Firefly Games
First Post
I'm working on a (non-commercial) dungeon, & looking for inspiration for one of the encounters. What's the best low-level stirge encounter you've played, DM'd, or read? Thanks! 
Best Stirge Encounter?
- Thread starter Firefly Games
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GwydapLlew
First Post
Stirges using the swarm rules. They are truly disgusting.
JiffyPopTart
Bree-Yark
Some stirges in old-school magical darkness.
Adventurer 1: Hey, do you hear all those bats.
Adventurer 2: Bats, whew, I thought we were going to have a battle on our hands!
Adventurers: AAAAGH!
DS
Adventurer 1: Hey, do you hear all those bats.
Adventurer 2: Bats, whew, I thought we were going to have a battle on our hands!
Adventurers: AAAAGH!
DS
Mycanid
First Post
There was one module (home brew) I went through that had us traveling through a swamp at one point. While mucking about we would periodically run into some of them until at one point we ran into a tree broken in half and almost hollowed out in which the queen stirge was living. This was 1e days mind you, and we had never run across a stirge queen. We were messed up big time by her before finally taking her down....
Not too "unique" I'll warrant ... but it is an answer to the question at least.
Not too "unique" I'll warrant ... but it is an answer to the question at least.
I can't say I've played, DMed, or read a really good stirge encounter, but one of the first ideas to pop into my head is a room full of skeletons who grapple and chain (or tie) down their victims, whom the stirges then attack in earnest. The dried husks of the last party are still there.Firefly Games said:
I'd suggest that stirges are best used as combination monsters, ideally with something that would logically get along with the stirges.
Take something that isn't ordinarily a killer, but that IS a big damage-disher. Say, a medium or large earth elemental (which has no blood and doesn't eat, and thus isn't going to attack or be attacked by the stirges most of the time).
Against a party of five fifth-level people or four sixth-level people, a single large earth elemental isn't a killer. One or two tanks soak damage while everyone else whomps on it from afar, and in a few rounds, the tanks are injured, but the elemental is dead.
When that elemental is accompanied by 8 stirges, though, and the stirges swoop down right into the party's midst, two things happen:
1) Distraction and lost rounds -- people spend time trying to kill the thing with three hit points instead of going after Mister Rocky, which gives Mister Rocky more chances to do those lovely 2d8+7 points of damage per hit.
2) Lower hit points -- if the party's tank has been drained for 8 points of Constitution by a pair of very happy stirges, he's just lost 20 hit points (assuming 5th level). The tank now has a much harder time standing up against that elemental, even if his friends are doing back-rank artillery just as much as usual.
I discovered this by accident in a fight that turned out to be much deadlier than I'd wanted or expected -- 12 stirges plus four hellhounds was very nearly a TPK for a 9th-level party.
Take something that isn't ordinarily a killer, but that IS a big damage-disher. Say, a medium or large earth elemental (which has no blood and doesn't eat, and thus isn't going to attack or be attacked by the stirges most of the time).
Against a party of five fifth-level people or four sixth-level people, a single large earth elemental isn't a killer. One or two tanks soak damage while everyone else whomps on it from afar, and in a few rounds, the tanks are injured, but the elemental is dead.
When that elemental is accompanied by 8 stirges, though, and the stirges swoop down right into the party's midst, two things happen:
1) Distraction and lost rounds -- people spend time trying to kill the thing with three hit points instead of going after Mister Rocky, which gives Mister Rocky more chances to do those lovely 2d8+7 points of damage per hit.
2) Lower hit points -- if the party's tank has been drained for 8 points of Constitution by a pair of very happy stirges, he's just lost 20 hit points (assuming 5th level). The tank now has a much harder time standing up against that elemental, even if his friends are doing back-rank artillery just as much as usual.
I discovered this by accident in a fight that turned out to be much deadlier than I'd wanted or expected -- 12 stirges plus four hellhounds was very nearly a TPK for a 9th-level party.
This was an encounter in a published adventure [dont know the name of the module tho];
A tall shaft underground, with several railless walkways crossing it and snaking up and down along the walls. Large pool of water can be seen below. Stirges attack as party is crossing a walkway. Our low int fighter gets swamped and decides fighting them off one at a time isnt effective. So he jumps off the walkway to the pool below. While he manages to drown a few, he only barely manages to avoid drowning himself. He crawls out of the pool and encounters the monsters down there, as the rest of the party manages to down the rest of the stirges.
Encounter wasnt epic, but was memorable. Left us separated and drained.
Other totally lame stirge encounter; low level party sees several stirges in a bunch, wizard gets high init, casts sleep, combat over.
Terrain can really change an encounter. So can having one group of monsters near another, as one simple encounter grows into something bigger. And dont have your stirges all bunched up, then they are just spell bait. Flying, ability draining stirges can be a good way to challenge a low level party in an different way.
A tall shaft underground, with several railless walkways crossing it and snaking up and down along the walls. Large pool of water can be seen below. Stirges attack as party is crossing a walkway. Our low int fighter gets swamped and decides fighting them off one at a time isnt effective. So he jumps off the walkway to the pool below. While he manages to drown a few, he only barely manages to avoid drowning himself. He crawls out of the pool and encounters the monsters down there, as the rest of the party manages to down the rest of the stirges.
Encounter wasnt epic, but was memorable. Left us separated and drained.
Other totally lame stirge encounter; low level party sees several stirges in a bunch, wizard gets high init, casts sleep, combat over.
Terrain can really change an encounter. So can having one group of monsters near another, as one simple encounter grows into something bigger. And dont have your stirges all bunched up, then they are just spell bait. Flying, ability draining stirges can be a good way to challenge a low level party in an different way.
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