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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dualazi" data-source="post: 6906407" data-attributes="member: 6855537">No. I would like to see more done to make solos solo, and more on general monster diversity and options in general. So if there truly is a ‘status quo’ then yes, I’m against it. Most of my arguments are centered around the belief that while I support your intentions on the conceptual level, D&D as a system makes it nigh impossible to bring about as a reality in a lot of ways. That’s all.I also return to the baseline because that’s the only real metric we have for analysis, the baseline experience and the inference of what changing that baseline does to player and game behavior. This has been the source of my counter-arguments; you say we will change X, and I say that will lead to players doing Y or Z, which are just as bad as X was.---Well, while I agree it’s ham-fisted and of questionable use in practice, shutting down those early spells is designed to make the fight last long enough to be exciting. Not saying it does this well, but that’s the intent.Frankly, my reactionary assumptions are built from two things; the simple number and agency disparity between DM and Player assets, and the simple and understandable desire to win and progress.For the first, fighting is dangerous, and over time (assuming the encounters are semi-challenging) the possibility of player death or loss should hypothetically guarantee it happens sometimes. However, it should be obvious that players and DMs deal with their respective losses in markedly different ways. A lost player character is a huge deal, whereas an unexpectedly bypassed dungeon or boss isn’t, simply by virtue of there being only 1 of that character but an infinite number of bosses and foes. As a result of this, players will take the options and opportunities to reduce this chance of failure, which leads to my assumed strategies. In summary, players want cool fights, but not as badly as they want to fight another day, and those two concepts are fundamentally at odds with each other.Second is just the drive to succeed, which really spreads across everything. If you can checkmate your opponent in 4 turns, why would you not do so in the hope of an exciting game that you might then lose? There’s a not insubstantial portion of the fanbase I think that would rather be a bored winner than an excited loser, especially in the context of the DM/player arrangement, where player loss not only results in a lost character, but also potential negative ramifications for the world at large. Knowing you had a fun fight against the lich is dampened by the knowledge that he’s now going to usher in an age of darkness.--- I am suggesting just that, yes, because the distinction of mooks and bosses innately signifies that bosses are the greatest threat the players can face, and players (and groups) will routinely plan around the worst case. You see this a lot in videogames, as players rarely waste significant resources on trash mobs, opting instead to save it for the big bad at the end of the dungeon. Like it or not, the same mentality is often applied in tabletop, moreso when rules explicitly aid in the creation of potent bosses.I am skeptical of this. The group does have more weaknesses, but especially since the wizard is such a flexible class I could see them managing just fine. Hell, with a necromancer and enchanter they could have plenty of mook meatshields themselves, and that still leaves a 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] mage to do whatever else. I’m not looking to pick a fight based on this specific example, but I will say that I don’t believe there are enough barriers to lopsided groups to provide significant discouragement.--- Not going to lie, this bit aggravates me. I feel I’ve done a reasonable job describing what I think the results of your changes will be and why, ideally to help you and maybe the community at large have a better method of making solo encounters meaningful. My opposition to some of your ideas has simply been to caution you that the changes you propose might not produce the desired effect.</blockquote>

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