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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7941674" data-attributes="member: 29398">Sure it's a grudge dungeon, but so what?  For the purposes of this discussion the reasons behind its design are largely irrelevant; what matters here is the challenges it presents - and more interestingly, the different type and style of those challenges as compared to a typical combat-heavy adventure.One of the things they teach in boxing is that sometimes you've got to take a punch in order to give back a better one.  In various other forms of combat including typical melee this advice might also apply.But not when fighting wraiths! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  With wraiths, a Fighter can't view her stack of hit points as a manageable resource like she can against more mundane foes, because ANY hit could be very bad news.  Add to this,  all that armour isn't going to be of as much use as normal thus making the odds of getting hit that much higher, and yeah - you've got a situation where the Fighter is best off using ranged weapons or even just standing down.You're confusing efficiency with ease here.  SOPs make things at the table more efficient, but it's no easier for the PC who is still going through that process every time.Also, it's always possible that now and then a door might have something to it that the SOP doesn't cover (yet).In 5e I think you still get your full AC during that time, don't you?  I forget the specifics right now and am too lazy to go look them up; but if this is true then already you've a big advantage over earlier editions where being surprised meant your AC took a beatdown in most cases.Possibly.  I'm not looking to avoid the rolls, I'm just looking to tweak the odds in my favour.Why would they be peeved at a choice they themselves just made?Now if the choice wasn't unanimous, I could very much see an in-character argument erupting; and that's fine.So they open it and get creamed.  That'll probably peeve 'em far more than if they'd chosen to turn around. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I've seen this, where the party makeup just didn't match the adventure hook they'd followed (e.g. going in to what turns out as an undead-heavy adventure with an Illusionist as your mage, a healing Druid as your cleric, and a bunch of front-liners).  And yes, sooner or later they're going to get routed.Question: why specifically 3.5 rather than 3e in general?  I don't recall there being that much difference between the two.Often, yes, IME. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Anything can be made challenging should the DM so desire, but going straight by the book 5e characters have so much going for them that their odds of outright losing a battle or even losing a PC in a battle, say, are lower than in any previous edition.4e's not that far adrift in this regard, but from all I could tell there the difference was the party rose or fell as a group: either none would die, or they'd all die.  4e also still has some risks that bypass hit points, thus providing more variety of hazards (i.e. challenges); 5e has very few of these left.  The caveat here is that at very low levels 4e is probably the least challenging of all if only because the PCs have so many h.p. compared to their counterparts in all the other editions.In 5e if the players on top of this have their PCs act halfway smart and rest at every opportunity (i.e. refuse to let the DM goad them into repeated 6-8 encounter days) they're getting on for untouchable at any level.</blockquote>

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