Bar Fight!

Following my best of brawlin’ post last week I bring you all a sample bar fight encounter, designed to fill in and occupy and short gap you have in town and need a little filler content.

Encounter: Bar Fight!

Encounter Level 3 (750 XP)

Setup

4 Angry Drunks (A)

2 Drunken Brawlers (D)

1 Professional Brawler (P)

The PCs enter the Drunken Goblin tavern and attempt to sit down for a quiet drink; it does not take long before they are dragged into someone else’s fight however.

When the PCs enter the tavern read:

You enter the Drunken Goblin tavern to be greeted by a boisterous rabble singing, badly, at the top of their voices. The barmaids are running drinks across to various parts of the bar.

You usher yourselves in and find an empty table in one corner of the bar. You have not been sat long when a large brutish man walks over from the bar and says to you all “This here is my table, you need to pay me for using it.” As he speaks you notice several of the drunks eyeing you all as if expecting something to break out.

Before you have chance to respond the brutish man reaches down picking up an empty chair and bringing it back as it to assault you with.

The majority of the bar patrons have seen this sort of fight break out before and are fully aware of the danger staying in the bar entails, most scamper away before anyone has chance to bring a weapon to bear.

The PCs should be allowed to position themselves however they like in the bar, then the brawlers should be set up in favourable positions around them.

Features of the Area

The Drunken Goblin tavern has the following features:

Illumination: There are lanterns spaced around the inside of the tavern, along with two hanging chandeliers leaving the whole interior brightly lit.

Stairs: Two stairways lead to the upper levels, traveling up the stairs is considered to be difficult terrain, but there is no penalty for traveling down.

Walkways: These ledges are 15 feet from the ground. They circle the main bar area and allow ranged PCs to fire down without penalty. Several rooms are off these walkways, but the doors to them are locked.

Chandeliers (not marked on the map): The two main chandeliers hang down to around 10 feet above the main bar area; as a move action a PC can jump from a walkway, swing on a chandelier and drop off to a square anywhere in the bar area, with a DC 15 acrobatics check. Doing so provokes from enemies on the walkways, but not in the lower bar area.

Tables: The tables are flimsy and easy to turn over (DC 5 athletics) however, they are so badly constructed that even when overturned they do not provide cover to a PC hiding behind them.

Chairs: The chairs do not impede movement, but can be used as improvised weapons.

Bar (represented by a bookcase): The main bar area is flanked on one side by a 20 feet long, 5 feet wide bar, the bar provides cover to anyone stood behind it, and superior cover to anyone who drops prone behind it.

Tactics

The brawlers draw weapons and initiate combat immediately.

Angry Drunks: The angry drunks space out a little, to avoid area attacks, but keep close enough together to take advantage of their strength in numbers ability.

The angry drunks move in to engage the same PC (or PCs) as the professional brawler, trying to grant the more powerful professional combat advantage if possible.

Drunken Brawlers: The drunken brawlers float around the edge of the combat, focusing on ranged attackers and spell casters, if engaged by more than one PC they fall back and try to separate their attackers.

Professional Brawler: The professional brawler picks the biggest and toughest looking PC, (probably a defender) and focuses on them until he knocks them unconscious. He spends his action point when he bloodies his foe, and attempts to bring them down as quickly as possible.

Scaling the Encounter

Make the following adjustments to the combat based on the number of PCs present.

Four PCs: Remove one of the drunken brawlers.

Six PCs: Add one more drunken brawler.

Ending the Encounter

If the PCs are all knocked out by the brawlers they are dragged out onto the street and robbed of a small amount of coins before they are chased off by the local watch.

If the brawlers are been dealt with the PCs can either leave the tavern or attempt to make amends with the tavern keeper. This could lead onto a skill challenge representing the work the PCs do, or the negotiation for how much reparations will cost. This could lead on to another quest under the employ of the tavern keeper.

Experience Points

The PCs receive 150 experience points each for defeating the brawlers.

Statistic Blocks.

The statistic blocks for the brawlers can be found here

Combat Map

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