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Run for cover game mechanic help
Hey OP!
My next game session is tomorrow night, but I've been so slammed at work that I haven't had the energy to plan for it when I get home. The good news is that my players are on a specific mission, so I don't need to worry too much about the evening jumping the rails. The bad news is that I need to come up with a custom game mechanic for what will likely be the 2nd encounter of the night.
Here's the situation: The party will be traversing the Plane of Shadow in a region known to be the hunting grounds for a Nightwing (CR14). I wanted my players to have to deal with something too powerful to fight for once (They are all level 8 with an effective party level of 9 or so.)
Since the fly speed of a nightwing is significantly faster than anyone but the monk, and it is pretty much guaranteed to hit if it catches someone in the open, I figure their best bet is to dash from full cover to full cover. That way, they only need to deal with any shadows it summons, as long as they time their dashes.
I want to come up with a mechanic for quickly generating areas of cover. and the distance between them so that I don't have to draw a map of the entire route. Any recommendations or thoughts?
My next game session is tomorrow night, but I've been so slammed at work that I haven't had the energy to plan for it when I get home. The good news is that my players are on a specific mission, so I don't need to worry too much about the evening jumping the rails. The bad news is that I need to come up with a custom game mechanic for what will likely be the 2nd encounter of the night.
Here's the situation: The party will be traversing the Plane of Shadow in a region known to be the hunting grounds for a Nightwing (CR14). I wanted my players to have to deal with something too powerful to fight for once (They are all level 8 with an effective party level of 9 or so.)
Since the fly speed of a nightwing is significantly faster than anyone but the monk, and it is pretty much guaranteed to hit if it catches someone in the open, I figure their best bet is to dash from full cover to full cover. That way, they only need to deal with any shadows it summons, as long as they time their dashes.
I want to come up with a mechanic for quickly generating areas of cover. and the distance between them so that I don't have to draw a map of the entire route. Any recommendations or thoughts?
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However, I think I managed to come up with a system that should work, and which seems similar to your 2nd method.
First, there are two preset waypoints, a sewer exit followed by a ruined section of city wall. After crossing the wall, there is a 50% chance the nightwing will show up each round (just to potentially allow them to be lulled into a sense of false security before it shows up.) They already know it's out there, BTW.
Then, I created a table for the types of cover they are likely to find 2d6 generates:
Cover:
2. Crowd
3. Cellar door (open)
4. House (ruin)
5. Shop (ruin)
6. Alley (Ruined walls) House (intact)
7. Alley (intact)
8. Shop (intact)
9. House (intact)
10. Colonnade / wall
11. Cellar door (closed)
12. Park (trees)
Followed by a random distance & difficult terrain calculation. For the distance calc, I selected a number that was between a single move for my slowest characters, and a double move for the fastest. In order to cross longer distances safely, the faster members of the party may need to draw the nightwing's attention so the slower members can clear longer gaps without getting totally jacked.
Distance Between:
2d6 x 10 ft. with % dice of difficult terrain
Oh, I think I should also create a way to generate the size of the span of overhead cover. probably 1d4 with 1 being a 10x10 area and 4 being 40x40.
I figure about 10 of these dashes between cover while being swooped at by a giant undead bat should make for a harrowing crossing.
Last time I tried to run something like this my party insisted (over my not-so-subtle hints) that they should just fight the thing. I don't really like to kill PC's, but sometimes they are beyond help. It didn't help that the beastie rolled very poorly in the first few rounds, so they thought they were doing well.
The group did take their sweet time entering the room serving as the gateway before the run, for which they had to be penalized. They wanted to let the paladin recover from the Touch of Fatigue effect to which she had been subjected. The three minutes they spent dawdling let the vamps in the gateway room set up a defensive barricade of barrels, tables, etc. and send one of their number through the portal to set a bonfire in the plane of shadow that would draw out the nightwing, should the party make it through. As a result, the dash across the plane of shadow began with the nightwing right off the bat... get it? bat?
Anyway, some decent knowledge religion and knowledge planes checks was all it took to convince the group that they should run for it rather than trying to fight the creature. Most of the sprints between cover are turning out to be just beyond a double move for most players. I've been letting them do full runs (x3 or 4 speed depending on armor), because the nightwing is fast and proving to be enough of a challenge. The overall effect has been just what I was going for. Legitimate fear of something they can't battle toe-to-toe. Softening up of the characters' defenses without destroying the group before the main invasion of the vamps' base of operations (The primary objective). Aaand, a combat-style encounter that forces the group to think tactically (time their dashes between cover) & work together as a group (tougher characters looking out for squishy ones.)
Highlights:
Two of the party members succumbed to a confusion effect just short of a hiding place. When the confused rogue started attempting to beat on the nightwing with a quarterstaff, the paladin wisely decided to grapple her and wrestle her into the nearby storefront. Our warblade did a similar thing with the sorceress who was just standing there babbling. It took a bit before the cleric realized that Confusion was a mind-affecting compulsion, which could be suppressed by protection from evil. In the mean time, the nightwing got some solid hits in on the group, though everyones' magic weapons and armor successfully saved against its magic drain effects.
I think the best tactical roleplaying of the night was done by the bard, who used a successful diplomacy vs. will save to taunt the nightwing towards his position behind a protective colonnade. This drew the nightwing away from the main group who were still wrestling with the confused characters and forced it to land in order to attack, thus slowing the distance it could cover in the next round when it took off again.
We did end up stopping the session with the group about halfway through the run, but it was the second of two dice intensive encounters for the night and they had already been through about 8 rounds of nightwing madness. I think I will generate the rest of the main route ahead of time in order to save me from having to roll the details of the next bit of cover mid-session when we play again.