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<blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 6362579" data-attributes="member: 996">Nod.&nbsp; Encounters did seem like a pretty good vehicle for new and casual players, to me (I've participated since the 2nd season, and seen a lot of new players try the game - and a surprising number kept playing Encounters and/or formed groups of their own).&nbsp; &nbsp;The Adventurers Guild document and the DM materials for the HotDQ season of Encounters make it clear that there are more specific guidelines for character creation and optional rules in force than are presented in the PH.&nbsp; Feats, for instance, are in, messing with starting hps or level or magic items placed is out.&nbsp; This is a bit of a change for Encounters which always encouraged DMs to allow character options specifically from the latest offerings, but didn't make pronouncements about rules in force, and left DMs a 'rule of cool' sort of escape clause to modify the adventure as they saw fit for the good of the play experience at the individual table.&nbsp; Where I ran, this included not only opening the table to more character options, but changing the level of the adventure, entirely.&nbsp; I can see the need for the changes, of course.&nbsp; The characters from Encounters are meant to be usable in other organized play programs, so they have to toe /some/ line to assure that no one shows up downstream with too many items, or a variant race or 20 more hps than they should have, or whatever.&nbsp; But it is ironic that I have less flexibility running encounters under 5e than I did under 4e.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Tony Vargas, post: 6362579, member: 996"] Nod. Encounters did seem like a pretty good vehicle for new and casual players, to me (I've participated since the 2nd season, and seen a lot of new players try the game - and a surprising number kept playing Encounters and/or formed groups of their own). The Adventurers Guild document and the DM materials for the HotDQ season of Encounters make it clear that there are more specific guidelines for character creation and optional rules in force than are presented in the PH. Feats, for instance, are in, messing with starting hps or level or magic items placed is out. This is a bit of a change for Encounters which always encouraged DMs to allow character options specifically from the latest offerings, but didn't make pronouncements about rules in force, and left DMs a 'rule of cool' sort of escape clause to modify the adventure as they saw fit for the good of the play experience at the individual table. Where I ran, this included not only opening the table to more character options, but changing the level of the adventure, entirely. I can see the need for the changes, of course. The characters from Encounters are meant to be usable in other organized play programs, so they have to toe /some/ line to assure that no one shows up downstream with too many items, or a variant race or 20 more hps than they should have, or whatever. But it is ironic that I have less flexibility running encounters under 5e than I did under 4e. [/QUOTE]

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