Maxing out the fun in a bland encounter

[RealMarkP]

Pick a rather bland location, such as a sparse forest or in the middle of a field. How would you alter the environment, the enemy or the encounter mechanics so that the players are forced to fight in a way that is not a standard smash-and-grab?

My thoughts:
- Throwing a rust monster at the group is always interesting.
- Ditto for Acid.
- Wet weather might cause a field to be marshy, resulting in difficult terrain. Or perhaps heavy wind.
- A field could have boulders, invoking climb checks.

For the purpose of this thread, keep it at around CR 5.

[Solo]

Fire
Earthquake

[kurashu]

Fire Earthquake

FTFY

[carnivore]

fun low level encounter:

Kobold Wizard(Illusionist) 3 (CR 3)+ 3 Kobold Warriors(NPC Class) 4 (CR 3) = CR 3 +CR 3= CR5

use multiple Hit&Run encounters .... Wizard (hidden) casts Silent Image of the Kobold Warriors ..... each encounter has some Illusion Foes and some Real foes as follows:

#1 Illusions are Melee combatants, Real combatants are Ranged Support(Splash weapons) .... as Illusions are attacked,Real fire into PCs ... then run away

#2 next, Some Illusions are Melee, some are Ranged Support...as before, when 2 Illusions get hit, all run away

3#next, all Combatants are Illusions .... tactics as #2, but all run away to lead PCs into an Ambush by Real combatants and Wizard also casts other Combat Spells


the Idea is to get the PCs to expend resources(Spells,etc..) on Illusions, also to wear them down

 

[linklord231]

Using difficult terrain works up until level 5 or so, when the wizard can cast fly. 
One time, the DM took 2 fistfulls of d6's, rolled them, and started adding them up before saying "those are trees."  We thought we were fucked because that much damage would have killed us.
There's the classic battle in a volcano.
One time the party had to fight a mummy as the room filled up with sand.  The catch was that the outermost square of the room was a seemingly bottomless pit, so we had to avoid being pushed into it by the sand (or the mummy).
I once made an encounter in an oddly-shaped room where the gravity changed every six seconds.  The party kind of breezed through that one though because I forgot about a Wand of Spider Climb the druid had. 

[Captnq]

A baby (wyrmling) Bronze dragon and his pet rust monster "Rusty" have run away from home because his pet is eating mommy and daddy's Bronze statue collection. Rusty is awfully hungry from a lack of food, so the dragon is trying to get some rust-able metal.

Just slaughtering them will lead to issues with Mommy and Daddy.

Killing the rust monster will enrage the baby dragon.

The baby dragon was raised by paranoid parents so is unwilling to talk and starts off at hostile. He plans on taking the metal, not asking for it. He will avoid killing, if at all possible. Pit traps, the classic snare that leaves you suspended high in a tree upside-down by your ankle, Good old fashioned deadfall. These are all options.

Bump him up an age class if you want this to be more of a challenge.

[ImperatorK]

Make enemies use the environment to their advantage. Make ambushes. For example in a forest a few elf Warriors hiding and sniping can be quite deadly. And there are feats specifically for elves (and not only elves) fighting in forests, so made right they can have decent stealth skills, can walk up in the trees and have not bad attack.

[Drammor]

I found that there's no need to be so complicated.

I ran an encounter recently in which the party's carriage had stopped on a road between two cities, in the late evening, because the bard sitting atop the carriage realized that the grasslands around them had just the right mix of weather and geography that he might have a chance to find a particularly rare flower if he went out and searched for a while.

Since the bard wanted to go looking for the flower, the party stopped and set up camp for the night. I did my best to narrate their surroundings and assign some flora and fauna to their surroundings and they had an entire two-real-life-hours encounter about the bard and the mage going off into the wilds to look for this flower. He failed the survival check to find it, but did happen across a few other interesting plants along the way, including one that he fought valiantly to harvest: the prophet's godrose. According to his bardic lore, the mature hip of the godrose can be used in a potion recipe for seeing the future.

The godrose grew out from the middle of a matted, veritable wall of a kind of tall, thick and strong grass and had long, vicious thorns covering its entire stem. It had become tangled and woven into the plant-life around it, and since its hip was not yet mature, it would need to grow a while longer before it could harvested appropriately. Naturally, the bard did not want to give up on this treasure. He and the mage had parted ways about an hour before (she had found several staves of elkbeard), so he was on his own out in the grasslands, with nightfall coming up quickly. He didn't want to be alone at night there, and they had traveling to do, so he would need to harvest enough of the godrose to easily transplant it into a pot, before nightfall, without resorting to magic (which could ruin its efficacy as a potion ingredient).

Meanwhile, the other half of the party was working on their team building, planning out tactical scenarios, and interacting with their escort to find out more about the religious order that had sponsored their journey. When the bard did not return before dark but the mage did, they all went looking for him, and found that he had actually gotten lost in returning back to camp (it would have taken him an extra hour to get there), so they created an impromptu flare system to locate him and communicate.

In the end, everyone had a lot of fun and there were no monsters, and the group did display some persistence, resourcefulness and ingenuity.

[RealMarkP]

These are all good ideas and for the sake of giving future forum lurkers ideas, I'll put mine in:

If the group is carrying a particularly important item, it may become a beacon for poachers. Or, if the group doesn't have such an item, have them come across it (and have it  activate itself upon being touched/picked up). Perhaps have it inside a rusty iron chest that was once forgotten.

While travelling, the group is attacked first by a band of goblins, lead by a particular magic-craving sorcerer. Second, a band of Drow/Tiefling join in. Then finally a young dragon. The fight should be run as a free-for-all which can give the players the opportunity to RP. As an example, they may wish to help a certain side or completely not take part in the encounter. But if they decide to run, there are many a foe ready to bring them back in.

[Arz]

This scene needs more gazebo!

[b100d_arrowz]

Even though it is simple to avoid in many cases, I love oozes and gelatinous cubes

One of the ways I've had fun surprising players is have the environment itself be an enemy, and yes this includes natural creatures in it I had dire elk try to bull rush the party off a cliff, a pit trap which contained quicksand instead of it's regular X-ft drop, magnetic rocks (also fun with magnetic armor ) with a variable reflex DC to avoid having the weapon (metal ones of course) being stuck to it depending on the strength of the field/player level, storms and natural disasters can be fun on occasion.

[littha]

Landsharks


that is all.

[Scottzar]

Brownmold.
Need a wall to stop some hyjinks your wizard is using? Shoot the pit with a flaming arrow.
Need a trap to engulf a player? Shoot the pit with a flaming arrow.
Need a way to troll new players with no knowledge skills? Let them find brown mold.
The list goes on.

[Drammor]

It's too bad you can't have brown mold and landsharks at the same time.

[RobbyPants]

Kobold Wizard(Illusionist) 3 (CR 3)+ 3 Kobold Warriors(NPC Class) 4 (CR 3) = CR 3 +CR 3= CR5

Unless I read that wrong, isn't that EL 7 instead of 5?

Each of the four kobolds should be CR 3 (3 for the wizard 3 PC class, and 3 for each warror 4 NPC class). Four CR 3s should be EL 7 (add two to the EL every time you double the number of monsters).

Not that it's out of line for a fifth level party, but it's not meant to be "one of four encounters in a day".