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<blockquote data-quote="JiffyPopTart" data-source="post: 8049565" data-attributes="member: 4881">If they have felt this way, they never have said anything about it.&nbsp; As mentioned in my post, the alternative is to either1. Take up table time with meaningless battles that do not advance the plot nor have an impact on the next encounter (everything comes back on a long rest).2. Make every wandering monster encounter be potentially deadly, which impacts the &quot;realness&quot; of the world and is unfair to the players.Note that the method I describe is something I use almost exclusively when the players are in between adventures and &quot;on the road&quot;, not during the adventure proper.&nbsp;&nbsp; By taxing some things narratively, I can set up scenes later that have greater impact than what their CR would normally cause.For example.....lets say you have a group of four 10th level characters going overland to the lost temple.&nbsp; You could have a drawn out scene of them climbing a cliff (if this was appropriate for your mood and tempo) or you could explain how the early morning through the mountains was extra taxing and each players loses a HD representing a particularly difficult cliff climb.&nbsp; Later you can narratively have them encounter a swampy valley with a swarm of stirges and offer them the choice of going around (another HD for the forced march) or wading through and fighting (making the spellcasters use up a couple appropriate spells or daily use items to get through).&nbsp; Still later you can describe how they rested in field of strange flowers that had intoxicating effects (Exhaustion or 2 HD or a spell per person).&nbsp; Finally, at the end of the day you can have them camped and ready for bed when the mountain orcs attack and have a proper combat.If you were to roleplay out each of those encounters normally, this day of travel might cost you an hour or two of tabletime for one day of a 3 week journey.&nbsp; If you did this narratively you can do the entire day in the time it takes to do the orc battle (which is now a little dangerous due to the fact the players are a bit short on resources).&nbsp; This tool allows you to have some &quot;exciting&quot; travel days in those 3 weeks of travel, but not actually force you to take up the entire session to make those combat encounters have some weight behind them.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="JiffyPopTart, post: 8049565, member: 4881"] If they have felt this way, they never have said anything about it. As mentioned in my post, the alternative is to either 1. Take up table time with meaningless battles that do not advance the plot nor have an impact on the next encounter (everything comes back on a long rest). 2. Make every wandering monster encounter be potentially deadly, which impacts the "realness" of the world and is unfair to the players. Note that the method I describe is something I use almost exclusively when the players are in between adventures and "on the road", not during the adventure proper. By taxing some things narratively, I can set up scenes later that have greater impact than what their CR would normally cause. For example.....lets say you have a group of four 10th level characters going overland to the lost temple. You could have a drawn out scene of them climbing a cliff (if this was appropriate for your mood and tempo) or you could explain how the early morning through the mountains was extra taxing and each players loses a HD representing a particularly difficult cliff climb. Later you can narratively have them encounter a swampy valley with a swarm of stirges and offer them the choice of going around (another HD for the forced march) or wading through and fighting (making the spellcasters use up a couple appropriate spells or daily use items to get through). Still later you can describe how they rested in field of strange flowers that had intoxicating effects (Exhaustion or 2 HD or a spell per person). Finally, at the end of the day you can have them camped and ready for bed when the mountain orcs attack and have a proper combat. If you were to roleplay out each of those encounters normally, this day of travel might cost you an hour or two of tabletime for one day of a 3 week journey. If you did this narratively you can do the entire day in the time it takes to do the orc battle (which is now a little dangerous due to the fact the players are a bit short on resources). This tool allows you to have some "exciting" travel days in those 3 weeks of travel, but not actually force you to take up the entire session to make those combat encounters have some weight behind them. [/QUOTE]

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