{"id":7035,"date":"2023-02-20T04:00:48","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T08:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?p=7035"},"modified":"2023-02-10T20:37:56","modified_gmt":"2023-02-11T00:37:56","slug":"crashs-course-ep-07-combat-encounters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2023\/02\/crashs-course-ep-07-combat-encounters\/","title":{"rendered":"Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 07: Combat Encounters"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_4063\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-7035-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3\">https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/?powerpress_pinw=7035-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/media.blubrry.com\/cogwheelgaming\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p><a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4404\" src=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-768x768.png 768w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse-1024x1024.png 1024w, https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/CrashsCourse.png 1400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes.<\/p>\n<p>In this episode I\u2019d like to elaborate more on combat encounters. From 10 rats to a gang of cyborgs to a giant, ancient dragon, fight mechanics are a near universal standard of TTRPGs. Over the years I\u2019ve developed some strong opinions on them, so here\u2019s three of them.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>1. Monsters are people, too.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s been said that every well written antagonist is the protagonist of their own story, which is a great way to RP any Big Bad Evil Guy (BBEG), surely, but this is doesn\u2019t have to be a strategy reserved for the one on top.<\/p>\n<p>Think of any beings you add to your game as NPCs. They don\u2019t all need full backstories, but you should at least have a concept of an underlying motivation. Is the being mostly looking for a next meal? A salary? Distance from something more terrifying than the party?<\/p>\n<p>I love a good mustache-twirling now and then, but the campaign I\u2019m spending the most time in doesn\u2019t really have \u201cevil\u201d beings. Selfish ones, sure, but no party in my game will round a corner to find 5 orcs tying a heroine to a railroad track. Those orcs have their own society and motivations that might not align with the party\u2019s, but given a chance there can be some parlay and significantly less rope involved. Which brings us to\u2026<\/p>\n<p>2. There can be \u201cwin\u201d conditions that aren\u2019t the deaths of all monsters.<\/p>\n<p>The party can bargain, trade, scare off, run away from, or in cases of extreme difficulty, simply survive their opponents, and adding that variety to your game can make it more enjoyable for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve thrown the Tarrasque at my players on two separate occasions. Neither time were they powerful enough to survive a frontal assault, and they knew it. Your encounters might not always be that obvious from the start, so a few near misses (or direct hits) might be needed to put the fear of TPK into them.<\/p>\n<p>And then of course is the trope of befriending or even adopting the enemy. My after school club once defeated a clockwork dragon with \u2013 I kid you not \u2013 the power of friendship. (Well, a very well done Persuasion check and the power of friendship, but still, that counts.)<\/p>\n<p>One of my current games adopted the first kobold they met. They were part of a group I designated with letters, assuming they\u2019d all be slaughtered fairly quickly. Aye the kobold is now taking levels in rogue and almost certainly not plotting their demise.<\/p>\n<p>3. Encounters never need to go as written.<\/p>\n<p>If things are looking too easy or too hard, adjust them.<\/p>\n<p>Oops, you forgot about that grenade that you certainly didn\u2019t just give the space pirate.<\/p>\n<p>Huh, that special ability might take a bit longer to recharge.<\/p>\n<p>The henchman union seems to have taken this exact moment to strike! The BBEG\u2019s union busting days are over!<\/p>\n<p>The next rotation of guards has shown up 5 minutes early, doubling the number of opponents!<\/p>\n<p>I confess, I may have on more than one occasion accidentally on purpose forgot about an area effect that probably would not have made the fight too hard, but certainly would have added another half an hour to an hour of combat rolls. I\u2019ve also doubled an enemy\u2019s hit points. Neither one was planned, but both worked to balance the fight a bit.<\/p>\n<p>Just don\u2019t do things the same way too often. This isn\u2019t because your players might catch on \u2013 some of them will notice first time every time. Instead, using different means for balancing will add a bit more variety to the game play and, again, make it more fun for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s all for this episode, subscribe to just this podcast at <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">is.aaronbsmith.com\/@crashscourse<\/a> or all my D&amp;D podcasts at <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/\">aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel<\/a> for future episodes.<\/p>\n<p>Music is <a href=\"http:\/\/modarchive.org\/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&amp;query=169788\">Deadly Windmills by JAM from modarchive.org<\/a>, used with permission, as it\u2019s public domain.<\/p>\n<p>This podcast is distributed under a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/\">CC-BY-NC-ND<\/a> license.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Follow this series on\u2026<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#x25b6;Patreon: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming\">https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/cogwheelgaming<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Mastodon: <a href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@CrashsCourse<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Mastodon: <a rel=\"me\" href=\"https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel\">https:\/\/is.aaronbsmith.com\/@cogwheel<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Google Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8\">https:\/\/podcasts.google.com\/feed\/aHR0cHM6Ly9hYXJvbmJzbWl0aC5jb20vY29nd2hlZWwvZmVlZC8<\/a><\/li>\n<li>&#x25b6;Apple Podcasts: <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389\">https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/cogwheel-gaming\/id1291681389<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>MP3 Download: <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/CrashsCourse_Ep_07_Encounters.mp3\">Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 07: Combat Encounters<\/a><\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignnone\"><figcaption><a href=\"https:\/\/www.patreon.com\/bePatron?u=6006674\">Keep us ad free by supporting us on Patreon!<\/a><br \/>\nThanks to our current Patreon Patrons (as of this upload&#8230;): Chris, Cindy<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\"> (Patron Emeritus)<\/span>, Ellie, Erik<span class=\"sc-AxirZ bmNQcS\" data-tag=\"user-details-full-name\">, ShanShen, and Walter!<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to Crash\u2019s Course, a short form podcast where I share my thoughts and advice on playing and running tabletop role playing games in roughly about 5 minutes. In this episode I\u2019d like to elaborate more on combat encounters. From 10 rats to a gang of cyborgs to a giant, ancient dragon, fight &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/2023\/02\/crashs-course-ep-07-combat-encounters\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Crash&#8217;s Course Ep 07: Combat Encounters&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[312,293],"tags":[362,318,295,327],"class_list":["post-7035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-podcast","category-ttrpg","tag-crashscourse","tag-dnd","tag-dungeons-and-dragons","tag-ttrpg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7035"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7037,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7035\/revisions\/7037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aaronbsmith.com\/cogwheel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}