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Post by thelogibear on Jan 3, 2014 22:45:49 GMT
Hey guys i'm new to this forum and have always run a grid less dnd. I haven't known anything else. My group just uses a huge whiteboard layed on the table and draws the map as needed.
I'm one of our 2 dm's and I am starting a campaign soon and need some cool ideas for combat in the ice and snow as well as in a desert. Would appreciate some insight from fellow dm's thanks for the help
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slurpy
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Posts: 197
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Post by slurpy on Jan 4, 2014 0:32:46 GMT
A fight over a frozen lake with the chance to break through, and a fight on the side of a dune that keeps sliding downwards and burying feet/PCs are two things that immediately come to mind.
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javenspell
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Is this your Character sheet Larry?
Posts: 166
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Post by javenspell on Jan 4, 2014 0:32:52 GMT
I imagine desert monsters living just under the sand Yeti I guess is too easy for snow, but how about some kind of arctic underwater beast...never know in the snow if you are walking on land or water
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Post by grym247 on Jan 18, 2014 8:18:16 GMT
Ice or Desert Worms, not gigantic but they can pop out of the Ground at any time, an area could be infested
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Post by DMScotty on Jan 18, 2014 15:22:57 GMT
Ice or sand storms that can cause the PCs to get lost and have an encounter in a location they did not suspect or one they think is the right location but isn't.
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Post by pedrodevaca on Jan 18, 2014 17:48:47 GMT
In harsh climates I like to use bad weather as an encounter in itself, with xp, any Evil denizens who are not driven into hiding by the weather, would hunt to prey on any creatures lost or wounded by the storm.
The fight on an ice lake is a great idea! The enemies can walk on ice without penalty or they fly. Under the ice are hungry fish, lampreys or sharks that haven't eaten since Fall, and the PCs get a glimpse of them every so often through the ice.
The epic 'fight on the mountain pass during a blizzard' scene is always a good one. Fight happens on a 10' wide, narrow mountain pass. Snow is everywhere impeding sight and movement. However the pass is actually only 5' wide and the other 5' is actually a cornice that has a chance to crumble and fall if disturbed (If you are particularly evil GM, you can make the unstable part of the path bigger than the path itself - 10' of cornice?). As the fight goes on, the battle area gets increasingly smaller and more narrow. Boulders or avalanches from above can add interest, difficulty or a GM device to save the day.
DMScotty's idea can be used to introduce a tangent, i.e. slip a module into your campaign that wasn't intended. It can be a campaign genesis device, 'your lost in a snow storm, you cannot see nor hear the rest of your caravan, you try trudging for hours towards what you think is the campfire, but eventually you collapse from exhaustion and hypothermia, you fall face first into the snow, a gentle wave of calm washes over you as consciousness slips away. You awake with a start. You blink, the light is so bright. Rubbing your eyes you look around, you are in a tent, lying on fur pelts, beside you are 4(?) other caravan travelers. The wind shakes the tent door and buffets the tent's heavy hide walls. The door whips open briefly and a gust of hot dry air and sand bursts into the tent, instantly drying out your lips and mouth. A tall, dark-skinned woman enters the tent, behind her are two girls carrying clay jugs full of water. The woman dips a cup into the jug and gives you a drink (regain 1 HP). She unfolds from her dress a brightly colored brush made of stiff animal hair, dips it into the water and begins washing your feet. 'Don't be afraid. It is our tradition that guests be clean, of sand and sin, before our ancestors will feed'".... It's a variant to the classic "You're on a slave ship" campaign genesis, but possibly more interesting.
I used a severe dust storm recently. To make the storm interesting and not just 'shadowy illumination with flavor text' I attached unique mechanics to it. It provided concealment as you might expect, but if you faced into the wind, it would blind you until you shielded yourself, or took cover. Trying to move upwind was difficult (difficult terrain, blinded, chance of misdirection if blinded). Moving or facing downwind was no problem. Lastly, the wind was strong enough to screw over size small creatures, because, well that's what you get for rolling a Hobbit. This turned a boring flat desert battlemap into an interesting tactical challenge. The advantageous 'terrain' was fighting downwind while trying to force your enemy to fight upwind.
Within the dust storm were 3 powerful Gargathi berserks (for anyone familiar with Glorantha). They ride dust cyclones (variant air elementals that cannot fly but can hop like a boss and make dust clouds). Using the dust storm as cover they attack. Within the dust storm, the Gargathi and their cyclones are completely invisible and have magical and mundane ways of detecting prey despite the poor visibility. The cyclones attack first, trying to pick up the PCs, hop as high as they could (40' vertical) and drop the PCs. Since the cyclones were invisible in the storm, this was quite a handful. With the PCs scattered and wounded, the Gargathi press the attack. They hit and run, using their cyclones for mobility. With the advantage theirs, the Gargathi dismount and get Pai Mei all up on the PCs (my Gargathi were evil variant monks). That was their first mistake and their last. An ancient parable of the desert "The oxen plow deep, but the earth is patient". I have no clue what that means, but the Gargathi didn't heed their ancestors, and underestimated the danger of a wounded party of PCs. A well-placed Slow spell and a trio of improbably bad save rolls on my part wins the day for the PCs, but not without hefty cost and some sand in their va...... nevermind. The above encounter was made incredibly challenging by the storm. The storm increases the CR of the encounter and therefore deserves its own XP.
Yet another weather effect I used was somewhat of a random encounter and similar to the roaming beserk hoarde someone else mentioned on a different thread. I cannot take credit for this idea, its a long standing encounter from the Pavis and Big Rubble campaign setting in Glorantha. Dubbed the "The Eternal Battle" it is a gale force storm. Always build these things by mentioning off hand developing weather early on, when it doesn't matter. At some point, the Battle builds on the horizon and the PCs see the sky in the distance is darkened and an ominous storm, black, gray and roiling with thunder and hail blocks the western horizon. The storm hits, and has fairly standard bad weather effects, but this is no ordinary storm. The clouds are not clouds at all, but swarms of ghosts and spirits- ancient warriors of men, trolls, elves, and others fighting the nameless, shapeless denizens of Chaos. It's essentially a moving Haunt of epic proportions. Being in the cloud gives nasty negative side effects (its a cloud of chaos spirits the side effects can be anything you devise) and the debuff needs to come with suitable horror inspired flavor text as the PCs watch hoards of spirits of ancient warriors lock eternally into brutal melee with unspeakable horrors of chaos. Some of the warriors turn their attention and lock eyes with the PCs. Soon afterwards, the horrors they fight, notice the PCs as well. Driven mad by an eternity of fighting Chaos, the warriors no longer know friend from foe. The ancient warriors and Chaos horrors alike, materialize before the PCs to claim their souls and muster the PCs into the ranks of the Eternal Battle.
When I ran this, the ancient warriors were variant ghosts, that could be reasoned with in the event of an amazing social or knowledge checks. The PCs failed at convincing the spirits that Chaos was the true enemy. The Chaos Horror was a custom monster, shapeless and without form. Faces, limbs, and body parts of the armies of men, elves, and trolls that it had eaten over the aeons, would occasionally push outwards from its formless, ooze like bulk. When a face would appear it would plead and scream for help causing Fear checks. For flavor I allowed Knowledge checks to recognize the features or regalia of the ancient faces, such that the PCs put together an abridged history of the monster, where it had been, and what kingdoms it had dropped plates upon over the course of history. Knowing a bit about some of its former conquests, the PCs were suitably unnerved.
Sorry for the wall of text.
Cheers -Pedro
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Post by onethatwas on Jan 19, 2014 0:19:00 GMT
Wow. That Chaos Horror storm idea is awesome. Consider it stolen.
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Post by tauster on Jan 19, 2014 8:48:43 GMT
If you want a fight on the ice with the chance of breaking in - or something breaking out of the ice - you may look at my submission for December's craft war contest, 'Glacier's heart': dmscraft.proboards.com/thread/434/world-craftwar-december-2013Glowing icicles and fancy ice rocks aside, what I essentially did was making three versions of a lake 1) undisturbed ice cover 2) ice cover broken into several sheets with wide cracks 3) ice pillar thrusting up from below the surface This makes for very dynamic encounters, where you simply have swap out the lake piece when it's time for a terrain change.
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