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General Tabletop Discussion
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RPG Evolution: Boo! Pity the Ambush Monster
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8814486" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>I think the thing I'm warning against is overplanning how an encounter is going to go. Monsters shouldn't get automatic surprise or automatically win initiative or automatically hit. All of those things can go wrong when planning out your awesome ambush encounter, and if that happens you should be perfectly OK with that.</p><p></p><p>I read something like, "Just like that, my ambush monster was defeated in under three rounds. <em>So I added another one.</em>" (emphasis added)</p><p></p><p>And I just cringe. The fact that monster was created on the fly meant that the party had zero chance to detect or interact with it in the prior three rounds. It was punishing the party for being too successful. Both of those things are potentially really problematic and using illusionism like that is a weak crutch.</p><p></p><p>Moreover, the motivation seems to be disappointment that the monster didn't do better.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8814486, member: 4937"] I think the thing I'm warning against is overplanning how an encounter is going to go. Monsters shouldn't get automatic surprise or automatically win initiative or automatically hit. All of those things can go wrong when planning out your awesome ambush encounter, and if that happens you should be perfectly OK with that. I read something like, "Just like that, my ambush monster was defeated in under three rounds. [i]So I added another one.[/i]" (emphasis added) And I just cringe. The fact that monster was created on the fly meant that the party had zero chance to detect or interact with it in the prior three rounds. It was punishing the party for being too successful. Both of those things are potentially really problematic and using illusionism like that is a weak crutch. Moreover, the motivation seems to be disappointment that the monster didn't do better. [/QUOTE]
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RPG Evolution: Boo! Pity the Ambush Monster
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