- Think before negotiating: If you fire at them with everything you have, could you remove the need to negotiate?
- If negotiation is a necessity, think while doing so: what is the best way to cleave the enemy ambassadors in twain?
- If all else fails, fighting is always the answer.
- If fighting fails, you are not fighting hard enough.
- If you are not fighting hard enough, fight louder.
- The best approach is always from the front.
- If the enemy has left their flanks open, feint and then attack from the front.
- If the front is heavily defended, they are expecting a flank attack. Attack from the front.
- If their flanks and front is both heavily defended but they are vulnerable to an aerial strike, distract them with aerial bombardment and then attack from the front.
- If attacking from the front does not work, you are not fighting hard enough. See point 5.
- If attacking from the front is still not working, you’re obviously not attacking their front! See point 6.
- If there is no possibility for victory, attack from the front as furiously and loudly as possible. Remember: the greater the defeat, the greater the moral victory.
Diplomacy is over-rated.
Awesome sauce. Man, I weep in face of D&D new tragedy.
Where are the Charm Persons? The puzzles? The intrigue?
For as much Barbarian as I am, I cannot stop to notice how things went and are heading. Every wizard dead. Every force destroyed. Every subtle strength that did not require a number was eradicated… oh god.
Since the advent of game designers paying attention to what folks are saying on the Internet, people like WotC are getting way more wary of game effects that are broadly open to interpretation. Charm Person was a stupendously overpowered spell unless the DM went out of his way to make the big bad-guy explicitly immune to it, and when the bad-guys are immune to it, it’s largely worthless. In the new D&D, you may as well just say “sure, any time it doesn’t matter your Wizard can cast Charm Person at will.”
As for puzzles, they’re still there in the published adventures and mentioned in the rulebooks.
As for intrigue, I don’t know what old D&D you’re thinking of. D&D is mostly about spree-killing tomb robbers, as it’s presented in the books. Always has been.