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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steel_Wind" data-source="post: 5177631" data-attributes="member: 20741">A classic “wandering monster” is an “extra” denizen of a dungeon that is met outside of a particular location. If the creature would be OTHERWISE met at a given location but MAY be met wandering in the ruins/dungeon depending on certain factors – then that’s different. Then it’s just changing up the order and possible encounter map and other details of the fight.  It can effect the overall challenge level of the dungeon (as it may disrupt section flow), but usually it’s not too much of a big deal.   If the encounter is just an extra something rolled from a chart  (which is what this very much sounds like to me) then I think it’s a crappy adventure design. Very old skool – very legitimate – very authentic  -- and very, very craptastic, just the same.    Why? Because, imo, a good dungeon ought to be presenting a reasonably balanced challenge for your players, when viewed as a whole – or crunched up into sections. It may be that the party will have an opportunity to rest within the dungeon to regain their health and resources. If so, that simply changes the # of sections of the dungeon that need to be evaluated together (instead of as a whole) when evaluating whether or not the overall threat the party must face is a reasonably fair one.  That’s modern adventure design. Once you start introducing random elements into that design, you will begin to draw upon the resources of the party in unpredictable ways at unpredictable times that can lead to a TPK. Like...throwing a random CR6 Outsider against a party of 3 CR3/4 characters who have not rested, say.   The result? A TPK. Usually, players consider that to not be very much fun. Most DMs consider it to be a pretty sucky event, too.  “Average” bad luck – for good or ill – has to be accounted for by your providing some wiggle room for your players – and you – so you can avoid a TPK.  If you don’t provide that wiggle room by rolling behind a screen, you might have to provide it by lessening the threat posed by the foes that engage the party.  Disastrous bad luck, on the other hand, i.e parties that consistently miss and monsters that almost never miss and roll several critical hits? Well – in fairness, that’s so unusual that no DM can be expected to reasonably account for a run of bad luck like that when designing a dungeon area or determining the CR or EL of an encounter .   In terms of the design question, it all comes down to this:  Did the Bearded Devil fulfill the roll that you think a wondering monster should be fulfilling in a dungeon?   Test and consume the resources of your players? It certainly did that; however, I’m not sure how “dynamic” a dead party is.      Because a creature that is located in a particular area, generally, has to be deliberately engaged by the party after they make a conscious decision to do so. They make a decision to trigger the fight, or at least a series of fights (of which that encounter may be a sequential part) by making a deliberate and conscious choice to do so in game. In most cases, the decision to trigger the fight is a decision made at a time when the PCs believe they have done their best to make the encounter “winnable” – because that’s fun for the players.  In this case, they made no obvious choice to trigger such a fight, not having been rested and regained their faculties and resources. I’m not sure what they were doing at that point. Might be they were just probing about and looking for a spot to rest or to see if there was one more encounter they could choose to fight and then rest?  I expect they think they had not made a conscious choice to engage a Bearded Devil, right then and there.  Instead, the designer of the dungeon made that choice for them and a TPK resulted. Had the error been all theirs – they’d blame themselves. Now, my guess is that they are blaming you somewhat – and my guess is that they might feel somewhat victimized or put upon in the circumstances, whereas otherwise, they would be far less inclined to feel that way.  That would be a distinction with a difference, to my way of thinking. You appear not to agree. That’s ok; it’s your game – not mine. Your opinion certainly matters more than my own, right?   But in the end, when it comes to  a TPK, I put it to you the people whose opinion matters the most isn’t yours either – it’s the opinion of your players which matters most.  How’d they feel about all this?</blockquote>

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