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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Flamestrike" data-source="post: 6859769" data-attributes="member: 6788736">I couldnt disagree with this advice more. The trick is to use more encounters, not ridiculously difficult ones.Throwing ultra deadly encounters at the party is lazy DMing, and leads to an escalation of the very problem that leads to to the issue in the first place (generally Nova tactics by the party).If the PCs are having too easy a time of it, firstly ask yourself why? Are they hitting every encounter fully rested, and blowing [action surge/ highest level slot/ smite nova/ rage] on round 1 as a matter of course? If so, place a time constraint on your adventures to make this a choice. Are they relying on uber high stealth scores and perception scores to sneak up on your encounters and gain surprise and take them down from range? Find creative ways to counter this (have the monsters stumble upon the PCs, use clairvoyance or other divination magic to locate them, use incorporeal monsters to walk through walls to get at them, set your encounters in tight spaces like dungeons, use environmental challeenges to counter those tactics and have the PCs think outside the box, have the monsters warn others of the PCs approach etc).Are your PC's all 'Str dumping' casters and ranged archers? Awesome - let them sneak up on a group of monsters and wipe them out with a nova strike. Then before they have a chance to recover, have a bunch of shadows spring up through multiple grills in the floor and ambush them hard, forcing them into melee and draining that measly Str. Do your PCs' routinely dump Int 'because its useless in 5E?" Have an Illithid planeshift in (after scrying them) gaining surprise and hit them with a mindblast.Design your encounters aroud your groups characters - both the number of them, the characters levels (i.e. CR and XP budgets) AND with regard to your groups tactics and powers. You (as DM) are there to design a challenge your players rememeber!Lazy DMing such as ramping up the difficulty by throwing tougher monsters just encourages the PC's to [rest - nova - rest] and forces them to optimise in a particular direction just to avoid a TPK. Youre just making the problem worse, and reinforcing bad behaviour. Instead of upping the raw numbers of your encounters, hit the PCs in a weak spot (force them through multiple encounters without rest, force them into melee when they prefer ranged attacks, render their tactics obsolete with environmental challenges etc). Your players will adjust their tactics accordingly.As DM you control the environment (time constraints, environmental challenges, and location), just as much as you control the monster selection itself. Nova tactics, metagaming, or one dimensional tactics from the party are never the fault of the players, they're always the fault of the DM.</blockquote>

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