I don't own the 3.5 DMG. Did encounter design change from 3.0 to 3.5?
Of the Adversarial Relationship between DM and Players, and the Need For It.
- Thread starter Edena_of_Neith
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I don't own the 3.5 DMG. Did encounter design change from 3.0 to 3.5?
Nope, so Buzz is either selectively ignoring or deeming unimportant the fact that 10-30% of encounters should be either "Easy" or "Easy if handled properly", not to mention that 15% of encounters (by the RAW) in 3.0/3.5 should be 1-4 ELs higher than the party, and that one in twenty (5%) should be "Overpowering", and the party "should run".
I grant that having 50% of encounters as EL equal to party level does seem to be indicating a design preference for "balanced" encounters, but as I hopefully demonstrated in the previous paragraph, half sure isn't all, and 1 in 5 encounters is supposed to be either difficult to the point of PC death and/or guaranteed to take out a PC if not the whole party.
So..........not really seeing the strict adherence to balanced encounters that 3.X supposedly advocates.
Cheers,
Colin
It is not just those percentages which are regarding tailored encounters. There is also a whole other type of encounter in the DMG called status quo in which monsters exist without regard to PC level. The example given was bugbears known to exist in a particular location and, if the PC go there, they encounter the bugbears whether it is a level "appropriate" encounter or not. However, the example could have been a Lich or Dragon.
Since, the DMG tells the DM that they might want to warn their players if only status quoto encounters will be used rather than if they will be used at all, I would think the assumption is that the DM should be using a mix of both (note: the bold emphasis is mine) and status quo encounters are not encounters based on balance
The inclusion of Status Quo encounters would seem to refute his assertion that
Old school like 3e had both tailored and stats quo. The former were level appropriate adventures for the party whether modules that gave appropriate party level ranges or were DM created. The latter were the PCs following up leads to or stumbling into level inappropriate adventures as well as the random wilderness encounters. The only difference is that 3e gives you actual guides to help estimate the difficulty of an encounter.
Since, the DMG tells the DM that they might want to warn their players if only status quoto encounters will be used rather than if they will be used at all, I would think the assumption is that the DM should be using a mix of both (note: the bold emphasis is mine) and status quo encounters are not encounters based on balance
The inclusion of Status Quo encounters would seem to refute his assertion that
Old school like 3e had both tailored and stats quo. The former were level appropriate adventures for the party whether modules that gave appropriate party level ranges or were DM created. The latter were the PCs following up leads to or stumbling into level inappropriate adventures as well as the random wilderness encounters. The only difference is that 3e gives you actual guides to help estimate the difficulty of an encounter.
The Shaman
First Post
Of course the adventurers want to win.
The question is, should they be expected to win? Is winning a precondition of enjoying the game?
If the PCs are expected win then winning loses any real meaning. For the PCs to be able to win than there must be a significant possibility of them losing.
That said, the PCs winning should usually be the more likely scenario and when it is not ( for ex. there's a no-win scenario on the table) the DM should make sure that losing is somehow fun/rewarding for the players (if not their characters).
On that note, I try to make sure that my players bask in their successes and that they truly see the positive results when they succeed (especially for dramatic successes), this makes it that much more tangible/real and worthwile when the players fail and see the results of that as well.
Barastrondo
First Post
It oh-so-much depends on the players, and on the loss condition. A loss condition that is "you all generate new characters and we start a new campaign from scratch" may be embraced fully, or met with "eh, after putting as much time into that last one and having it all end abruptly, I think I'm done with this game for a while," or an immense range of reactions in-between.
On the other hand, a loss condition like "The Emperor is slain, and the capital is razed, and your characters are now left amid the remnants of an Empire that is about to disintegrate as various generals start to make their bids to reunify it at any cost, what do you do?" -- that may be so welcome you'd almost think it was the win condition.
For my part, I wouldn't want to stake the end of a campaign on a loss result unless I had a pretty good feeling that my players would feel a satisfying bit of closure even on a loss. If they don't feel closure, they're not as inclined to try out a completely different setting when I start running again, and I like doing different settings.
Balesir
Adventurer
Only one point of reference, I know, but abandoning D&D to pursue pseudo-medieval fantasy in other ways is pretty much what those I play(ed) with did around 1980. Later, we played other milieux, too - but initially it was C&S, RuneQuest and the like we went to.
Something important about OD&D/AD&D, though - the Dungeon had levels, and the Wilderness was (meant to be) only for those of higher level. Players could choose for their characters to "bite off more than they could chew" by going down 'just one more set of stairs'... This basic mechanism by which the players could select the approximate level of danger that their characters would face was, in the early days, a crude but important 'stepping up' feature of the 'challenge game', in my experience.
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