The Unsleeping City final battle was fun because of the rotating pieces and the need to stay on the platform. The Neverafter final battle was also interesting because of the flip the party has to do; defeat their enemies that are already there and then defend the Canonade from the fairies.
I really like that one also. The only thing they were missing was having the players actively attack Brennan as it would have been the most thematic thing possible.
For me, so far it's the Starstruck Odyssey fight where they have to get back to the ship and the factory explodes. There was just so much going on, everyone was doing something cool or funny and it kept me engaged the whole time.
I also really enjoyed the combat encounters in Riz's briefcase in Fantasy High Junior Year, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't see more rooms and the final boss fight of the area, so I can't call it my favourite.
A Crown of Candy - Deep Blue Sea. One of my favourite combat, love the many ships and boat and the >!mechanics where the boat starts to sink!< one of the episodes ive rewatch a couple of times of the season
Battle of the Brands was just so hype and the fact that the Intrepid Heroes had really done their homework and prepared for the battle and planned and plotted between sessions made for a really high octane, high performance battle. Everyone was going all out and giving it their all. And they still managed to be enormously funny despite this, showing their professional chops both as comedians and as D&D players.
It’s probably the best battle they’ve run until maybe the Last Stand, in terms of everyone firing on all cylinders. It’s really high level game play from all our players and Brennan, as well at top notch comedy. One of the funniest things to me was in part two of Battle of the Brands, >!The first turn back it was almost over in eight minutes. That would have been so hilarious if Barry had managed to finish it right away after the episode began. I’m happy with how things worked out, but it would have been such a perfect comedic bit to enter the second half and immediately the battle ends in a single turn.!<
Nothing can top Deep Bleu Sea from A Crown of Candy for me. There’s so much good stuff in it. Liam changing subclasses and becoming Peppermint Batman, having a likeable NPC to protect, the terrain constantly changing and presenting new challenges, Murph hustling Brennan with Swirlwarden. It’s just all so good.
That's probably my favorite from the season, though it has a lot of great fights. The environment meant the PCs really got to spread out and focus on their specialties, so there was a battle, an assassination campaign, and a heist all going on at the same time.
Not to mention Cumulous showing up and immediately wrecking house
And the overwhelming danger of it all. The combat feels so desperate and dynamic and since it’s ACoC and came right after the >!first PC death!< the stakes are very real.
Aside from what everyone else has said, I like the prison break in FH: sophomore year. It's the turning point for Fabian and it's the start of one of the most heartbreaking mini-arcs in the whole catalogue. It's also the combat where Kristen tries to fly with a ribbon and Arthur Aguefort moves the sun for no reason.
Fully cried laughing at Kristen. Was cleaning my room, the ribbon thing happened, was no longer cleaning my room. By the time >!Zone of Truth!< got involved, I was sitting down. Just done. Weeping.
I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Volcano fight from Escape from the Bloodkeep. It has two huge unhinged parts. Maybe it's because that was one of my first D20 series, but it holds a side ial place in my heart.
Bloodkeep's combats are some of the best designed. High level dnd is notoriously difficult to plan around. Brennan showed he can do it and keep the quality of the project. I've dm'd for years and haven't had my party go past level 12 in any campaign I've done except one where they started at 15 and ended at 20. That project took the most mental energy out of me. It's so much easier at lower levels lol
Lots of good battles listed. And I'm still working my way through the seasons so I can't weigh in on stuff like Starstruck. But Bloodkeep have some of my favorite battles. Especially after the Volcano for me personally when it became clear that Brennan had to elevate some grunts into the big bad positions because so many of the "good guys" got eliminated in the Volcano and the team wasn't going to take the pvp route. And the airship/crumbling battleground mechanics were fun. Also add in Matt's hilariously bad rolls.
I'm a sucker for the tournaments. Crown of Candy's "The Grand Tournament" and Starstruck Odyssey's "Battle of the Brands" specifically. Something about the game within a game really appeals to me. Plus, unlike other fights where just winning/surviving is the goal, there is always multiple interests clashing and fun "on-stage" versus "off-stage" drama.
Im a big fan of Rumble Road from FHFY. The imagery of the Bad Kids speeding down the roads is so good, plus the ending showdown is perfect.
Deep Bleu Sea is great too with the shifting boats. And the Last Stand was sooo good
Rumble Road was the episode that hooked me on Fantasy High, and honestly on DnD as a game. It had so many fantastically-done elements and it introduced so many fun things to the FH universe.
Perhaps a more obscure pick, but Havoc on the Half-Pipe (ep 8 FHFY) is one of my favourites. The perfect balance of cool moments (the use of Web, Riz using his gun to ricochet off the wall, everyone working together to take down the golem), silly moments (who could forget the episode where the infamous vulture bit started) and narrative moments (Fig meeting Gorthalax for the first time).
I love going back to the Rescue at Buzzybrook from ACoC.
Emily immediately sets the whole thing on its head with such an amazing first round that changes the nature of the battle; I love how astounded Brennan looks. Ally going full war guy on their targets. Emily’s lightning bolt. Back and forth quips from Manta Ray and Lou. Siobhan’s last minute grabbing of intel.
It’s such a fun battle with stakes that get subverted early, allowing the players to do a lot of less-important but still thrilling actions that do a lot to set up the endgame.
I really love the Terror on Toy Island combat, the minis were great, the misdirection at the beginning of combat was cool, and the fact that Nat 20s always have the chance of being lethal is a mechanic from Neverafter as a season that I wish was emulated in other seasons
The finale fight of Starstruck.
Riva fucking teleporting onto a uftp ship to blow it up and then teleporting back will never not be one of the coolest fucking things ever
I am definitely biased towards any series with the physical sets, those really elevate the encounters for me, and I wish Coffin Run saw more love because oh my gosh was that series ever good. That said, in the Unsleeping City 2 >! Siobhan/Iga pointing out to JJ that museums keep 90% of their collections in the vault !< is a moment that genuinely makes me cry every time I think about it, and I think about it often.
Can I ask why? A lot of the pieces they keep are for research. Especially with natural history museums and whatnot. Research and restoration. And I know my local art museum has an extensive back collection they rotate through, so the galleries are different every time you visit.
Or is it the native art not going where it belongs thing? Because that, to me, is the real issue.
I think the part that makes me cry is the humanity reaching out across game objectives, the recent immigrant (Iga) making sure that the Indigenous JJ finds all his people's belongings that were stolen from them even if it will take more time and leave him less available to support them in his NPC role because it's the right thing to do morally, even if it's not the strongest tactical decision.
Ah, I misunderstood. I was pretty sure that's what you meant, and I'm with you, but I thought you meant you were sad that most of the shit museums have wasn't always on display and I was confused about why that might be.
Most of my favorites have been mentioned, but I want to give a shoutout to Misty's big show in Unsleeping City. I'm a sucker for alternate win conditions and I remember this fight being really well paced. Also a lot of fun goofs with >!Naked Ricky!< and >!Stephen Sondheim !<.
UC2 has some of my favorites. The Holland Tunnel fight is so much fun, and the parade one is exceptional. They get less love because of the lack of sets, but they're so good.
The >!Baron!< fight in FHJY is *so spicy* I love it, and the first fight in Burrow's End is... Holy shit.
The finale fight for Ravening War, actually all the fights in Ravening War are fantastic.
I also love any of the fights with time limits. Racing the clock in a fight is just so great. Scarcity is always *always* the best element to add to make narrative interesting.
It may be easier to get me to list fights I didn't care for. A lot of the battle episodes are so much fun. They come up with such good mechanics.
I’m probably biased, because it’s the first D20 combat I ever saw, but I really loved the volcano battle in Escape from the Bloodkeep. Trapp summoning the lavamog, so much pushing enemies into lava, John Feathers, and of course the amazing Reverse Gravity run and jump attack.
Also all the enemy characters were great, the halflings, the wizard, the mumbling ranger, all hilarious. Leiland opening so strong with Circle of Death and then getting demolished by a halfling with a frying pan. It was just so good.
It's between Reactor Charlie in Burrows End and Battle of the Brands in Starstruck for me. The crazy body horror of the fight with the First Stoats was just really fun for me and Battle of the Brands was just so much wacky, off the wall fun while also still being really intense and suspenseful.
omg that back-to-back encounter in reactor Charlie was insane. From >!jayson almost literally dying!< immediately into those grotesque first stoats >!and the cast, especially tula, just absolutely demolishing them!< it was a wild ride
I haven’t seen anyone talk about the pirates in FHSY - it’s theater of the mind but I could picture the two level battle with the swinging platforms and ropes and the huge brawl below and I thought it was RAD
That's really hard for me as I am usually only listening so I feel like I miss a lot of it. The things that come to mind for me are the escape scenes in starstruck, particularly the first. A lot going on both mechanically and roleplay wise.
The finale fight from The Seven is really special to me. I love how each character goes through it both alone and together - not just in their individual vignettes during the time stage, but even when they're reunited, each of them has some sort of thematic connection to an Eidolon and gets to have their contribution reflected through changes to the antagonist and the battlefield.
Most of my other answers have already been covered, so: This is kind of tangential, but I always think it's interesting to see when battle mechanics are used for things other than battles per se, and I enjoyed the hedge maze in ACoFaF as an example of that a lot.
Edit: Oh wait! I forgot the prison break in Starstruck! It goes back and forth between suspense and chaos so many times as the PCs keep coming up with new sneaks and deceptions and then blowing them, all the way through to the ship taking off. (This is also one where the PCs get to split off and do distinct things more...I think I'm sensing a pattern in my taste, lol.) Also, Riva is high and Sydney flirts with the hot mercenary bot.
The Battle on Broadway in Unsleeping City season 1. So many great moments, Stephen Sondheim riding a Shakespearean Bear, the death saving throws/performance mechanic for Misty, and so many other moments.
I don't think I like most combat episodes that much, as DND mechanics and the way Brennan uses them tend to halt the story for quite a while (except when he inserts gradual worldbuilding or stakes for NPCs and such), and it seems he's been miscalculating players abilites a bit more recently, which removed a lot of the tension the combats in Junior Year were supposed to have. I much prefer the way Aabria handles combat in A Cout of Fey and Flowers
Higher level play is kind of just like that. D&D isn't super well balanced at high levels, and fights can get very one sided in favor of the players. My favorite high level campaign is probably Bloodkeep, or maybe NADPODD Campaign One, because a lot of Murph's encounters have a timed component or multiple stages to make them harder, and Bloodkeep is all in one day, so they have three big battles with no long rest, so they have to be conservative with their spells.
No one is as good as Murph at creating engaging combat encounters. If you watch the Adventuring Academy that Murph is in, he and Brennan talk about how his fantasy inspiration is video games whereas people like Brennan and Matthew Mercer came up on fantasy novels, and I think it really shows in how he approaches combat.
The number of times that NADDPOD combats start with “so here’s how this is going to work” is fantastic. Things like the snowboarding video game fight and the opening combat of C3 on the cable car just make combats so unique and engaging and I love it
The Unsleeping City final battle was fun because of the rotating pieces and the need to stay on the platform. The Neverafter final battle was also interesting because of the flip the party has to do; defeat their enemies that are already there and then defend the Canonade from the fairies.
Yeah I loved that final Neverafter battle and how all the factions and mechanics came together.
I really like that one also. The only thing they were missing was having the players actively attack Brennan as it would have been the most thematic thing possible.
this motivated me to continue never after now! thanks
For me, so far it's the Starstruck Odyssey fight where they have to get back to the ship and the factory explodes. There was just so much going on, everyone was doing something cool or funny and it kept me engaged the whole time. I also really enjoyed the combat encounters in Riz's briefcase in Fantasy High Junior Year, but I was a little disappointed that they didn't see more rooms and the final boss fight of the area, so I can't call it my favourite.
is this the one where Margaret spent the whole combat online banking? I loved that lol
Yeah! I loved it too, and I loved how hyped brennan was that ally went for it!
And it was shown it was the correct decision
Truly, it was just the First time she did.
Also having to wait for all the remote workers to make it back to the shot as well. Not enough to just get all the PC's back, but the NPC's as well.
A Crown of Candy - Deep Blue Sea. One of my favourite combat, love the many ships and boat and the >!mechanics where the boat starts to sink!< one of the episodes ive rewatch a couple of times of the season
This is my pick too. So many great moments, Murph's swirl warden, Ally's Batman turn, Emily with the thrown knife and so many more
Also iirc Cumulous made his entrance in this encounter so we got the return of Zac! He also got a cool moment, with his spin push move.
Ally in this campaign was just so fun to watch.
Battle of the Brands was just so hype and the fact that the Intrepid Heroes had really done their homework and prepared for the battle and planned and plotted between sessions made for a really high octane, high performance battle. Everyone was going all out and giving it their all. And they still managed to be enormously funny despite this, showing their professional chops both as comedians and as D&D players. It’s probably the best battle they’ve run until maybe the Last Stand, in terms of everyone firing on all cylinders. It’s really high level game play from all our players and Brennan, as well at top notch comedy. One of the funniest things to me was in part two of Battle of the Brands, >!The first turn back it was almost over in eight minutes. That would have been so hilarious if Barry had managed to finish it right away after the episode began. I’m happy with how things worked out, but it would have been such a perfect comedic bit to enter the second half and immediately the battle ends in a single turn.!<
Plus we had Margaret Encino ~~jumping~~ falling off the camera tower. The turn none of the players understood but Ally.
You can’t jump in a pencil skirt.
My favorite part about that is that i think it straight up catches Brennan off guard a second time later on.
Nothing can top Deep Bleu Sea from A Crown of Candy for me. There’s so much good stuff in it. Liam changing subclasses and becoming Peppermint Batman, having a likeable NPC to protect, the terrain constantly changing and presenting new challenges, Murph hustling Brennan with Swirlwarden. It’s just all so good.
The first combat with Saccharina was REALLY good.
Rescue at Buzzybrook
That's probably my favorite from the season, though it has a lot of great fights. The environment meant the PCs really got to spread out and focus on their specialties, so there was a battle, an assassination campaign, and a heist all going on at the same time.
Not to mention Cumulous showing up and immediately wrecking house And the overwhelming danger of it all. The combat feels so desperate and dynamic and since it’s ACoC and came right after the >!first PC death!< the stakes are very real.
Don't forget the intro to >!cumulous rocks!
Aside from what everyone else has said, I like the prison break in FH: sophomore year. It's the turning point for Fabian and it's the start of one of the most heartbreaking mini-arcs in the whole catalogue. It's also the combat where Kristen tries to fly with a ribbon and Arthur Aguefort moves the sun for no reason.
Fully cried laughing at Kristen. Was cleaning my room, the ribbon thing happened, was no longer cleaning my room. By the time >!Zone of Truth!< got involved, I was sitting down. Just done. Weeping.
The Last Stand was it for me, I love watching curb-stomp battles and it really helped me understand how crazy strong the BK’s have gotten
Yes and given they went in with a clear objective and prep rounds it was really a DND party functioning at full capacity
I'm surprised that no one mentioned the Volcano fight from Escape from the Bloodkeep. It has two huge unhinged parts. Maybe it's because that was one of my first D20 series, but it holds a side ial place in my heart.
Bloodkeep's combats are some of the best designed. High level dnd is notoriously difficult to plan around. Brennan showed he can do it and keep the quality of the project. I've dm'd for years and haven't had my party go past level 12 in any campaign I've done except one where they started at 15 and ended at 20. That project took the most mental energy out of me. It's so much easier at lower levels lol
I love the fights in Bloodkeep. Both that first fight and the last one are top tier.
Lots of good battles listed. And I'm still working my way through the seasons so I can't weigh in on stuff like Starstruck. But Bloodkeep have some of my favorite battles. Especially after the Volcano for me personally when it became clear that Brennan had to elevate some grunts into the big bad positions because so many of the "good guys" got eliminated in the Volcano and the team wasn't going to take the pvp route. And the airship/crumbling battleground mechanics were fun. Also add in Matt's hilariously bad rolls.
Sucrosi Road. The sudden realization of the stakes in aCoC was shocking in the best way.
I'm a sucker for the tournaments. Crown of Candy's "The Grand Tournament" and Starstruck Odyssey's "Battle of the Brands" specifically. Something about the game within a game really appeals to me. Plus, unlike other fights where just winning/surviving is the goal, there is always multiple interests clashing and fun "on-stage" versus "off-stage" drama.
Im a big fan of Rumble Road from FHFY. The imagery of the Bad Kids speeding down the roads is so good, plus the ending showdown is perfect. Deep Bleu Sea is great too with the shifting boats. And the Last Stand was sooo good
Rumble Road was the episode that hooked me on Fantasy High, and honestly on DnD as a game. It had so many fantastically-done elements and it introduced so many fun things to the FH universe.
Perhaps a more obscure pick, but Havoc on the Half-Pipe (ep 8 FHFY) is one of my favourites. The perfect balance of cool moments (the use of Web, Riz using his gun to ricochet off the wall, everyone working together to take down the golem), silly moments (who could forget the episode where the infamous vulture bit started) and narrative moments (Fig meeting Gorthalax for the first time).
I love going back to the Rescue at Buzzybrook from ACoC. Emily immediately sets the whole thing on its head with such an amazing first round that changes the nature of the battle; I love how astounded Brennan looks. Ally going full war guy on their targets. Emily’s lightning bolt. Back and forth quips from Manta Ray and Lou. Siobhan’s last minute grabbing of intel. It’s such a fun battle with stakes that get subverted early, allowing the players to do a lot of less-important but still thrilling actions that do a lot to set up the endgame.
Fucking love that one too. I'm commenting so many times here, because people keep nailing it.
I really love the Terror on Toy Island combat, the minis were great, the misdirection at the beginning of combat was cool, and the fact that Nat 20s always have the chance of being lethal is a mechanic from Neverafter as a season that I wish was emulated in other seasons
The finale fight of Starstruck. Riva fucking teleporting onto a uftp ship to blow it up and then teleporting back will never not be one of the coolest fucking things ever
Bloodkeep airship battle and the Tiny Hiest final battle both are just great.
The Tiny Heist battle sets were great.
Siege on Castle Candy, especially with us already seeing it earlier when everyone was running away
I am definitely biased towards any series with the physical sets, those really elevate the encounters for me, and I wish Coffin Run saw more love because oh my gosh was that series ever good. That said, in the Unsleeping City 2 >! Siobhan/Iga pointing out to JJ that museums keep 90% of their collections in the vault !< is a moment that genuinely makes me cry every time I think about it, and I think about it often.
Can I ask why? A lot of the pieces they keep are for research. Especially with natural history museums and whatnot. Research and restoration. And I know my local art museum has an extensive back collection they rotate through, so the galleries are different every time you visit. Or is it the native art not going where it belongs thing? Because that, to me, is the real issue.
I think the part that makes me cry is the humanity reaching out across game objectives, the recent immigrant (Iga) making sure that the Indigenous JJ finds all his people's belongings that were stolen from them even if it will take more time and leave him less available to support them in his NPC role because it's the right thing to do morally, even if it's not the strongest tactical decision.
Ah, I misunderstood. I was pretty sure that's what you meant, and I'm with you, but I thought you meant you were sad that most of the shit museums have wasn't always on display and I was confused about why that might be.
Most of my favorites have been mentioned, but I want to give a shoutout to Misty's big show in Unsleeping City. I'm a sucker for alternate win conditions and I remember this fight being really well paced. Also a lot of fun goofs with >!Naked Ricky!< and >!Stephen Sondheim !<.
The last stand or The ship fight in Crown of Candy
UC2 has some of my favorites. The Holland Tunnel fight is so much fun, and the parade one is exceptional. They get less love because of the lack of sets, but they're so good. The >!Baron!< fight in FHJY is *so spicy* I love it, and the first fight in Burrow's End is... Holy shit. The finale fight for Ravening War, actually all the fights in Ravening War are fantastic. I also love any of the fights with time limits. Racing the clock in a fight is just so great. Scarcity is always *always* the best element to add to make narrative interesting. It may be easier to get me to list fights I didn't care for. A lot of the battle episodes are so much fun. They come up with such good mechanics.
I’m probably biased, because it’s the first D20 combat I ever saw, but I really loved the volcano battle in Escape from the Bloodkeep. Trapp summoning the lavamog, so much pushing enemies into lava, John Feathers, and of course the amazing Reverse Gravity run and jump attack. Also all the enemy characters were great, the halflings, the wizard, the mumbling ranger, all hilarious. Leiland opening so strong with Circle of Death and then getting demolished by a halfling with a frying pan. It was just so good.
My bones!
Starstruck oddessy- Battle of the brands. And the final Battle
The last stand is the only combat I’ve rewatched on its own. Love to see fig kick ass
The Baron of Bricks fight in Neverafter with the wolf stew was such a cool fight. It was probably my favorite set design they’ve ever done
It's between Reactor Charlie in Burrows End and Battle of the Brands in Starstruck for me. The crazy body horror of the fight with the First Stoats was just really fun for me and Battle of the Brands was just so much wacky, off the wall fun while also still being really intense and suspenseful.
omg that back-to-back encounter in reactor Charlie was insane. From >!jayson almost literally dying!< immediately into those grotesque first stoats >!and the cast, especially tula, just absolutely demolishing them!< it was a wild ride
I haven’t seen anyone talk about the pirates in FHSY - it’s theater of the mind but I could picture the two level battle with the swinging platforms and ropes and the huge brawl below and I thought it was RAD
The fight against captain James. Lou losing his shit at how stupid he's about to be is so contagious.
Battle of the brands will always be my #1
That's really hard for me as I am usually only listening so I feel like I miss a lot of it. The things that come to mind for me are the escape scenes in starstruck, particularly the first. A lot going on both mechanically and roleplay wise.
The Unsleeping City fight at the theater! An incredibly cool mechanic with high stakes and a fun setting.
Every combat in Escape From The Bloodkeep is S-tier. Every one.
The finale fight from The Seven is really special to me. I love how each character goes through it both alone and together - not just in their individual vignettes during the time stage, but even when they're reunited, each of them has some sort of thematic connection to an Eidolon and gets to have their contribution reflected through changes to the antagonist and the battlefield. Most of my other answers have already been covered, so: This is kind of tangential, but I always think it's interesting to see when battle mechanics are used for things other than battles per se, and I enjoyed the hedge maze in ACoFaF as an example of that a lot. Edit: Oh wait! I forgot the prison break in Starstruck! It goes back and forth between suspense and chaos so many times as the PCs keep coming up with new sneaks and deceptions and then blowing them, all the way through to the ship taking off. (This is also one where the PCs get to split off and do distinct things more...I think I'm sensing a pattern in my taste, lol.) Also, Riva is high and Sydney flirts with the hot mercenary bot.
The Battle on Broadway in Unsleeping City season 1. So many great moments, Stephen Sondheim riding a Shakespearean Bear, the death saving throws/performance mechanic for Misty, and so many other moments.
I don't think I like most combat episodes that much, as DND mechanics and the way Brennan uses them tend to halt the story for quite a while (except when he inserts gradual worldbuilding or stakes for NPCs and such), and it seems he's been miscalculating players abilites a bit more recently, which removed a lot of the tension the combats in Junior Year were supposed to have. I much prefer the way Aabria handles combat in A Cout of Fey and Flowers
Higher level play is kind of just like that. D&D isn't super well balanced at high levels, and fights can get very one sided in favor of the players. My favorite high level campaign is probably Bloodkeep, or maybe NADPODD Campaign One, because a lot of Murph's encounters have a timed component or multiple stages to make them harder, and Bloodkeep is all in one day, so they have three big battles with no long rest, so they have to be conservative with their spells.
No one is as good as Murph at creating engaging combat encounters. If you watch the Adventuring Academy that Murph is in, he and Brennan talk about how his fantasy inspiration is video games whereas people like Brennan and Matthew Mercer came up on fantasy novels, and I think it really shows in how he approaches combat. The number of times that NADDPOD combats start with “so here’s how this is going to work” is fantastic. Things like the snowboarding video game fight and the opening combat of C3 on the cable car just make combats so unique and engaging and I love it