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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Remathilis" data-source="post: 6690798" data-attributes="member: 7635">Caveat: I haven't read OotA yet. The Underdark has a reputation of being the Ultimate Dungeon; a place where PCs are stranded far away from the civilizations they know and surrounded by evil denizens. Now toss demons (the ultimate bad guys) into the mix. The temptation to turn it into a literal bloodbath would be great; if everything is going to kill you, why talk to any of them? Eventually, the adventure would descend into one battle after another with no chances (or need) to role-play. Adding some of these stranger encounters breaks up the monotony, throws the PCs off their game. Is that myconid friend or foe? How do we handle a sentient gelatinous cube? It gives them something strange, alien, and not-necessarily hostile to interact with. Most importantly, it give a variety of feels to the adventure and keeps it from descending into room-after-room of evil things trying just to kill you.Secondly, the sub-theme that keeps getting lost is MADNESS. The demon lords are literally driving the denizens mad. And madness is most frightening when its unexpected. I mean, if all Demogorgon's presence did was make drow more bloodthirsty and sadistic, you haven't done much to make them scary, you've just guaranteed there are no survivors in sortie's with them. But if it makes some sadistic, some babbling-crazy, and some suffer odd-but-non-violent delusions, then it becomes harder to gauge your foe. Is the duergar going to invite us to tea or cave in our skulls? Are those kuo-toa priests hostile or just eccentric? Is the strange drow who wants to serve us stew giving us Cream of Wild Mushroom or Cream of Wild Mage? The strange and whimsical encounters keep PCs guessing.In the end, you need both to keep the uncertainty. Otherwise, its very easy to assume the demon lords are the big target and every creature between you and them (be it demon, drow, derro, or what) is just collateral damage or an obstacle in the way and you can nuke them all and let Kelemvor sort them out. You COULD still play it like that, but methinks some of these whimsical encounters are allies and that might just make fighting a CR 26 ram-demon a bit harder later on...</blockquote>

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