Fieari
Explorer
I thought a thread describing, not stats, but the IDEAS for Epic Level Encounters might be fun. I don't mean overall plots, but individual encounters with a particular challenge. Not just the monster in question, but what makes the tactical encounter with that monster INTERESTING.
Let me start with one I plan to run tonight.
The Shadow Flame
--------------------
An Elder Psuedonatural Horror is locked in battle with a deity of at least intermediate stature. The thing itself is mostly immobile, a tendriled flame glowing various sickly colors, in the center of the room attempting to climb out of a vast pit. If any being casts a shadow from this light, they will begin to sicken, and soon their shadows will come to life to try to kill them and replace them.
The god has countered this by causing the walls of the cavern to glow brightly, filling any shadow cast from the central flame and thus preventing the danger. However, dark eldritch "things" continuously exit from the flame, which not only block the light from the outer walls if they can, but actively dispel the light in bits and pieces.
Already, the god is fighting a few of its own shadows AS WELL as the eldritch horrors AS WELL as the flame itself, but alone, it cannot hope to succeed... because the horror is a creature of Shadow, of the Future, and destroying one only destroys one possible configuration of it. Kill it, and it merely changes. As long as there are new shapes it can form, it cannot be destroyed, merely contained.
If the god were to give up, the horror would flood the world in its light, casting all existence into the shadow...
To Defeat: The Players must keep moving, and move carefully, to avoid the eldritch minions' shadows about the landscape. They must continue killing the minions or all the counter-light will go out, but the minions will keep coming-- infinite spawn. They must also deal with the various shadows that DO come alive, or die.
The players must learn, or figure out, that the flame can be shaped into various platonic forms from which it constructs its other possibilities-- this may take the use of an artifact or other quest object, but that's not the concern of THIS encounter (Assume they have the tools needed). If they deplete the flame's HP without this knowledge, it will infinitely respawn at full health once dropped to 0. If they do figure it out, they must hold the flame into the 5 smallest platonic forms via skill checks-- 4 sided, 6 sided, 8 sided, 12 sided, and 20 sided.
Let me start with one I plan to run tonight.
The Shadow Flame
--------------------
An Elder Psuedonatural Horror is locked in battle with a deity of at least intermediate stature. The thing itself is mostly immobile, a tendriled flame glowing various sickly colors, in the center of the room attempting to climb out of a vast pit. If any being casts a shadow from this light, they will begin to sicken, and soon their shadows will come to life to try to kill them and replace them.
The god has countered this by causing the walls of the cavern to glow brightly, filling any shadow cast from the central flame and thus preventing the danger. However, dark eldritch "things" continuously exit from the flame, which not only block the light from the outer walls if they can, but actively dispel the light in bits and pieces.
Already, the god is fighting a few of its own shadows AS WELL as the eldritch horrors AS WELL as the flame itself, but alone, it cannot hope to succeed... because the horror is a creature of Shadow, of the Future, and destroying one only destroys one possible configuration of it. Kill it, and it merely changes. As long as there are new shapes it can form, it cannot be destroyed, merely contained.
If the god were to give up, the horror would flood the world in its light, casting all existence into the shadow...
To Defeat: The Players must keep moving, and move carefully, to avoid the eldritch minions' shadows about the landscape. They must continue killing the minions or all the counter-light will go out, but the minions will keep coming-- infinite spawn. They must also deal with the various shadows that DO come alive, or die.
The players must learn, or figure out, that the flame can be shaped into various platonic forms from which it constructs its other possibilities-- this may take the use of an artifact or other quest object, but that's not the concern of THIS encounter (Assume they have the tools needed). If they deplete the flame's HP without this knowledge, it will infinitely respawn at full health once dropped to 0. If they do figure it out, they must hold the flame into the 5 smallest platonic forms via skill checks-- 4 sided, 6 sided, 8 sided, 12 sided, and 20 sided.