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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hussar" data-source="post: 6813372" data-attributes="member: 22779">Well, even in areas which are more "civilised", I think you can still apply the concept I outlined above.  Simply switch out different encounters as part of the overall event.  But, the basic concept remains the same.  You don't ever have just one "encounter", you always have events.  Or, toss in the odd stand alone encounter just to let the party steam roll things once in a while.  It's always good to let the players feel like big damn heroes once in a while. I think the basic advice here is to always kind of keep an eye on an ongoing narrative.  Random encounters shouldn't be discrete all the time.  It's okay to let random encounters blend together.  Even in a site based adventure, the advice still works.  In most site based adventures, you have X number of locations (rooms in a dungeon for example) for the players to interact with.  Instead, take about 10-20% of the encounters and move them out of their location and make them "on the move" instead.  So, instead of 10 orcs in a guard room with some other room behind them, put five of those orcs in the hallway, going through a guard shift, and then have the other 5 (or maybe whatever number you feel is right) in the nearby room.  The key here is not to simply run the encounters into single encounters.  That doesn't get the results you want.  If you blend encounters into one, then Daily recharge characters get a big power boost.  Take the above 5 and 5 orcs encounter.  If you run the encounters separately, then the best the wizard can hope to do is hit 5 orcs with a single spell.  Run it together, and potentially, that area spell gets twice as powerful because now she can hit 10 baddies with the same spell.  Keep the encounters apart by a minute or two means that that wizard now has to burn two spells to get the same effect.  It's all about designing to the capabilities of the PC's.  And, you can switch it up as well.  Maybe the party goes into the guard room with the orcs and deals with those orcs.  Five minutes later, the relief group of orc guards stumbles onto the party.  This has the added benefit of making the site based adventure feel more "living" rather than static.  You don't have to do this every time.  Say, 1 encounter in 5.  Just often enough that the party will start to feel the time pressure - if they ponce about in this encounter, maybe something will come and find them.  It motivates the group to keep the pace up and makes the game much more exciting.</blockquote>

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