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Message: <blockquote data-quote="thedungeondelver" data-source="post: 5282674" data-attributes="member: 34865">AD&D does not rely on "multiple balanced encounters per day".  In AD&D, a low-level group that walks up to a cavern entrance with suspiciously reptilian footprints leading to it that are bigger than the halfling in the group, with heaps of charred bones and bits of melted armor may realize this is the game world's way of saying "Here you shall go, and no further."  It is not generally presumed that the DM has set a dragon with minimal HD/HP in said cave.The expectation of play as outlined in the other game is that yes, it is a balanced encounter, and the dragon in the cave is precisely at the level that can be overcome.  I'm not suggesting it'd be easy - indeed, it might be very difficult and cost the players many characters to do so.A DM in AD&D might tantalize the players with the hint of the dragon's lair - perhaps even having a few loose gems and gold carelessly lying outside the cave (or not so carelessly, if we remember how Smaug tried to entreat Bilbo to take an item - "There's plenty - and to spare.")  Might the players, their appetites whetted, rush madly into the lair and be stopped dead in their tracks (if they're low enough level, from fear alone)?  They may!Per the rules of the other game, the expectation is that the players will meet an encounter that they can overcome - or at least win their way back to the cave entrance to wait for daily buffs to re-ding or what have you, and try again after the fifteen minute day has gone by.  I am not suggesting, of course, that a DM in that game could not put a high-HD/HP dragon in that cave!  Quite the contrary, the DM has the freedom to ignore or modify any rule they wish at any time.  But the rules of this latter day version are more cut and dried about what the expectation of "encounter level" should be.Thus, a player in that game on the whole may be more inclined to think "That monster is tough - but by the book shouldn't be too tough for us."Someone coming from or at least familiar with an AD&D perspective might take things differently.That, I feel, is the chief difference.</blockquote>

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