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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 2844124" data-attributes="member: 1165">I've been using the Wild Cohort Template "inappropriately" in my Modern adventures, as the rules for advancing monsters are too unwieldly and they frankly suck, too. My PCs fear dogs, and maybe next session they'll come to fear bears and boars, too.But IMO, the problem isn't "PC power", it's cues. Virtually every instance in this thread of PCs running away involve obvious cues that the opponent/situation is far more powerful than they can handle and is mysterious, which convince the PCs not to even attempt to attack. (Once the attack has started, it's all over. Running away is extremely hard to do.)Ordinary wolves, at least, are familiar and not dangerous* and don't make a good cue not to fight. They're also not smart, a trait which applied to ordinary dire wolves, making them easier to beat. If they're unusual wolves, it has to be obvious that they're unusual, and even then, the PCs might see smacking them down as part of solving a mystery. If they're obviously dangerous, the PCs might still see beating them as part of the adventure (eg let's not get sealed in this castle by them). They have to be obviously too dangerous to fight, or it has to be obvious that fighting them will bring some really bad drawback (a serious delay, drawing attention from the BBEG, etc).More PC psychology: I'm thinking of the Black Cauldron - the book, not the movie. In the book, there are dangerous monsters called "Hunters", basically very powerful soulless men. The heroes are warned of them before they go adventuring. The heroes in the novels run away, which isn't surprising because they're not really warriors. If you told your PCs that, they might try to fight the Hunters the first time just because they want to know how dangerous the Hunters are.* Not to combat capable people, unless they're caught by surprise. It's kind of hard to give that cue, I guess, except lots of wolf footprints, and even then, wolves rarely attack human(oid)s.I missed the cue that they were dire. Whoops, I was wrong.The cue should have been more obvious <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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