Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 3582699" data-attributes="member: 697">I sort of do this, then I stick the encounters I design into a dungeon. For instance, I just ran a fight last night with the PCs trying to cross a bridge across a chasm while goblins fired crossbow bolts at them from the side. It was pretty fun (especially when a dragon swooped by and dropped cause fear at the fighter just because it could; the characters happily sucked down AoO's to jump over the goblin's barricade and get out of the dragon's way.)Space is cool, because it opens up more tactical options and challenges. The monsters can come at the party from multiple directions. The party gets spread out. AoEs can clip one or two monsters unless the caster is willing to hit a PC. It's good stuff.I've had a lot of success drawing a standard dungeon, but then grouping up two or three rooms into one "encounter" with the fight swirling through the area. It's interesting because approaching encounters this way makes you think of encounters as more than the PCs lining up on one side, the monsters on the other.OTOH, cramped spaces are cool because they make it hard to bring everything to bear. I've had some success combining these two approachs, particularly when I reverse it. For instance, the monsters might attack from an open area while the PCs are in cramped quarters. Alternatively, the PCs have a few cramped passages to choose from, all leading to the same spot, letting you split up the party.In any case, too much of anything is pretty lame.</blockquote>

Verification