Encounter Contest 3: Avid for Ravids

[Elves]

Explanation
This is a contest like Iron Chef, but to test your skills as a DM rather than as a player.

The goal is to design an exciting game encounter. Go as far as possible from "an ogre in a bare stone room" -- put unique opponents in cool and dynamic settings. The person who creates the most challenging and memorable encounter wins.

Sources: All official sources are allowed, which includes Dragon and Dungeon magazines.

Spoiler: Formatting Your Entry

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An example template is given here in a Google Doc.

Each entry should include:

1) Title and EL. Title your encounter with a name and the encounter level (EL). For example, Bandit Attack! (EL 1). If there are multiple enemies, calculate the EL with this tool (SRD mirror).

2) Intro. What is the basic concept of this encounter? Where can GMs use the encounter? Where, why and when is it likely to occur?

3) Environment. Describe the area where the encounter happens, including dimensions, terrain features, traps, etc. You don't have to include an actual map — although you're welcome to!

4) Creature(s). Describe the creatures the PCs will interact with.

Stats: Please use this statblock format. (Link a Google docs page or use this forum-fitted version.) You don't have to provide a full statblock if a creature is straight from the book or if only one element, such as its feats, are changed.

Tactics: What are the creatures’ objectives? What tactics do they use? What do they do on their turns? At what point, if any, will they run away?

Customized and unique creatures are highly encouraged. Be familiar with the rules on this page. Many people aren't aware of the nonassociated class levels rule, the "adding special abilities" rule at the bottom, or the fact that monsters with class levels use the elite array with no extra CR increase.

5) Conclusion. If necessary, describe how the encounter ends (if it is more complex than simply killing the enemies) and what happens afterward, including loot and any plot seeds of further interest.

6) (Optional) Adaptation. At the bottom of your entry, you can talk about how to make your encounter easier or harder, or how to scale it for lower- or higher-level PCs.

Citations: Please cite especially obscure content, such as magazine content.


Power Level: Your encounter should be able to challenge a well-optimized party of the EL. Balance it for players who read this forum, rather than a party made up of Tordek, Lidda, Jozan and Mialee. Making something difficult and challenging is the goal.

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When you're done, send your entry to me in a private message. Typically, we link Google Docs rather than putting the full entry in a forum post. One advantage is that this allows you to edit your entry up until the deadline. When the deadline comes, I will make a copy of your Google Doc and post the copy in this thread, so that you can't edit the submission further.

Spoiler: Judging

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Each person who volunteers to judge will score each entry from 0–5 on 4 categories, for a total score of 0–20.

Judges will explain why they are giving each category the score they do, citing specific elements of the entry.

1. Creatures. How well-crafted and creatively built are the creatures?

A high score is for custom-made opponents with interesting builds, template combinations, etc. Creatures taken straight from the book get a low score, not an average one.

Other forms of creature creativity can include a synergistic combination of creatures, or creative tactics, even if the creatures themselves aren't customized.

Even if a creature is customized, it might not be well-crafted (for example, a creature with class levels that provide little benefit, or a template that actually makes it worse), but don't detract points simply for using "too many templates", etc.

2. Environment. Does an interesting environment enhance the fight? This includes features of the map such as terrain, room layout, traps, and interactive objects.
0: No environment mentioned in entry.
1: Environment significantly detracts from encounter (opponent uses ranged attacks but the setting is a 10-by-10 room).
3: Environment serves encounter adequately.
5: Environment makes the encounter much more interesting, synergizing with the creatures and/or giving PCs relevant strategic options.

Posting a map is optional. A text description is just fine.

3. Challenge. Is the encounter an adequate challenge for optimized characters of the EL? Is it an unfair challenge even for extremely optimized characters of the EL? Is it an interesting challenge that players will have to strategize to beat? Does it provide a reasonable reward?

Be slow to detract points for being too hard. We're trying to make challenging scenarios — being hard is good, as long as it's beatable.

4. Flavor. How well does the entry use the prompt? Does it have a fun fluff intro or tell a story? Is the scenario coherent, or does it not make sense?
An entry might have cool concepts even if they aren't mechanically well executed, or on the contrary it might have elements that are mechanically strong yet don't make narrative or logical sense.

Process
Feel free to brainstorm and discuss ideas in this thread. When you're done with your entry, send the link to me in a private message.
(Typically, we link Google Docs rather than putting the entries in forum posts.)

On the day of the submission deadline, I will post all the entries in this thread. At that point, anyone who wants to judge can send their judgments to me in a private message (you must judge all the entries). Once everyone interested in judging has done so, all judgments will be posted at once.

If you think something a judge said about your entry was wrong, you can dispute it. Send the dispute to me in a private message and I will post it here. That judge can increase your score if they think your dispute was correct, but their response is final. Once disputes, if there are any, have been answered, winners and runner ups will be announced based on the final scores!


Contest Theme: Avid for Ravids




This time our theme is the ravid, an odd misfit of a creature that is quite fragile but has the ability to animate objects. Hailing from the Positive Energy Plane, they exude so much positive energy that things around them spring to life of their own accord.

1) Your encounter must include a ravid. (It can be advanced, templated, class leveled, or otherwise modified as you like, though.)
2) It must take place in an environment where the ravid's animate objects ability can be put to good use. (Remember that different animated objects have different movement and attack modes, which could influence your choice of environment.)
3) The encounter level (EL) should be around 5 to 10, because above this the ravid's animated objects, its main ability, are no longer threatening.

Note: The default ravid's animate objects ability seems to have no HD limit — it could have 20 Gargantuan objects animated at once, if it wanted to, which would be completely overwhelming. Thus, for the purpose of this contest, its animate objects ability is capped as follows:

Animate Objects (Su) Once per round as a free action, the ravid can animate a random object within 20 ft. as if with an animate objects spell cast at CL 20th. It can only have as many objects animated at once as the spell could normally animate (20 HD worth).

A base ravid statblock, including an advanced version, is included here to help you out.

Notable Things About This Creature
✦ Its animate objects ability is random, so you have to pay attention to what kinds of objects you put in the encounter area, because they could all be animated. However, the range is only 20 ft., so you could have different parts of the encounter area with different kinds of objects that the ravid could move between.
✦ The ravid lacks offensive actions. Its animate objects ability is a free action, and its only other actions are natural attacks -- but as fragile as it is and as weak as its attacks are, it probably doesn't want to fight in melee. The key to making it stronger is giving it useful things to do with its main actions.
✦ It can fly.
✦ It's immune to fire. Can you exploit this in some way, perhaps by putting it in a fiery environment?
✦ It deals extra damage to undead and other creatures harmed by negative energy. Is there some way you could exploit this? Maybe it joins the players as an ally against an undead threat? Or maybe you modify the ability by letting it heal itself with a touch (increasing CR as appropriate, per the "adding special abilities") rule. However, don't feel like you have to make use of this ability; its other abilities offer plenty of options already.
✦ As a neutral creature, it could be a foe, but doesn't have to be. If it's a foe, think about what brings it into conflict with the players.

Now, who can make the best encounter?

Submission Deadline: Feb 19

Past Contests and Winners
1. The Dragon's Hoard (🥇 Bucky)
2. Curse of the Mummy's Tomb (🥇 Elves)

[Beni-Kujaku]

I love ravids‚ sad that there's this limit on the number of animated objects.

[loky1109]

I have idea. Maybe I'll have time.

[Battlechaser]

How would you calculate the EL for a gestalt ravid?

[Elves]

BTW, I will be judging not submitting this time.

I love ravids‚ sad that there's this limit on the number of animated objects.

Animate objects lasts 1 round/level, and the ravid's ability is CL 20th. So if there's no limit, then because the ability is constantly active, the ravid would constantly have 20 objects of up to CR 7 following it around, which is completely unworkable for a CR 5 monster. I'm not sure what they were thinking. So the tweak is needed.

With that said, using the "adding special abilities" rule from the monster advancement rules, you're free to customize this ability further to your taste.

How would you calculate the EL for a gestalt ravid?

I think it's best not to use gestalt rules here for the sake of even comparison.

[Battlechaser]

I think it's best not to use gestalt rules here for the sake of even comparison.

Okay. I was thinking of a ravid-spellfire wielder//forsaker that entered a wizard’s tower and was now sucking the magic items dry.

[Elves]

Okay. I was thinking of a ravid-spellfire wielder//forsaker that entered a wizard’s tower and was now sucking the magic items dry.

That's a cool idea. Between the two, IMO, spellfire channeler seems like it gives more interesting abilities for an opponent.

An interesting thing about a ravid is that its main ability is a free action — so unlike most creatures, it would actually have the actions to spend in combat on the spellfire channeler's abilities.


I think this is a big thing to keep in mind for everyone: the ravid is really looking for something to do with its actions. Since it's fragile and its melee attacks are weak, it definitely doesn't want to be engaging in melee combat. It would prefer to be flying up in the air using some kind of ranged ability. (Which could suggest classes like warlock, etc.)

[JNAProductions]

I'll toss a hat in as a judge, if that's alright, Elves.

[Elves]

I'll toss a hat in as a judge, if that's alright, Elves.

Great 👍. I remember last time we had much more trouble finding judges than participants, lol.

[Bucky]

I'm interpreting the modification to the Animate Objects ability, in the context of the Ravid's description, as follows:

• The Animate Objects ability can't be used if the Ravid is already animating 20+ HD of objects.
• The Animate Objects ability's random selection will only select objects that won't put it over the cap. For example, if it uses Animate Object with 16 HD of objects already animated, the random selection will ignore Huge and larger objects.
• The Ravid's description of being "always accompanied" by at least one animated object can either mean that it has precast its Animate Objects ability (which counts against its HD cap but not the encounter CR) or that there is a permanently animated object as a separate monster (which counts towards the encounter CR but not against its HD cap) but an unmodified Ravid must have one or the other.

[Elves]

I'm interpreting the modification to the Animate Objects ability, in the context of the Ravid's description, as follows:

• The Animate Objects ability can't be used if the Ravid is already animating 20+ HD of objects.
• The Animate Objects ability's random selection will only select objects that won't put it over the cap. For example, if it uses Animate Object with 16 HD of objects already animated, the random selection will ignore Huge and larger objects.

The ways the ability could work are a 3 axis chart:

Is the ability automatic or voluntary? (Automatic/Voluntary)
Is the animated creature randomly selected or chosen? (Random/Chosen)
Does the ability fail if it would exceed the HD limit, or does it animate a new object and cause previous objects to de-animate until the limit is met? (Limit/Replace)

Pretty much any of these options are OK, although the Automatic-Replace ones seem like a headache because they force the ravid to try to stay away from objects if he does not want his current objects de-animated (as a flying creature, flying into the air should make it pretty easy to stay away from objects in a sufficiently large space) or stay close to his enemies so that the new objects he animates are within striking range of them. The latter is actually not bad, because it prevents the ravid from simply staying far away -- 20 rounds is a long time -- and sending an infinite line of objects out to kill the PCs, which is possible with all the other options. So maybe those are the "proper" designs, however annoying they seem. On other hand this could be less annoyingly achieved by simply reducing the range of the ability.


Here is a list of the possibilities:

Automatic-Random-Limit
Automatic-Random-Replace (headache)
Automatic-Chosen-Limit (redundant with V-C-L)
Automatic-Chosen-Replace (headache)

Voluntary-Random-Limit
Voluntary-Random-Replace
Voluntary-Chosen-Limit
Voluntary-Chosen-Replace

Other than ACL I don't really care which version people use. Pick the one that suits you. Do you think one is better than the others?

The Ravid's description of being "always accompanied" by at least one animated object can either mean that it has precast its Animate Objects ability

That's what it sounds like.

[Elves]

The latter is actually not bad, because it prevents the ravid from simply staying on the backline -- or in a backroom; 20 rounds is a long time -- and sending an infinite line of objects out to kill the PCs, which is possible with all the other options.

This gave me an idea. Since the ravid resembles an Asian lung dragon, imagine a Terracotta Army themed encounter. The ravid is in a large chamber with the terracotta soldiers and is animating them one by one, sending an infinite line of them to fight the PCs. The PCs have to fight their way into the room and take the ravid down before its army overwhelms them...

Spoiler

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[Battlechaser]

Cool idea! If only the ravid could become invisible.

[AvatarVecna]

...I think I've got a fun idea for this one.

EDIT: Do we just post our encounters when they're ready, send them to Elves to be posted at deadline, or what?

[Elves]

People should message me their entries. I suggest linking a Google doc -- that way you can edit it up until the deadline. Once we reach the deadline I will make copies of the Google docs and post those, so that they are anonymous and cannot be edited further.

[Morphic tide]

As a point to be made of the silliness of the RAW Ravid to rub in the functional tweak, twenty CR 7 monsters like Gargantuan Animated Objects is "expected" to be a CR 16 encounter. That's without the obvious trouble regarding Hardness values. With the tweak, it tends to be CR 9 for a full-time retinue. At least by the d20srd calculator.

[Elves]

As a point to be made of the silliness of the RAW Ravid to rub in the functional tweak, twenty CR 7 monsters like Gargantuan Animated Objects is "expected" to be a CR 16 encounter. That's without the obvious trouble regarding Hardness values. With the tweak, it tends to be CR 9 for a full-time retinue. At least by the d20srd calculator.

Yep, though to be clear to anyone submitting, objects animated by this ability are not added as extra creatures to the EL. They are already included in the ravid's CR (it is a CR 5 creature with 3 HD and no other significant abilities for this reason).

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On a related note, it strikes me that ravid is a pretty good alter self form if you have access to outsider forms (through Otherworldly feat or similar). +15 NA and flight with 3 HD.

[Elves]

bump we got 10 days left.
remember since this board is the center of 3e culture winning this means you are the best 3e DM.

[Inevitability]

After my first idea of using Brood Spawn (something I thought of before the Zinc Saucier round launched, I swear!) completely fell apart because I failed to see it removed special attacks, I now have something I'm feeling good about! Hoping to submit in the next few days.

[Elves]

4 days left, now is the time to write your entry if you want to participate!

[Elves]

Is there anyone who would like to submit but will not have time to finish by tomorrow? If so, happy to wait a little longer. Otherwise, results tomorrow.

[JNAProductions]

Waiting to judge... :P

[Elves]

Waiting to judge... :P

Decided to wait an extra week to see if more submissions came.

[Inevitability]

Decided to wait an extra week to see if more submissions came.

Not trying to sound snarky here, but... such a deadline extension works better if you explicitly announce it. If people think entries could be posted any moment, they're not going to write up a last-minute submission, right?

[Bucky]

It's been a week since the extra week, and I think it's been long enough. It seems somewhat unfair that the late entries would have half again as much time to prepare as the others.