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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6814264" data-attributes="member: 22779">I also wonder if there might be some correlation between fudging (or the apparent need of it) and adventure design.  [MENTION=23751]Maxperson[/MENTION] talks about how he designs encounters that are on the bleeding edge of survivability.  Which means that vagaries of dice would have a much more exaggerated effect.  In the bear example, if the party wasn't 1st level, the bear could hit every attack and even crit once or twice (assuming a 2nd or 3rd level party) and likely no one would die.  They might be in dire need of a long rest afterwards, but, they likely survive.  OTOH, if you are regularly using encounters that are 5 or more levels above the party, typically done in groups that have only one or two encounters per long rest, then those same die rolls would be catastrophic.  You'd mop the floor with the PC's because the encounter is much more swingy.  This was a particular issue in 3e where you had x3 crit weapons and monsters that did a LOT of damage relative to the expected level of the PC.  It wasn't that hard to off a PC in combat in 3e, even with creatures that were par level.  When even a stock 3e Ogre can do 46 points of damage on a crit, that's going to turn a 3rd level 3e PC into a fine red mist.  Granted the odds of doing so are long, but, not that long.  Give the ogre a Great Axe and it gets that much worse.I'd hazard a guess, and this is only a guess, that there is a direct relationship to the swinging of the game (and by game I mean game system + DM style) and the apparent need to fudge.</blockquote>

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