Bust out the map: Terrain Experiments

So recently my party, "The Clearwater Knights" found themselves able to finish a retelling of an encounter with "and then we killed her with a boat!" And I was just as flabergasted when it happened as they were.

More after the jump.



Basically, the Knights were looking to reclaim some elementally powered fan boats (think Florida Everglades style boat) from a local extortionist/loan shark for a contact in town. I had originally planned the fight to be a "Waves" style combat, where not all the enemies are present at once, the show up at predetermined points throughout the combat. But during the roleplay that was to preceed this battle (or circumvent it if the PC's had found the right hitch) our Artificer decides to sneak out and get the boats himself.

Well it hit the fan then. But now the party was split - everyone was in a small building and the Artificer was rowing a dingy out to try and magically hot wire the fan boats. Soon some members of the party went after the Artificer splitting the party even more. It actually made the battle seem like a TPK, but instead of backing off, I made sure to stick to my guns and try to finish the PC's. That was when the inginuity to use the hot-wired boat as a weapon happened. Lucky there are ramming rules in the AV...

I can tell you this, I never thought that encounter would go that way. And my first reaction was to do some "on the fly" modifications to the encounter to take into account the party splitting. But I guess that just goes to show you one thing: Players can be very very creative when they need to be.

Afterwards I had a look at that encounter and after some thought I came up with what I think made that session so great (aside from the fact that they killed an enemy by ramping a fan boat off a dock into her chest) So on this installment of Bust out the map, we'll talk about how this kind of thing could happen at your table.

Lots of times when battle starts, players begin to crunch numbers. They go into what I call "game mode." Basically what I mean is that players vision becomes squares, powers, and attack bonuses. Although you may place some cool features in your battle map like difficult terrain, ropes to swing from, or teleportation squares; most players will break the map down into a grid that has "Walkable" and "Non-walkable" spaces, and the scenery becomes "fluff." And its understandable, a player puts most of their prep time for the game into building their characters mechanics for combat.

So lately I have been trying to crack that "game mode" shell. Not that I want my players to start heavy roleplay during combat - quite the opposite, when combat starts I want them to be absorbed into the combat - but what I am aiming for is to break them out of "game mode" enough to see the other options available on the board.

Here is how I have been attempting to do this:
1) Place interesting things on the map. Breaking the players out of "game mode" is no good if there is no reason to look at other options. Make sure you place enough stuff that there is a variety of options, and make sure they are sufficiently awesome when used - so that when you describe the objects being used the player not only got a mechanical benefit from utilizing a terrain feature but also got a great visual of their character.
2) Give a great description of the features you think the players should be looking at. If at all possible make something physical to represent the thing your showing them. In the session mentioned above, I drew the cranes on a seperate sheet of paper and cut them out. I pinned them to my map with push pins and allowed them to rotate.
3) Make the monsters use them when possible. Monsters rarely have anything really interesting to do, the usually blow their encounter powers off and then grind down to basics. So have them know how best to use their environment, and describe it in an interesting way. Perhaps the Orcs that live in this cave know that if you shoot the stalagmites they fall, so they lure the PC's to the right spot, and then unleash the stalagmites on them. It will only happen once before the PC's figure it out - but now they can use the same trick! Sorta illustrating the useage of the feature to the PC's will enable the players to feel more confident about using the features in their strategy. 
4) Play your monsters like a living being. I am going to write an entire article on this point later (making a note now) but for this one, before each movement try to get into the monster's head. With the above Orcs, they know that the stalagmites are dangerous to stand under, but perhaps that is a secondary concern at this point because there are 5 people hurling fireballs and swinging swords at their heads. So they retreat to a spot that happens to be under some stalagmites! Time to turn the tables on them PC's!
5) And lastly, try to make the terrain features something that is easy to use.Things that function when an enemy is pushed into them are great for controllers, and features that enable extra movement for no more than a simple move action are most strikers best friends. Basically, make the features something that could just add onto the things the players would be doing that turn anyway.
I am just starting to experiment with these concepts myself, but they were the things that I saw about the "killed her with a boat" session that made it stand out from the rest.

Give it a try and let me know how it went!