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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Prophet2b" data-source="post: 3747405" data-attributes="member: 36476">I need some advice as a DM...First of all, one thing I really hate in D&D is the idea that as you level up, you only ever face monsters tailored to your level.  So I usually design my sessions with that in mind.  Obviously, as a general rule, whatever the PC's fight they can beat - but I like to put things in the world that they just have no chance of beating at that level (because, realistically, that is the case) as well as things that don't stand the foggiest chance against them.  I think it's more realistic.The question I have is - should I stop doing that altogether?  Should the PC's be able to rush in and take out everything via combat if they so choose to do?  How many options should be available to them?  Should it be that every encounter can be solved three ways: combat, social interaction, or stealth?  I like giving them options, but...I'm asking this after today's session, because it went something like this:The party is 3rd level in Eberron (so, really a very decent level for Eberron) - they have a human swordsage, human cleric, orc druid, and changeling beguiler.  The beguiler hasn't really gotten to use her abilities much, though, as everything has been predominantly combat oriented throughout the campaign so far - and what social interaction and other stuff they did while in Sharn she wasn't the only one doing at the time (they had a bard, too, for a while until he ran off with some bugbears to visit Xen'drik).So I designed today's session to be very strongly tailored for the beguiler.  A creature in the Eldeen Reaches had gathered together an army of ogres, kobolds, and goblins and was trying to turn them into aberrations (dolgrim, etc. - there were a lot of dolgrim in the cave).  I should note here that these creatures were willingly taking part in this - though I can't say why, because some of my players read this board. <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/paranoid.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":uhoh:" title="Paranoid    :uhoh:" data-shortname=":uhoh:" />   Some friends (and family) of the party had been captured by said bad guys and were probably up for some aberration altering themselves.Now, ahead of time I had prepared for a dryad to help them (in a limited fashion - but still help), a goblin (who decided he actually didn't want to become an aberration) for them to find and who might help them, some back passages into the cave system, etc.  I figured that with the right advice and aid (and it wouldn't even need to be too much, at that) the party could handle it - especially using the beguiler's abilities to get in unnoticed.I had designed the encounter so that the monsters simply could not be beaten - not all of them anyway.  There were too many, the party wasn't strong enough, it was simply impossible.  But it wasn't supposed to be a hack 'n slash adventure.And when they first reached the cave entrance, things looked promising.  The druid spoke with a rabbit and convinced him to go into the cave and scout things out.  I thought, "Okay, hey, if they come up with something that's better than me just handing them information through the dryad or goblin - we'll see how this plays out first before I do anything else."The rabbit runs in and several minutes later runs out - with some dolgrim behind him.  The party sees the dolgrim and without waiting to talk to the rabbit about what he saw inside decided to charge them - so they did.  They then pushed their way back into the cave, fighting dolgrim, ogres, goblins, and kobolds.  And more just kept coming.Two party members nearly died....... twice.  The beguiler didn't do much beguiling.  The cleric and druid ran out of spells.  They finally had to fall back (with a near dead party member getting captured in the end).  And I kept getting asked, "How were we supposed to deal with this?  This is impossible.  I can't believe you threw this at us."Well... yes - it was impossible for sheer hack 'n slash fighting.  I had never intended for it to be that kind of encounter.Was that wrong?  Should I design every encounter so that the party, if they so chose to do, can run in and kick every thing's a**?The whole time I felt really bad and just kept thinking, "It wasn't supposed to turn out this way.  If they had talked to the rabbit, they would have figured that out."  Or if I'd have had the goblin show up... or the dryad... (I didn't do those, though, because I thought the rabbit would give them enough preliminary information to get things moving and people planning - to start with, at least).What advice can you give to me?  What am I doing wrong here?  I know I'm far from a great DM.  I'm still trying to learn.  I do way, way better on the whole social interaction side of things than I do on the combat encounter side.  But I thought this session was going to be a really fun, sneaky, stealthy session - not a "oh god, we're overwhelmed, stuck, and now fighting for our lives, while also frustrated and upset because this is completely and totally impossible" kind of session.Advice?  Please...?  (Feel free to make fun of, mock, and chastise me for poor DMing, too - I have it coming.  Won't take it personally.  I need to learn...)  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></blockquote>

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