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Message: <blockquote data-quote="gizmo33" data-source="post: 3801073" data-attributes="member: 30001">You mean you didn't read all 1000+ posts on this thread!?   <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" />   I personally have responded to them and so have others.  I'll perhaps summarize what I've already said at a later time but you have some more interesting stuff here so I'll get to that first.And this, to me, is the beginning and end of the problem.  It's as if you're concluding that dungeons are boring because you purchased a dungeon but all it was was 20 rooms each filled with a few faceless, uninteresting mooks.  That's not a condemnation of the dungeon concept, it's just a poorly designed one.Now I'm not exactly sure I'd say RTTToEE is "poorly designed", but I think it's pretty obvious that the time dimension of the dungeon wasn't sufficiently planned for.  I don't know if that was your responsibility or Monte Cook's, but IMO it's someone's.  A "dungeon" really should be a dynamic place, and obviously the more of a "time" dimension there is, the more there needs to be a design in this area.  This is actually one of the things I *want* in the game, because by going to a per-encounter resource to make sure that the dungeon is reduced to smoking rubble in an hour, the DM is being denied to opportunity to make his campaign world more of a living, breathing place.  By simply responding to PC forays by restocking the dungeon with replacement mooks, that's basically equivalent, in the time dimension, with stocking each room with the same monster in the space dimension.Not only (I agree) is this boring, but it's also unrealistic.  If I'm a terminator I can't just walk into my local police station, kill a bunch of them, and then sit around and do the same thing next week.  Granted, this is a secret cult (I don't know much about RTTToEE but I do know the original and I'm assuming their similar) but if it's like ToEE they have their tentacles in the surrounding area and would take a great interest in persons who were killing their troops.  Seems insane not to do so unless their troops are getting wacked on a weekly basis by all sorts of people - in which case the identities of those people would be very relevant to making the dungeon dynamic and interesting (another subject).Absolutely.  I think you really have to step in as a DM here and insist that your NPCs act like thinking people (not even smart ones).  Even stupid people don't do the same thing over and over again when it's what got the last bunch killed.  Traps, trained creatures, abandoning and walling off the area (forcing the PCs to look elsewhere) are all simple-minded responses.  Poor morale among troops who have to listen to stories of massacres every week would inspire the leadership to deal with this situation.That makes sense given the circumstances.  So here they are, unable to replace their troops and they're still just sitting down in the dungeon, twiddling their thumbs at their particular encounter area?They're foes were stymied by a door!?  Again, I don't know the module but siege techniques aren't rocket science and they're not all that expensive.  A few goblin slaves with pick-axes, and maybe setting traps at the door when the PCs come out could do the trick.But there could have been story concerns!  New recruits are a new opportunity for PCs to get information - a new recruit can be from a certain area where the temple has just established an outpost.  The dynamic nature of a realistic environment would introduce new elements to the story.  This almost speaks for itself.  A player's sense of certainty is pretty easy to fix.Teleport is a big, unmitigated problem in 3E.  There are plenty of theoretical spells and other magical counter-measures that could be available to opponents who are high enough level to be a challenge to PCs who can cast teleport.  In any case, this is just a higher level version of what was going on with the low-level/mook situation - if you're a high level NPC whose house is being broken into every week you're going to find a way to fix the problem.Why?  They know instinctively that it's not going to happen.  The PCs know instinctively that their actions (or lack thereof) actually have no bearing on what happens in the world.How am I not being clear about this?  Resting is part of the resource attrition game.  The "game" wouldn't be a game if attrition were always in the negative direction.  There's nothing inevitable about resource attrition, and it's part of the game for PCs to manage it.  IMO You need to understand that their successes in this area are not a bad thing, any more than when they kill a monster instead of getting killed by it.  It's part of the game.I don't see the difference.  Assuming the fireball is not a relevant factor in determining whether you would succeed against the BBEG, then why ask the question in the first place?Yes, I think I understand clearly that this is what you want.They have enough resources to fight a single kobold.  They have enough resources to avoid a battle.  You also have one-time resources, like wands and potions.  The situation is more complicated IMO than you're describing here.The PCs have a time machine?  A day is a long time.  Go into some crazy, violent person's house, then lock yourself in a room and spike it shut, wait an entire day and then come out (if you make it that far - because I'm pretty sure you're average crazy person knows how to deal with someone in a locked room).  There are just so many obvious problems with this scenario that I don't know where to begin. This is a gaming style issue.  I'm not saying anything about *forcing* the PCs to fight a battle they can't handle.  I could break down the details of how I would run something like ToEE but it's too long for this post.</blockquote>

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