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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pbartender" data-source="post: 4680204" data-attributes="member: 7533">Absolutely.  Perception is the big thing, here.To be honest, all of my best RBDM moments -- the ones the players still talk about -- were situations in which the PCs were in little more danger than normal, but had the perception that something unusual and dangeerous was going on.The suggestion you gave for a dragon using alter self is a great example...  I've used that one before, except in my situation I had a red dragon who used Disguise Self to make herself look like a white dragon, and let the PCs see her coming from a long way away so that they had time to prepare.It didn't take long for the players to figure it out (the cone of fire breath weapon gave it away, once the dragon used it), and it didn't cost them more than a couple of useless spells and a bunch of hit points...  In the long run, there was no real danger, and they still won in the end.  But the looks on their faces when that first fireball didn't deal any damage and the way they scrambled to rethink their tactics for the next few rounds told me the trick worked as intended.Like KC said, for me much of Rat Bastardry is getting the players to do that horrified double-take when they realize what's going on, and then giving them the chance to succeed (even if it means a lesser or more costly victory) despite the set back.  I like my RBDM moments to give players that wonderful sense of doom that always precedes a spectacular come from behind victory in the movies.</blockquote>

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