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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Haggerty" data-source="post: 207494" data-attributes="member: 89">Mix your encounters...  Have monsters approach from behind while they listen at a door.  Or toss in neutral creatures who aren't really interested in killing the characters, but just want to be left alone...  If they are smart, they may be able to negotiate information out of him.  Leave doors open or slightly ajar.  Be careful to describe what they are fighting, rather than straight out telling them.Recently, a group I was DMing ran across an ochre jelly that had disguised itself as a grimy pool of cavern water.  I described it exactly that way, and they didn't realize what it was until I mentioned it while calculating experience.  It took them two and half rounds to realize that their weapons weren't hurting the creature, and were only splitting it in two.Or...  I had an "airlock" trick set up for them.  A long hallway with a locked door at either end.  The characters had keys to the doors, but regardless of whether the doors were unlocked or not, one door would not open unless the other was closed.  Now, in the hallway I put several animated stone statues.  Not too difficult to fight, except for 8 hardness of stone.  The statues had orders to attack anyone in the hallway.  The players didn't know whether they were facing stone golems, or elementals or what, and were frantically trying to open the outer door while fending off the statues.</blockquote>