What happens when you think everything is a level-appropriate encounter

[thirdkingdom]

I can't honestly think of any encounter in D&D the edition of D&D I'm most familiar with that is slow, <snip>

Avoiding fighting is usually pretty possible in D&D the edition of D&D I'm most familiar with. <snip>

Just the escape one. D&DThe edition of D&D I'm most familiar with actually has really great mechanics in place to prevent combat if you don't want to fight. <snip>

Fixed that for you. I'm guessing that the edition you're most familiar with is 3.5? Believe it or not, there are other editions of D&D that *do* have robust mechanics for evading or fleeing from the enemy.

[Zombimode]

Fixed that for you. I'm guessing that the edition you're most familiar with is 3.5? Believe it or not, there are other editions of D&D that *do* have robust mechanics for evading or fleeing from the enemy.

Actually his Statements are untrue for 3.5 as well. They may be true for his own games where his Party is not competent enough to stage a retreat or he consciously or subconsciouly fiats away his party's attempts to retreat.

Actually I would even go further and challange your Statement that other Editions of D&D have better mechanics or Options for fleeing or evading enemies. Which Edition are you thinking of?

[thirdkingdom]

Actually his Statements are untrue for 3.5 as well. They may be true for his own games where his Party is not competent enough to stage a retreat or he consciously or subconsciouly fiats away his party's attempts to retreat.

Actually I would even go further and challange your Statement that other Editions of D&D have better mechanics or Options for fleeing or evading enemies. Which Edition are you thinking of?

I don't have my B/X books present, but I'll copypaste from ACKS, which is essentially the same thing:

It is up to the adventurers to decide when they stop pursuing fleeing monsters. A monster will stop chasing the adventurers if they manage to get out of the monster’s range of vision. If the monsters enjoy treasure, they have a 50% probability that they will stop pursuing characters to collect any treasure the characters drop (roll 4-6 on 1d6). Hungry or less intelligent monsters may do the same if the characters drop food.

Encounters will generally occur at much longer ranges in the
wilderness, and adventurers and monsters will have far more directions available to flee. When one side is surprised in a wilderness encounter, the other side can automatically flee successfully. Otherwise, in order for one party to escape from another, it must make a successful throw on the Wilderness Evasion table. The more pursuing group members there are relative to the fleeing party, the greater chances the fleeing party may escape. This is because larger groups cannot move as fast, or as quietly. Note that the fleeing side will have a minimum of a 5% probability of escaping.

...

If the fleeing party does not successfully escape, then the other group has managed to keep them within sight. They have a 50% (11+ on d20) chance of catching them up close if they have a greater movement than the group they are pursuing. If this roll fails, then the fleeing side may again attempt to escape. This cycle is repeated daily until either one side escapes or the other manages to catch up.

Both are to be found on p. 100 of the ACKS core book (not sure of the equivalent page numbers in B/X or BECMI), and I've quoted the most relevant sections. I've got little experience with 3.5 (or other editions beyond OD&D and 1st, honestly), so can't speak to their evasion rules, but I can say that older versions tend to favor play where fighting everything you encounter is a BAD IDEA (as per the OP).

[Braininthejar2]

"Why did you set us against a dragon at level 1?"

"Don't attack the decorations."

[goatmeal]

Avoiding fighting is usually pretty possible in D&D. It's being in a fight and then getting away from it that is not easily modelled in the system. For example, obscuring mist only works if you can cast it and get far enough away that they can't just walk through the mist to get at you anyway, silent image only works if they don't know illusions exist and thus don't attempt to walk through the wall seeing as they may as well, expeditious retreat only works if the encounter isn't deadly enough to kill you during that round you spent casting it instead of running and lets all your allies die, caltrops are stopped by shoes as well as a myriad other things like the jump skill, diplomacy takes a full minute without running or attacking back, wild empathy is just a diplomacy check used on animals and also takes a full minute.

Even in your example, your DM flat out let you succeed at delaying combat despite the mechanics not backing that up. That's fine. DMs can let their players win encounters if it's more fun for them. But if your DM isn't going to just allow you to succeed where you don't have the mechanics backing up what you're doing, then those examples don't work.

Have you ever played 1e or 2e? That's kind of how they worked. Fewer rules meant you could be more creative as a player.

[Yukitsu]

Fixed that for you. I'm guessing that the edition you're most familiar with is 3.5? Believe it or not, there are other editions of D&D that *do* have robust mechanics for evading or fleeing from the enemy.

Pathfinder, 4th and 5th as well, though I don't play them as much. I've also played/made characters for second and advanced but I could not at all claim to be even remotely familiar with them. 4th I found had some classes that were individually good at escaping but that's not what I'm talking about here since I don't view it as positive if the party loses members trying to flee from combat. 5th I find to have many of the same problems as 3.5 in that regard but I play it less so perhaps I'm missing something or missed a supplement.

Shadowrun is the system I'm familiar with that has the most mechanically sound way to flee combat even though it's not ideal. It's a die off between the driver in both cases until the distance is too high for it to remain a chase.

Have you ever played 1e or 2e? That's kind of how they worked. Fewer rules meant you could be more creative as a player.

Very minimally. I didn't particularly like second which is the one I played a little of but it may have just been a bad DM. The system in general felt a little slower than others though and I can't say I'm a fan of anything that leans closer to freeform.

[Telok]

Pathfinder, 4th and 5th as well, though I don't play them as much.

Yeah, WotC is a big believer in a "everything is a level-appropriate encounter" model that means the PCs never have to run away.

[Koo Rehtorb]

I have to say few things ruin my immersion harder than the "Everything is a level appropriate encounter" style of gameplay.

[kyoryu]

"Why did you set us against a dragon at level 1?"

"Don't attack the decorations."

As has been said, encounter != fight.

Encouter means exactly that. You encounter the thing. At 1st level, maybe that means you see a dragon fly overhead and do your damnedest to not get noticed by the thing.

Reverse that for kobolds/crappy bandits. They're not going to engage with a heavily armed knight, a mage leaking arcane power over everything, and a hardened looking archer with a thousand-yard stare. They're going to hide and wait for better targets.

As far as the knight goes - I consider it generally appropriate to "calibrate" players at the beginning of a game. "A level 1 character is basically this. A level 3 character is basically this. A knight is probably level 7 or higher" and so on and so forth. Give the PCs an idea of their relative strength.

In the knight example, again, I'd probably point out to the players that they probably have a good idea of how their skill would match up to a tourney-winning knight. That's the kind of info the *character* would certainly know (unless there were some character-related reason for him to not know that or to overestimate his own abilities), and so should be available to the *player*.

The problem I typically see here is when the GM gives information that the GM believes should be sufficient, but actually isn't. That's why when I see a player acting on what appears to be false assumptions *that the player should know*, I make sure to give that info pretty directly. "Yeah, you know you're going to be badly outclassed by this guy, right?" Or, more IC - "you know one of your old teachers, who you're still convinced would be at least your equal, got in a tourney and didn't make it past the second round. So to win a tourney you'd have to be pretty tough."

[goatmeal]

Very minimally. I didn't particularly like second which is the one I played a little of but it may have just been a bad DM. The system in general felt a little slower than others though and I can't say I'm a fan of anything that leans closer to freeform.

I remember the first time playing 3.5 it seemed much better than 2e simply for the lack of THAC0. I also initially liked having more options. We resisted 3rd edition for a long time because it seemed to make things easier to survive than 2e. It did turn out to be a bit clunky at first, and it actually felt like having more things codified somehow limited my options. I changed my character after a few sessions because the concept that I had from 2e wasn't working as well in 3.5. (Or maybe it's that I was using the 2e splat to have a 1st level forest gnome illusionist with AC0 that I missed...)

Also, the best DM I had for 2e didn't seem to be that great when we got to 3.5. Probably not ever going back to 1e or 2e, but there were things I did like about them.

[Jormengand]

Yeah, WotC is a big believer in a "everything is a level-appropriate encounter" model that means the PCs never have to run away.

I'm away from books, but from memory:

The PCs should run. If they don't, they will surely die.

[prufock]

This encounter is bad because it takes a likely and frankly pretty reasonable solution to the obstacle, and makes it kill you out of nowhere.

What obstacle? The scenario presented is basically:
"Hi, I'm Bob the knight."
"Let's joust to the death!"

This isn't a situation where a solution is necessary. This is an encounter created purely by the will of the PC in question. And as you point out

Yeah the deal was made after the fight was picked, but if the fight was not supposed to be had, then why make the deal so attractive.

You gloss this over, but it's important to note that the PC was willing to engage in this joust to the death for no stakes. The knight was the one that demanded some reward for risking his neck, not the player. The player was just being headstrong.

(quick side note, this isn't even combat. It's a joust. It already has a fail state that isn't death. It's losing the joust)

Which would be fine if the PC had suggested that they wait until they could get tournament lances, but he pushes the NPC to do it with lethal ones. It's like saying "Let's play Pie Face!" when all you have are poison pies.

If you really want your players to explore solutions that aren't combat, you need to give them incentive.

I agree with this, but with no context, we don't know whether non-combat incentives were offered. Maybe they were. Maybe they were implicit.

The point is, the player was presented with an obstacle and tried a solution. Instead of being given an honest attempt with their solution, they immediately failed and were killed. All because the DM didn't want them trying that solution. If this were reversed, about trying a noncombat solution when the DM wanted a fight, how many would say the encounter was bad?

Here's an analogy. The PCs (level 3) are in a dungeon. They encounter The Path of Doom. They have heard stories of adventurers who have tried the Path and failed. They can easily take an obvious alternate path. Yes, there's treasure at the end of the Path, but he can't see it until he's halfway down the Path already. The player says "I run down the path toward the treasure."

In both, the encounter could have been avoided. In both, the reward isn't presented until the player already commits. In both, it is the player that initiates the action. In both, it is obvious that it will be difficult. In both, it is lethal.

[Stealth Marmot]

Here's an analogy. The PCs (level 3) are in a dungeon. They encounter The Path of Doom. They have heard stories of adventurers who have tried the Path and failed. They can easily take an obvious alternate path. Yes, there's treasure at the end of the Path, but he can't see it until he's halfway down the Path already. The player says "I run down the path toward the treasure."

Frilick jumps into the pit to gather the treasure, how much does he get?

[Telok]

Frilick jumps into the pit to gather the treasure, how much does he get?

DM: "It's a really deep pit. Are you sure?"
Player: "Yeah, but it's just a pit and there's treasure. I jump."
DM: <rolls damage> "A high roll, how many hit points do you have?"
Player: "Not that many."

[Shackel]

Considering the general tone of the forum when it comes to no-win scenarios and/or DMs screwing over players, I'm kind of surprised this has gotten such good "ha ha serves him right" reactions. To me this can easily mean that the world itself was just poorly defined, as was the tone and level of the entire campaign, just to set up some "gotcha" moment and feel good about one's self.

"The greatest jouster" can mean a lot of things. It could mean the Warrior 3 protecting the Aristocrat 2 king. It could mean the Fighter 5 who is top tier compared to all of the non-adventurers. It could also mean the Knight 20 optimized Mounted Ubercharger build whose damage and AC while charging is somewhere between infinite and yes.

And frankly from the "ha ha that idiot" tone of the OP OOC and IC("funeral expenses"), it doesn't sound to me like the level of the world was really stated. At least, that's how it sounds to me. Not to mention that due to the way the game is set up, "this is spooky land don't go here" is usually what tells the adventurers yes, in fact, they should go here.

[Ruslan]

I definitely wasn't setting up a gotcha moment. I was as surprised as everyone else at the table that he decided to fight the knight. And the tone was pretty well stated, IMHO, given the fact that everyone else understood that the headstrong PC is about to die. Except, of course, the PC himself. And he later confided in me, "I guess I should have seen that coming. I don't know what I was thinking."

So, definitely not intending to kill a PC, but, you know, once it already happened, might as well tell the story for everyone's amusement.

[Knaight]

Considering the general tone of the forum when it comes to no-win scenarios and/or DMs screwing over players, I'm kind of surprised this has gotten such good "ha ha serves him right" reactions. To me this can easily mean that the world itself was just poorly defined, as was the tone and level of the entire campaign, just to set up some "gotcha" moment and feel good about one's self.

If this was either a no-win scenario or the DM screwing over players, the forum would probably have reacted differently. As for setting up a gotcha moment, that would have to involve the DM predicting a player deciding that it would be a good idea to pick a fight with a knight they have no beef with using war lances. A trap needs bait, and this didn't have any.

[The Extinguisher]

What obstacle? The scenario presented is basically:
"Hi, I'm Bob the knight."
"Let's joust to the death!"

This isn't a situation where a solution is necessary. This is an encounter created purely by the will of the PC in question. And as you point out

You gloss this over, but it's important to note that the PC was willing to engage in this joust to the death for no stakes. The knight was the one that demanded some reward for risking his neck, not the player. The player was just being headstrong.


Which would be fine if the PC had suggested that they wait until they could get tournament lances, but he pushes the NPC to do it with lethal ones. It's like saying "Let's play Pie Face!" when all you have are poison pies.


I agree with this, but with no context, we don't know whether non-combat incentives were offered. Maybe they were. Maybe they were implicit.

It comes down to how the danger is presented. I can tell I'm in the minority here, but I don't see how absolute lethality could be determined here. This is not implied to be a joust to the death. This is a joust with a greater chance of danger. Given the amount of times players are shot and hacked at by pointy bits of metal, I can see how being stabbed by a point bit of metal isn't an immediate red flag. More to the point, if the player challenges the knight, and you know that the knight is going to kill the player, don't say yes. You have a built in reason to stop the player from doing something stupid through the agency of a another character. Maybe the knight doesn't have time to joust. Maybe he doesn't see the worthiness in jousting with this nobody. But by encouraging the players actions in this situation you are telling the player that it is a good idea to go forward.

Or you're putting up a mousetrap and laughing when they fall for it.

Here's an analogy. The PCs (level 3) are in a dungeon. They encounter The Path of Doom. They have heard stories of adventurers who have tried the Path and failed. They can easily take an obvious alternate path. Yes, there's treasure at the end of the Path, but he can't see it until he's halfway down the Path already. The player says "I run down the path toward the treasure."

In both, the encounter could have been avoided. In both, the reward isn't presented until the player already commits. In both, it is the player that initiates the action. In both, it is obvious that it will be difficult. In both, it is lethal.

I'm replying to this separately because I don't feel the situations are at all applicable. I wonder why the path is there if it's supposed to be avoided. Also, if my character is "good at avoiding traps" then I expect that running in and avoiding traps is a good strategy. And if the traps are so powerful that my character who is good at avoiding them has no chance, then it was a bad thing to put in the game.

If this was either a no-win scenario or the DM screwing over players, the forum would probably have reacted differently. As for setting up a gotcha moment, that would have to involve the DM predicting a player deciding that it would be a good idea to pick a fight with a knight they have no beef with using war lances. A trap needs bait, and this didn't have any.

I think it's easy money to predict that a character that jousts would challenge a famous jouster to a match. (and it's also pretty easy to stop a character that doesn't joust from doing something stupid)

[Shackel]

I definitely wasn't setting up a gotcha moment. I was as surprised as everyone else at the table that he decided to fight the knight. And the tone was pretty well stated, IMHO, given the fact that everyone else understood that the headstrong PC is about to die. Except, of course, the PC himself. And he later confided in me, "I guess I should have seen that coming. I don't know what I was thinking."

So, definitely not intending to kill a PC, but, you know, once it already happened, might as well tell the story for everyone's amusement.

Then there was a grave misunderstanding between that PC and the setting you established and it was an OOC problem you probably should've clarified rather than take it from that to "well if I win I get all your stuff" and then the knight all but teasing him afterwards with the "funeral expenses" which seems rather callous for someone who was warning him repeatedly beforehand and was against senseless killing.

If this was either a no-win scenario or the DM screwing over players, the forum would probably have reacted differently. As for setting up a gotcha moment, that would have to involve the DM predicting a player deciding that it would be a good idea to pick a fight with a knight they have no beef with using war lances. A trap needs bait, and this didn't have any.

Hence "to me this can mean"; the situation's rather vague and doesn't have a lot of context, meaning it's a little odd to completely ignore the big possibility. It doesn't help that the tone of even the title is so "high and mighty", which doesn't lend itself to good will.

[John Longarrow]

The Extinguisher

So your saying it should be fine for the players to just try and storm a kings castle at first level? If its in the game, it had better be level appropriate?

[The Extinguisher]

The Extinguisher

So your saying it should be fine for the players to just try and storm a kings castle at first level? If its in the game, it had better be level appropriate?

Yes. If your players really want to storm the castle, then letting them do so and making it fun for them will make the game better than just killing them because they did something they weren't "supposed to"

[Ruslan]

I am quite conflicted. On one hand, I really want to play with the above poster as a DM. Everything is allowed, and furthermore, everything is guaranteed to be fun!

On the other hand, deep down inside, I have a suspicion it will get old fast. If there's no risk of failure, then success just isn't as much fun. In fact, if there's no failure, what does a success even mean?

[Shackel]

The Extinguisher

So your saying it should be fine for the players to just try and storm a kings castle at first level? If its in the game, it had better be level appropriate?

From the point of view of someone who doesn't think everything needs to be level appropriate, I think the DM should just OOC warn them that it's very unlikely to work. They have Int/Wis scores above 8.

[The Extinguisher]

I am quite conflicted. On one hand, I really want to play with the above poster as a DM. Everything is allowed, and furthermore, everything is guaranteed to be fun!

On the other hand, deep down inside, I have a suspicion it will get old fast. If there's no risk of failure, then success just isn't as much fun. In fact, if there's no failure, what does a success even mean?

Why does "this should be fun and level appropriate" mean "this should be easy with no risk of failure"?

[neriractor]

-snip-

so, let me see if I got this right. The way to play the game is to only have encounters in wich the PCs can murder (or otherwise beat) the problem with no chance of death or consequences (because a PC dying from a high power enemy is functionally indistinguishable to being critted by a mook), and if any DM ever chooses to put somebody who can take a single player 1 on 1, or hell somebody who can get them to pay for whatever they do (like laws), they must hold the players hand tight and make sure they go in the right direction, because asmodeus forbid that a PC do something stupid and beats unbeatable odds from time to time

I may have exaggerated a little, but the jump from what you imply and this is not exactly big.

[Ruslan]

Because "level-appropriate" is a synonym for "the numbers are stacked in a way to make the natural outcome a PC victory". Well, sometimes they just aren't. There are conflicts where the natural result is NOT a PC victory.

By the way, aside rant.

Spoiler

Show

The best games I ever had, as a player, are ones when I felt frustrated and disappointed at least some of the time. Ones where, some of the time, things didn't work. Because, when they finally do, it's just so much sweeter.

Now, it's not the type of game I try to inflict on my PCs on purpose. I don't have a goal where "PCs have to feel frustrated 10% of the time", or anything like that. But, having learned the importance of disappointment and frustration, I definitely don't go out of my way to avoid them. If the game is naturally heading toward a moment that seems it's going to be frustrating or disappointing for the PCs, or one PC, so be it.

[John Longarrow]

Yes. If your players really want to storm the castle, then letting them do so and making it fun for them will make the game better than just killing them because they did something they weren't "supposed to"

To me, this would make for a very disjointed and unbelievable game. One without any feeling of progress. If our first level party can overthrow the king why hasn't someone else done it? Also I'd never get a chance to interact with higher level characters.

Course the counter is that as I go up in levels, so does everyone else. If I'm level 10, that means the guy plowing the field would need to be "level appropriate". It means that I never have something I can't face but also nothing I can walk over.

More important I can never be given a glimpse of what it to come. I can't see the archmage in his tower (because I may attack it), I can't see a wing of cavalry ride by (I may charge them) and I certainly can't have a quest that involves seeing a powerful dragon (that I may attack) until I hit the right level.

This would, to me, make for a horribly boring story that must omit all of the details I find fun. It also means the DM would be telling me "NO" all of the time, since my low level character can never go seek out a healer who's higher level than the party cleric or seek a sage who may answer a question (too high of a level). Likewise I can never encounter a lowly commoner on their own since that wouldn't be level appropriate either.

[Koo Rehtorb]

Yes. If your players really want to storm the castle, then letting them do so and making it fun for them will make the game better than just killing them because they did something they weren't "supposed to"

If you want to storm a castle (in D&D because I assume that's what we're discussing), the solution is to start the game at a level where storming a castle would be an achievable goal, not to make the castle easy enough for a level 1 party to storm.

[The Extinguisher]

so, let me see if I got this right. The way to play the game is to only have encounters in wich the PCs can murder (or otherwise beat) the problem with no chance of death or consequences (because a PC dying from a high power enemy is functionally indistinguishable to being critted by a mook), and if any DM ever chooses to put somebody who can take a single player 1 on 1, or hell somebody who can get them to pay for whatever they do (like laws), they must hold the players hand tight and make sure they go in the right direction, because asmodeus forbid that a PC do something stupid and beats unbeatable odds from time to time

I may have exaggerated a little, but the jump from what you imply and this is not exactly big.

◔_◔

Because "level-appropriate" is a synonym for "the numbers are stacked in a way to make the natural outcome a PC victory". Well, sometimes they just aren't. There are conflicts where the natural result is NOT a PC victory.

By the way, aside rant.

Spoiler

Show

The best games I ever had, as a player, are ones when I felt frustrated and disappointed at least some of the time. Ones where, some of the time, things didn't work. Because, when they finally do, it's just so much sweeter.

Now, it's not the type of game I try to inflict on my PCs on purpose. I don't have a goal where "PCs have to feel frustrated 10% of the time", or anything like that. But, having learned the importance of disappointment and frustration, I definitely don't go out of my way to avoid them. If the game is naturally heading toward a moment that seems it's going to be frustrating or disappointing for the PCs, or one PC, so be it.

Level appropriate simply means the level of challenge is appropriate to the players. For some players that means minimally challenging. For some it means very difficult.

Frustration and difficulty are important to creating fun and engaging games. But like you said, they work when they make success feel better. They require iteration, which is hard to do in traditional RPGs. A random knight killing you on the side of the road isn't something you can iterate and that player has no chance to retry the encounter with the knowledge they got from failing. And succeeding on something else isn't going to have the same satisfaction that dispels the frustration.

Just making things frustrating isn't good game design.

[neriractor]

◔_◔

apologies, its kind of hard to measure my tone from time to time and maybe I went just a bit too snarky there for actual polite discussion