Encounter Elements: Degrees of Movement

How free or hemmed in players and monsters are in combat affect how combat plays out. If you're getting shredded by archers on top of a wall you can't climb, they have a huge advantage. Here's just a few things that can hinder or accelerate movement:

1. Difficult terrain
2. Elevation (especially when steep slope or in the air)
3. Walls, Barriers, and other impassible terrain
4. Chokepoints
5. Selectively Passable Terrain (Water, Lava, Air, etc.)
6. Hazards
7. Traps
8. Movement Accelerators (Teleporters, slides, etc.)
9. Size of Room/Encounter Area (especially when narrow)
10. Shape of Room/Encounter Area
11. Gates, Doors, or other obstacles that hinder movement if shut

Difficult Terrain

When you want to slow the movement of players, difficult terrain is the obvious answer. This can be very effective with creatures that cause area damage, since it's more difficult to get out of the range of the effect.

Preventing Shifting

Unless a character can shift 2 spaces (or ignore difficult terrain when shifting), rather than the normal 1 space, difficult terrain effectively prevents shifting, since it takes 2 squares of movement to shift over difficult terrain.

As a result, when a character needs to move, since they can only make standard movements (rather than shifting), they become succeptible to opportunity attacks, where they might not otherwise. This can be particularly deadly when there are many creatures fighting in close, where a single movement may generate multiple opportunity attacks, one for each adjacent creature.

Elevation

One of the classic ways to gain an advantage over attackers is to "take the high ground." While D&D 4th Edition does not provide for the typical bonus for attacking from a square higher in elevation than your target, in many cases, it still provides a big advantage to those attacking from height.

This is epecially true when there is a steep incline or cliff deliniating the difference in elevation. Creatures do grant combat advantage when climbing, so he who occupies the high ground gains that bonus when an attacker attempts to get to them by climbing.

When attackers and defenders are separated by a chasm or when the attacker occupies a square that's very difficult to reach, the ranged attackers become more critical to the fight. The number of arrows or bolts carried may come into play in extended battles where defenders stand atop a cliff, for example.

When not enough of the players can effectively attack targets at range, they may have to adjust their tactics to draw the defenders out or find another way to get at them. This may force them into an approach on the target that may be longer or more hazardous.

Walls, Barriers, and other Impassible Terrain

Use terrain through which characters cannot pass to limit their movement options. They are the most common way to create chokepoints, which tend to be easy to defend.

Consider providing ways to breach these barriers. For example, kruthiks can be particularly effective when they tunnel through walls, getting behind the front line and gaining access to less-defended casters and ranged attackers.

Don't let characters fall into thinking that, "It's a wall. It's not going anywhere." When walls get blasted open or climbed over, characters must make decisions.

Chokepoints

Use chokepoints to create areas where the players and/or monsters can concentrate their defenses. In order to be a chokepoint, an area must be one of a limited number of paths from one point to another. Chokepoints in many cases limit the number of non-ranged creatures in the fray at once.

Use a chokepoint when you want to bunch up defenders or to limit movement such as flanking. They can make melee strikers much less effective, since they can't easily reach the front line. It makes ranged attackers more pivital in many fights, and can make area attacks devastating, since enemies (and allies) tend to be bunched up in a small area.

Selectively Passable Terrain

Some types of terrain are passable by some creatures, a barrier to others. For example, some creatures may not only swim in water, but move quicker in water than they do on land. Other creatures can't leave the water at all. Others can't swim.

The same applies to lava. Some fire-based creatures move easily through it. To most birds, even open air is not an obstacle. Some creatures climb as easily as they walk.

When planning an encounter, you may want to add some selectively passable terrain that your creatures or your players either can't move through at all or through which they move more slowly. Use this type of terrain in the same kinds of ways you use difficult terrain, when you want to slow down the movement of the party or their enemies.

Hazards

Hazards are terrain onto which players may move... at a price. Can you run through boiling water? Sure, but it will hurt you.

Unlike traps, with hazards, you typically know that moving onto them will hurt. Hazards may require players to decide whether moving onto them is worth it or not.

Traps

With hazards, you typically know that moving into them will cause problems. With traps, they come as a surprise... at least the first time you discover one in an encounter. If there is a pattern to how you place traps in an encounter, it may actually become a hazard, something the party knows to avoid.

With traps, the main thing to consider is to make them serve a purpose. If every random hallway contains traps, the party will slow to a snail's pace to avoid being damaged by them. This can really take the fun out of adventuring, so use traps sparingly.

When using traps, make sure that you match the damage to the level of the party. Since traps can seem somewhat random, making them too deadly gives players the feeling that they are at the mercy of circumstance, that winning or losing is not dictated by their actions.

One thing you may want to consider is to make traps fairly easy to find, but difficult to disarm. That way, you reduce the feeling of encountering "wandering damage" as you explore. It also gives those with the skill to disarm the traps more of a role in the overall success of the party.

Movement Accelerators (Teleporters, slides, etc.)

As difficult terrain limits players' movement, you can add elements to your encounters that speed movement as well.

Teleporters

Teleporters typically move creatures from one fixed point to another, though they can send a creature in a random direction and/or distance. Add teleporters to allow players to quickly flit around the battlefield or to let monsters penetrate the players' front lines.

Slides

Slides are any terrain feature that moves a creature in a specific direction, such as a conveyor belt or a slippery slope. Typically, stepping onto slide terrain requires a saving throw to avoid falling pront. A slide may be a small, slippery patch or a long slide. Whether a player keeps their footing or not, a slide may end in impacting into a wall (with or without spikes) or plummeting to a painful landing.

Size of Room/Encounter Area

The size of an encounter area provides many paths between points or a few. When a large number of creatures or large creatures are involved in an encounter, a larger area is required in order to avoid limiting of movement options.

Shape of Room/Encounter Area

The shape of an encounter area creates chokepoints and areas where movement is unrestricted.

Gates, Doors, or other obstacles that hinder movement if shut

These are any obstacles which do not always hinder movement. A closed door or gate changes the movement options and squares which may be targeted by attacks. When a hole gets blasted into a wall, opening it to entrance by enemies is an instance of a door that can be opened, but not shut again.

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