Four hours of combat later...

I've just about recovered from Saturday's epic combat.

For the benefit of anyone reading who wasn't there, the entire session consisted of a single extended battle between the seven PCs and a number of kua-toan archers and priests, an Erinyes, and some half-dragon kuo-toa spawn. The battle took place across three levels of the dungeon complex, several rooms, and used every spell every PC had prepared, rage from both barbarians, and left four of the seven PCs bleeding to death when the final killing blow was struck.

There have been some really good combats in the current campaign (The showdown with Tongue-eater is a personal favourite), but that was the best. Giving some thought to it, I think this is a partial list of why that was:

1) Challenge. This combat took the group right to the edge of their capabilities. In fact, it was probably a little too tough, but since no-one actually died, that's okay. Too many combats are routine matters of the PCs just dishing out the damage, and then stopping to heal whatever few wounds they've taken.

2) Intelligent opponents. The NPCs knew that various events were timed to go off, and acted accordingly. Another retreated to heal when things got too tough. The opposition also made good use of the 'falling rope bridge' trick that's been used before. (That said, it was a fairly major oversight on my part to not mention the existence of those rope bridges, but again, no PCs were standing on the first one when it fell.)

3) Interesting terrain. We had three levels, ropr bridges, dangerous pools, stairways, and all sorts. This opened up a lot of options that are often missing, as well as dropping the PCs in no end of trouble when they were being harried by the Erinyes, and couldn't easily get back to their entry point.

4) It was fast. Okay, spending over four hours playing through what amounted to just over 7 minutes of game time (I counted) doesn't sound fast, but the key thing was that it felt fast. No-one took too long deciding their actions, one turn followed the next, and there was a terrible sense of urgency, especially at the end when everyone was down to hit points in the teens.

(This last is something that d20 excels at. There are lots of flaws with the system, most minor but some major, but this is perhaps the biggest strength - a well-run combat can be really exciting.)

5) Fun tactics. The notion that Antrak would start the round hanging by his fingertips from a ledge (having voluntarily crossed the rope bridge knowing it was about to fall), and would proceed to pull himself up and bull rush the kuo-toans so that one fell from the ledge, is surely against the rules. There's no way that should be allowed. But, hell, it was fun!

Anyway, add that to the list of reasons why I'm enjoying this campaign and, by extension, running games again!