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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dausuul" data-source="post: 7927075" data-attributes="member: 58197">Those ancient ruins are not full of monsters.It's fascinating how games teach us to think of things as "realistic" that make no sense whatsoever.Realistically, monsters with any degree of intelligence ought to react to PCs conducting a series of raids over several days or weeks. Either a) they get together to lay a trap for the intruders, b) they organize a counterattack on the PCs' home base, or c) they haul up stakes and head elsewhere. They don't just sit there waiting to be massacred.However, this requires a willingness to call the party's bluff and completely derail the adventure. In scenario a), the PCs will find themselves facing far more firepower than they can handle, potentially ending in TPK and certainly making it very hard for them to achieve their goals in the dungeon. Scenario b) is probably the most effective method, but it only works if the monsters can locate the PCs and pursue them off their (the monsters') home turf. Scenario c) means that all the work the DM put into designing the dungeon has now gone for naught.It can be done, but it's a lot of extra work for the DM and can end very badly if mishandled. It also requires thinking about adventure design in a very different way from what video games and even the DMG encourage; you have to consider the entire dungeon as a whole, rather than designing each encounter as a stand-alone set piece.</blockquote>

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