If you’re anything like me, you’ve taken a look at combat in 4E, with all the different stat blocks and monster roles and status effects, and wished it could be a little more complex. Sure, we all enjoy tracking a million different numbers for a table full of shouting, whining jerks, but how can we dress this lunatic salad with creamy chaos? Anyone feel like a three-way?
A couple months ago, I played in a one-shot where our party engaged a mind flayer and his drooling thralls, and right as the battle was heating up, a trio of drow appeared and attacked all of us. Apparently, the mind flayer hadn’t cleaned out the dryer lint trap or had put in the toilet paper upside down (it’s Real World: Underdark), so now we the party found ourselves in the middle of a massive, thrilling, and completely wild battle, with our allies changing from round to round. First, the mind flayer gave a psychic enema to the drow necromancer (yay!), but then seized our dwarf fighter and tried to gnaw on his gray matter (boo!).
If you’re going to run a combat like this, I’d recommend building the two enemy sides at LVL+1 or LVL+2, maybe just a little higher than a standard encounter, and clearly determine the motivations of both sides prior to rolling any dice. Otherwise, you’ll be tempted to gang up on the party, and probably slaughter them. In our encounter, the drow were hunting the mind flayer for some wrong or other, and we the party were just in their way. While they weren’t focusing on us, they didn’t go out of their way to choose attacks judiciously. Hey, if a burst or blast included us, what’s the big deal? They had no interest in sharing e-mail addresses or becoming BFFs, so once the mind flayer’s thralls started falling, the drow started targeting us on purpose.
This was tremendously fun, scary, and nutty, and I was very impressed with the DM’s ability to manage everything that was going on. One of my favorite parts of 4E combat is its mobile and tactical nature, and this adds another facet to that experience, as you can never be entirely sure if you’re safe on all sides.
That is a very cool idea and I think I’ll steal it if you don’t mind. I have the perfect setting in mind for my campaign.
Thanks
@Mike Frizzell: By all means, steal away and adapt. I’d love to hear what you’re able to do with the concept.
By the way, the DM who originally ran this reminded me that we fought Rakshasas, not drow, lead by a sorcerer noble, not a necromancer, and it was a dwarf artificer, not a dwarf fighter. I have problems with memory, mostly because I have three kids and no working brain cells.
I ran my party through a similar encounter as the capstone encounter for the heroic tier of our current campaign. One side consisted of the Vampire BBEG and his undead allies that the party had spent most of the tier chasing. The other side was a force of aberrants from the Far Realm lead by a couple of mind flayers. The party was the juicy meat in between.
Each side was a few levels above the party’s (though the actual monsters were right around the party’s level) but I made sure that their attacks were spread evenly among the PCs and the other faction. The background was that the two sides were once allies but are now bitter enemies — each accusing the other of betrayal, etc.
Was a good time that the party still talks about and still wonders about how in the heck they survived.
@Gargs454: Wow, that’s sounds amazing. I can easily imagine it being a desperate encounter, something that’s only ratcheting up with the players’ voices just getting higher and higher.
@Dixon Trimline: Yeah I think everyone had a good time with it. It was definitely an encounter that I had to prepare for though. I had to make sure that the attacks were evenly distributed for instance and I had to know the powers of the different monsters ahead of time as opposed to just reading the stat block as their turn came up. Essentially, I decided ahead of time which monsters would attack which faction, adjusting only based on what the PCs did. Afterward one of the players said something along the lines of “I didn’t even know you HAD that many minis.”