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<blockquote data-quote="Syrsuro" data-source="post: 4563122" data-attributes="member: 58162">I used a skill challenge for travel outdoors, rather than a wandering monster table.&nbsp;Part of the skill challenge was a stealth check which, if failed, resulted in a wandering monster. (It also used checks for nature, endurance, etc.). &nbsp;I think that this is a more '4E' approach to the problem.&nbsp;My concern with this approach is that it might make frequent travel tedious (lots of rolling by the players to go anywhere).&nbsp; Since I only used it once (and then we started using LFR modules which don't allow for wandering encounters) this didn't come up.&nbsp; But I saw it as a definate problem and would probably go with a different approach where the outcome of the skill challenge determined the frequency of wanding encounters or the number of wandering encounters (by reference to a formula unknown to the players) rather than each encounter.&nbsp; Or something like that....&nbsp;But if you want to use wandering monsters, go for it. Mearls even discussed the idea in <a href="http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2008/08/in-praise-of-wandering-monsters.html" target="_blank">one of his blog posts </a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;(And yes, the idea of using a skill challenge for wandering monsters was in part originally inspired by this blog post).&nbsp;All of that said: The general trend in 4E seems to be away from wandering monsters (although Scepter Tower of Spellgard has them) because they can play havoc with the carefully constructed ratio of experience to loot. For that reason you are more likely to see programmed encounters than random encounters (although some take the approach of just not giving experience for random encounters - whether that works for you depends on how you see the game).&nbsp;Carl</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Syrsuro, post: 4563122, member: 58162"] I used a skill challenge for travel outdoors, rather than a wandering monster table. Part of the skill challenge was a stealth check which, if failed, resulted in a wandering monster. (It also used checks for nature, endurance, etc.). I think that this is a more '4E' approach to the problem. My concern with this approach is that it might make frequent travel tedious (lots of rolling by the players to go anywhere). Since I only used it once (and then we started using LFR modules which don't allow for wandering encounters) this didn't come up. But I saw it as a definate problem and would probably go with a different approach where the outcome of the skill challenge determined the frequency of wanding encounters or the number of wandering encounters (by reference to a formula unknown to the players) rather than each encounter. Or something like that.... But if you want to use wandering monsters, go for it. Mearls even discussed the idea in [URL="http://kotgl.blogspot.com/2008/08/in-praise-of-wandering-monsters.html"]one of his blog posts [/URL]. (And yes, the idea of using a skill challenge for wandering monsters was in part originally inspired by this blog post). All of that said: The general trend in 4E seems to be away from wandering monsters (although Scepter Tower of Spellgard has them) because they can play havoc with the carefully constructed ratio of experience to loot. For that reason you are more likely to see programmed encounters than random encounters (although some take the approach of just not giving experience for random encounters - whether that works for you depends on how you see the game). Carl [/QUOTE]

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