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Wandering "Monsters": Magic Items
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<blockquote data-quote="the Jester" data-source="post: 6251093" data-attributes="member: 1210"><p>Speaking for myself, yes, at least potentially. Of course, if they just blunder into everything, they're ceding this ability; but- for example- if the 1st level party hears about the Tower of Woe and then bothers to ask around and hear the local tales about it, they can find out that there is something in the tower that casts great balls of flame and turns men to stone. They have a few clues as to the difficulty involved.</p><p></p><p>Another element here is that the players have control over their pcs' actions, and I don't 'cheat' that by using (f'rexample) the cool monster that they missed in their last dungeon as their next wilderness encounter; that cool monster has a lair, and without a reason to emerge, it may be the new lord of the (otherwise mostly cleaned-out) dungeon. </p><p></p><p>(And then, perhaps, a later group of pcs will encounter the new dungeon setup, with the cool monster- or maybe not. But there tend to be returns to cool dungeons in my campaign eventually.)</p><p></p><p>Something else I do is have certain monsters be known as the top dog in their area; maybe there is known to be a dragon in the mountains, or a beholder dwells in the swamps along Lake Yucky. But whatever the top of the food chain is, there are probably legends and rumors about it, letting pcs who are up for the challenge seek it out.</p><p></p><p>A final note: this style of play really only works with a DM who isn't reluctant to kill pcs off. Otherwise, "choosing the difficulty of an encounter" is meaningless, or at least mostly so.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="the Jester, post: 6251093, member: 1210"] Speaking for myself, yes, at least potentially. Of course, if they just blunder into everything, they're ceding this ability; but- for example- if the 1st level party hears about the Tower of Woe and then bothers to ask around and hear the local tales about it, they can find out that there is something in the tower that casts great balls of flame and turns men to stone. They have a few clues as to the difficulty involved. Another element here is that the players have control over their pcs' actions, and I don't 'cheat' that by using (f'rexample) the cool monster that they missed in their last dungeon as their next wilderness encounter; that cool monster has a lair, and without a reason to emerge, it may be the new lord of the (otherwise mostly cleaned-out) dungeon. (And then, perhaps, a later group of pcs will encounter the new dungeon setup, with the cool monster- or maybe not. But there tend to be returns to cool dungeons in my campaign eventually.) Something else I do is have certain monsters be known as the top dog in their area; maybe there is known to be a dragon in the mountains, or a beholder dwells in the swamps along Lake Yucky. But whatever the top of the food chain is, there are probably legends and rumors about it, letting pcs who are up for the challenge seek it out. A final note: this style of play really only works with a DM who isn't reluctant to kill pcs off. Otherwise, "choosing the difficulty of an encounter" is meaningless, or at least mostly so. [/QUOTE]
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