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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chaosmancer" data-source="post: 7941087" data-attributes="member: 6801228">And yet, someone else thought that my referencing that dungeon was a poor choice because it was designed as a grudge dungeon. Opinions obviously differ on the dungeon, but I think the point still stands.Okay... but ideally you would never fight any foe hand-to-hand, especially one that lacks ranged weapons. Ideally any undead creature should be fought by a cleric, any incorporeal creature with magic. So actually, they probably didn't learn anything because calling a cleric to deal with undead is 101 adventuring. You don't even need to fight a wraith to know that. Heck, "don't get hit" is pretty much as basic as it gets for fighting, do you have to get hit by a wraith to know you don't want to get hit?But this has absolutely nothing to do with challenge whatsoever. In fact, the very nature of an SOP is to remove challenges. So relying on them would make the game easier. I have surprise rounds, I don't remember if it is official or not. Probably not, I think officially you just don't get to act on your turn if you are surprised, so it is still possible for the enemy to get two rounds if they beat your initiative and surprise you.So, rolls still happen. Which, in the post I was responding to, seemed to be abnormal for them. They seemed to be suggesting that a player rolling the dice is asking to fail, so they should interact with the environment in a clear way to prevent rolling and therefore not fail. You seem to have a different take on what actually happens than they do.Sure, you never have to succeed. But sunk-cost fallacy and all that means that after adventuring and grinding for a few game sessions, players are going to be mighty peeved if half the party decides to no longer risk it and decide to leave. So, when you are in the final treasure room, and you open the tomb, how likely was it that instead of doing that you decided to turn around and leave, failing the mission right then and there? That is why, again, it is important to make clear what we mean by important decisions. Deciding to open tomb you were sent to open isn't a major decision when the only other option is to call the entire mission a waste of time. Most groups will open that sucker one way or the other, because they lost too much getting it to simply say "that was fun, guess we fail."I'm not convinced yet that 3.5 and 4e are clearly more challenging than 5e. Especially since we seem to have debated it down to "but instant death could happen" But, again, you can't say "DnD 5e is the least challenging version of DnD because you gain hp after level 9" when that is true for the majority of DnD games. It is similar to saying DnD 5e offers superior options to every version of DnD because Elf and Dwarf are no longer classes. They weren't classes in most of the other versions of the game either, so that isn't a point in 5e's favor.That is a compelling theory except for one problem. It seems to be the groups calling out for more threats to instill cautious play that are having the hard time. Are 2e players who are used to dying from opening a door wrong really charging headfirst into the fray without a care in the world? I doubt it, and I doubt that the challenges in 5e are just illusions that have no real substance.Then what's the point?Considering that the wand, staff and cure light wounds wand were probably bought in bulk from a magic shop while the items with charges are a fairly unique set of items that the players fought and bled for.... no, I don't think those hurt more than the other.</blockquote>

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