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Grind-out fights, unconscious heroes, and retreat
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<blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6618362" data-attributes="member: 6787650"><p>Running away is actually quite easy in my opinion, if your enemies are primarily melee (as most monsters are). That might be because I build in "run away" options for every single PC I make, but even with a vanilla PC, you just need to suffer one opportunity attack and buy one round of distance between yourself and the enemy. That could mean everyone runs away while the party monk or rogue Dodges for a turn, then catches up next turn while the monsters fall behind. Or it could mean a wizard casting Grease (or better, Web) in a strategic location during the retreat.</p><p></p><p>Not being able to run away is one of the major downsides of being a dwarf, but it can be mitigated with the Longstrider spell. That's both a major reason why I never play dwarves, and a reason why I always take Longstrider.</p><p></p><p>I've thought about this a lot because, as I've said, PCs hate letting monsters run away successfully.</p><p></p><p><strong>Edited to add:</strong> RE: "orders of magnitude off the DMG charts," I love fights that are way off the DMG charts. I just ran a test party through a quadruple deadly encounter to test my mass combat rules. It was 32,000 XP when the Deadly threshold is 1700 XP per PC (6800 total), and I "cheated" in favor of the monsters a little by letting too many of them attack the chokepoint at a time, in TotM combat. The fight cost the PCs a grand total of 26 HP and 4 Spell Points, and netted a tidy profit of 2000 XP per PC. Big fights are waaaaay more fun than easy fights, which is one reason I'm so interested in mass combat rules. Also, big fights give the PCs an incentive to fight smart, which might mean defeating the enemy in detail or finding good terrain. If you stick to the DMG chart it will always be easier to just brute-force the speed bump. Who bothers retreating to favorable terrain when all you're facing is a couple of trolls? AD&D would make it 2d6 trolls, which is much more fun!</p><p></p><p>Also the players seem to enjoy knowing that they beat an encounter that maxes out the difficulty scale and then some. Presumably that is why your player was walking everyone through those charts--he wanted everyone to know just how <em>awesome </em>it was that they won!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="FormerlyHemlock, post: 6618362, member: 6787650"] Running away is actually quite easy in my opinion, if your enemies are primarily melee (as most monsters are). That might be because I build in "run away" options for every single PC I make, but even with a vanilla PC, you just need to suffer one opportunity attack and buy one round of distance between yourself and the enemy. That could mean everyone runs away while the party monk or rogue Dodges for a turn, then catches up next turn while the monsters fall behind. Or it could mean a wizard casting Grease (or better, Web) in a strategic location during the retreat. Not being able to run away is one of the major downsides of being a dwarf, but it can be mitigated with the Longstrider spell. That's both a major reason why I never play dwarves, and a reason why I always take Longstrider. I've thought about this a lot because, as I've said, PCs hate letting monsters run away successfully. [B]Edited to add:[/B] RE: "orders of magnitude off the DMG charts," I love fights that are way off the DMG charts. I just ran a test party through a quadruple deadly encounter to test my mass combat rules. It was 32,000 XP when the Deadly threshold is 1700 XP per PC (6800 total), and I "cheated" in favor of the monsters a little by letting too many of them attack the chokepoint at a time, in TotM combat. The fight cost the PCs a grand total of 26 HP and 4 Spell Points, and netted a tidy profit of 2000 XP per PC. Big fights are waaaaay more fun than easy fights, which is one reason I'm so interested in mass combat rules. Also, big fights give the PCs an incentive to fight smart, which might mean defeating the enemy in detail or finding good terrain. If you stick to the DMG chart it will always be easier to just brute-force the speed bump. Who bothers retreating to favorable terrain when all you're facing is a couple of trolls? AD&D would make it 2d6 trolls, which is much more fun! Also the players seem to enjoy knowing that they beat an encounter that maxes out the difficulty scale and then some. Presumably that is why your player was walking everyone through those charts--he wanted everyone to know just how [I]awesome [/I]it was that they won! [/QUOTE]
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