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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 6922287" data-attributes="member: 82106">Why on Earth wouldn't 4e lend itself to this? Certainly MECHANICALLY it is well-suited, you can incorporate such factors into an SC, or simply use Knowledge Checks. A GM could easily encourage this sort of thing by using some of these "do the right thing or else" type monsters. They can also be a good motivator for characters to invest in some consumables (you can make yourself more adaptable to different situations by packing a few different potions for instance, not dirt cheap, but not prohibitive either). Well, my preference is that GENERALLY encounters SHOULD be either building up to something in a clear way (and thus foreshadowing the capabilities of one of your example boss monsters is a fine idea) or BE a boss themselves, in general. I mean, sure, now and then you may have a combat encounter that is just color, in which case there's no issue with it just being fairly stock monsters.Yeah, that's pretty much how I'd deal with it. I recall once having a location that contained a bunch of 'lightning stones', the PCs had determined this by having a fight there and learning that the stones generated thunder and lightning damage when they were hit with various attacks. Then the Shambling Mounds started showing up... Obviously they chose to take the fight elsewhere, but there were other plot considerations that made it a hard choice. So that worked fine.No, but its pretty easy to find accounts of campaigns that appear to have had this sort of issue where the GM wasn't terribly creative about building interesting scenarios and the game devolved down to a long list of 'fight to the death' scenarios 5x5 without much varying except the mix of monsters. Some of those will be interesting, but I think its quite possible for a game to become very cookie-cutter. You and I and other GMs that have been around a long time and built up skills aren't going to have this issue, but 4e simply happens to cater to us, and not so much to others. I think there's room in the design to mix it up some.I agree, for me and you it is.Yeah. Again, I'm not really disagreeing with you. I think though that some oddball monsters can help some DMs. I think that classic D&D had many such creatures, and 4e may have watered some of them down a bit too much, or just left them out entirely in a lot of cases. Certainly that can be colored as "focusing on the sweet spot of the design" but I never understood the mentality that having a Trapper, a Green Slime, etc would really be a BAD thing. Its not like you MUST use them.</blockquote>

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