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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hriston" data-source="post: 7493194" data-attributes="member: 6787503">I’m still not following. What penalties? The gargoyle's DEX modifier is +0.In the "Building Combat Encounters" guidelines, under "Modifying Encounter Difficulty", it lists, "The whole party is surprised, and the enemy isn’t", as a situational drawback that increases the difficulty of the encounter by one step.Then those someone's will be less likely to be surprised, and those with low scores will be more likely to be surprised. Individuals can be surprised. The gargoyle doesn't need to surprise everyone in the party for its trait to have an effect.The trait is a conditional statement. The gargoyle can't be distinguished from a statue WHILE it is motionless. If it ISN'T motionless, then it CAN be distinguished from a statue. The trait itself doesn't say whether the gargoyle is motionless or not. To me, it isn't a simple matter of declaring that the gargoyle is motionless, although that works too. To me, it's a matter for the dice to decide.Right, they are able to hold themselves so still they are mistaken for statues and can do this for years at a time. To find out whether they are successful in doing this in a particular situation, however, I roll the dice. If they succeed, it may very well be the case that they were holding still for a number of years before the party came upon them. If they fail, it could be that they only just made a small movement in anticipation of their attack on the party. I think the idea of the gargoyle as an ideal sentry is due at least in part to its ability to stay in the same place for long periods of time. Non-elemental creatures, for example, would need to stop standing guard to eat and sleep, whereas gargoyles can do so indefinitely.Yes. I don't know why it would need to be explained that you can roll a 20 on a d20.As was mentioned up-thread, the gargoyle didn't always have the "living statue" narrative attached to it in earlier editions of the game. Without it being grafted on there would still be a gargoyle.Yes, happy gaming. This particular issue certainly wouldn't be a deal breaker for me.</blockquote>

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