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<blockquote data-quote="77IM" data-source="post: 7525063" data-attributes="member: 12377">I voted &quot;No,&quot; because I take issue with the word &quot;likely.&quot; If a random roll of the dice produces an outcome that is genuinely &quot;likely&quot; to be a TPK, that's not very interesting for most people.Now, an encounter that &quot;might possibly become a TPK if the players are boneheads who don't know when to quit&quot; could be very interesting. I mean, the PCs are not omnipotent, so it stands to reason that there exist a lot of foes who would curb-stomp them in a fight. Exposure to those foes isn't a problem, as long as the alternative (flee, surrender, parley, etc.) is viable. And it must be viable AFTER the party has learned the true strength of the enemy. I'm pretty sure there are adventures out there where a seemingly-easy encounter turns into an inescapable bloodbath. And, honestly, even if the alternative is viable, there needs to be some kind of point to the encounter. In D&amp;D, running from a fight often takes more play time than winning one, and most people find an evening of &quot;fight bad monster and then run away bloodied and broken&quot; to be kinda frustrating and boring.So, yeah, if you can avoid all those pitfalls (telegraph the monster's power before the encounter; make it obvious that there are alternatives to combat; make those alternatives somewhat attractive and not feel like a pointless loss) then I think overpowered enemies are a fine idea.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="77IM, post: 7525063, member: 12377"] I voted "No," because I take issue with the word "likely." If a random roll of the dice produces an outcome that is genuinely "likely" to be a TPK, that's not very interesting for most people. Now, an encounter that "might possibly become a TPK if the players are boneheads who don't know when to quit" could be very interesting. I mean, the PCs are not omnipotent, so it stands to reason that there exist a lot of foes who would curb-stomp them in a fight. Exposure to those foes isn't a problem, as long as the alternative (flee, surrender, parley, etc.) is viable. And it must be viable AFTER the party has learned the true strength of the enemy. I'm pretty sure there are adventures out there where a seemingly-easy encounter turns into an inescapable bloodbath. And, honestly, even if the alternative is viable, there needs to be some kind of point to the encounter. In D&D, running from a fight often takes more play time than winning one, and most people find an evening of "fight bad monster and then run away bloodied and broken" to be kinda frustrating and boring. So, yeah, if you can avoid all those pitfalls (telegraph the monster's power before the encounter; make it obvious that there are alternatives to combat; make those alternatives somewhat attractive and not feel like a pointless loss) then I think overpowered enemies are a fine idea. [/QUOTE]

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