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Message: <blockquote data-quote="OB1" data-source="post: 7096499" data-attributes="member: 6796241">[MENTION=28334]Lidgar[/MENTION] - Decided against using the rest variant for a couple of reasons.  One is that I felt like the Sunless Citadel was going to be difficult enough without it, and I preffered to have a ticking clock prevent them from simply long resting after every encounter.  I think with the variant rule it would actually encourage that even more.  Secondly, my group has just gotten used to the idea as player HP being a measure of stamina in combat, and that 0 HP means that you have let down your guard and are now vulnerable to a killing blow.  So in that sense the 5e rules make a lot of sense.Finally, the dungeon turned out to be plenty challenging without using the variant, and my first rule of home brewing is to not alter the rules unless absolutely necessary.I touched on it before, but enemies using cover consistently really changed the difficulty level of some of the encounters.  The bloated one was a super easy fight for the players, as the rats didn't use cover.  Compare that to the fight with the 3 goblin bandits at the top of the map, where tipping over a table to protect themselves from the warlock's eldritch blast and bards hand crossbow meant the paladin and barbarian having to take a couple of hits before victory.  Also, the crit that the goblin got with inflict wounds only happened because she ran behind the throne after casting bane in the first round, allowing her to pop out and strike the paladin in the next round.  Had she stayed in plain sight, the warlock or bard would have likely taken her out before she had the chance to get the crit.I'm sure this is not a surprise to many on these boards, but it's been an awakening for me.  I think one of the reasons I didn't use much cover before was that we always played on a grid, and didn't have a lot of props to show exactly where cover was, so we just ignored it and most fights ended up being white room slug fests.  With TOM, suddenly everyone is trying new things and combat is becoming MORE tactical.  The thunder wave the bard got off at the end, for example, came from her using her feline agility combined with her climb speed to go along the tower wall and get in perfect position to nail the four enemies.  I'm not sure she would have ever tried that on a grid.</blockquote>

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