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Hi all. So I've GM'd a while now, and I'm getting bored of the standard combat format: walk into a room with bad guys, everyone roll initiative, hack away at each other until bad guys are invariably dead, move on to next room, repeat. So in a campaign I'm currently writing, I want at least 25% of the combats to be unusual or dynamic in some way. I know "unusual and dynamic" isn't super descriptive, but my examples below will hopefully illustrate what I mean by this.
I'd love to hear how other GMs have pulled off memorable combats. Ones that made the players think, kept them on their toes. Any advice or anecdotes would be much appreciated. I'm also mining memorable video game battles for ideas. Additionally, I'm seriously considering adopting legendary actions and lair action from D&D 5e.
I'm about 1/5th of the way through writing the campaign, and I've set up some (hopefully) interesting combats. Will they work? No idea. But here's my "interesting" combats so far.
Example 1
The PCs have to raid a ghost town occupied by bad guys. The baddies are dynamic - if they hear combat, several of them will react, going to the site of the disturbance if they succeed at Perception checks. There is also a fairly dangerous beast that patrols the town who will serve the same purpose. My hope is that the PCs will need to utilize Stealth and stay on the move, launching skirmishes but not staying in one place for too long.
Example 2
The PCs have to do some sanitation work, as the sewers have been backing up. The culprit is an ooze mephit archer who knows the terrain and has some goblin allies and mindless oozes to utilize. She will snipe for a round or two when the PCs engage an enemy, then flee deeper into the sewer. This happens three times until she is cornered and attempts to surrender. Nothing too special here, but I like it.
Example 3
This is the first combat I'm really proud of. The PCs are spending the night at what they assume is a safe mansion (though I do drop clues that things are amiss). There are several friendly, low-level NPCs there as well. Late at night, a swarm of monsters launch an attack on the manor. They will attack in waves, arriving at set intervals (rounds), breaking through windows or busting down doors. The PCs can stick together and play it safe, but their allies will almost certainly perish in this case. So they will need to chose between the tactically sound approach, or the altruistic but dumb route of splitting up and trying to save some of their friends. PCs will have the opportunity to make preparations for the impending siege, such as trying to convince the friendlies to sleep in a safer area such as a basement strongroom.
Example 4
The PCs are traveling across the desert on camel-back. They find themselves in a veritable minefield of quicksand pits and burrowing antlion-like ambush predators (dust diggers). They will need to carefully make their way across the treacherous terrain, guiding their camels. Lots of Perception and Handle Animal checks. The dust diggers won't beeline for prey, and it's technically possible to avoid combat entirely if PCs are very careful. Every camel that perishes will add time to their desert trek, and time is of the essence.
Example 5
A group of air and lightning elementals have created a sandstorm, heavily limiting the PCs' range of sight. The elementals are not hindered in this way. The air elementals will use hit-and-run tactics, swooping in for an attack then disappearing into the sandstorm, while the lightning elementals will use combat maneuvers to hassle PCs. The elementals attack in waves. In the middle of their group are a pair of special air elementals who are conjuring the sandstorm. The PCs can either hunker down and deal with the elementals' guerrilla tactics, or they can charge forward and try to kill the two sandstorm generators but potentially be surrounded.
Example 6
A single sentient flesh golem has gone berserk in an area featuring vertical columns of frozen lightning. Golem will utilize bull rush and overrun combat maneuvers to try forcing the PCs into the lightning columns, which will simultaneously harm the PCs and heal the flesh golem. Additionally, the columns are hazards by themselves: get within 5 feet, and they have a chance of delivering a shock. The PCs can either focus on the golem or utilize a variety of techniques to "disable" the lightning columns that are driving the golem mad. Attacking a column with a metal weapon to disrupt it but also harming the wielder; casting dispel magic; using skills such as Disable Device or Sleight of Hand to deactivate a column, and so forth. Basically every character class will have some means of disabling a lightning column, if they choose that route.
If the PCs can disable 3 columns, the sentient flesh golem comes to its senses and ceases its assault. It can even be befriended as a long-term ally.
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I can't share too many, as my players haven't reached all of them and might stumble across this thread, but here are those I can share:
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Thanks Toshy, those were great. I'm adding them to my notes - I can definitely use some of those (especially Hell's Bells and the Planetarium). Chicken Raft sounds like a blast.
I had a friend give me some really good ideas as well: add "exploding barrels" that the PCs or bad guys can blow up to damage everyone within range; a multi-stage boss fight where the boss has multiple life bars, and each iteration has a unique suite of abilities and fighting style (this was done in Baldur's Gate II: Throne of Bhaal in the Sendai fight, she animated statues of herself, each basically a different "aspect" of herself); a duo of enemies where one gets stronger when the other dies (Dark Souls' Ornstein and Smough). I realize a lot of this stuff is video-gamey and not technically supported by Pathfinder rules, but rules are made to be broken right?
I've also taken notes on the combats run by Brendan Lee Mulligan in his Dimension 20 Youtube show. That man is an absolute genius, and many of his combats felt as much like puzzles as fights.
I wouldn't say that rules are there to be broken, rather they are something DM and players agree on or agree on ignoring them sometimes.
What I mean by that, is if you want to add mechanics to fights that are not defined by the rules to spice things up a bit, tell and ask your players beforehand. Not exactly what you are going to do, but that you want to try some things to make encounter more interesting for your players. Nothing is more frustrating than a dispute mid combat because things don't work as the players thought they would and are accustomed by the rules.
For example I suggested to my players to switch some things up with initiative for encounters where it would make sense to add a bit variety. They were a bit skeptical first, but agreed to try it and the encounter was a blast.
In that encounter they were fighting a chimera and I gave each head (dragon, goat, lion) it's own initiative and split its actions among those, to mimic things kind of legendary actions from D&D 5e.
One thing to keep in mind is, if you are giving them new abilities and mechanics compare them to existing things to get an idea of how it will impact the difficulty and adjust it accordingly. In the case of my Purification Ritual encounter, I took into consideration that the action economy would differ drastically, as almost half of the players actions were needed for the ritual. The actual enemy had to be adjusted for it, because otherwise it would have destroyed them.
Oh and I almost forgot the most important thing:
Describe those mechanics and abilities as extensively as possible to the characters. What do they see? What do they hear? What happens in front of them? Depending on the mechanic you want to use give them hints how it works and how they can overcome it in advance or during the encounter.
The enemy beeing immune to damage or just popping another health bar and abilities without explanation? Frustrating and not fun for the players.
Interrupting the evil guy during his vile ritual to absorb energies from the dark tapestry they read about in the ancient tome? The warnings of the dangers of such a ritual they discovered in the ancient crypt or temple a while ago? Seeing as he struggles to control those energies as he gets weaker (and maybe even needs actions in combat to keep control)? Witnessing how his body is consumed and twisted by those energies as he is defeated, only to watch in horror the abomination that his screaming body transforms into, loosing his self in the process of becoming this new, dark and primal beeing they have to defeat?
EPIC!
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Toshy wrote: I wouldn't say that rules are there to be broken, rather they are something DM and players agree on or agree on ignoring them sometimes.
What I mean by that, is if you want to add mechanics to fights that are not defined by the rules to spice things up a bit, tell and ask your players beforehand. Not exactly what you are going to do, but that you want to try some things to make encounter more interesting for your players. Nothing is more frustrating than a dispute mid combat because things don't work as the players thought they would and are accustomed by the rules.
For example I suggested to my players to switch some things up with initiative for encounters where it would make sense to add a bit variety. They were a bit skeptical first, but agreed to try it and the encounter was a blast.
In that encounter they were fighting a chimera and I gave each head (dragon, goat, lion) it's own initiative and split its actions among those, to mimic things kind of legendary actions from D&D 5e.
One thing to keep in mind is, if you are giving them new abilities and mechanics compare them to existing things to get an idea of how it will impact the difficulty and adjust it accordingly. In the case of my Purification Ritual encounter, I took into consideration that the action economy would differ drastically, as almost half of the players actions were needed for the ritual. The actual enemy had to be adjusted for it, because otherwise it would have destroyed them.
Yeah, I suppose breaking wasn't quite the word I was looking for. For example, in the case of a boss with multiple life bars/phases, there's nothing in Pathfinder rules that allows for that per se. But it's a classic boss fight mechanic and I plan on using it for my final boss fight.
I've been watching videos from Matthew Colville, and he has some excellent advice. As he put it once: the rules are there for the players, not the bad guys. That's heavily paraphrasing, but his advice was not to allow rules to limit the GM from cool, awesome storytelling. For example in PF 1e, only a very high-level necromancer can create and control interesting undead. But should that stop the GM from giving his low-level necromancer villain a mummy or wraith servant? No. There doesn't need to be a mechanical reason why the 7th-level necro has such a (relatively) potent undead under control. It will be a cool encounter - enough said.
In the case of legendary/lair actions, I've picked 4 very important climactic fights in my campaign wherein the bad guy will have these. I haven't settled on exact mechanics yet, but I like your Planetarium idea of effectively giving an inanimate object an initiative. Splitting initiative with multiple attacks is also a clever way to do it, especially with something like a dragon. I'm sick of throwing one single powerful foe at the PCs, and having one of two results: either it shreds the PCs, or far more often, the PCs kill it before it can get off more than a round of actions. That's not how I want my dragon fight to go. It should be tense and epic.
My goal in all this is to make things interesting, fun, cool, and novel, both for me and my players. I'm definitely not trying to "beat" them. Just challenge them in a way that they'll hopefully find memorable.
Toshy wrote: Oh and I almost forgot the most important thing:
Describe those mechanics and abilities as extensively as possible to the characters. What do they see? What do they hear? What happens in front of them? Depending on the mechanic you want to use give them hints how it works and how they can overcome it in advance or during the encounter.
The enemy beeing immune to damage or just popping another health bar and abilities without explanation? Frustrating and not fun for the players.
Interrupting the evil guy during his vile ritual to absorb energies from the dark tapestry they read about in the ancient tome? The warnings of the dangers of such a ritual they discovered in the ancient crypt or temple a while ago? Seeing as he struggles to control those energies as he gets weaker (and maybe even needs actions in combat to keep control)? Witnessing how his body is consumed and twisted by those energies as he is defeated, only to watch in horror the abomination that his screaming body transforms into, loosing his self in the process of becoming this new, dark and primal beeing they have to defeat?
EPIC!
Yes, I agree with you here absolutely. Right now my only really interesting boss fight is with the mad flesh golem and columns of frozen lightning. This is what I have:
Check: A DC 14 Knowledge (arcana) or Knowledge (nature) check identifies the threats posed by the frozen lightning pillars.
Check: A successful DC 16 Knowledge (arcana) check is enough to realize that the supernatural lightning is influencing the flesh golem, driving its frenzy. If some of the pillars were deactivated, the creature may cease its rampage.
The PCs will be 6th-level, so these are definitely doable checks to make. I will also probably describe how the electricity seems to be flowing into the golem, and each zap seems to fill it with both power and frenzy.
In the case of the final battle with multiple life bars, it will be very clear to the PCs that they have entered a new "phase" of battle. I'm still planning this one out, but it will be incredibly explicit.
Love the description of the Dark Tapestry ritual by the way. Funny, because that's the entire focus of my campaign - Night Herald cultists toying with forbidden occult space magic.
I mean, you basically won't need any extra rules to deal with a multi phased boss fight.
It can be easily be described as a very bulky enemy switching tactics if a certain hp-threshhold is reached or simply reinforcements arriving as the first enemy/phase is defeated. Things that are both perfectly fine.
The only thing in my opinion that you have to take into consideration, is how the multiphased enemy interacts with things affect certain Hitdice values or have a hp limit (for example deep slumber, or death effects like power word kill). Especially if your PCs have means to check the enemy's health, like death watch or that slayer thing that lets the player know the exact hp value the enemy is at.
For example does power word kill interact with an enemy that is below 100hp in phase one? Does it instantly kill it and skips the other phases? Does it only "kill" the current phase? Does it not affect the creature at all?
I know that my example is a pretty high one, which you don't need to consider at PC level 6, but there are similar things and power word kill was the first thing that came into my mind ^^
I don't know how to quote, but there is one instance I can think of where a boss has multiple health bars. Don't want to give spoilers for the AP, but the party kills a priestess of Urgathoa who turns into a Daughter of Urgathoa immediately upon dying. (she's actually slightly weaker in "phase two" though).
Add a smattering of dialogue. Just enough to make it interesting, but not so much it gets repetitive and boring.
“You have wounded me villain, I shall smite thee!”
“I will crush thee puny mortal.”
“That arrow was too close for comfort.”
“You shall never take me alive.”
“You have bested me. Curse you and your kinfolk.”
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