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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Graythebruce" data-source="post: 340063" data-attributes="member: 6421">Amendment and responsedie_kluge wrote: Ah, well. You have a point there.If the DM's challenges are *so obviously* designed just to give you something to do, that certainly could get annoying pretty quick. Allow me to amend my earlier statement by breaking it up a bit: 1. DMs should balance scenarios and campaigns so a wide range of activities (intrigue, politics, warfare, investigation, dungeon-delving, wilderness exploration) are incorporated into the story. This necessarily has the effect of discouraging dominant classes.2. When designing encounters, DMs should keep an eye out for ways they might provide openings for the application of underutilized class abilities, provided these challenges are good ones (see #3 below). 3. A good challenge for a specialized ability should not seem contrived; it should grow organically from and have real consequences for the storyline. The DM should not goad the PC (directly or through NPCs) into using his or her ability; simply putting the opportunity there is enough. As a final condition, the specialized challenge ideally should not sideline other PCs. (This is the portion I should have included in my earlier post. Apologies.)Hence, a musical duel between bards in a bar isn't great. But if the chief villain's herald (a bard) arrives in a bar and tries to convince the locals to lynch the party, that's another thing. The party's bard has an obvious target for abilities like Countersong, and the rest of the party is still engaged. Moreover, the encounter seems like a plausible extension of the storyline. One good test for such a challenge is this: Would the story move forward if the key PC weren't there? The aforementioned singing contest fails this test. But the villain's herald passes because the party still has to deal with him -- having a bard of their own just makes the whole encounter easier. This was the philosophy that guided the other encounters I described. I don't think my players have even picked up on the fact that the current setting is designed to give our archer the limelight for a change. The other PCs, after all, are still effective -- it's just that their kill ratios have dropped while the archer is killing a greater proportion of enemies than he used to.  Moreover, I didn't force them off the beaten path into these woods -- I gave them a bunch of choices and this was their pick; when planning the encounters, I simply designed the sets and foes to encourage sniping. The no-sideline rule is a good one for even "routine" specialized encounters like trap disarmament. An example: assume the party has some sort of time limit, during which it must get past a door, secure an object, and return to some location where said object is handy. Unfortunately, the door is both locked and guarded. The chief guardian is a singing golem whose voice has a *hold person* effect on those within 15 feet of it -- and the floor around the door is littered with the corpses of slain would-be intruders, who animate to attack anyone left helpless by the golem's song. Here we have an encounter in which a rogue uses trap/lock skills, the party's bard can use countersong, the cleric can use turn undead, and the fighter can focus on the golem while the rogue is inside grabbing the loot. This is an extreme example, in that it threatens to violate the "contrivance" rule I listed above -- but it is a fair example of what I mean by no sidelining. In short, if your DM had you quell an unruly crowd as a kind of "random" solo encounter, then yuck. In fact, double yuck.But if the unruly crowd was a logical consequence of the existing story, if the PCs still had something to do during the scene, if the DM didn't goad you into using your ability (it's your call after all), then I don't see why anyone would complain about it -- at least, not as it's described. - Graham R. Scott</blockquote>

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