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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 4599318" data-attributes="member: 54877">I've found that one thing that was definitely true of 3E is still true of 4E: When it comes to scariness, the CR or XP budget guidelines have to be adjusted for the type of monster and the type of players.  I can pick something reasonablely close to the suggested balance, and give my players a scary fight--unless the two tactically minded players are there. Then I have to up the capability of the monsters if I want a scary fight that bad. Likewise, I can play a monster with a certain amount of strategic cunning or other options, and it depends on the players at the table how much of a threat this becomes. (And how scared players get is almost always in their imaginations, and not uncommonly a result of that imagination running wild because I deliberately kept something unknown. Nothing is as scary as the unknown, if the players know that you will occasionally throw the kitchen sink at them.) Heck, this was true of Fantasy Hero when we played that. I gradually increased the power/capabilities/cunning of the monsters. When the player got scared, I quit increasing it for awhile. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />  If I really wanted to scare them, I created a mystery. Of course, sometimes the players should mop the floor without breaking a sweat. And you should have enough in reserves to make them run occasionally. A lich bursting through the door is not scary. A lich that has been plotting behind the scenes for 8 sessions (with the players suspsecting a powerful hand but not knowing which hand), bursting through the door--may be scary or may be anti-climatic. But even if the latter, it won't be boring. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devil.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":devil:" title="Devil    :devil:" data-shortname=":devil:" /></blockquote>

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