Yesterday I stumbled upon a really cool idea in terms of encounter design. I had the TV running in the background, and some random episode of Stargate SG1 (I think) was running. It had something to do with time manipulation, so it was interesting enough for me to leave it on. The scene that sparked the awesome was somewhere near the end. For all those people who actually watch this series and know what I'm talking about, I'll try to say as little about the actual plot as possible.
Basically, the scene depicted a "defend the control point" type of encounter. The good guys stumbled upon a machine which needed to be calibrated and then activated for them to escape. They were being pursued by the bad guys, and as one person was working on the control board, the rest took up positions to fend off the attackers.
What made this cool was the way that the waves of attackers arrived; they came in small groups of about 5 or 6 goons using a teleporter (the teleporter with those rings, also seen in the original Stargate movie). So a bunch of them teleport in, they fight, and after a few seconds, the next group arrives, and so on.
This makes for an awesome setup, as it gets rid of a few drawbacks of the "traditional" method. There's no longer a huge storm of enemies entering through a chokepoint (such as a door) - if you used easy to kill minions, they would usually be shot down before they even get through, and if you use tougher monsters, too many of them might eventually overwhelm the party. With this method, you serve the players small bite-size groups of monsters. It's enough at one time to be a challenge for like three combat rounds, but not too many to wash over the characters. And after this wave is done (or not), you bring in the next small group. It's not as easy to position a tank to block entry to a room, which means that everyone will have to pitch in, and the party is no longer facing one monster at a time (which, with one-hit-kill minions, becomes boring very quickly).
So there you have it, an easy way to alter a defensive encounter by pitching small goups against the pary, one at a time.
Qi
Basically, the scene depicted a "defend the control point" type of encounter. The good guys stumbled upon a machine which needed to be calibrated and then activated for them to escape. They were being pursued by the bad guys, and as one person was working on the control board, the rest took up positions to fend off the attackers.
What made this cool was the way that the waves of attackers arrived; they came in small groups of about 5 or 6 goons using a teleporter (the teleporter with those rings, also seen in the original Stargate movie). So a bunch of them teleport in, they fight, and after a few seconds, the next group arrives, and so on.
This makes for an awesome setup, as it gets rid of a few drawbacks of the "traditional" method. There's no longer a huge storm of enemies entering through a chokepoint (such as a door) - if you used easy to kill minions, they would usually be shot down before they even get through, and if you use tougher monsters, too many of them might eventually overwhelm the party. With this method, you serve the players small bite-size groups of monsters. It's enough at one time to be a challenge for like three combat rounds, but not too many to wash over the characters. And after this wave is done (or not), you bring in the next small group. It's not as easy to position a tank to block entry to a room, which means that everyone will have to pitch in, and the party is no longer facing one monster at a time (which, with one-hit-kill minions, becomes boring very quickly).
So there you have it, an easy way to alter a defensive encounter by pitching small goups against the pary, one at a time.
Qi
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