I also thought about the half-dozen times my characters were killed in terms of the Role-playing aspect of the game. Imagine you and five of your friends are walking through the jungle, and you accidentially conjour up a huge black dragon. Obviously, the option of dying six times before figuring out how to kill it is simply not an option. I would probably run like heck all the way back to Lusk! I’m beginning to see why dragons stick around for so long in Faerun, even though every campaigner wants to kill one or two. Very interesting.
I’m also thinking that a little cheese could very well fit in to a role-player’s world. It might seem that shooting off a Spike Growth spell while the dragon is hidden in the fog of war is kinda cheesy, but I like to think that I would be hiding in the trees and casting my spell at the area where I think the dragon might be, even though neither he nor I can see each other. Besides, Spike Growth doesn’t kill him, it just softens him up a bit. I’ll still need to confront him directly…. Hmmmm…..