad during the fight.
You have to be careful to not make it seem too overwhelming. I once had the party run away after losing several items (they thought they were about to die) so they got no spoils. They were really bummed out and I felt pretty bad for them.
ahaha love this post u.u .. i give some ideas, not really sure you can do that, but flavourfull ideas:
- take them on a ship, let them fighting pirates/"marines", first with cannons, then in melee
- take them in a place where they are standing reversed(ehm sorry for my english.. i mean with the head down... like bats)
- take them fighting in ruins, where the ruins are over a big monster (like super extra size something [turtle?]) moving slowly
- take them in a place full of illusions
- take them fighting in a big castle, facing the sea, where they and their enemies have to watch out of the third part (enemies of them and their enemies) attacking "em with ships and magic
Never underestimate the power of the lowly pit. Pit traps; ditches filled with burning oil; trapdoor spider lairs. You don't even have to hide them. A deep enough trench will mess up charging lanes, provide cover or be a weapon in its own right.
I second the use of 3d terrain. Also, don't forget your extra dice. That's right; put those d6's to good use if you don't have fireballs flying around. A single d6 can easily represent a boulder or solid pile of rubble the PCs can stand on.
When I think of dynamic fights without magic I often think "furniture." I remember the 3 musketeers on table tops and chandeliers; Jackie Chan in a pool hall; heck, even the Marx Brothers had some good slapstick with fixtures. In the next dungeon instead of just throwing in some wall sconces really deck the place out with low beams in the ceiling, tables and chairs, and tapestries on the walls.
Finally look at your monsters, their resistances. For example the humble skeleton is immune to the first 5 points of damage so long as its not bludgeoning. Recently I had a hallway with a 4-armed mudra skeleton that was headless; his skull along with thousands others were embedded in the walls and animated into a beheaded swarm. The cherry on top was that the heads made the swarm, many other bones in the walls formed the mudra's body, but a field of jagged bone fragments were embedded in the floor like caltrops. The skeleton ignored them since they couldn't do enough damage to injure it so it wasn't slowed, but the party had to be careful where they stood.
There are other things such as teeter-totter floors, swinging rope bridges, traps with proximity triggers so as the fight progresses to a certain area of the room people get attacked by the trap, etc. These are fairly common in a lot of fantasy and sci-fi. Hopefully this helps spur on the imagination as well.