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<blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 9560033" data-attributes="member: 29398">That's fair, though my hypothetical had the trap as being the first thing encountered in the adventure.What this speaks to is the steepness of the power curve between &quot;townsfolk&quot; and &quot;5th-level adventurers&quot;; a steepness that in the WotC editions (and, arguably, before that) is IMO far too great.The townsfolk will know the forest is dangerous, and that those who venture in there tend not to come out.&nbsp; They may very well not know - or have completely wrong ideas about - what the actual danger is; it could be anything from a low-grade bandit gang concealing their presence to a big ol' Green Dragon treating the villagers as wandering snacks but from the townsfolk's perspective it all looks the same: no-one comes back out of that forest.It's then on the PCs to - if they're interested - investigate the source(s) and nature(s) of the danger (while maybe or maybe not encountering some of it in the process) and then decide a) whether it's something they think they can handle or whether it needs higher-priced help and-or b) what precautions might make sense to help deal with the danger as now known.The flummoxing part comes when PCs skip the whole information-gathering and investigative step and go straight to the wade-in-all-guns-blazing step, then wonder why they're getting smoked.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Lanefan, post: 9560033, member: 29398"] That's fair, though my hypothetical had the trap as being the first thing encountered in the adventure. What this speaks to is the steepness of the power curve between "townsfolk" and "5th-level adventurers"; a steepness that in the WotC editions (and, arguably, before that) is IMO far too great. The townsfolk will know the forest is dangerous, and that those who venture in there tend not to come out. They may very well not know - or have completely wrong ideas about - what the actual danger is; it could be anything from a low-grade bandit gang concealing their presence to a big ol' Green Dragon treating the villagers as wandering snacks but from the townsfolk's perspective it all looks the same: no-one comes back out of that forest. It's then on the PCs to - if they're interested - investigate the source(s) and nature(s) of the danger (while maybe or maybe not encountering some of it in the process) and then decide a) whether it's something they think they can handle or whether it needs higher-priced help and-or b) what precautions might make sense to help deal with the danger as now known. The flummoxing part comes when PCs skip the whole information-gathering and investigative step and go straight to the wade-in-all-guns-blazing step, then wonder why they're getting smoked. [/QUOTE]

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