I'd say four or more months ago, there was a thread here (and on the 3e rules forum) about treating monsters as skill encounters and more of a dangerous environment to survive.
The prime example given was a sea serpent attacking a ship. It being too big to fight head on, so surviving it required several segments. Skill checks to get on deck (or take damage when below), skill checks to stay on the boat as it bucked, attacking coils of the serpent, etc etc.
I am a poor schmuck who doesn't have a community supporter thingie, so I can't search. Anyone have a link or do a search for this?
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What makes me want to find it is that I'm tempted to start a campaign with the Sea Serpent assault on a ship. Thing is, I'm not sure if that's the best intro to both a Campaign and a new edition.
Partly because while it's action packed, the PCs only "win" by not dieing. No satisfaction on their part, no corpse at their feet, so to speak, it's more like "Good job, you're still breathing."
The other part is "Here, I've taught you how to run combat in this new edition. Now, I'm going to do something even more abstract, that has little to do with combat, even though there's a monster right here." I anticipate a lot of confusion.
The prime example given was a sea serpent attacking a ship. It being too big to fight head on, so surviving it required several segments. Skill checks to get on deck (or take damage when below), skill checks to stay on the boat as it bucked, attacking coils of the serpent, etc etc.
I am a poor schmuck who doesn't have a community supporter thingie, so I can't search. Anyone have a link or do a search for this?
______________________________________________________________
What makes me want to find it is that I'm tempted to start a campaign with the Sea Serpent assault on a ship. Thing is, I'm not sure if that's the best intro to both a Campaign and a new edition.
Partly because while it's action packed, the PCs only "win" by not dieing. No satisfaction on their part, no corpse at their feet, so to speak, it's more like "Good job, you're still breathing."
The other part is "Here, I've taught you how to run combat in this new edition. Now, I'm going to do something even more abstract, that has little to do with combat, even though there's a monster right here." I anticipate a lot of confusion.
