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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 7199153" data-attributes="member: 2629">Redefine challenging your players.D&D is a role playing game.  In it, the players play characters in a story.  The game is at its best when the characters are part of a great and heroic story.What makes a great story?  Barely surviving an encounter with a horrible beast?  Sure.  That is one heroic thing you might find in a book.  However, not all great moments in a comic focus on a character fighting for their lives.  Sometimes, the hero needs to fight for something other than survival.5 medium level PCs are walking through the center of town when a rogue leaps from the shadows and strikes ... some random guy a block and a half down the street.  Then, four more rogues shoot him from the rooftops and disappear.  The guy takes several hits and falls to the ground.   The rogue next to him grabs something from the fallen figure and then begins to flee down an alley.  What do the PCs do?  Try to capture just that rogue?  All of them?  Or do they try to help the fallen figure and let (some of) the rogues go? Even if the PCs are far more powerful than these rogues, this presents challenges to the PCs.Later on, the PCs are investigating the murder on the street and realize that a local nobleman may be behind the murder.  They confront him and he throws a rock to the ground - which causes four HUGE Earth elementals to burst forth from the ground.  One of these things would be a challenge for the PCs in a fair fight, two would be very hard to beat... but four would be suicide.  However, the evil nobleman doesn't tell the Elementals to attack the PCs - it tells them to level the town, sending each to destroy a specific landmark first.  What do the PCs do?  They might not even be attacked, but there is a huge challenge for them to face and best.The PCs have discovered that the nobleman is actually a secret Master of Elemental Evil, a powerful Warlock devoted to Ogremach, Prince of Evil Earth.  They follow him to his lair.  He'd been collecting materials to perform a powerful ritual.  He has enough to do it, but success is not guaranteed without better materials.  With the PCs breathing down his neck and his secret revealed, he can no longer wait and begins the ritual.  The PCs learn this as they stand outside his lair.... giving them 10 minutes to fight their way into the lair, discover the hidden ritual room and disrupt the ritual.  A few reasonably tough enemies might be in the base, but a lot of the enemies the PCs will face are more of a feature than a foe - they are there to slow down the PCs.  You don't have to threaten your PC's lives to give them a proper challenge.</blockquote>

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