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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8806094" data-attributes="member: 4937">It's not just the emphasis, such that as you level up, you generally get a lot better at killing everything, but only marginally better or not better at all at evasion and negotiation or that the one class with evasion features is a terrible trap of a class that isn't worth playing.   It's that the game doesn't actually reward alternate strategies very much.  Monsters are difficult to avoid, bypass, or negotiate with.  The subset of monstrous things in a dungeon that you can do any one of those three with is small.  And for the most part, all three tactics will get you killed more often than they'll save you, both in the short term and the longer term.While bypassing or a avoiding the monster will get you some XP from a generous GM, as people have pointed out, it's the XP from the treasure you really want.  And it's very hard to bypass or avoid a monster and get the treasure.  As soon as you are within 10' of a monster in 1e AD&D you basically have to stop moving and enter melee, and if you try to leave melee you draw what will later be called an "attack of opportunity" with massive bonuses for the attacker.  Plus, many monsters have more speed and better senses than you are likely to have.  Avoiding monsters by running away is doable in 1e AD&D, but avoiding monsters to make progress in a dungeon generally isn't.And in the short term it will get you killed.  And I mean reliably killed.  Because in 1e AD&D it is always important to have an exit strategy, and an exit strategy depends on having a clear and safe path of retreat if things go wrong.  If you leave things behind you, you are basically in the first stage of writing up a new character.  Bypass, evade and negotiate do not guarantee a safe exit from the dungeon should you run into a situation you can't handle.   That isn't to say that there aren't some situations where you'll want to do that, but as a first order strategy it is a failure in the way being able to kill everything isn't.  And even if you manage to avoid short term disaster, the strategy doesn't work out because it costs XP relative to the kill things and take their stuff strategy.  Most negotiation in practice means bribes, and in Gygaxian play bribes are always hefty and painful (examples are provided in the DMG).  Moreover, since much of what you would be negotiating with won't keep a deal in good faith, often times it means paying a tax on both the way in and the way out, and you'll likely be at a disadvantage on the way out that makes extortion seem a sound strategy - out of hit points, out of spells, etc.  All these missed opportunities and payments mean getting less XP out of the dungeon, which puts you behind the curve compared to the challenges you have to face going deeper down.  In short, in Gygaxian play sure you do try to avoid random encounters by playing quickly and efficiently.  You do plan safe escapes when you need to get out of the dungeon fast.  You do try to have contingency plans for aiding escape plans such as throwing food or gold behind you to distract pursuers or using flaming oil to temporarily block passages and iron spikes to jam doors shut.  You do try to avoid or bypass encounters that are currently beyond you.  And you do try to befriend any potential allies you find in the dungeon while at the same time being wary for the inevitable betrayal of some of your erstwhile allies.  But the idea that you can advance in a Gygaxian dungeon by as a first order strategy avoiding things in order to rob the monsters without fighting them or other sorts of non-combat strategies is I think difficult to sustain.  I have heard of groups trying to or even successfully robbing the Keep.  I've never heard of anyone trying to rob the Caves of Chaos.  That highly skilled players understood all of this can be demonstrated by the fact that often new (to me) groups I would join groaned if I tried to do things like talk to monsters for RP reasons, knowing full well that it was suboptimal play.  Success in "old school D&D" was win surprise, win initiative, kill things before they can react, search everything carefully, and take all their stuff to maximize XP.   And I think this is the intended design by Gygax.  I do not think this is players playing in ways he didn't expect.</blockquote>

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