Originally Posted by tacticslion
Meister, read here!
One idea is, when you describe the stone pillars, describe them as either leaning and breakable ("with enough force"), or very sturdy. With leaning/breakable option, it might make a character think "huh, if he ran into those, and it smashed, then it'd fall on him" - do that and you'd have a great way to explain the extra damage, a limited-tactic that the players would inevitably try as often as possible - especially if he was weakened in some way for a round, like prone or dazed or something - and it would be pretty epic for these pillars to get smashed on top of him. The opposite is also possible. If you make the pillars uniquely strong, and identify them as a slightly different material than the rest of the area, emphasizing that it would "probably hurt" if someone hit it (implying testing the pillars, not smashing into them with your ramman/juggernaught boss), than players will probably get the same idea.
Outside of that, yeah, I'd say most of the ideas you've recieved are great. When he charges, to emphasize his momentum, always have him travel a few feet (or a square or two, if you're doing that) beyond where he was "aiming" (constantly using over-run and/or bull-rush) - that would also give them the idea for setting something up behind his targets to run into. One final idea is that if you have an expendable NPC in the group, kill that character. So long as you don't do it cheesily (so long as the NPC isn't, for example, far away from the fighting) it will likely be something remembered by the characters for quite some time. Might even open up a quest to raise them or something, depending on the NPC.
Some notes on the thread: I suggest we use swap tags or spoiler tags in this thread, as players may read the forums, and we don't want to spoil things for 'em. When we swap or spoiler, however, we should make it clear to whome we are speaking before hand, so the right person/people can get their info. Also, since the title of the thread is generic enough, players might not make the connection "oh, I shouldn't go in there" and instead think "heh, it's probably funny DM stories" or "hey, maybe I'll learn how to be a better DM".
More on topic, and spoiler free for my players:
I've got a campaign where my characters just won't proceed any further. They've got an option of returning to the "real" world (they're in another plane of existance) or continuing on to what they expect would be a difficult and violent fight. They are currently a hung party - no one in the group knows what they want to do (and usually oscillate). Further, attempting to force the issue on my part has led to some frustration. So... any advice?
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