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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 6686734" data-attributes="member: 5834">Did I misinterpret what happens at your table? It happens.  Stop making assumptions about me coddling players or the like and I'll stop making assumptions about your game. My players use ranged firepower and scouting. All the nifty stuff you can use in 5E. The party punches well above their weight. When I say I tailor encounters, we're talking what I consider specific key villain encounters I want to be challenging. Not every single encounter in the adventure or game. Some fights as a DM I want to feel like they fought someone that made them bring their A game to use a sports analogy. Though I'm trying to kill them, I don't want to do it during the encounter design process. If they happen to die to an enemy that was a hard fight, so be it. They die. If I make a mistake and create an encounter that for some reason far exceeds their ability to handle, that is not cool of me to do as a DM. That doesn't mean I'm protecting them or coddling them. It just means I went overboard min-maxing the enemy. Gave him too many key capabilities that countered their strategies or too much damage output. I try not to kill them before the actual fight occurs. The worst thing a DM can do is make an encounter their players can't handle against an enemy that will kill them as in providing them with zero chance of victory in a battle to the death. That is what I'm trying to avoid because I've done it more than a few times. It is zero fun for the DM or players when the party is killed and they feel like they had no chance in the fight.Even with the beholder encounter you ran, you gave them a choice to run. I'm not talking about encounters of that kind. I've had plenty of encounters where the best choice was to retreat or not engage. I'm talking about when the fight can't be avoided because they must engage to achieve their goal or the enemy is coming after them setting them up for an ambush. You want it to be a memorable fight. You want the enemies to match the PCs in nearly every way so it isn't a cakewalk either way. I would think you would understand this concept of encounter design and that you can do it in a narrative or a sandbox. The goal is making a fight memorably tough. I don't see why a DM putting effort into doing seems odd to you.Suffice it to say this conversation has gone on far too long. It should have been easy to understand topic that had nothing to do with "invincible paladins" or "protecting players."</blockquote>

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