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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5973145" data-attributes="member: 54710">There's one point I think is worth adding about the effect of the "living world" approach, which is that it's not really a punishment or an incentive to employ the 15 min tactic.  All it does is ensure that the 15MAD tactic has side effects other than simply leaving the monsters where they were before.  This is key because it doesn't get rid of the 15MAD tactic.  It merely changes the costs and benefits so the 15MAD tactic is no longer almost always optimal.  The PCs in a living world campaign may sometimes nova and retreat.  That's a tactical decision, and it's fine.  In a world with resource allocation, it's important that allocating your resources to maximize a single combat is a valid tactic.  It just shouldn't be a tactic that is so dominant that the PCs always want to use it.-------I also wanted to add one other antidote to the 15MAD that I don't recall seeing in this thread: enemies with daily-focused resources.  In most of D&D, the monsters tend to have better at-will resources than the PCs, but the PCs have limited daily resources so they can "reach back" to win, at the cost of eventually exhausting themselves.  (That's the dynamic that makes the 15MAD an appealing tactic.)  You can change that by having an enemy with a powerful, regarding, daily power.  It's not common, but it can create a certain "reverse Tucker's kobolds" effect.  The PCs will get seriously blasted once as they go in, but the NPCs spend the rest of the time trying to avoid getting slaughtered.  If the PCs retreat to rest, they have to face the powerful daily effect again.  That could be a lethal trap at the entrance, a summon/resurrect once per day guardian, a enemy wizard at the back of the dungeon casting spells through a magic mirror or whatever.  Anything that gives the PCs the reason to press on before the bad guy regenerates that power will change the 15MAD dynamic.-KS</blockquote>

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