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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rod Staffwand" data-source="post: 7599971" data-attributes="member: 6776279">Some good suggestions here, and I would add:1. Fighting from the Doorway. I don't think anyone mentioned having the monsters appear after the PCs enter the room. You can have hidden monsters, monsters that are out of line of sight, magically summoned monsters, or monsters that are just happen to enter the chamber while the PCs are in it and doing their thing.I use a lot of monsters that attack and retreat and monsters that like to lurk just outside of attack range or out of sight. The PCs will often know they're there, but have to chase them down or throw something like a fireball at them to get rid of them. Only when the PCs get involved in another combat will they show themselves. Think of them as a tiger or a pack of wolves harrying the party. Get away from thinking of tiny dungeon cubes with static monsters inside of them waiting around to get killed and everyone will be happier.2. Scouting. No solo missions ever. Any PC that wants to do a solo scouting mission gets warned against it. If they persist they stumble back a short time later with half their hit points missing and stories of monsters everywhere. My dungeons would very much like to kill you and solo PCs are easy pickings. D&D is a group activity and I won't waste table time catering to one player's whims.A less drastic measure would be to limit such scouting trips to 5 minutes or less of table time and roll wandering monster checks for both solo PC and the group. Solo PCs will invariably be surprised. Familiars and other scouting agents are certainly permissible. Familiars can be a bit tricky. They obey your commands, but only up to 100ft away and then they're on their own (DM control! I'd have the familiar keep its head down and take the safest, least informative route possible.). Once again, I'd always roll a wandering monster check for these types of things and require stealth checks and all that to progress. I try to keep expeditions like this to 5 minutes or less. I don't go into elaborate details on any features or monsters. If the player wants more detail we're into investigating--which means taking extra time, incurring extra danger and so on.3. Caution. Yeah, I hate when D&D players don't want to play D&D. Don't touch anything! Don't explore! Don't experiment! I can understand the mentality, but embracing the danger is one of the best parts of D&D. Worse comes to worse you make a new PC. In my games, risk and reward are linked. You don't get the cool magic sword without jumping into the evil pit. Someone doesn't give you a ring of invisibility because you're "due a magic item". Sure you can avoid open the evil sarcophagus, but that means you won't get the xp from killing the mummy lord inside. The PCs are expected to be dynamic participants--to make good things happen. Those who don't interact with anything will be safer, but missing out.</blockquote>

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