Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
White Dwarf Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Nest
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
EN Publishing
Twitter
BlueSky
Facebook
Instagram
EN World
BlueSky
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
Twitch
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions, OSR, & D&D Variants
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Weighing in on 5e
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Grydan" data-source="post: 5696111" data-attributes="member: 79401"><p>It's a common misconception (which I'm not accusing you of having <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile :)" data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> ) that the skill DC for opening a locked door goes up as you level. It doesn't. Any given door has its own level of difficulty to open. </p><p></p><p>It's just that once you're level 20, locked doors of level 1-10 just aren't any more obstacle than unlocked ones, so you just treat them as if they weren't locked. A door of level 20 encountered by a party at level 1 is basically a wall with the promise of something interesting behind it if you come back later, rather than a door they should spend much time trying to open. The problem is, in my experience anyway, that if you put a door in, the party is convinced there's a way to get through it. If they can't force it, or pick the lock, there must be some magic, or a secret lever, or they have to knock and wait for it to be opened... I've seen people get stalled on what a DM put in as set-dressing, thinking there must be a way to get past. </p><p></p><p>Making my players roll skill checks they cannot fail (except on a 1) is a waste of my time and theirs.</p><p></p><p>Making my players roll skill checks they cannot pass is also a waste of time. </p><p></p><p>Now, it's perfectly reasonable when creating a place that you expect the players to spend a long time in, or to return to, to put in place doors that fall at the "can't possibly open right now" end. It's also reasonable to have doors that are a challenge now, but will be auto-successes later. </p><p></p><p>All of this also applies to other skill checks, of course.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, the reason there's not a lot of support for throwing in a bunch of highly lower levelled creatures in is that that's what minions are for.</p><p></p><p>Once a creature's so much lower than the party that they can't be missed, and can't hit the party, and even if they hit can't do enough damage to worry about... any reasonable party is basically going to ignore them in any fight that has real threats in it. If they're not going to actually fight the things, you may as well be treating them as a terrain feature rather than monsters.</p><p></p><p>Whereas if you instead make those creatures into minions that are within 2 or 3 levels of the party, you retain the overwhelming superiority of the PCs (one hit kills for everyone!), while making the creatures enough of a concern that the PCs might actually treat them as more than mobile terrain. (Well, if you use MM3 era minions, anyway. Earlier ones tend not to have enough going for them.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Most goblins <strong>are</strong> nasties that can be ignored at a certain point. It's just those few exceptional ones that are significantly better than their brethren who pop up and surprise you. It's a useful tool to have: monsters the players think are set-dressing, but who turn out to actually be threats.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Grydan, post: 5696111, member: 79401"] It's a common misconception (which I'm not accusing you of having :) ) that the skill DC for opening a locked door goes up as you level. It doesn't. Any given door has its own level of difficulty to open. It's just that once you're level 20, locked doors of level 1-10 just aren't any more obstacle than unlocked ones, so you just treat them as if they weren't locked. A door of level 20 encountered by a party at level 1 is basically a wall with the promise of something interesting behind it if you come back later, rather than a door they should spend much time trying to open. The problem is, in my experience anyway, that if you put a door in, the party is convinced there's a way to get through it. If they can't force it, or pick the lock, there must be some magic, or a secret lever, or they have to knock and wait for it to be opened... I've seen people get stalled on what a DM put in as set-dressing, thinking there must be a way to get past. Making my players roll skill checks they cannot fail (except on a 1) is a waste of my time and theirs. Making my players roll skill checks they cannot pass is also a waste of time. Now, it's perfectly reasonable when creating a place that you expect the players to spend a long time in, or to return to, to put in place doors that fall at the "can't possibly open right now" end. It's also reasonable to have doors that are a challenge now, but will be auto-successes later. All of this also applies to other skill checks, of course. Well, the reason there's not a lot of support for throwing in a bunch of highly lower levelled creatures in is that that's what minions are for. Once a creature's so much lower than the party that they can't be missed, and can't hit the party, and even if they hit can't do enough damage to worry about... any reasonable party is basically going to ignore them in any fight that has real threats in it. If they're not going to actually fight the things, you may as well be treating them as a terrain feature rather than monsters. Whereas if you instead make those creatures into minions that are within 2 or 3 levels of the party, you retain the overwhelming superiority of the PCs (one hit kills for everyone!), while making the creatures enough of a concern that the PCs might actually treat them as more than mobile terrain. (Well, if you use MM3 era minions, anyway. Earlier ones tend not to have enough going for them.) Most goblins [B]are[/B] nasties that can be ignored at a certain point. It's just those few exceptional ones that are significantly better than their brethren who pop up and surprise you. It's a useful tool to have: monsters the players think are set-dressing, but who turn out to actually be threats. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
Weighing in on 5e
Top