Re: mechanics of surprise

On Sun, 4 Mar 2007 20:43:28 -0600, John Morrow <morrow@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:

>On Sun, 4 Mar 2007, Indiana Joe wrote:
>> I don't think that any of these things are incompatible, except if you
>> assume that they all have to be true at the same time.
>
>That's the assumption when discussing whether they are incompatible.  The
>problem with trying to have it all at the same time is the point of the 
>complaint.
>
>> I think it's reasonable for a campaign to have encounters where one of 
>> the listed items is true, then have another encounter where a different

>> one is true.
>
>I think that you can run a compaign that way but I personally don't like 
>it.  I'm one of those people who want the rules to be the same for the 
>NPCs/monsters and the PCs but it doesn't bother me that the pace of 
>decision is the same for both nor does it bother me that the PCs will
lose 
>about 50% of 50/50 encounters under such rules because that's what 50/50 
>means.

Another problem is the tendency, in many games, for a party of PCs to
*be* a party, outnumbering one or two "big" foes in an encounter. In a
D&D like system, a single big foe with 160 hit points can shrug off a
40 point surprise round attack much better than a typical PC party of
4 with an average of 40 hit points per character. A single surprise
attack by the big foe will likely put down one PC, putting the party
as a whole into a death spiral. 

If a party of 4 PCs gets suprised by a dozen weaker foes, it's more
plausable that the surprise attacks will be spread out among the PCs,
which helps wrt the party being able to put up a good fight
afterwards. 


-- 
Erol K. Bayburt
ErolB1@[EMAIL PROTECTED]