My Forge of Fury players-stay out!!

[ConcreteBuddha]

Nightscale was difficult for the party I ran through the Forge, but not unbeatable. They eventually dropped him to 3 hps.

(He then fled and will be the bad guy in their next adventure. I plan to level him with a couple levels of blackguard. Mwhahaha...)

 

[Madfox]

As a DM I do use superior forces now and then and my players have learned a long time ago that not every encounter can be overcome with a fight. Sometimes they need to run. The intention of the roper was to bring this message to new players and DMs. Obviously, if the players or DM don't get the message you should not use the encounter. When I run the adventure, my players never even explored that floor - after they had defeated the dragon they wanted to get out as quickly as possible to find the corpse of the dragon (that had been washed away by the current) and they never returned.

 

[Li Shenron]

As a DM I do use superior forces now and then and my players have learned a long time ago that not every encounter can be overcome with a fight. Sometimes they need to run. The intention of the roper was to bring this message to new players and DMs. Obviously, if the players or DM don't get the message you should not use the encounter.

I see your point, but how do you think the players are going to "learn" this?

If you put the players in front of a horde of enemies which are 3-4 times their number, then some careful player (especially if they are low-level PCs) may wisely choose to avoid combat. If you put them in front of a HUGE creature, or a dragon, or a vampire or something else that is it generally (in fantasy literature or movies) considered a paragon of power, they have the chance - if they are smart - to retreat.

But how does a writer of an official adventure expect that a party of PCs would run away from a monster they have never seen or heard about? From another thread (the "favourite monster" poll) I just learned that the Roper is actually an ol' popular monster for D&D players, so it's my fault that I haven't basically played AD&D and didn't know the monster, in this case... But with this kind of monster, my players would never have a chance to guess how powerful it is UNLESS they were old-time gamers or they buy MM and remember the Roper's CR. Otherwise, the writer could have assumed that the only way to "learn" this is a TPK.

If I am being harsh, it's because of what I previously wrote, that the first time I played (1ed) our game was mostly spoiled by a too-difficult challenge which killed a PC in the first dungeon room and "teached" the others to be paranoid about anything that moves or seems otherwise the slightest misplaced possible.

 

[Storm Raven]

Thanx alot for the reply!
CR 4 for a monster that deals +40 damage per round if it makes an succesful grapple-check?! Something´s wrong here?

It is ridiculously slow. Even a heavily encumbered character in full plate should be able to avoid the thing. Kill it from range.

 

[Asmo]

Li Shenron wrote:

"But how does a writer of an official adventure expect that a party of PCs would run away from a monster they have never seen or heard about?"

The roper is an intelligent monster, so it can speak. I had no problem to annoy the party with insulting comments and boast about its power .

I belive it gives the DM a chance to make the roper a deadly challenge, so even if the party never have seen one before they should be well aware of its power.

Asmo