Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6979614" data-attributes="member: 6787650">Yes, it's a special case, but since you quoted me ("[generating] meat shields is easy, a ranged fighter can just switch to melee" is a near-direct quote of one of my posts a few pages back) and asked why you'd want to switch to melee, I answered.The related answer is that, at least at my table, I tend to skip over combat scenarios that are easily-trivialized. So a foe which can just be kited to death from horseback is purely a roleplaying encounter--if the players decide they're going to kill the crippled hag using their standard tactics, one of two things will happen: either I say, "Okay, you kill her," or I'll say, "Let's play this out in detail, guys." And if the latter happens, the players ought to get a bad feeling...Anyway, due to the latter, the combats that I actually run in detail tend to disproportionately feature things that go wrong. One of the things that can go wrong is close terrain, and it helps to have someone who can take point, so when I'm imagining a party in an Internet discussion, I always imagine a party with someone who can take point if necessary. It gives you more tactical flexibility.</blockquote>