Recent content by snickersnax

I can imagine PCs in a sandbox where an encounter is clearly above their level, and the players thinking the solution to "winning" this otherwise unwinnable encounter is more levels, Or a more story-based plotline where the players have managed to bypass significant parts of the plot through...

When was the last time an easy or medium difficulty encounter TPK'd your party?

As I mentioned before, it could be used to level up low level NPCs so they can adventure comfortably with the party. Also other down-time options are do things like: make magic items, run a business (and hopefully make money, gain reknown, gain inspiration, etc. You could say the same thing...

I suspect that there are more gradations than trivial or certain death. Maybe even something like easy/medium/hard/deadly....

I was thinking specifically of Rise of Tiamat/Tyranny of Dragons, but I could have just as easily used OoTA or PoTA as examples

Actually the encounter could be any difficulty. Imagine a room with a hole in the top and a door in the side. A necromancer could animate dead and drop them into a room they can't escape from, accumulating as many undead over time as needed to make an encounter of any difficulty. After 24...

This is interesting. The idea actually came from a post on another board. The rules in the DMG for NPC party members and low level followers are they accumulate xp like PCs and take part of the party's xp. (DMG p92 - 93), The person on that board was attempting to use this loophole to...

Actually I was thinking about an adventure in which two frenemy NPC wizards scheduled regular attacks against each other for friendly competition to improve their skills but were somewhat serious about trying to kill each other ala Inspector Clousaeu vs Cato only with animated/ summoned...

We're not really talking about the real world we're talking about the NPCs in your fantasy world. Do they not understand that a dagger does less damage than a two handed sword?

So no xp for killing summoned Tiamat :(

It boggles my mind that the inhabitants of a world would not be putting in at least some effort to understand their world. I mean they must know something right? bigger swords do more damage? Fireball has more killing power than firebolt? I can't make a potion of invisibility unless I can...

I am actually contemplating the concept as a world building/adventure idea, and I want to make sure I'm not creating a monster by putting the idea in my players heads that I regret later.

But you're killing fewer people because you get to kill them twice :) edit: + commoners only worth 10 xp, zombies are 50

Good point, but you can upgrade to Create Undead at level 11. Or perhaps conjuration works better if the other guy lives within an hour distance.

Why else do you think that wizards are paranoid recluses? Level 5 is game on, first one to lichdom wins. Interestingly I've noticed that NPC wizards are rare in published material. There is the apprentice wizard and the archmage with not a lot else in between.... maybe that's why.