Redesigning Encounters: Street Assault

Posted on September 2, 2011 in Advice, Campaigns, Sessions | 0 comments

I decided to play Street Assault differently than it was written; instead of an ambush as depicted in The Scouring of Gate Pass, the Black Horses planned an all out attack in order to capture Asher (whom they failed to attain in the first session). Also, looking forward, I saw that Kathor and Renard were in the same combat near the end of the adventure; I wanted to seperate the two in order to highlight each individually.

Street Assault, known as Street Ambush in the adventure, is located on page 51 and consists of the following:

• Black Horse Lieutenant, Level 3 Soldier
• 4 Black Horse Bandits, Level 2 Skirmishers
• 4 Black Horse Veterans, Level 3 Soldiers

Much like the previous encounter, Spy Headquarters, I complete redesigned this encounter from the ground up. The reason for this is two-fold: One, I wanted Kathor Davana in this encounter, and two, I already had updated Black Horse stats from the first encounter—why not use them?

Instead of the 4 Black Horse Bandits, I used 2 of the Black Horse Thugs from the Ambush! encounter. Instead of the 4 Black Horse Veterans, I used 4 Black Horse Recruits, also from Ambush! The Black Horse Lieutenant, on the other hand, got fluffed from a Young Green Dragon, a Level 5 Solo Skirmisher from page 69 in the Monster Vault. After all was said and done, the encounter level ended up being 10 XP less than an Encounter Level 6 combat, which puts it in line with the original encounter from the adventure—with less work!

The Black Horse Lieutenant—now Kathor Davana—was my third fluff from a dragon. The first was Flagnus from a Young Black Dragon and the second was Shealis from a Young Blue Dragon; it was just as easy to fluff this time as it was the first two times.

Poisonous wounds became storm of swords; I dropped the poison descriptor and kept it as untyped ongoing damage. Instinctive flyby was fluffed into instinctive charge. Bite turned into a greatsword to match the miniature and claw was renamed double strike—described as two swipes of the greatsword for the price of one.

The dragon’s breath weapon was fluffed into whirlwind strike; again, the poison descriptor was dropped. Flyby attack was renamed overwhelming charge and the flying portion of the power used Kathor’s normal move speed. Luring glare became warrior’s challange and lastly, I changed bloodied breath to bloodied whirlwind.

Finally, I enjoyed using the three powers from Sly Flourish on the Shealis combat so much that I decided to add all three to Kathor’s stat block as well.