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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 4349041" data-attributes="member: 18">I think the problem is that many DMs don't think that they're being jackasses when they are, with this. As an example a poster here was extremely pleased with himself where a monster he made nearly wiped the part with it's bloodied auto-ae, and then did kill much of the party with another auto-ae when it died.To me, that's clear-cut jackassery unless he'd specifically warned the players that this would happen and had a good idea of how it could be prevented from wrecking them (even if they didn't work it out). Double jackass points if the DM is using really unpleasant bloodied/death abilities but not allowing the players to know the monster is about to hit 50% or die.In the end, a lot of this is in the details. If the monster is well-described and it's clearly possible to anticipate the crap it's going to pull, or if a reasonable DC knowledge check about the monster will reveal said crap, then it's fine and actually fun. Equally, if it pulls crap out of nowhere but it's not high lethality stuff, just surprising, then that's fine too and usually fun. I do think the specific example, though, threatening reach, should be made clear, either explicitly or descriptively, UNLESS the GM is intentionally playing the mobs dumb too, like Nifft suggests (and that's something I sometimes do too). I know some DMs who always play the mobs like they've just read a dossier of detailed intel on the PCs, and frankly, I think that's very cheesy, unless you're seriously letting the players read the monster descriptions in detail. These are the same ones who like to use really nasty gotcha abilities in my experience.Tervin - I don't think we do have cursed treasure anymore in 4E, though, which is what the quote is regarding, and in 4E, the traps are a part of combat and usually somewhat predictable and non-fatal. In random old 1-2E, though, I agree, there's not much difference.</blockquote>

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