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Message: <blockquote data-quote="FormerlyHemlock" data-source="post: 6686053" data-attributes="member: 6787650">It's kind of a combination. My players aren't min-maxers at heart, but I am a natural wargamer/powergamer, so I am in a good position to design tactical puzzles where a straightforward approach of "walk up and hit it until it stops moving" isn't really going to get the job done but the encounter is still very beatable. In other words, pedagogical encounters designed to teach players how to powergame a little, such as a bunch of vampire spawns with missile weapons holed in in a manor while the sun is shining outside, so that the vampires will kill you to death with missile weapons + regen if you just hold the range open, and they will kill you to death through straight melee if you bust into the house with swords drawn and try to fight them there, but you can defeat them fairly easily if you grapple them and drag them into the sunlight. That one went pretty well and was lots of fun for the players. I have no requirement that you must follow the approach I'm trying to "teach", and some great fun has been had with players thinking waaaay outside the box, but I do try to ensure that "interesting" encounters aren't feasibly solvable by straightforward application of melee weapons to target.E.g. I would solve your "invulnerable paladin" problem with a batch of three Stone Giants on a plateau 60' high. One giant would grapple/prone the paladin at +12 to Athletics and drag him over to the cliff while the other two beat on him with clubs, and then then next round they'd punt him right off the edge of the cliff. I don't care that the encounter is "too hard" by DMG standards because I also know exactly how the PCs could prevent the stone giants from winning--actually there are several ways, starting with "use a scout to detect the stone giants in advance"--and figuring out how to do that is why we play the game.In short, I find die-rolling intrinsically boring compared to intelligence-gathering and decision-making, and I run my game accordingly, which means "real" combats are infrequent but "hard enough that you have to play smart or else you'll die." If you prefer a more casual, easy game that focuses more on the excitement of hitting/missing/critting, that's fine. YMMV.</blockquote>

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