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<blockquote data-quote="mpwylie" data-source="post: 6818270" data-attributes="member: 6802655"><p>This argument kinda makes me laugh. I think it boils down to 2 things.</p><p></p><p>1) The DMG is written for new players. It gives a baseline for building encounters for people inexperienced with D&D. The second you have experienced players that know how to min/max and optimize, the guidelines fall apart a bit because that is not the group they are intended for. Think about it a minute, look at your players and their characters. Did they spend their ability points optimally? Did they pick the best feats and gear to maximize their power? How many magic items do they have? The guidelines are not broken, your group is likely just playing at a higher level then the guidelines were written for.</p><p></p><p>2) As Flamestrike has said, the guidelines are written based on certain principles, the main one being that there are 6-8 encounters between long rests. The minute you break from that, the guidelines no longer work as there is a finite amount of resources that the players have and the guidelines are written assuming your are bleeding off those resources. There is a VERY big difference in the difficulty of an encounter if your warriors are going in with Action surge and second wind up, your casters have all their spellslots available, if your pally has his LoH and spellslots for smites.</p><p></p><p>I think the original complaint and the ensuing argument are frankly silly. I threw the guidelines out the window long ago. My group is fairly optimized, I have given them more magic items than they are supposed to have, I am fairly lax with how I manage the monsters and what I let them do, and I generally only have 3-5 encounters per long rest so my players generally have a decent amount of resources per fight. I routinely throw encounters at them that are Deadly 5x+ and rarely does anyone go down. I generally build encounters that are close to impossible and then during the fight I manage the monsters in a way to make it a challenge without killing everyone. It won't work for everyone but it works for me and my party and I think that's fine. I am not sure anyone is saying you HAVE to have 6-8 encounters per long rest, what they are saying is, don't whine that the guidelines are broken when YOU are the one breaking them. It should not be surprising that the guidelines are wrong when you are not following the basic recipe they are based on. Run your game however you want, seriously it's fine, but it's not really fair to say WOTC messed up because you are not running things how they are telling you to. </p><p></p><p>Go find a group of newbies, then run the game the way you are actually supposed to. If at that point the guidelines are still way off, then by all means, come complain.</p><p></p><p>Just 2cp</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mpwylie, post: 6818270, member: 6802655"] This argument kinda makes me laugh. I think it boils down to 2 things. 1) The DMG is written for new players. It gives a baseline for building encounters for people inexperienced with D&D. The second you have experienced players that know how to min/max and optimize, the guidelines fall apart a bit because that is not the group they are intended for. Think about it a minute, look at your players and their characters. Did they spend their ability points optimally? Did they pick the best feats and gear to maximize their power? How many magic items do they have? The guidelines are not broken, your group is likely just playing at a higher level then the guidelines were written for. 2) As Flamestrike has said, the guidelines are written based on certain principles, the main one being that there are 6-8 encounters between long rests. The minute you break from that, the guidelines no longer work as there is a finite amount of resources that the players have and the guidelines are written assuming your are bleeding off those resources. There is a VERY big difference in the difficulty of an encounter if your warriors are going in with Action surge and second wind up, your casters have all their spellslots available, if your pally has his LoH and spellslots for smites. I think the original complaint and the ensuing argument are frankly silly. I threw the guidelines out the window long ago. My group is fairly optimized, I have given them more magic items than they are supposed to have, I am fairly lax with how I manage the monsters and what I let them do, and I generally only have 3-5 encounters per long rest so my players generally have a decent amount of resources per fight. I routinely throw encounters at them that are Deadly 5x+ and rarely does anyone go down. I generally build encounters that are close to impossible and then during the fight I manage the monsters in a way to make it a challenge without killing everyone. It won't work for everyone but it works for me and my party and I think that's fine. I am not sure anyone is saying you HAVE to have 6-8 encounters per long rest, what they are saying is, don't whine that the guidelines are broken when YOU are the one breaking them. It should not be surprising that the guidelines are wrong when you are not following the basic recipe they are based on. Run your game however you want, seriously it's fine, but it's not really fair to say WOTC messed up because you are not running things how they are telling you to. Go find a group of newbies, then run the game the way you are actually supposed to. If at that point the guidelines are still way off, then by all means, come complain. Just 2cp [/QUOTE]
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