NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9711144" data-attributes="member: 6877472">It comes down to "gotcha moments".  Nobody really likes these.  There's no fundamental difference between "oh the woman is a medusa/succcubus/vampire/doppleganger/polymorphed hag" and "oh didn't I mention?  The BBEG has a Vorpal Sword" or "Yeah, of course that statue is a construct/that treasure chest is a mimic/that innocent bunny rabbit is a violent killing machine".I remember I was fighting some Stone Giants in an AL mod.  I'd found this consumable that functioned like Greater Restoration during Storm King's Thunder, and I'd been saving it for a rainy day on my Fighter/Rogue.In the fight, one of the Giants, a spellcaster, petrified our Cleric.  Thinking I would save the day, I Dashed to the cleric's side and Action Surged to use the consumable.DM: "Oh, sorry, it doesn't work.  The ability on the monster says the petrification cannot be reversed as long as it's alive."One expensive consumable lost, one annoyed player (me!).Should the game have unknown information?  Of course!  But the downside is that you cannot expect someone to make informed choices without information.  You win initiative on a Beholder and try to kill it before it could use it's goofy eye rays..."haha, you fool, it's a gas spore!".  What should the player have done?  Wait to see if the beholder has a disintegration eye?  Run from a gas spore, leaving your friends behind?If the consequences of forcing a player to make an uninformed choice are deadly, it stops feeling less like a game of strategy and more like a game of luck, like Candyland or Fluxx.</blockquote>

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