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<blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7065858" data-attributes="member: 82106"><p>Well, I agree that DM fiat obviates (or can easily obviate, and at least makes subjective) such things as various "you are hard to surprise" feats and such (though I would note that 4e tended to make those things 'you are IMPOSSIBLE to surprise', which I found a bit shocking frankly. I mean, I do appreciate unequivocal capabilities like that, they dramatically get across the point, but there should always be some reservation, such that when you finally run into "the greatest thief that never lived" you ARE surprised, what the heck! But anyway, sure, it should probably always be stated as some sort of threshold "you must have passive Perception of X or else you're surprised" and presumably you don't get surprised much as your 'Praeturnaturally Alert' feat gives you +4. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, I'm less categorical about it. It just depends on the details of the scenario. That being said, I think your solution is pretty good. Another option would be to simply fix the results of NPC vs NPC attacks beforehand. In other words the GM simply decrees that it will take N hits by the bad guys to kill the NPC, and those will be tallied at the rate of 1 for every 2 chances they have to attack, or something like that. I don't believe in having 'battles' between NPCs with dice, this is a misappropriation of the use of randomness in a game. Checks, using dice, ONLY resolve conflicts between the protagonist(s) and their opponents (themselves, others, nature, or society as the case may be). Dice are NEVER used to simply generate 'random outcomes' where a PC isn't directly involved. This goes back to Wrecan's "The World is not Made of Numbers", its simply a stage or tool that exists to tell stories, and what happens in it and exists within it is purely whatever is most suited to that goal.</p><p></p><p>You could simply decree that the NPC will die on round 5. Certain PC actions could then be held to delay that by 1 or more rounds (IE killing the elf archer, delays it by 1 round, killing the demon delays it by one round, killing the other NPC delays it by 3 rounds, killing all the minions by 1 round, and eliminating ALL of them prevents it entirely). Honestly, you could now run this as an SC, though you'd need a little more work to cast it all in success/failure terms so it works. That might in fact be the best plan overall.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="AbdulAlhazred, post: 7065858, member: 82106"] Well, I agree that DM fiat obviates (or can easily obviate, and at least makes subjective) such things as various "you are hard to surprise" feats and such (though I would note that 4e tended to make those things 'you are IMPOSSIBLE to surprise', which I found a bit shocking frankly. I mean, I do appreciate unequivocal capabilities like that, they dramatically get across the point, but there should always be some reservation, such that when you finally run into "the greatest thief that never lived" you ARE surprised, what the heck! But anyway, sure, it should probably always be stated as some sort of threshold "you must have passive Perception of X or else you're surprised" and presumably you don't get surprised much as your 'Praeturnaturally Alert' feat gives you +4. Well, I'm less categorical about it. It just depends on the details of the scenario. That being said, I think your solution is pretty good. Another option would be to simply fix the results of NPC vs NPC attacks beforehand. In other words the GM simply decrees that it will take N hits by the bad guys to kill the NPC, and those will be tallied at the rate of 1 for every 2 chances they have to attack, or something like that. I don't believe in having 'battles' between NPCs with dice, this is a misappropriation of the use of randomness in a game. Checks, using dice, ONLY resolve conflicts between the protagonist(s) and their opponents (themselves, others, nature, or society as the case may be). Dice are NEVER used to simply generate 'random outcomes' where a PC isn't directly involved. This goes back to Wrecan's "The World is not Made of Numbers", its simply a stage or tool that exists to tell stories, and what happens in it and exists within it is purely whatever is most suited to that goal. You could simply decree that the NPC will die on round 5. Certain PC actions could then be held to delay that by 1 or more rounds (IE killing the elf archer, delays it by 1 round, killing the demon delays it by one round, killing the other NPC delays it by 3 rounds, killing all the minions by 1 round, and eliminating ALL of them prevents it entirely). Honestly, you could now run this as an SC, though you'd need a little more work to cast it all in success/failure terms so it works. That might in fact be the best plan overall. [/QUOTE]
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