Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Korgoth" data-source="post: 4788385" data-attributes="member: 49613">What he calls "Bad Design" (with the capitals) I call perfectly reasonable design: it's up to the players to figure out when they should retreat.He also misses, when he discusses the resource management of older editions, that the primary resource you're managing is Hit Points.It's like this: the PCs are in combat. They've been hitting the monster, but not as well as they'd like and maybe it has made a save or two against some spells. Several of the PCs are running low on HP. Do they retreat, or stand and fight?That decision cannot be reduced to a formula. However, there are certain things which might help or hinder the decision. When I run games, big things have big stats. That may sound obvious, but ever since 3E it was possible that you could be fighting 17th level Kobolds. Bugger that. If the monster is a shrimp, it has shrimp HD. If it's huge, it has huge HD. If they're fighting a member of a race which produces heroes (i.e. PCs or NPCs) then they'll get some clues from me, the Ref, to the effect that "this guy is really good".So they need to think: is this monster close to dieing? That judgment is partially based on its size, and partially based on whether I've described it as faltering. They also need to ask themselves how intelligent it is. In my games, dumb monsters act a lot like animals: if you go away from its lair, or it if is badly hurt, withdrawl is generally possible. Only a hungry pursuit hunter will generally pursue. Intelligent foes are a different matter... it depends on how well they're doing and what's at stake.In the end, it's a judgment call on the part of the players. As usual, it's a calculated risk. What will they miss out on if they run? If it's a monster lair, maybe nothing... it probably isn't going to go get a new lair if it ran you off. So do you withdraw and heal, or risk your lives and fight on? The players "pay their money and take their chances." Who knows how it will turn out?Skill at the game is being good at those kind of decisions, as well as being good at saying the right thing to NPCs, solving puzzles and thinking creatively and ahead. And so what if they make the wrong call and half of the party gets killed? Big deal... they'll roll up new characters and probably not make the same mistake again.</blockquote>

Verification