Types of Encounters (HLC)

__TOC__
Once you've created a workable plot for an adventure, you need encounters to flesh it out. Encounters set the stage for the player characters and give them a chance to function as heroes.
As this chapter's first section points out, a well-designed adventure offers several different types of encounters. Twelve different types of encounters are described below.
The categories are not definitive, and there often is considerable overlap between them. Their purpose is not to force your encounters into inflexible molds, but to help you consider the many options open to you when planning them.
==Combat==
The encounter is intended to deplete the party's resources, particularly hit points and spells, through some form of attack. Combats can be pretty dull for high-level characters unless the opposition follows a logical tactical plan that allows them to challenge the party and create the illusion of danger. See the Planning Combats section for some tips.
==Deception==
The encounter is not what it appears to be. A common form of deception is one type of encounter masquerading as another. For example, the player characters are traveling along a road and meet an old peddler who evades their questions and tries to sell them her goods. The encounter appears to be an interaction until bad guys spring out of the woods and attack. Surprise!
An encounter that includes a disguised or delayed danger falls into this category. The peddler from the previous example might lie to the PCs, complicating future matters if the PCs fall for the ruse. The peddler might be a villain or monster. Perhaps the impostor is biding her time until she can attack the party, or perhaps she simply wants to get close to the party so she can learn something about them.
Another form of deception is the misdirection or red herring; the player characters discover an apparent clue that leads to a false conclusion or throws them off the scent. For example, in Poe's classic story, The Murders at Rue Morgue, a witness reports that the criminal spoke German. In fact, the criminal, being an ape, didn't speak at all. The hero of the story eventually detected the red herring by noting that every witness thought the criminal was speaking a different language, but players in a heroic fantasy game might be completely fooled.
Deceptions don't often work unless the DM uses a variety of encounters. For example, if a campaign doesn't use many interaction encounters, the sample deceptions described here are probably not going to work because the player characters tend to be suspicious. Parties accustomed to fighting everything they meet would probably attack the peddler at the outset and expose the deception or make it irrelevant.
Deceptions also tend to fail when they are overused. Players who are constantly on the lookout for deceptions not only detect them more readily, but their distrust makes it harder to pick up legitimate clues and hints during the game. Frustration sets in quickly if the players conclude that every NPC is a liar and every clue is a red herring.
==Delay==
The encounter retards the party's progress and consumes their time without offering any real dangers or rewards. Anything that can grab the party's attention and hold it for a time can make an effective delay, even an empty room in a castle or dungeon complex. Delays might seem like a general waste of time and a source of player frustration at first glance, and that is just what they are when they're overused. However, they can be very effective if used sparingly and thoughtfully.
Delays are very useful for controlling magic in the campaign; they eat up game time and exhaust the durations of nonpermanent magical effects the party might be using. To keep players from becoming bored, it is best to introduce delays that consume lots of game time, but very little real time. For example, searching a 10' x 10' section of wall for a secret door requires a full turn (10 minutes) of game time; most other searches and close inspections proceed at similar rates. However, it only takes a few seconds of playing time to resolve the search.
Delays also are useful for keeping players on their toes. If everything the party
encounters is valuable, dangerous, or significant to the plot, the players don't have to give much thought to their actions—going over everything they find with a fine-toothed comb is the prudent thing to do. If, however, most intriguing things the party finds turn out to be nothing special, the players quickly learn to use some judgment about how they use their game time.
Delays also serve to vary an adventure's pace. A few innocuous breaks in the action give players and their characters time to relax a bit. These pauses also tend to encourage role-playing by giving players opportunities to explore aspects of their characters that are not directly linked to success or survival. Even the most ardent mineral collector, for example, isn't going to be terribly interested in the surrounding rocks if an army of 1,000 orcs is descending on his location.
==Dilemma==
The encounter forces the player characters to choose between two or more alternatives, both equally attractive or equally undesirable.
A dilemma can really get players' hearts pounding when they have to make a decision quickly and with minimal forethought. It is best if the potential rewards and consequences are immediately apparent—such as life or death for the PCs or an important NPC. For example, the player characters find themselves on a demiplane where their spells and magical items work erratically and sometimes misfire dangerously. While exploring, they are caught in a small room with a sphere of annihilation in pursuit. Do the PCs try to control the sphere (not always a safe task), exit through a magical portal to an unknown destination, or teleport out of danger (and risk a misfire)?
A moral dilemma can help shape the players' views of the campaign world and force them to examine their characters' deepest convictions and emotions. For example, consider what might happen if the party finds an orphaned drow child in the wilderness. As DM, you know if the child is born to be evil or if alignment is something that has to be nurtured over time; perhaps the child is naturally inclined to become chaotic evil but can learn to follow another alignment. What does the party do with the child? Abandon it? Adopt it? Kill it? The choice could spark a lively debate among characters of different alignments.
Note that high-level player characters might frequently be called upon to make determinations that fall within the gray areas of their experience. Right or wrong, the PCs' decisions could profoundly shape commoners' attitudes toward the world. Other powerful mortals and even the gods themselves also note the heroes' decisions and judge the PCs accordingly.
==Event==
The player characters witness something noteworthy occurring. Anything that happens more or less on its own, without direct involvement from the PCs or obvious involvement from the adventure's villain, can be considered an event: storms, celebrations, vast natural disasters, brawls between minor NPCs, etc. The PCs might be swept up in the event in spite of themselves, or they might be observers who can choose to stand aloof; however, it is best to avoid events where the player characters are forced to be passive observers.
Events are useful tools for advancing an adventure's plot. The DM can use them to provide clues and warnings to the PCs. For example, if the party has stumbled into an area where magic no longer works properly, a simple event such as an avalanche or blizzard might prompt them to employ a spell or magical item which fails, which in turn gives them fair warning that they must depend on their wits for the rest of the adventure.
Events are also useful for providing a little terror or excitement during an otherwise dull stretch in an adventure. For example, a party of high-level characters flying over a desert might believe they have an uneventful trip ahead of them until a killer sandstorm forces them to take shelter.
A swift stream of events can disguise a single crucial incident or interaction, leaving the PCs mired in a situation before they know it. For example, the party is attending a fair when they witness a brawl. Cooler heads prevail and a singing contest, with the PCs as contestants or judges, gets started. The music prompts a few onlookers to begin dancing, and several comely locals offer to shake a leg with the PCs. Afterward, one of the locals spins a tall tale. Some time during the string of events, perhaps during the brawl or the dance, a pickpocket steals a crucial item from the party. The search for the culprit is on when the PCs finally notice the loss.
==Guardian==
The encounter features a creature or trap that must be dealt with before the party can proceed. Cerberus, the multi-headed dog that guards the underworld in Greek mythology, is the quintessential guardian. Sometimes bypassing or ignoring a guardian is the best way to deal with it.
To be effective against high-level player characters, guardians must have defenses powerful enough to withstand at least a few rounds of a major offensive and enough firepower to make players think twice about attacking in the first place. The ability to detect invisible or disguised intruders is very useful for guardians.
==Interaction==
This encounter turns on the ability of the party to have some sort of dialog with an NPC. The player characters might need to conduct a negotiation, ask directions, or otherwise establish communication. An interaction creates a good role-playing opportunity for the DM—who gets to play the NPC and might have an excellent chance to really ham it up—and tests players' communication skills.
Interactions are an excellent way to impart information that a party needs to continue with an adventure or solve a mystery. However, there is no reason why getting the necessary information has to be easy. At the very least, the player's should have to be shrewd enough to ask the right questions. More difficult interactions might require the player characters to bribe, intimidate, or trick the NPC.
Interactions often go awry if the player characters are inclined to be distrustful or to attack everything they meet. This is not necessarily a bad thing if the DM wants to break aggressive PCs of their bloodthirsty habits. The local wise woman, for example, might be a disagreeable old wizardess who has a sweet tooth and who knows that some nearby ruins are infested with olive slime creatures.
A gift of honey or some ripe fruit is enough to get the lady's information. Parties who fail to win her over must face the slime creatures unawares. Parties who kill her discover the old woman's 60-year-old journals, which mistakenly report that the slime creatures are normal zombies. Characters who wade into combat with the slime creatures expecting to encounter normal zombies are in for shock no matter how powerful they are.
==Obstacle==
This encounter features a barrier of some sort that the party must bypass or cross before they can proceed. Common obstacles include natural barriers such as chasms, mountains, rivers of molten lava, and the like. Passive wards and protective spells, such as walls of force can be considered obstacles.
Obstacles are not usually effective when high-level characters are involved, because they usually have access to enough spells and abilities to deal with them quickly. Obstacles, however, serve to use up a party's resources and are very effective when combined with a combat encounter. A mile-deep chasm might not pose much of a threat to a party of 15th-level characters all by itself, but it could prove quite a hassle if the far side were occupied by a tribe of stone giants hiding behind cover while they hurl rocks at the PCs. A pair of beholders lurking in the chasm effectively negate magical means to cross the crevasse, though the first character who makes the attempt is likely to discover this the hard way.
==Puzzle==
This is a noncombat encounter that tests the players' mental skills in some fashion. Most puzzles involve logic, memory, or creativity. The riddle game included in J.R.R. Tolkien's novel, The Hobbit, represents one kind of puzzle encounter.
Puzzles are an excellent way to make players rely on themselves rather than on their characters' abilities. The best puzzles fit your game's atmosphere; word plays on pop music lyrics or Disney movie titles aren't a good approach to puzzle making unless you are playing the adventure for laughs.
You can add some tension to a puzzle encounter by combining it with a trap—the characters suffer damage or a magical effect if they give an incorrect response—or guardian—which attacks if the correct answer is not provided.
==Skirmish==
A short combat encounter (20–30 minutes of play time) is designed to consume time and inflict minor damage. Skirmishes are best used to break up dull stretches and to keep players on their toes.
Intelligent foes employ skirmishes to soften up the party and get a clearer picture of their abilities before committing themselves to a major combat encounter.
==Surprise==
This is typically a combat encounter that tests the party's ability to react quickly to an unanticipated situation. Surprises usually are difficult to avoid because the player characters don't know where or when they are going to occur.
Surprises should be used very sparingly; player frustration sets in quickly if the heroes are constantly getting ambushed. When planning a surprise encounter, consider a few things the player characters might do to uncover the surprise before they blunder into it. For example, if an ogre mage and its band of mercenary trolls await the PCs around a bend in a forest road, an alert party might spot the group's gargoyle scouts hiding in the trees and signaling to their comrades.
==Trap==
This is a noncombat encounter that employs a magical or mechanical device (or both) designed inflict damage or impede the party in some fashion.
When designing any trap, consider how the device is triggered, how potential victims might detect the trap before triggering it, and what parties can do to deactivate it. You should also consider what happens when an attempt to deactivate the trap fails.
When designing traps for high-level player characters, it is best to avoid devices that inflict large amounts of damage. Damage often can be ignored—an 18th-level fighter with 120 hit points often doesn't have to worry about suffering 20 or 30 points of damage from a trap. In any case, damage is usually easily healed if there is a priest or paladin in the party. Also, keep in mind that hit point totals can vary widely within an adventuring party. A trap that can inflict enough damage to make a high-level fighter or cleric take notice can be deadly if the party thief or mage stumbles into it.
Instead of dealing out damage in large doses, concentrate on special effects that hinder victims in some fashion. For example, a collapsing staircase that dumps the PCs into individual, sealed chambers might cause great consternation and should force at least some characters to think hard before they can get free. A magical trap that turns the victim into a small elephant might resist the party's attempts to dispel the effect for quite some time. Meanwhile, the character suffers from a fear of rodents and must eat and drink prodigiously. Clever players might discover that the elephant's trunk is useful for wielding tools or weapons, but not for spellcasting.