David Cake
> Yes. I find in most situations in my game, the players are a whole
> lot more worried about the enemy they are facing than any lurking ones -
> especially because I don't tend to do dungeon/building complex
exploration
> type things very often, so unexpected dangers are not that common.
You don't need to be in a dungeon crawl to need to worry about conserving your ammo - sensible tactics on the part of the other guys is a far better justification.
If you're in Troll hunting territory, then one hazard is running into such a hunt; a few trolls with a bunch of trollkin as hounds/skirmishers to find their prey and harry it with hit and run sling attacks. Sure you might blow away the first few trollkin who get too close, and the hunters are quite happy for you to waste impressive magics - and any other limited resource - on them before they get involved themselves. Plenty more trollkin where those came from, anyway.
Similarly, nomad raiders. They aren't going to hang around when they start looking overmatched, but could well come around again after licking their wounds for a second go (Standard operating procedure for the Redskins in countless Westerns). Just the thing to liven up a journey by ox-cart along the old Pavis Road.
Aldryami would follow the same pattern, but in the specific Babsi case, less likely to be a source of armed opposition (outside places like the Poisonthorn Wood, that is).
So it's not the unexpected dangers that might be "in the next room" you should need to keep reserves for. It's the expected ones, like the next wave of attackers.
==
> And on magic roads - there are lots of conceivable situations in which
> magic roads are more useful than the mundane sort.
Then we're presumably agreed that it's surprising that little development has actually focussed on the topic; given that they aren't the "here comes Santa" SuperRQ type of heroquesting, and given that PCs tend not to be normal people.
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