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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 6985883" data-attributes="member: 6785785">Sure. The specifics of their defeat are obtained through adventure, and then later they are defeated. They are not simply killed/destroyed on first meeting with the heroes of the tale. There is growth or progress on the part of the heroes that allows them to win.So if I have a threat that has been designed to only be defeated after the PCs obtain certain information, then that's how I'll treat it. To tie this into my point about mechanics, the Death Star doesn't have any stats until the rebels have shared the plans and the flaw with Luke and the other pilots. Or, as RPGs often do, the PCs cannot defeat threat X, until they have gained sufficient experience and level in order to do so. The Death Star example is breaking down, I suppose, but that's the best way I can explain it. I generally don't design enemies that don't have stats; usually, it's a matter of PCs encountering a foe that is simply beyond them. So when my 4th level PCs encountered Tenebrous, who is essentially Orcus reborn through connection an unlimited power source called the Last Word, near the end of the module "Dead Gods", yes, they are free to try and fight him. I don't know if I'd bother rolling such an encounter out or not. I mean, what would be gained by doing so? Perhaps a fluke of nothing but 1s for me and nothing but crits for the PCs would result in a PC victory? Meh. I'd rather save the time and explain that they are utterly destroyed. They'd be better off hiding his wand for long enough that the Last Word consumes him, which is something that they've found out through their adventures, or by using the item that they found that allows them to destroy the wand, though it would be at great cost (which is how it played out). Having the players face him and defeat him in straight up fight given that the adventure presents this as impossible is, to me, counter to how I want the game to work. In my world, level 4 heroes cannot kill Orcus because of a quirk of some die rolls.So why do your PCs level up? I realize that with 5E, there is bounded accuracy and monsters tend to remain viable at more levels, but do you ever see any threat as beyond the PCs? If your level 4 group charges Demogorgon when he first rises from the lake in "Out of the Abyss", do you allow them to win? Do you actually roll that encounter out? I mean, it's something else entirely when they face him later in the adventure, no? I disagree about winning the unwinnable fight is the same as winning any other fight. There are varying degrees of difficulty for any encounter relative to any group of PCs. The scale goes from trivially simple to impossible. I don't think that is what I did. Separating tactics and environment and isolating just the math of the PCs versus the monsters is probably going to cause issues, no? That was my point. So, for instance, if you throw a dragon at the PCs and he hovers within their range and chooses never to use his breath weapon....then yes, that encounter will favor the PCs. Unless they are incredibly low level for the dragon they're facing. If changing the environment a bit or varying up the tactics of the enemies and playing them as thinking beings doesn't help people, then oh well. At least I tried to help. It's advice....anyone can take it or leave it. Yes, I agree. I don't think a familiarity with 4E is required, but certainly that can be one source of inspiration for people to tinker with monsters to try and get what they'd like. No, the mechanics don't determine the world. They determine outcomes of actions in doubt within the world. The world (the cliff face and the PC at the bottom) determine the mechanics (a climb check to determine success), not the other way around. I have a question for you: how do you determine if the outcome of an action is in doubt? How do you decide that the character needs to roll to climb that cliff or if he just succeeds and no roll is needed? Do you decide this based on the fiction, or on the mechanics? Yes, I'd roll most such encounters out, because they are within reason of the world we have established. At 12th level, a fighter is so skilled that he can take on a large number of foes. What was mentioned in the original discussion was an orc horde. Not a set number of enemies, but a horde. In the fictional world of my game, a group of 12 level characters facing a horde of humanoids is simply going to lose in a straight up fight. I don't care that if at your table, you rolled it out and the mechanics determined that the PCs won. At my table, they're done....unless they come up with a plan to isolate small groups and take them out, and use hit and run tactics, and so on. The reason for this is because I don't view a horde of orcs as 1000 creatures with a CR of 1/8. It's a horde of orcs. I don't know if I'd agree. Ares is a god, and Achilles is a demigod. What about Hector? He defeated plenty of opponents because he was an incredible warrior. However, he expressed fear of dying throughout, especially in scenes with his wife and infant son. Certainly, when he faced an unbeatable foe he knew fear.....he ran away and circled the city three times trying to get away from Achilles. But just because it took a demigod to beat him doesn't mean he was not afraid of falling to any other enemy. Sure. The broader fantasy genre is exactly as you describe it.....there are a broad numbers of interpretations. Having heroes who are far more mortal than the demigod heroes of classic myth is pretty common. My game doesn't have PCs slaughtering enemies by the hundreds. That's fine. I actually see it as the whole point. We differ on this, clearly. Because the band of orcs in question.....why can they not be a band of level 10 fighters paired with a couple of level 10 clerics of Gruumsh? In your example, the CHARACTERS are gauging their chance on victory based on what the PLAYERS know from the Monster Manual. I generally don't like that approach. Now, this is not to say that I don't expect them to make such decisions....the players know what level they are and how skilled, and they decide things based on that, and on their past experiences with orcs or with other monsters. If they see a group of 20 orcs, I'd expect them to assume they could take them. I just don't want that to get out of hand, and I like to keep the possibility that they make a mistake in such situations. I've found that serves my purpose well....where my players view the fictional world more in line with how I think their characters would.</blockquote>

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