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<blockquote data-quote="Doug McCrae" data-source="post: 3747918" data-attributes="member: 21169">Prophet, from reading your post I'm pretty sure you're a good DM. Your desire to give the beguiler a chance to shine is a good sign. Your original instinct to provide a variety of encounters - talking, fighting, stealth, overpowering, very easy - was 100% correct. Trust your instincts.&nbsp; <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile&nbsp; &nbsp; :)"&nbsp; data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />It's important that you make it clear to the players that some encounters will be too tough for them, so they're aware that non-combat options are sometimes required. As you say, players often have the expectation that all encounters will have the same EL as (or very close to) the group's level. This is actually not what it recommends in the DMG, which is in favour of a much wider variety of EL.There was only one small problem with the overwhelming encounter in your post (which from the sound of things was a success anyway, as it wasn't a TPK), the players didn't get quite enough of a chance to realise how tough it was. There was just a tiny mistake imo - when the rabbit came out you shouldn't have had it being chased. That started the encounter off with the PCs believing it was a small, manageable monster group. So given that info, it was understandable that they fought. Instead you could just have had the abberrations not spot the rabbit, and the PCs would have gotten the info.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Doug McCrae, post: 3747918, member: 21169"] Prophet, from reading your post I'm pretty sure you're a good DM. Your desire to give the beguiler a chance to shine is a good sign. Your original instinct to provide a variety of encounters - talking, fighting, stealth, overpowering, very easy - was 100% correct. Trust your instincts. :) It's important that you make it clear to the players that some encounters will be too tough for them, so they're aware that non-combat options are sometimes required. As you say, players often have the expectation that all encounters will have the same EL as (or very close to) the group's level. This is actually not what it recommends in the DMG, which is in favour of a much wider variety of EL. There was only one small problem with the overwhelming encounter in your post (which from the sound of things was a success anyway, as it wasn't a TPK), the players didn't get quite enough of a chance to realise how tough it was. There was just a tiny mistake imo - when the rabbit came out you shouldn't have had it being chased. That started the encounter off with the PCs believing it was a small, manageable monster group. So given that info, it was understandable that they fought. Instead you could just have had the abberrations not spot the rabbit, and the PCs would have gotten the info. [/QUOTE]

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