Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Stoutmeister 11-21-05, 05:08 PM	I had a conversation with a friend last night on MSN messenger on of all things D&D manuals. The thought was: whats with all the MMs? The point arrose that a new monster is one of the few things that can breathe life into an otherwise generic encounter. A challenge for you chaps and a chance to end a minor dispute, how much can you do with pre-historic rope??? I say unto you: What can you do with, 1-5 orcs, 2-10 goblins, 1-10 half orcs and as much imagination, kit, levels, EL, presteige classes ect. while keeping each encounter noticably different to play with? 1 orc 2 goblins is going to be no more memorable than 1 orc 3 goblins unless one has to levels in monk :evillaugh I'm not sure if this should be here or even on this forum but it has many, many people and therefore much imagination. I can't regulate whether something is different enough to justify being different but common sense should give you a hint. :plotting: Go forth!
Esponer 11-21-05, 05:17 PM	Change weapons and equipment, improve monsters, give them class levels, change strategies, change setting, change circumstances, change the dreaded non-statted factors (you mean... roleplaying?!) Basically everything. You can keep an entire campaign going with fighting only orcs and goblins and using no material you can't find in the System Reference Documents. Takes more effort than just throwing a marilith in your party's face, though.
Stoutmeister 11-21-05, 05:21 PM	See I have this funny feeling that a party will not notice something unless it makes the encounter more powerful than themselves. eg. They will see an orc in chainmail and full plate as the same thing if they have the ability to defeat both with ease. Perhaps say that things could only be EL 10 +/- 2
Esponer 11-21-05, 05:46 PM	See I have this funny feeling that a party will not notice something unless it makes the encounter more powerful than themselves. eg. They will see an orc in chainmail and full plate as the same thing if they have the ability to defeat both with ease. Perhaps say that things could only be EL 10 +/- 2 There's a hell of a lot of difference between a band of unorganised, ill prepared CR 1/2 orcs in studded leather armour and a group of CR 12 orc champions hunting you down, half of whom are in full-plate, wielding flaming axes, with [yes, this bit isn't crunch] strange, demonic markings on their faces, led by some sort of orc shaman with warlock levels (just because orcs tend to have slightly low mental scores doesn't mean they all have to be hack'n'slash types). A party who thinks that all orcs are exactly the same is playing the game straight out of the Monster Manual, and is probably whispering amongst each other hastily calculated estimates of their %age chance of hitting and how many hits it will take them to take down orc A simply on the basis that the basic, CR 1/2 orc in the Monster Manual has those stats. In case you haven't guessed, I think this idea is silly. You can write an entire story with no enemies who aren't human. You can do the same, almost, with only orcs. You just need to recognise that an orc is just a race... you can do anything with it, or to it, and ten orcs lined up are not all CR 1/2 warriors in studded leather. One could be a veteran. One could be a sorcerer. One could be a general. One could be a ***** [edit: it seems that prostitution isn't considered a respectable profession here :)]. One could be a god. By the way, what is "EL"? There's CR, LA, ECL, HD... which are you after?
mythSSK 11-21-05, 07:22 PM	By the way, what is "EL"? There's CR, LA, ECL, HD... which are you after?EL is Encounter Level. You've been missing an acronym, it seems. :D