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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Drawmack" data-source="post: 410631" data-attributes="member: 4981">This might just be me but I love it when the PCs aren't affraid then they should be. IMLC: The fighter charged a guy that they knew was the bad guy whom they thought was a rogue. The rogue turned out to be a rge 2/ wiz 12 and he cast fireball in the fighters face during the charge. After that they all knew what to expect but before that they had no clue. I just find it more fun to watch the peril of the situation dawn on the players then to have them know right up front.Don't misunderstand me, I do use monsters, I just use them sparingly and find that by using them sparingly they have a much greater impact. For example I am working on an adventure now that is about 1/2 done and topping in at 30 pages. It's only got three monsters in it but when they unlock the door that they think will let them out of the maze and get bullrushed by a dire ape after not encountering any monsters in weeks of game play I bet that I'm going to get some jaw dropping going on.On the other hand when they encounter a thief in this city after surviving the maze that the thieves guild uses for training I bet they have a healthy respect for them. I find that one way to get awe from your PCs is to expose them to the training that your NPCs have been through. Maybe the PCs are looking through a hole in the fence and see a fighter dodging spells and fighting other students at the same time as his final exam. Or maybe the PCs get a glimpse of a mage taking his final exam. This makes the PCs respect the classes. A good idea is some visible symbol of an NPCs rank that the PCs can figure out, like maybe the mages have different color orbs on their staff's for different power levels, maybe the members of the thieves guild have different color buckles on their boots (copper, silver, gold, platinum). It really isn't that hard to have the PCs pretty much know what someone is just by seeing them it's really just about continuity. Howerver, it's also very easy to hide what someone is from the players which may not always be so with monsters.</blockquote>

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