Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6862165" data-attributes="member: 6787650">This observation reminds me of the military truism: the attacker has the strategic advantage because he chooses where and in what quantity he attacks. The defender has the tactical advantage because he's prepared the ground.D&D PCs in a sandbox game, by the nature of the sandbox, have the strategic advantage. But you can and occasionally should give the defender the tactical advantage: e.g. fortifications with total or partial cover surrounded by a trench inside of a cleared killing ground out to a good range (600'+ is ideal for hobgoblins because of bows), hidden caltrops or pit traps (remember that falling damage knocks you prone), doors that can be spiked, deceptive encounters that turn out to have more hidden troops that appear after the PCs tip their hand (unless the PCs have Perception high enough to spot all of the hidden troops--unless the troops are "hidden" by being behind total cover nearby or in some other way that doesn't rely on winning a Stealth contest), etc.Wait, what? Why? Even if you stick to the encounter guidelines, there should be several times as many low-level monsters as there are PCs. Twenty goblins vs. 4 8th level PCs is smack-dab in the middle of Medium (you have to go up to 28 goblins before it becomes Hard), giving the goblins five times as many actions as the PCs, or ten times when you count the fact that they all get bonus action Hide/Disengage with Nimble Escape.I just last night had my first real "Oops, this fight is deadlier than I intended" experience. Four players, 2nd and 3rd level PCs, just completed a mission preventing a 9th level orc wizard medicine man (Whumpf) from staging a successful legal coup and taking over the village. The twist in the story was supposed to be, "While the orc chieftain is gloating over getting Whumpf fired, four shadow demons attack Doroga (the orc chieftain) and Whumpf, and the PCs + Doroga + Whumpf have to fight them off. Doroga and PCs become allies-of-necessity with Whumpf against He Who Sent The Shadows and cannot dispose of him the way they were expecting to because they need him to fight off the greater threat that wants them both dead." The plan probably would have worked too, except... I gave control of the Whumpf to a player whose PC had died, and when the fight started, instead of joining the fight he instead Dimension Door'ed himself straight up (Feather Fall back down). I hadn't counted on Whumpf being too villainous and cowardly to even join the fight (because I had expected to be running him myself, and it never occurred to me that the player would play him this way) and there was a definite moment of "Oops, I think despite their successes, the party is about to get TPK'ed here, and it's my fault for giving Whumpf away to someone else." That hasn't quite happened yet, partly because I declared a stopping point in the middle of that combat, but Doroga is almost dead now (he's one of the two targets of the assassination) and TPK still could happen depending on what the shadows do after killing Doroga. What was intended to be "former foes unite by necessity" looks like it's going to turn into "tragedy strikes! and the players hate Whumpf now more than ever."Anyway, my point is that whichever way things turn out, it's still a better story than "four PCs fought a level-appropriate encounter with one Shadow Demon and killed it inside of three rounds."</blockquote>

Verification