D&D: Five Noncombat Encounters Still Worth Rollining Initiative For
You don’t have to draw your sword to make D&D exciting, as these noncombat encounters might help illustrate.
D&D is a game all about heroic fantasy characters with magic swords and indomitabl wills or who can conjure flames to scorch their foes and defend the innocent. But you don’t always have to have a combat to be a hero. In fact, some of the best sessions out there don’t involve a single round of “combat”. Here are five ideas for noncombat encounters for D&D – though of course, making any encounter a combat one is as easy as grabbing something from the monster manual.
Ship in a Storm
One of the classic conflicts of literature, fantasy and otherwise, is “man against nature”. This is an external struggle that pits characters against a force of nature itself. And there’s no force of nature that authors and writers love so much as the big briny deep. The ocean is full of all sorts of things, but you don’t even have to get out the Monster Manual to make an encounter at sea thrilling.
A storm out on the ocean can be devastating, whether it’s a hurricane or no. When player characters are on a boat, keeping that boat afloat can be just as life or death as a fight against a death knight and their legions.
There are all sorts of ways you might run an encounter like this: players might use their skills to help sailors dealing with the storm, or maybe some of the crew (or even players) are washed overboard and need to be rescued. Lightning can spark a fire or threaten to destroy parts of the ship. A lot of opportunities here to really break out the weather effects.
City on Fire
Of course, you don’t have to be out over the ocean to have a thrilling noncombat encounter that gives player characters a chance to be heroic. One of the staples of superhero stories is rescuing people from burning buildings.
You can use the same sort of story in your D&D adventures. The city the players are in might be in flames for any number of reasons, from the aftermath of a dragon attack to supernatural firestorms to volcanic eruptions to even all the normal reasons a fire might spread.
Player characters can rescue NPCs from dangerous situations, work to get people out of harm’s way, or try to fight the fire as it’s happening. Those are the obvious ones, but they could also help coordinate efforts, work with teams of the fire brigade, and of course, help rebuild in the aftermath.
Stampede
Or take a page from the Western genre, and also the Lion King and run with a stampede. Especially in D&D when there’s no need to have it just be a stampede of normal things like cows or wildebeests, which are already deadly in their own right. But an encounter like this could involve aurochs or dinosaurs or dire bears or whatever else you can justify.
This kind of encounter is tricky, because it can be easy to decide to break out stat blocks for the creatures involved, but it might be better to abstract things. You might make creatures like hazardous areas, or have a series of skill checks to navigate the stampede successfully. But whatever you do, you’ll want to have a reason to make PCs want to brave the stampede.
Planar Riftstorm
Call it man vs. supernature if you want. But D&D is full of fantasy nonsense. And it doesn’t get more nonsense than planar magic and weather. Planescape has its magical storms in the astral plane that leave portals open to wherever in the multiverse.
Why leave that for space? Have a magic storm threaten to take all the people of whatever town you happen to be zoomed in on at the moment, give the players an opportunity to rescue kittens from falling into a portal that’s open to the elemental plane of fire (or yarn, if you want them to try and herd the kittens).
See You In Court
Last but certainly not least, you can add some tension to any D&D session with a good old social encounter. These usually aren’t combat encounters (though any encounter can be a combat encounter if your players try), but may involve delicate proceedings with careful rules that must be followed.
The court in question might be a court of law – the Trial Sequence in Chrono Trigger is a fantastic thing to try and crib from. Player characters might speak in their defense, or to try and expose the scheming minor lord who is plotting to usurp the throne, but only if they play by the rules.
But it might just as easily be a court encounter of the royal kind. Where you have to talk to nobles and present something – a request for aid, a petition for a magic item, or whatever other boon they can bestow, but not before paying due respect and engaging in a verbal battle, if not one fought with steel and spells.
What are some of your favorite noncombat encounters?
