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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kwalish Kid" data-source="post: 4278924" data-attributes="member: 446">That's probably an OK thing to do for a intro to the system game day like this one. I didn't read out the stats, but I did tell the players a lot more than I normally would, so that they could see how the system worked. I did this without invoking any knowledge checks.That being said, a bad DM can ruin a good idea.My lessons for the day were this:1. There is way more that you can do to go with the flow of player ideas. This is really an expansion of Roger's point 2. If a player has a neat or cool idea, you can always reward that player with a skill challenge. Especially with magical effects, the Arcana skill can go a long way, and even longer if you let it.2. Replacing monsters with traps and traps with monsters really does work. In the second session I ran, I replaced two fire traps in the adventure with giant scorpions hidden in sarcophagi. The "trap" aspect worked almost the same, but with the scorpion tail attack as the default and then the PCs had to fight the scorpions rather than avoid the fire from the trap. It made for a really neat encounter, one I'll use again.3. PCs can use traps, too. Things turned ugly for the monsters in this adventure when the PCs learned to use certain traps against the monsters. It might have made the encounter a little easier, but the PCs had a blast.4. The "kill or unconscious" choice when knocking an opponent down to zero rule went over well. I didn't hear any griping about it. (The only griping about it that I heard was from one guy who said he was going to keep playing 3.5 because now a rogue could sneak attack a statue.)5. Everyone loves the cleric, when they are hurt. The cleric is still pretty in demand when people are hurt. Still the cleric has a number of interesting, party-ingratiating powers early in an encounter. The bonuses to hit were really good.6. The adventure has places for the wizard to shine in combat, but really only at the end. Much of the time, the wizard was limited to magic missile. Still, that's a pretty decent spell and out of combat the wizard has the best skill checks for getting info in the adventure and for dealing with a certain trap.  DMs should be careful when designing adventures to ensure that there are encounters where the area attacks of the wizard can shine.7. Players need to be told, or learn some other way, that they should move around. There was a great moment where the cleric risked some nasty opportunity attacks so he could be well-placed for a turning attempt. However, I got the sense that players are not too sure about the value of moving into position.</blockquote>

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