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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 5278011" data-attributes="member: 22779">RC - how is manipulating situations beforehand so that the players have ample opportunity to discover that a SoD creature is in the cards in the near future not fudging?  And, how is it not fudging in order to push the action towards a particular goal (allowing the PC's to overcome the challenge without a lot of pointless death)?Whether you fudge before the fact, or afterward, the point is, you're still manipulating the game entirely because of meta-game rules and for the express purpose of reaching a particular outcome.  You might not  like to call it that, but, that's exactly what it is.  You claim to only use SoD creatures in very specific circumstances where the PC's have opportunities to discover their presence and prepare before the encounter, specifically because SoD has such a large impact on the game.  ((Paraphrasing you from upthread))How is that not fudging the game towards a specific goal?I still fail to see how SoD actually enhances an exploration type game.  In fact, I see it as running rather counter to one.  In an exploration game, the entire point is that you will not know what's around the next corner.  You might have some general ideas, but, you aren't supposed to know exactly what's ahead.  Unless you're only allowing exploration games in settings where the PC's are retreading other people's footsteps, which I don't think is true, there's no particular reason why the PC's should gain access to knowledge about what's ahead of them.Earlier, someone mentioned that SoD in earlier modules was a product of tournament modules.  I disagree.  The modules I listed, other than A1, were not tournament modules.  EX2 Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, an excellent exploration module, has a banshee in the attic of a house.  There is no one in the house, nor is there anyone in the setting who could possible know that that creature is there.  In The Isle of Dread (the original Expert rules module), there is no way for the PC's to know that the Kopru are living in a particular section of the module and no way to know what they are capable of, since no one has ever gone to where they live and returned.  Yet, they have a pretty devastating SoD ability (actually complete domination - effectively SoD).Just a point about Bodaks.  There's absolutely nothing in the SRD description of a Bodak that states you must "meet their gaze" or that they have to be looking at you.  I don't have my 3e MM in front of me, so, maybe there's more information there.  But, as far as the rules go, there's absolutely no requirement to "meet the creature's gaze" in order to force a saving throw.In fact, creatures with a gaze attack can actually "force a saving throw" on a target.</blockquote>

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