Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="shilsen" data-source="post: 1928841" data-attributes="member: 198">There are regularly threads on this board about ways in which one can challenge the PCs during combat encounters, and after reading the last couple of them, I was wondering how often people also aim for the opposite, namely challenging yourself as a DM during combat. As a player, my favorite type of combat is a challenging - or well-nigh impossible - encounter which my PC and the others manage to defeat through intelligent tactics and creative use of resources rather than because they clearly outclass the opposition. And I like to do the same, or a close approximation thereof, with my NPCs when DMing. I’ll often create combat encounters which the PCs should technically be able to defeat handily, and then try to use creative tactics to make sure that the encounter works out to be truly challenging. I find that this approach make combat as exciting for me as a DM as are my favorite combats as a player, since I know that unless I can play my NPCs really intelligently, it will be a boring walkover of a combat. Plus, since I’m generally a better tactician than my players and roll all my dice in the open, it allows me to really take the gloves off and do my best to take them down (as the NPCs - in character - are trying to do), without having to worry about a TPK or something like that.For example, a couple sessions ago in my Eberron campaign, the party of six 6th lvl PCs (36 pt-buy abilities, higher than normal wealth & magic, a slightly modified action pt system which benefits the PCs more than the regular one) was due to be jumped by an assassin and mercenary bodyguard. The pair would beat the PCs down but not kill them (campaign reasons) and I hoped they would be recurring villains. My original plan was to make the NPCs 9th lvl and 7th lvl, to ensure that they would be able to provide a very solid challenge and escape. But then I figured that would be too boring and easy, and dropped them to 7th and 6th, i.e. an EL 8.5 encounter (which the PCs should technically be able to handle quite easily). And I had a whole lot more fun handing the PCs their collective asses, leaving three unconscious, all badly wounded, and the only reason that they didn’t have multiple deaths if not a TPK being that the NPCs needed to get information and make a point, and a PC made a very opportune offer to parley when things were going badly. I enjoyed the combat, had the players on the edges of their seats throughout, and now have the PCs simultaneously scared of and really pissed at these NPCs (and seeking revenge), as I’d wanted. I doubt it would have been all of the above if I hadn’t made it harder on myself as a DM.So, after all that rambling, I’m wondering if other people do this. Do you make it harder on yourself and the NPCs, and as a result, find the eventual combats more interesting/exciting? Or am I just nuts? Not that the two are mutually exclusive, of course <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

Verification