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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Scott Christian" data-source="post: 8167677" data-attributes="member: 6901101">Yeah, sorry , I must have misunderstood. Your example seems to be behind the screen. Most DMs I know handwave. Alter the level of the thieves, after all they have been training and there are few more of them now. I guess I don't really even see how that would be visible to the players outside of them hearing rumors about them spreading. (If they encountered them earlier, and took an inventory of their experience and size, why not deal with them then?)I personally have learned (just my experience) that the best consequence is actually the loss of a reward. If I set something up where they are making a choice, it will look like this:- The players have a chance to go to the Jarl's strong man competition and maybe earn his favor (which results in things like free lodging, free food, and access to gear)or- The players have a chance to hunt down the winter hag that has been collecting a lot of "shiny objects" as of late (which would result in a couple magic items)I have done that a few times, and it didn't leave a bad taste in the players' mouths. In part because they knew something similar to their missed chance might arise in a few levels. But I even use these sparingly.Regarding your consequences, I would think its really in the manner in which you portray it:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Faction gain or faction loss</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Item gain item loss</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Experience reward increase vs a lesser experience gain</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Places unlocked vs other places unlocked</li> </ul>I can give you a great example that follows your consequence:We once entered an old ruin that had dwarves (they were evil) excavating some dragonish lore. We weren't really sure what was going on, but we knew they were up to no good. We infiltrated but could not finish the job. The dwarven cleric (a worshipper of some devil) was just too strong. We retreated and headed back after gaining some experience. When we got back the dwarven cleric was the slave of a bone devil. The dungeon was harder because it was now under the bone devil's control. The DM painted the scene very vividly of the dwarven cleric enslaved and hypnotized and just laboring away with hammer and steel. This both increased the stakes for us (tougher opponent), but now we really didn't want whatever dragon lore was in the cave to fall into a bone devil's hands!</blockquote>

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