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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 5338087" data-attributes="member: 65726">If the player wants to disengage himself for a kitchen run, he will do that whether he is butt naked, or wields a +17 dagger of god slaying.For the rogue player who wants to be engaged, there are options. He can kill minions, grab, or push an opponent, provide flanks, aid another, trigger someone's second wind, ready actions to prevent enemy plans, intimidate bloodied targets into submission, or use terrain features the DM has provided knowing PC's won't have a lot to work with, such as pinning an enemy behind a crate, knocking a shelf over, tossing a torch at a barrel of explosives, or just plain jumping in front of bullets to take a few hits for the team.Given a reasonable DM, the DM will not deny creative use of terrain, skills, or other efforts to make those standard actions useful, keeping the player engaged even if all the powers on his character sheet are unusable.It's really not that different than designing a skill challenge where you try to make sure characters can each contribute in a meaningful way. Designing combat without weapons or armor can essentially follow the same process. You throw in some locks to be opened (or some prefer leverage), minions that can be easily killed, throw in some weak opponents to keep the combat capable characters busy, add in a prison inmate that's trying to be difficult who needs to be smooth talked, given false promises, intimidated, or punched out. Mix some guard dogs who can be animal handled with nature, or kicked and intimidated. Fight some guards as the party is climbing over some wagons parked too close to the prison wall. Guards trying to climb up can be pushed down, crates can be pushed on top of guards, and a torch can be lit to blow up some explosives that just happen to be on the wagon as the last person leaps over the wall. Add a fight against some guard drakes in the middle of a barbed wire obstacle course beyond the wall, where the barbed wires can be used as a weapon by shoving the drakes into it, or manipulating it to trap the drakes. Then while making endurance checks, a lizard riding patrol catches up to them, and just as the PC's refuse to surrender and begin to skirmish, three bulettes pop out of the ground attacking everyone indiscriminately. Some PC's fight, while others try to negotiate cooperation with the patrol to take down the bulettes.Once you have the skeleton for such an encounter you start adding options depending on the characters in the group. There is a dwarf artificer in the group? Great make sure one of the doors they have to get by while fighting the guards is an arcanomechanic contraption that requires an arcana check and a thievery check to open. There is a pyro sorcerer in the group? Awesome, no need for a torch, just have the pyro notice the explosives. There is a summoner in the group? Make sure a situation arises to have a summoned creature hold back the tide as the PC's rush down a long hallway.This is adventuring. A party does not always fight X creatures of level Y totaling up to Z-2 to Z+3 experience, with short rests in between for no more than 4-5 encounters per extended rest. These are guidelines (and admittedly important ones), but the system is there to resolve conflicts. It does not dictate the conflict. The conflict can be anything the DM wants it to be. Once the idea is in place, then you turn to the system for finding the right mechanics, tweaking them where needed, and you make sure the PC's have the means to deal with the conflict and are sufficiently challenged for that sense of accomplishment, with the occasional open door for failure.I've had 6 PC's destroy over 1000 undead in one encounter. I've had 6 PC's, 2 tree ents, and a score of elf archers defeat wave after wave of gnolls, 100 or more in each wave, during a day long siege, running a total of 9 or so encounter in that day. I've also had PC's surrender against less than a dozen opponents. I've had them not even attempt to pursue a single very important enemy NPC because they were that depleted in resources, and did not believe they would be able to handle that one wounded NPC with what they had left. I've run a jail break scenario, where the PC's lost all their stuff, didn't recover any of it (more due to the choices they made than anything else), but found new and better stuff (again due to those same choices).I sometimes still fall into the rut of designing an encounter with the XP budget I'm afforded and with suggested creature compositions. But I'm at least forcing myself to take a step back and look at the big picture, look at the adventure, and look at what the encounter does for the story. So if the story demands it, I will start the PC's without equipment and wrap the mechanics to work with that demand.</blockquote>

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