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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 5815133" data-attributes="member: 5143">I admit, I'm a lazy DM.  I've run almost nothing but adventures I purchased or downloaded for years now.  Mainly because I don't have the time to come up with stuff in between everything else I like to do.  But also because things like this make it 10 times harder.I've had this conversation in another thread...but making an enemy ceases to become an effort in choosing cool spells to use in battle, but becomes a checklist of counter spells to common PC tactics.  And if I miss even one of the counter spells, then the PCs win by using that tactic.  Combat becomes a rock paper scissors effort of "Spell", "Counterspell".  And I always forget at least one of the spells.I wasn't the DM in question that the Rock to Mud worked against.  It was one of my first DMs who taught me how to play.  And I believe Rock to Mud followed by Mud to Rock was the common tactic.  Then you just had to convince the DM that "chest high" was easily enough to trap the enemies arms and then they were basically helpless.  I saw it done a number of times until the DM just started arbitrarily saying "Mud?  The enemies run for the edge of the mud pool and get out as their action this turn."  Previous to that, they used to do the obvious: "Mud?  You plan on stopping me with MUD!?!?  Hah hah hah...I cast a spell at you from inside the mud."Then, when the group realized that the DM was going to have all enemies metagame getting out of the mud as soon as possible to avoid the next round Mud to Rock, they simply cast Rock to Mud as an effort to remove an entire turn from the enemy(since they would waste their turn leaving the area of effect).  It eventually got to the point where it was so common to open the battle with a Rock to Mud that the DM said the game was getting no fun being exactly the same every time.  A bunch of the other players agreed and we all came to the conclusion that we should stop using cheesy tactics and stick with legitimate ones.  So we made a gentleman's agreement not to do it because it was ruining lots of people's fun.It's not a matter of "tactical" ability.  I use what the enemies have at hand...often that's nothing or at least nothing useful.  The PCs have all of the dirty tricks they've come up with and brought with them.  I'm running a prewritten adventure where the NPC Wizard didn't even prepare Dispel Magic.  I spent my time reading through the adventure so I would know what is happening.  They spent their time coming up with new and innovative ways to kill enemies without a fair fight.  Most of which they read on the internet or were told by someone they met at a convention.Or I'm running a battle between them and a 20th level Barbarian with 6 Int who I'm trying to play to his intelligence.  He runs forward and smacks the closest thing he can see until it dies.  The PCs Forcecage him and shoot fireballs and arrows through the cracks of the cage.To me, "creative" play actively encourages the game to go off of genre.  You don't see Gimli or Gandalf or Drizzt or The Seeker(in the TV show at least) doing those kinds of things.  They fight the enemy with their weapons and spells.I don't deny good ideas, before people accuse me of that.  If you have a good idea, I'll give you a benefit for it.  But it won't be instant defeat of the enemy.  It might give the enemies a penalty or they might take damage equal to one of your dailies without having to use up any resources.  But I dislike the idea of instant win buttons and working AROUND the system.  Enemies have hitpoints for a reason.  To defeat them you need to deplete those hitpoints.  Nothing should work around them.  Even clever ideas need to work WITHIN the hitpoint rules and should give you a benefit without it being an overwhelmingly powerful one.</blockquote>

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