Just out of curiosity! Do your players prefer going through combat feeling like badasses, killing enemies with ease, or barely scraping by with their limbs in tact?
Or rather, which one do you guys lean towards? Easier/balanced combat, or severe difficulty?
Personally, my players get bored when combat is easy. The encounters that are always referenced in and out of game and the ones we laugh about the most are the ones where they barely made it through alive (4 level 6's killing an adult blue dragon plus about a dozen and a half kobolds )
Depends on the mindset of the players at the outset of the campaign. Pre-written is a little easier because the campaigns have an overall design meant to scale up and have a recommended player number and level, so tossing in a few extra baddies really can mean the difference between slaughtering the enemy outright and, "Wtf did we just get ourselves into..."
Homebrew campaigns I like to get a good read on the party composition and adjust accordingly. I don't ever intend to just fully screw over my players by tossing villains their way which are direct counters to their classes, but teamwork is a vital essence in the playability to defeat those enemies. I guess by default that would suggest I prefer the encounters to be hard for them if they're only playing for themselves and not caring about the rest of the group, but still medium but leaning towards difficult even if the dice are rolling in their favor.
I think you want a mix, so there's some variation.
Sometimes you stumble into a dragon's lair. Sometimes you get jumped by completely unprepared bandits thinking you're a pushover bunch of traveling merchants. Sometimes your "shopping episode" turns into a city-wide manhunt after some really bad rolls and/or choices. :)
I throw them an easy-bone every once in a while! But usually, their slaughter of fodder-enemies causes a boss/leader/friend of the enemy of some sorts being pissed at them creating ANOTHER much more difficult encounter. The overall tone of my campaign seems to be "bunch-o-idiots-WAAAAY-over-their-heads" so the stupid level of difficulty just emphasizes that lol
I generally don't like throwing anything they can't handle, and adding a lot of roleplaying framework as an alternate to deadly combat. The encounters get more complex, or require more teamwork, or are less forgiving for mistakes.
I've found that my players stop paying attention unless they think they might die. They do not play well with 'easy' encounters as as soon as they use even one spell slot, they demand a short rest. It really bogs the game down and makes all easy encounters pointless to the narrative.
I find that combat gets better when you have waves of combat that vary in difficulty and force the party to selectively use resources. For example:
I have a hag coven encounter coming up, but my party of 6 level 6 adventurers would probably blow through a Hag Coven without too much of a problem. To compensate without adding unfairly overpowered monsters or giant hordes of enemies, I've decided that area around the coven is influenced by their energy bringing fey creatures to the swamp, and they have some henchmen working for them. So the whole session will have 3 encounters:
1. 10 Quicklings
2. 2 Redcaps and 1 Yeth Hound
3. Hag Coven
They'll breeze through the Quicklings but maybe use one or two low level spell slots and take some marginal damage. The Redcaps and Yeth Hound will be a challenge, almost certainly not deadly, but they'll have to use up some resources, probably 1 of the Druid's wild shapes and some spell slots, and then they'll likely feel that they need a short rest leading into the Hag Encounter. With limited spell slots remaining, the Hag Coven could turn deadly based on strategy or the fate of the dice. Additionally, environmental/time pressures are crucial. The party might want to short rest after the Redcaps, but "is it safe to rest in the middle of this swamp?" is a legitimate question, and with Hags nearby, the answer might be "no."
I also like to have backup plans in case I don't feel like killing the characters, which allows me to plan encounters that are "technically" deadly, but that have potential resolutions that don't involve a TPK. One advantage of intelligent enemies is that you can have them plan and scheme, and they're smart enough to deduce what the party might desire. I have a number of deals that the Hags are prepared to offer the party in exchange for not killing them (deals which will almost certainly leave the Hags in some sort of perpetual state of power over one of the party members), or, conversely, if the Hags seem like they're on the brink of death, they might offer these deals out of desperation as a plea to not be killed.
I'm actually surprised by the current results. While I'm a serial character killer, most DMs I've played under seriously lowball the enemies. It's reassuring to know that there are more of us out there who lean toward hard fights...especially considering how my players, who learned the game from watching Critical Role, freak out when I tell them each dungeon has about a 50-50 win chance, and every other session might well take a low-level character with it. They might want to take a long rest after every combat, but that's when you bring out the old Wandering Monsters just like in 1e...
That said, I always want the players to win...I'd just rather it be a back-to-the-wall, skin-of-the-teeth win. When those happen, people start cheering, high-fiving, watching every dice roll. No phone screens in sight. And if they ultimately claim victory...well, seeing everyone that happy really warms my heart. :-)
At my table we enjoy a bit of roleplay, but we also love our tactically challenging combat. However it can be difficult to gauge the creation of encounters. Narrative wise there are in-game days without combat, then there could be 1 or 2....and then there might be an intense couple of days. Each situation requiring a different approach.
If there are only 1 or 2 encounters. I go all in. I want them to feel the theme I've set up. Traveling up a mountain pass...well that's going to be ******* dangerous. I even modify single enemies to be more tougher than mentioned in the MM's. In case of a more intense, spread out, dungeony crawly experience I spread it out more. There will be a few easier encounters mixed in with hard ones and getting more and more deadly towards the end. Sure I want my players to proceed, but i'm not going to hand it over to them on a silver platter. videogames provide that experience already. Where its coded in to give the player an advantage even if they don't immediately notice/feel it. And at my table we've grown tired of such videogames. We want to have meaning in what is achieved. And I have no qualms with a PC dying from time to time either should it be the case. So far in the 28 sessions we had 3 deaths. Oddly enough all of them happened through charm and other mind control effects. Causing the Ranger to kill the PC of the exact same player each time. Which has become a running joke now.
That is why, on paper, the CR calculator calls my encounters Deadly or Deadly++++...which my players experience as medium to deadly.
The style of game I run is such that the party are RARELY facing more than one combat between long rests, so they’re often at full resources. 3/4 of them are WIS casters with healing magic. I do aim for level-appropriate challenges, but I really feel no need to hold anything back.
The style of game I run is such that the party are RARELY facing more than one combat between long rests, so they’re often at full resources. 3/4 of them are WIS casters with healing magic. I do aim for level-appropriate challenges, but I really feel no need to hold anything back.
This definitely works for the party you've got! If you ever find yourself with martial characters in your party, though, you'll want to run more encounters per long rest, since classes like Fighter have more "milage" than casters...otherwise the casters will outshine the martials big time.
Someone else once said something like: the DM wants you to win, he just wants you to have one hit point left when you do. That said, it can be good to throw some non-challenging encounters at them once in a while. In particular some monsters that gave them such trouble at level 2, but now they’re level 14 and cut right through them. It can give them a sense of how much more powerful they are, nice for character growth.
Have to say I love seeing so many fellow "old school" DMs...nothing against Critical Role but boy oh boy does Matt run easy encounters with lots of rests.
All levels of intensity are likely to be a good fit, for most Parties, at some point.
I think that in general most Players want to feel challenged, to give their victories meaning, but you can over-exhaust your Party by throwing all Deadly, all the time, at them ( although it is possible to have a table of hard core tactical combat Players who just want a constant meat grinder). This is the whole idea behind control of Pacing. Look at how tension and scenes are structured in action or horror movies. It's - usually - not a slaughterfest from opening to closing credits. There's building tension, spikes of intense action, and then periods of decreased tension - building in difficulty until the climax and the final showdown at the end of the conflict.
However, there isn't any one recipe here. Match your intensity and pacing style to what works best for your current table. There aren't any cookie cutter answers :)
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Just out of curiosity! Do your players prefer going through combat feeling like badasses, killing enemies with ease, or barely scraping by with their limbs in tact?
Or rather, which one do you guys lean towards? Easier/balanced combat, or severe difficulty?
Personally, my players get bored when combat is easy. The encounters that are always referenced in and out of game and the ones we laugh about the most are the ones where they barely made it through alive (4 level 6's killing an adult blue dragon plus about a dozen and a half kobolds )
Depends on the mindset of the players at the outset of the campaign. Pre-written is a little easier because the campaigns have an overall design meant to scale up and have a recommended player number and level, so tossing in a few extra baddies really can mean the difference between slaughtering the enemy outright and, "Wtf did we just get ourselves into..."
Homebrew campaigns I like to get a good read on the party composition and adjust accordingly. I don't ever intend to just fully screw over my players by tossing villains their way which are direct counters to their classes, but teamwork is a vital essence in the playability to defeat those enemies. I guess by default that would suggest I prefer the encounters to be hard for them if they're only playing for themselves and not caring about the rest of the group, but still medium but leaning towards difficult even if the dice are rolling in their favor.
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I think you want a mix, so there's some variation.
Sometimes you stumble into a dragon's lair. Sometimes you get jumped by completely unprepared bandits thinking you're a pushover bunch of traveling merchants. Sometimes your "shopping episode" turns into a city-wide manhunt after some really bad rolls and/or choices. :)
I throw them an easy-bone every once in a while! But usually, their slaughter of fodder-enemies causes a boss/leader/friend of the enemy of some sorts being pissed at them creating ANOTHER much more difficult encounter. The overall tone of my campaign seems to be "bunch-o-idiots-WAAAAY-over-their-heads" so the stupid level of difficulty just emphasizes that lol
I generally don't like throwing anything they can't handle, and adding a lot of roleplaying framework as an alternate to deadly combat. The encounters get more complex, or require more teamwork, or are less forgiving for mistakes.
I've found that my players stop paying attention unless they think they might die. They do not play well with 'easy' encounters as as soon as they use even one spell slot, they demand a short rest. It really bogs the game down and makes all easy encounters pointless to the narrative.
I find that combat gets better when you have waves of combat that vary in difficulty and force the party to selectively use resources. For example:
I have a hag coven encounter coming up, but my party of 6 level 6 adventurers would probably blow through a Hag Coven without too much of a problem. To compensate without adding unfairly overpowered monsters or giant hordes of enemies, I've decided that area around the coven is influenced by their energy bringing fey creatures to the swamp, and they have some henchmen working for them. So the whole session will have 3 encounters:
1. 10 Quicklings
2. 2 Redcaps and 1 Yeth Hound
3. Hag Coven
They'll breeze through the Quicklings but maybe use one or two low level spell slots and take some marginal damage. The Redcaps and Yeth Hound will be a challenge, almost certainly not deadly, but they'll have to use up some resources, probably 1 of the Druid's wild shapes and some spell slots, and then they'll likely feel that they need a short rest leading into the Hag Encounter. With limited spell slots remaining, the Hag Coven could turn deadly based on strategy or the fate of the dice. Additionally, environmental/time pressures are crucial. The party might want to short rest after the Redcaps, but "is it safe to rest in the middle of this swamp?" is a legitimate question, and with Hags nearby, the answer might be "no."
I also like to have backup plans in case I don't feel like killing the characters, which allows me to plan encounters that are "technically" deadly, but that have potential resolutions that don't involve a TPK. One advantage of intelligent enemies is that you can have them plan and scheme, and they're smart enough to deduce what the party might desire. I have a number of deals that the Hags are prepared to offer the party in exchange for not killing them (deals which will almost certainly leave the Hags in some sort of perpetual state of power over one of the party members), or, conversely, if the Hags seem like they're on the brink of death, they might offer these deals out of desperation as a plea to not be killed.
"To die would be an awfully big adventure"
I'm actually surprised by the current results. While I'm a serial character killer, most DMs I've played under seriously lowball the enemies. It's reassuring to know that there are more of us out there who lean toward hard fights...especially considering how my players, who learned the game from watching Critical Role, freak out when I tell them each dungeon has about a 50-50 win chance, and every other session might well take a low-level character with it. They might want to take a long rest after every combat, but that's when you bring out the old Wandering Monsters just like in 1e...
That said, I always want the players to win...I'd just rather it be a back-to-the-wall, skin-of-the-teeth win. When those happen, people start cheering, high-fiving, watching every dice roll. No phone screens in sight. And if they ultimately claim victory...well, seeing everyone that happy really warms my heart. :-)
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
At my table we enjoy a bit of roleplay, but we also love our tactically challenging combat. However it can be difficult to gauge the creation of encounters. Narrative wise there are in-game days without combat, then there could be 1 or 2....and then there might be an intense couple of days. Each situation requiring a different approach.
If there are only 1 or 2 encounters. I go all in. I want them to feel the theme I've set up. Traveling up a mountain pass...well that's going to be ******* dangerous. I even modify single enemies to be more tougher than mentioned in the MM's. In case of a more intense, spread out, dungeony crawly experience I spread it out more. There will be a few easier encounters mixed in with hard ones and getting more and more deadly towards the end. Sure I want my players to proceed, but i'm not going to hand it over to them on a silver platter. videogames provide that experience already. Where its coded in to give the player an advantage even if they don't immediately notice/feel it. And at my table we've grown tired of such videogames. We want to have meaning in what is achieved. And I have no qualms with a PC dying from time to time either should it be the case. So far in the 28 sessions we had 3 deaths. Oddly enough all of them happened through charm and other mind control effects. Causing the Ranger to kill the PC of the exact same player each time. Which has become a running joke now.
That is why, on paper, the CR calculator calls my encounters Deadly or Deadly++++...which my players experience as medium to deadly.
The style of game I run is such that the party are RARELY facing more than one combat between long rests, so they’re often at full resources. 3/4 of them are WIS casters with healing magic. I do aim for level-appropriate challenges, but I really feel no need to hold anything back.
This definitely works for the party you've got! If you ever find yourself with martial characters in your party, though, you'll want to run more encounters per long rest, since classes like Fighter have more "milage" than casters...otherwise the casters will outshine the martials big time.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Someone else once said something like: the DM wants you to win, he just wants you to have one hit point left when you do.
That said, it can be good to throw some non-challenging encounters at them once in a while. In particular some monsters that gave them such trouble at level 2, but now they’re level 14 and cut right through them. It can give them a sense of how much more powerful they are, nice for character growth.
I give my players super hard encounters that are deadly they just always survive intact?
The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .
Have to say I love seeing so many fellow "old school" DMs...nothing against Critical Role but boy oh boy does Matt run easy encounters with lots of rests.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
I'd say "yes".
All levels of intensity are likely to be a good fit, for most Parties, at some point.
I think that in general most Players want to feel challenged, to give their victories meaning, but you can over-exhaust your Party by throwing all Deadly, all the time, at them ( although it is possible to have a table of hard core tactical combat Players who just want a constant meat grinder). This is the whole idea behind control of Pacing. Look at how tension and scenes are structured in action or horror movies. It's - usually - not a slaughterfest from opening to closing credits. There's building tension, spikes of intense action, and then periods of decreased tension - building in difficulty until the climax and the final showdown at the end of the conflict.
However, there isn't any one recipe here. Match your intensity and pacing style to what works best for your current table. There aren't any cookie cutter answers :)
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.