alt.universes

The most obvious encounter is the combat encounter.  The other articles in this series were aimed at adding other types of encounters instead of combat to keep things interesting and varied in a campaign, and promoting player character balance by increasing the value of non-battle skills to a player.

In this part, we instead look at the combat encounter itself.  It is important that combat, usually taking up a large percentage of a campaign’s time, be just as varied and interesting as the rest of your campaign.  We are speaking much more than switching up the monsters, however.

That being said, the first challenge of a combat encounter is survival.  Combat is usually is presented in a "us versus them" format that includes the clear goal of destroying the enemies to move forward.  This is, by no means, a bad or boring way to handle combat encounters.  In fact, sometimes the best and most enjoyable way for player characters to test out their mettle and newest skills is to hand them a throw-down brawl.  ("Brawl" in the magic and swords sense of the term, of course.)

But go beyond that.  Keeping your players on their toes is your job.  And characters who go through the same battle setup over and over will find a strategy and stick to it, not thinking outside the box.  The way I find best to do this, is to provide missions during combat.  Battle is only a path towards a goal, never the purpose itself.  When the players have something at stake, they will change up strategy, take daring risks, and challenge themselves.  Here, I list general categories to keep in mind when planning encounters, to keep their strategy mixed up.

• Kill Enemies – This is your standard run-of-the-mill encounter where you setup the grid and keep track of the specific locations of enemies and allies.  The goal is simply that, to kill everything.
• Protection – An NPC of some kind, sometimes an accompanied guest, sometimes a random passerby, needs to be protected from danger during an encounter.  Players will need to advance to the NPC’s location on the grid (starting them right next to the NPC would just be too easy!) before the enemies make it there, and keep the NPC from dying.  This usually still entails the "Kill Enemies" aspect, but with a twist.  And, of course, crafty DM’s ensure that the NPC does not just sit around and take orders, forcing the players to adjust themselves to their charge.  Who knows: a friendly saved NPC could come back two or three sessions from now and be a helpful force in a future situation!
• Target – Target combats are those where the battle cannot end until a particular target is dispatched.  This is not always revealed as the case to begin with, and may take the players some time to realize what is going on.  A hydra whose heads keep splitting as you kill it, or a dark necromancer who keeps raising the bones from the ground as the players fell them are good examples of this.  The players work together to first realize the situation, and then start aiming at their target.
• Covert – Covert combats are very much like Skill Challenges, except the grid is laid out, and everyone takes initiative and rounds as if in battle.  It is usually imperative that players remain as quiet as possible until their target is reached, whether it be a location or a certain enemy.  Players need to use the skills available to them to traverse the terrain quietly on their turns, using the actions available during combat to do so.  Should someone raise an alarm, nearby enemies may need to be dealt with, and extreme cases can be met with utter failure.
• Tread Lightly – These are my favorite!  Tread Lightly combats change some rule to make battle more difficult.  I usually pull the "I’m the DM" rule in these cases.  Heavy fog rolls in, hampering sight beyond so many squares.  The ground all around has dangerous footing, and all attacks require an Acrobatics check to remain standing afterwards.  A magical rain saps HP every round (or for a fun one, Strength!).  A fierce wind makes all skills with the Fire keyword useless.  Whatever you can think of, it makes the players think twice about what they’re doing, and force them to use different strategies.
• Puzzle – Puzzle combats are a combination of the Puzzle and Combat encounters.  There may or may not be enemies to begin with, but a grid is laid out and initiative rolled.  The characters begin solving the presented puzzle (see the previous article on Puzzle encounters), but several actions could result in traps or enemies appearing.  The best example of this is a puzzle where certain aspects of it require several rounds of work (moving heavy objects, concentrating on spells, and the like), and when disaster strikes, is up to the players to protect one another, allowing whomever is working on the puzzle to complete their work in the alloted number of rounds.

Each of these can be used to help focus or balance out players.  Find them relying too much on certain skills or abilities?  Change it up so they’re forced to think out of the box.  It will also retain the interest and confirm their investment into the campaign and their character, as they watch themselves fight their way through all kinds of daring scenarios.