Hidden Kingdom Module Devblog: Encounter Design

One of the more important parts of writing a 4e module are the encounters. Not just combat encounters, but anything you consider significant enough to give XP to the PCs in the adventure. From the outset, I wanted to incorporate things into the encounters that perhaps, DMs just rule 0 in when the PCs ask about them, but I wanted to make it explicit that this is in an option, that everything is here for some reason. D&D 4e encounter advice always stresses terrain and objects and the surroundings as a key portion of the encounter, and in skill challenges stress that every PC have a use for their skills. I designed stuff with those ends specifically.

In combat encounters, I wanted it to be clear in the “Features of the Area” section that the PCs have some explicit uses for the things in the surroundings.

There’s a few barrels scattered around one of the maps, for example, and the PCs can use them to gain certain bonuses. A PC near a barrel of beer can drink from it to spend a healing surge and regain extra hit points. A PC near a barrel of weapons gets to regain use of an encounter power that has the weapon keyword. I gave the barrels powers so they’re more than just window dressing. In my editing, I also discovered I left out the most important power of them all – THROWING the barrels!

But the PCs aren’t always the ones with the advantage. In one of the early encounters, the enemy gets a steady stream of minion reinforcements. However, if the party Defender stands where the reinforcements spawn, he can stem the tide just by hanging out there chopping up minions – his presence shifts the reinforcement point so it spawns less minions, representing him cutting things up as they come out. Gotta love spawncamping.

The party can also coordinate with some NPCs that are huddling behind cover, and ask them to use their crossbows to try to hold back the monsters. This handled simply again – if the PCs coordinate this help, the amount of reinforcements is lowered, and that is it. The GM doesn’t have to roll extraneous attack rolls for the NPCs or anything.

As a perhaps unorthodox move, at one point in the adventure the encounters get harder than normal, to accommodate a companion NPC who will join the characters. There are two Companion NPCs, and the PCs decide which one they’ll go with. They have their advantages and disadvantages, and unique personalities and classes, as well as unique connections to the story. There are hooks based on them that might not be explored, but they’re there for GMs who want them. I can say that one is a Leader and one is a Defender, but I don’t want to go into their other traits too deeply. The PCs are also welcome to blow off the NPCs and go on their own – perhaps they appreciate the added challenge, or maybe they’re just deeply antisocial.

This ties into the social aspect of the module. There’s one rather large point in it that has no combat encounters, and is also not a skill challenge. In fact not much rolling will go on during it at all. The PCs explore the city and search for clues, performing minor tasks in exchange for information. Though a group that’s all about the combat has some guidelines there for adding more encounters (including a bar-room brawl), this section is meant to be about roleplaying.

I tried to strike a good balance here so each individual GM can roleplay what they want. Though I personally like adventures with very well-defined characters and personalities, and histories and such I can sink my teeth into, at the same time I acknowledge that many GMs change them or would rather have a looser framework. There’s also the fact that I simply don’t have the word count to define every single NPC the PCs can meet up with. So instead I give enough description of each important place the PCs might want to go to, who lives there, what they do, how they are, and what they know. I give a few tips on making conversation or what the PCs do, and then I leave it up to the GM from there. Now they can squeeze as much or as little roleplay out of it as possible, and fighty groups for whom talking with NPCs is not a favored passtime can move along fast.

The PC’s skill rolls are not the only important thing here. As they interact with the townspeople, the GM is taking not of how they act. Are they rude? Violent? All of these things come into play later. But this blog post is running a little large now. Next time, we’ll talk about one of my perhaps strangest and controversial decisions for the Hidden Kingdom module and the rationale behind it. And it is this: Brother Ptolemy isn’t the final battle of the module.