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<blockquote data-quote="Kinematics" data-source="post: 7354259" data-attributes="member: 6932123">Sorry, I didn't mean to insult or imply &quot;bad GM&quot;.&nbsp; I'm just working through my own experiences and trying to see how they correlate with these effects.&nbsp; Most GMs I've played under have been very good overall, but for some of them, combat can be a bit lackluster.And since you mention encounters in published books... That also seems to correlate with &quot;vanilla&quot; combat.&nbsp; The simplest, most straightforward combats have come from published scenarios, and combat only got 'interesting' when the GM went off script, or was running a homemade adventure.&nbsp; It's not a perfect correlation, of course, but definitely a strong trend.Lack of interesting terrain and features would definitely be a major hindrance to making an interesting fight, and not an easy thing to fix, when it's potentially an issue with a large percentage of the adventure.&nbsp; And you have less control over the encounter rate in a published adventure, which means that if the adventure doesn't provide good combat design, the easiest fix is to ramp up the number or difficulty of the monsters.As for the monsters themselves having a weak design? That's a bit harder to judge, because there are so many different monsters, that can all work quite differently.&nbsp; And even beyond that, the right player or combination of players can no-sell certain monster tactics.&nbsp; It's hard to evaluate without specific examples.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Kinematics, post: 7354259, member: 6932123"] Sorry, I didn't mean to insult or imply "bad GM". I'm just working through my own experiences and trying to see how they correlate with these effects. Most GMs I've played under have been very good overall, but for some of them, combat can be a bit lackluster. And since you mention encounters in published books... That also seems to correlate with "vanilla" combat. The simplest, most straightforward combats have come from published scenarios, and combat only got 'interesting' when the GM went off script, or was running a homemade adventure. It's not a perfect correlation, of course, but definitely a strong trend. Lack of interesting terrain and features would definitely be a major hindrance to making an interesting fight, and not an easy thing to fix, when it's potentially an issue with a large percentage of the adventure. And you have less control over the encounter [i]rate[/i] in a published adventure, which means that if the adventure doesn't provide good combat design, the easiest fix is to ramp up the number or difficulty of the monsters. As for the monsters themselves having a weak design? That's a bit harder to judge, because there are [i]so many[/i] different monsters, that can all work quite differently. And even beyond that, the right player or combination of players can no-sell certain monster tactics. It's hard to evaluate without specific examples. [/QUOTE]

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