Scales of War: Adventurers On Ice!

In my short time of playing this edition, I’ve noticed a trend in WotC‘s published adventures. While most people I talk to seem to agree that encounters one, two, or even three levels higher than the PC’s are pretty much the norm, given how resilient a party of heroes can be, the published modules tend to put a heavy coat of icing on that layer cake.

Sometimes literally!

-When Terrain Features Attack!

Really, when you get down to it, the concept of an encounter that takes place in extreme conditions is kind of cool. Imagine an epic swordfight, atop the ramparts of an old keep, rain pouring down and lightning flashing in the distance. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it?

You can imagine the difficulties of fighting in the rain, as well as extreme wind and other factors. Characters using the environment in unusual ways, be it swinging from chandeliers to pulling off crazy Parkour-style acrobatics to out-maneuver their enemies.

And yet, what usually happens when you create a battle with cool terrain features is that they tend to benefit Team Monster, and just make things harder for our heroes. For example:

-The heroes are crossing a lake on a raft, when they are attacked by lake monsters and water elementals!

-The heroes must fight in a meteorite crater, coated in lush, strange vegetation that snares those who pass near, pits of clinging mud, and a fast-moving stream of water, rushing down into an unknown cavern!

-A phase-spider lair, coated with thick webbing, slender web-bridges suspended over a deep pool of water. In the pool, mysterious glowing rocks burn those who come near, and green slime coats the walls…

In all of these cases, you can see what the designer was going for. It certainly sounds cooler than “you enter a 30′ x 30′ chamber. Before you, you see three Orcs. Roll for initiative.”

The problem, unfortunately, is that the DM knows what he (or she) is dealing with, and generally, so do the monsters. So you get battles with skirmishers or artillery, who use the terrain to their advantage. Meanwhile, the players usually have no idea what’s going on until it’s too late.

I, for one, tend to see an encounter as a strategic and tactical challenge. What kinds of situations are you prepared for? How can you overcome the obstacles and defeat your enemies?

Unfortunately, it’s hard to plan around unknown variables; there’s a reason they call it the fog of war!

Which brings us to tonight’s wacky hijinks.

The first encounter took place in a large ice cave. There were two tunnels burrowed through the ice leading out of the chamber, and a crevice in the floor, riddled with smaller tunnels. In the crevice were a pair of Umber Hulks. The Umber Hulk is a bizarre creature, heralding back to the days of First Edition. It’s roughly humanoid, the size of an Ogre, it’s body covered in thick, chitinous armor, kind of like a cross between a gorilla and a beetle. It has beetle-like jaws, and it’s hands end in vicious claws. As if this wasn’t enough, a combination of it’s bizarre appearance and some kind of psionic talent gives it the ability to daze it’s foes.

I was expecting these guys to be tough, but they weren’t too bad. They had a lot of hit points, but generally weren’t much of a threat. I was lucky to avoid being dazed, however; by rights, I should have been, every time, with Bonesnap’s horrible Will defense!

But during the battle, there were omens of more enemies to come. I thought maybe more Hulks, but it was not to be. Instead, a Purple Worm appeared from one of the tunnels, crashing it’s way into the room!

These things are nasty; they can simply swallow you whole, and, if they think you need to be tenderized more, spit you as a projectile attack! Also, when you hurt them, they thrash around, sliding those near them away. In both cases, right into the deep crevice in the floor. Ouch!

Against such a beast, we had no choice; we had to use our Daily powers. I used Blade Cascade for the first time, and did 109 damage. It was far from my best effort, but I didn’t hear any complaints, either!

After that, we debated on whether or not to rest and regain our powers. Since we knew there was a dragon up ahead, it was decided to try and take on one last encounter with the resources we had left.

We entered the largest chamber we’d seen to date, dominated by a fast-moving underground river, which churned up a dense mist from it’s roiling surface, and above us, an ice bridge. At first, it looked as if the only way up would be to climb the side of an ice cliff, and we wasted our first turn debating how to go proceed.

Oh and as I’d seen last time, we had Frost Giants standing on the ice bridge. With bows.

-At the beginning of the session, Josh had noted that Bonesnap hadn’t actually snuck around while invisible, but instead the potion had given him a vision of what lay up ahead. I didn’t ask why he’d made this decision; given the fact that the Umber Hulks had tremorsense, however, I took it as his comment about my attempt at advance recon.

I’d gotten a freebie. So no more stealth ops, at least for now.

The frost giants were apparently old ‘friends’ of the party, which did not bode well. While we debated, they simply took readied actions, which meant that once we got moving, it hurt like hell. Limiting mobility is another theme I’ve picked up on from my recent adventures; the giants had an area attack (hurling a shard of ice) that slowed*, and a single shot from their bows could immobilize (save ends).

*Actually, in addition to being slowed, you were also prevented from making immediate actions. This attack seemed designed to shut down the Fighter class, in particular. I’m not sure why that’s necessary, really. There’s already a ton of ways to challenge the Defender in perfectly ordinary fights!

I’d noted that the ice bridge actually served as cover; if we were directly under it, the giants couldn’t attack us. I’d considered moving forward under the bridge until we reached a spot where we could climb. The flaw of this plan was that the giants would likely anticipate our movements. So we needed a distraction.

Chuck volunteered, and decided to have Turk leap across the river. In mid-air, however, he was subjected to another ‘cool’ terrain feature. The mist clung to his body, causing ice to form. This had the effect of reducing his speed by one for every square he moved through the mist.

Which meant that even as he moved forward, he was being robbed of his momentum…in mid-leap! Magic-1, Physics-0!

He barely made it across, and his speed was seriously penalized. Now that he was past the mist, he could see stairs, hewn into the ice-covered cliff face. And a pair of winter wolves.

Ah winter wolves, another perennial favorite. Big, intelligent wolves that can breathe frozen mist on you. Ironic, given our encounter with the Big Bad Wolf in Chuck’s Rejects campaign, but also quite nasty.

Chuck was quickly in trouble, so we needed a plan B. Bonesnap may not be the smartest Bugbear around, but he’s very good at lateral thinking. As demonstrated by his simple decision to pick up Edrick (apologies if I spelled that wrong, Matt) and hurl him across the river as an improvised thrown weapon!

Josh let it fly (heh), and soon Matt was flying Bonesnap Airlines. Next turn, he was joined by Jeff’s Cleric, leaving Bonesnap all alone…slowed and hurting!

So I did what any Bugbear lacking a ranged attack would do. I moved into the mist and hid!

Machado, our Sorceress (being played by proxy by Matt), decided to blindly fire a blast across the river. Josh didn’t quite smirk (take it from me, do not play poker with this man!), but sure enough, both enemy and ally alike were blasted by Machado’s frozen goodness…and given vulnerability to cold to boot!

This really isn’t a good place to be a master of cold magicks, let me tell you!

Then she used a utility to teleport herself across. The battle was going poorly, but since I was still slowed (and forced to use a healing surge), Bonesnap didn’t do much for a few turns, as he maneuvered under the ice bridge, and reached the cliff face.

The winter wolves proved to be damn tough, and it was obvious they needed an extra Striker. But I was hunting bigger game; those darned giants! I climbed up the wall and charged the leader of the giants (who seemed to be a Controller), hoping to pin her in place with my Shocking Assault Daily.

I missed. Doh! It’s a reliable power, thankfully, so I didn’t expend it, but then she turned around and slid me off the ice bridge. It was a long way to the bottom, but Bonesnap’s Acrobatics saved him from the worst of it.

-When I log onto the official forums, I see a lot of complaints about Acrobatics. Some people see it as a fairly fringe ability, that doesn’t do much in the average game session, unlike it’s beefier brother, Athletics.

I tend to disagree. DM’s are a sneaky bunch, and just as they love to make you climb, jump, and swim beyond obstacles, they also love to see you fall. So if you don’t think you’ll ever need to reduce falling damage, or keep your balance on a slick surface…you have no idea how wrong you are!

It’s a rare character who can have both Acrobatics and Athletics, but it’s a really nice combo. Plus, the Acrobatics Skill Powers are really nice to have!

Undaunted, however, Bonesnap climbed up again. By this point, the party had finally made it to the steps, having slain the wolves. It had been slow going (no pun intended), but we were committed. We were going to kill these giants, or die trying.

I reached into Bonesnap’s bag of tricks and pulled out Strength of Earth, a strange encounter power that allows you to spring into the air to attack your enemy. It’s technically a counter for flying enemies, but this time I used it to leap onto the bridge and smack the frost giant leader and knock her prone.

Or just kill her, in this case.

The final giant was hard to catch, as he started running up the slope of the bridge. Acrobatics checks were necessary each turn to maintain forward momentum, so other than ranged attacks, only Bonesnap could pursue.

Machado tried to use Thunder Leap to make a booster jump, but the bridge was too high, and her hooves couldn’t find much purchase on the ice (one of the big strikes against Minotaur adventurers!).

I was able to close with the final giant. “Now I have you”, I thought. If he used his bow, I’d get an opportunity attack. If he moved, the same. And if he shifted, I still had my immediate action attack from Battle Awareness!

To my shock, he fired, point-blank. I went for the opportunity attack, and Josh said “no, sorry, he doesn’t provoke”.

Guh. I hate it when the monsters don’t fight fair. Artillery is supposed to be weak against melee, that’s the whole point! Yeah, I know, players can get a similar ability, but it doesn’t make it sting any less. So I got knocked down to one lousy hit point, and ongoing 5 cold.

But though he be a tough God, Josh is also a fair one, and gave me an opportunity attack as the giant moved away. Heavy Blade Opportunity-Twin Strike ftw. The giant went down. And a round later, so did I (razzle-frazzle ongoing damage).

Luckily, my body slid down the bridge, and they were able to stabilize the mighty Bonesnap, so that he can fight another day.

Despite our hardships, though, I had a good feeling after this session. I mean, I knew it was going to be tough, and I’d come to terms with my initial reactions to the way published encounters are built. I’m still not too keen on being stapled to the floor, or “air-juggled” like I’ve been transported into a bad fighting game, but I’m starting to see how the game got to this point. In the two years or so that 4th Edition has been running, the vast array of options players get to choose from has allowed them to create versatile characters who have many ways to make a monster simply worthless or dead.

A good Controller (which, sadly, our Scales group lacks) can trivialize a lot of Encounters. I can imagine that a lot of DM’s feel like they unable to challenge their players, and I’ve heard people complain about encounters being “too easy”.

Bah. If it’s “too easy”, you either did something right or you got lucky. And if the players get off light, well, there’s always next time. Over the course of a campaign, players will face many battles, and be attacked many times. Probability states that every group will eventually face a truly challenging encounter.

But yeah, sitting around doing nothing is about as much fun for the DM as it is the players, so, again, I can see how we got to this point. It does make the battles fairly swingy, though, which is something I’ve never cared for as a DM. I’m nervous that my first 4th Edition campaign will slaughter my players, something I haven’t been worried about in a long time.

But it’s like I said before. The stories where the heroes are the underdogs are usually the best. And it’s when the players face adversity that you get the truly epic moments, which this session had quite a few of!

Thanks to my party for letting me claim the level 17 item from the treasure, by the way. A Dwarven Thrower Khopesh +4 means that I can finally put the “range” in my Ranger. Here’s hoping it will be enough…

Related articles

• Bonesnap’s Reflections: A Scales of War Adventure (weebeegamers.com)
• First look at the Frost Giants from Marvel’s Thor [Frost Giants] (io9.com)
• More One Page Dungeons Used from Alex Schroeder: RecentChanges (emacswiki.org)