ELs, balance, and metagaming

[Jrel]

One thing that always put fear into the players at low through mid-levels was random encounters in the wilderness because they never knew what they were going to encounter. They knew they always had the option to run. One time, at 6th-level, the players ran into an old green dragon in the forest. I gave the players the benefit of being able to notice the dragon before the dragon saw them (or actually, before the dragon decided to do something since it knew the players were there anyway). The more experienced players ran away. The less-experienced (one guy) decided to hang around and watch. The dragon started walking forward to scare him away but he stood his ground. He ended up being an afternoon snack. Now the player knows what the better choice is next time.

 

[kengar]

The Roper is a CR 10 monster (with high AC and SR) and has some situation advantages - it's guarded by a fast river that makes it hard to approach, and the confines of the cave prevent characters from engaging it from beyond the range of its tentacles, IIRC. There's even a side bar in the adventure about it.

If the PCs do after it, they pretty much have to use lots of Alchemist's Fire to win.

Oddly, the party that I ran through FoF made short work of the roper (Alchemist Fire was a factor, yes) and got FLATTENED by the dragon.

 

[Ranes]

D'oh. For future reference:

"Am I missing something?" = Absolutely

 

[Geron Raveneye]

Re: Re: Hmmm...

Sounds like a really lame idea to me. You end up codifying in skill points and rolls something that really doesn't fit the mechanic very well.

If Thorgar the fighter/barbarian fought a band of trolls that had wandered in from a far away swamp and lost all of his group except one on the way into town, he probably knows what trolls are and what they're like. He may even have noticed that all of them got up again except the one the wizard burned to a crisp with his fireball. However, Thorgar only has int 9 and Creature Lore is a cross class skill for him, he can't get a rank this level (only half of one). Consequently, when he and his new companions meet the band of trolls on the way out of town, according to the rules, Thorgar ought to act as if he knew nothing about these monsters--especially if he rolls poorly on the check. His new companion the cleric won't know anything about them either despite having tended the wounds of farmers and merchants who escaped from them and heard their reports--he's not any good at monster lore (it's not a class skill and he only gets 2 skill points/level so he can be good at concentration and know about his religion or trolls but not both) and trolls are unusual around here. It just ends up being silly.

Now I've seen people use a level check mechanic (d20+character level) which might be good in such situations (d20+character level+int bonus) in order for characters to know about monsters they haven't faced before. But the knowledge skill mechanic is entirely the wrong mechanic for this.

Well...sorry for not detailing the whole section of the rulebook, but just trying to answer to the "Knowledge (Monster)" post above mine.

As to your complaint, they also explain how the PHB skills can be used to adjudicate how much a given character knows about a given monster. And in your example...sorry, but NO DM should ask for a roll to "remember" information a character gained during an adventure, especially if he really noticed the burned troll NOT getting up. :shrug:

 

[MTR]

I find 3E combats are so quick the party has almost no chance to successfully flee if the combat actually starts. If they know ahead of time, sure, they can avoid the fight. But if they get into one for a round or two and say "Gee, this isn't going well" it's too late