The game of Dungeons & Dragons runs on rules.

Something I expect the designers of the game to do is respect those rules.

In this case, from Phandelver and Below: The Shattered Obelisk, they did not.

In the original version of this room in The Lost Mine of Phandelver, there are two bandits. The revision, which keeps adding monsters to make it a more challenging experience (for the most part; I have found one room so far that is less difficult), adds a third monster to the room.

It maintains the instructions in the text: “If they hear fighting in area R4, they take positions against the wall near the door, then try to surprise intruders.”

Okay. Where are they hiding?

Three squares by three squares in the room (15 feet square). The middle of the wall has the door, and there is one 5-foot square on either side of it.

Some people suggest handwaving it. A person doesn’t take up the entire five-feet square, so two bandits could squeeze together. Right.

So, the party’s fighter enters the room, and he isn’t surprised by the bandits. Two bandits in one space – something that the rules of the game doesn’t cover. Well, maybe they’re squeezing and so he has advantage to hit either of them. Whee! The DM waves his hands around. “It’s magic!”

But all of this would have been unnecessary if the adventure’s reviser had just looked at the existing map and seen that there wasn’t space for a third bandit to hide.

Wizards makes money off both miniatures and Virtual TableTop releases. The company just trying to launch its own VTT. There is a duty of care to make sure the scenarios they publish work when the battlemap is used.

I really hope the new parts of this adventure are better than the revisions to the original.