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<blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 6316129" data-attributes="member: 5143">Most of those things just don't need to be known.&nbsp; In my experience, they just don't matter.Even if they are awake, alert, armed, wearing heavy armor, staring at the door we are going to come through and have an alarm bell within reaching distance that will not factor into our decision to burst open the door and attack.&nbsp; If they are asleep, we might attempt to open the door quietly...before killing them all.&nbsp; But most of the information will be relayed to us in the boxed text when the door is open and we'll start planning our tactics from that point onward.&nbsp; It's not like our group would ever purposefully avoid a room because of the circumstances of that room.&nbsp; If there were lots of them, we'd rely on luck to get us through.&nbsp; If there was an alarm, we'd try to kill the one beside the alarm quickly.&nbsp; If we didn't get to them in time...oh well, that just means more XP will come streaming into the room.Even if we got back a super detailed report of the kind you were talking about, it would go like this.&quot;So, the room is 30x30.&nbsp; There are 6 Orcs.&nbsp; They all have Bows and are watching the door we are going to come through.&nbsp; One has an alarm bell.&nbsp; There are 2 other entrances to the room.&nbsp; 2 of them are standing beside each entrance to the room.&quot;&quot;So...we open the door and kill them then?&nbsp; And we just watched you roll dice for 10 minutes in order to discover that information.&nbsp; What a waste of time.&quot;It depends on the edition in question, but in 3e for instance, having a bow in hand means that you can load an arrow as a free action and fire as your action during the surprise round.&nbsp; It's been a while, but in 2e you could similarly load and fire a bow as your action for the round.&nbsp; Ditto for 4e.Yeah, it's never been an official rule in any edition of D&amp;D.&nbsp; It was an optional rule a couple of times.&nbsp; But, as I mention in a post above, the 2e Combat and Tactics book had an entire page dedicated to why having fumble rules was a bad idea and why they didn't include them.Though I didn't really need that page to tell me that.&nbsp; We played with the fumble rules from Dragon Magazine for a while.&nbsp; I hated it every time.&nbsp; People were constantly dropping their sword, hitting themselves in the face and accidentally cutting off their friend's arms.&nbsp; Attacking was an effort in futility because your friends were nearly as dangerous as the enemies.In 2e, you got to choose where your skill points went into.&nbsp; Almost all of them went into find and remove traps because it was the important one.&nbsp; Climb Walls was kind of an ambiguous skill.&nbsp; Some of our DMs would allow everyone to climb walls because it was kind of silly that only Thieves could.&nbsp; So the skill wasn't very useful in those games.&nbsp; Even when it was useful, you'd almost never run into a wall you NEEDED to climb.&nbsp; Half the time it would split the party, the other half of the time it would just be a &quot;Keep rolling until you succeed.&nbsp; You get up the wall and lower a rope down to the others, they get up to.&quot;Or, it meant that you had a 30% chance to succeed and climbing meant falling 100 feet to your death.&nbsp; Overall, it just wasn't the best skill to have.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Majoru Oakheart, post: 6316129, member: 5143"] Most of those things just don't need to be known. In my experience, they just don't matter. Even if they are awake, alert, armed, wearing heavy armor, staring at the door we are going to come through and have an alarm bell within reaching distance that will not factor into our decision to burst open the door and attack. If they are asleep, we might attempt to open the door quietly...before killing them all. But most of the information will be relayed to us in the boxed text when the door is open and we'll start planning our tactics from that point onward. It's not like our group would ever purposefully avoid a room because of the circumstances of that room. If there were lots of them, we'd rely on luck to get us through. If there was an alarm, we'd try to kill the one beside the alarm quickly. If we didn't get to them in time...oh well, that just means more XP will come streaming into the room. Even if we got back a super detailed report of the kind you were talking about, it would go like this. "So, the room is 30x30. There are 6 Orcs. They all have Bows and are watching the door we are going to come through. One has an alarm bell. There are 2 other entrances to the room. 2 of them are standing beside each entrance to the room." "So...we open the door and kill them then? And we just watched you roll dice for 10 minutes in order to discover that information. What a waste of time." It depends on the edition in question, but in 3e for instance, having a bow in hand means that you can load an arrow as a free action and fire as your action during the surprise round. It's been a while, but in 2e you could similarly load and fire a bow as your action for the round. Ditto for 4e. Yeah, it's never been an official rule in any edition of D&D. It was an optional rule a couple of times. But, as I mention in a post above, the 2e Combat and Tactics book had an entire page dedicated to why having fumble rules was a bad idea and why they didn't include them. Though I didn't really need that page to tell me that. We played with the fumble rules from Dragon Magazine for a while. I hated it every time. People were constantly dropping their sword, hitting themselves in the face and accidentally cutting off their friend's arms. Attacking was an effort in futility because your friends were nearly as dangerous as the enemies. In 2e, you got to choose where your skill points went into. Almost all of them went into find and remove traps because it was the important one. Climb Walls was kind of an ambiguous skill. Some of our DMs would allow everyone to climb walls because it was kind of silly that only Thieves could. So the skill wasn't very useful in those games. Even when it was useful, you'd almost never run into a wall you NEEDED to climb. Half the time it would split the party, the other half of the time it would just be a "Keep rolling until you succeed. You get up the wall and lower a rope down to the others, they get up to." Or, it meant that you had a 30% chance to succeed and climbing meant falling 100 feet to your death. Overall, it just wasn't the best skill to have. [/QUOTE]

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