Venture-Captain, California—San Francisco Bay Area North & East
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So I've noticed an annoying trend recently - a lot of scenarios are missing the optional encounters. 4 of the 5 season 7 scenarios have nothing flagged as optional, and at least 2 of the late season 6. Things run long, and at many stores we don't have the luxury of staying late. Having something be optional is an important safety net.
This leads to GM's either deciding on their own that a given encounter is optional (not legal) or having to skip the climax of the scenario (not good). So please, bring back flagging things as optional encounters.
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This leads to GM's either deciding on their own that a given encounter is optional (not legal) or having to skip the climax of the scenario (not good).
I thought that it was legal to skip an encounter when there isn't going to be time to finish the scenario.
Or "shorten it". I've gone "Well, you meet and quickly dispatch a Zug. Roll a D8 to see how many charges of CLW the group uses up".
At that point, it is absolutely guaranteed that at least one encounter won't be run. I thought that it was totally within the GMs discretion to decide which one(s).
That certainly seems better than automatically skipping the last encounter(s).
Edit: Note, I totally agree that I want Optional Encounters. I'd rather the authors decide what I skip than my deciding
A GM locally has to end games after about 3 or 3.5 hours, due to a store closing. He said his way of handling this is to call fights once it's clear who is winning. So you'll get to start all 4 fights in the module, and start on that puzzle, and talk to the VC. But at each point, he'll say, "Yeah, OK, you've done enough, here's the victory/infodump, let's move on."
The only thing that gives me pause about that is that sometimes even after victory is assured, a bad guy can land a parting strike or something, and really cause the PCs to have to burn some charges of a wand of CLW. Usually by the time this GM calls the fight it's pretty clear that whatever damage we took is all the damage we will take, and we're fine to just heal up and move on. But you never know -- two dogs are left fighting and the fight is called right when the dogs got flank and have the trip ability? What if they landed a bite, tripped the target, and then used the +4 to land another bite? That might eat up a few wand charges. Maybe.
But it's otherwise a good way to speed through and not miss anything. Maybe it's rules legit? I don't know, but I sure like it more than missing the boss fight entirely.
Venture-Captain, California—Sacramento
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A GM locally has to end games after about 3 or 3.5 hours, due to a store closing. He said his way of handling this is to call fights once it's clear who is winning. So you'll get to start all 4 fights in the module, and start on that puzzle, and talk to the VC. But at each point, he'll say, "Yeah, OK, you've done enough, here's the victory/infodump, let's move on."
The only thing that gives me pause about that is that sometimes even after victory is assured, a bad guy can land a parting strike or something, and really cause the PCs to have to burn some charges of a wand of CLW. Usually by the time this GM calls the fight it's pretty clear that whatever damage we took is all the damage we will take, and we're fine to just heal up and move on. But you never know -- two dogs are left fighting and the fight is called right when the dogs got flank and have the trip ability? What if they landed a bite, tripped the target, and then used the +4 to land another bite? That might eat up a few wand charges. Maybe.
But it's otherwise a good way to speed through and not miss anything. Maybe it's rules legit? I don't know, but I sure like it more than missing the boss fight entirely.
I have done something like this once, and had it done to me three or four times.
I feel like if it is a choice between doing this and not playing at all, do it. But if there is any way not to, don't. I would say it is probably not totally legal, but it probably falls under the "GMs are required to use their judgement to do what is right for their table."