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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 8270821" data-attributes="member: 53980">Having fair and balanced encounters has no direct bearing on difficulty.You could have a DM who frequently balances their encounters to take the players to the very edge of a TPK. If those players use poor tactics, or even have bad luck, then a TPK is basically a foregone conclusion. I sometimes do this and it is by no means easy, though it's something that's extremely difficult to do without encounter guidelines to help gauge the difficulty.You could have a DM who regularly throws "unreasonable" encounters in the path of the players, but then rolls with whatever half-baked scheme they come up with to overcome the encounter, such that their success is basically guaranteed.Of course, those are just two examples that are meant to illustrate that difficulty does not directly correlate to whether encounters are balanced or not. You can certainly have easy CaS style games and hard CaW style games as well.While CaS players do expect fairness, that doesn't necessarily mean they expect the game to be easy. Throwing a CR 20 against a level 1 party is probably out, but what difficulty is "fair" will differ by player and group.CaW players also expect fairness, just of a different variety. Putting a level 1 party against an unavoidable, inescapable CR 20 monster would also be considered unfair by most such players. Having a CR 20 monster in a level 1 adventure is potentially fair game, but only with the understanding that it can be overcome by asymmetrical means (which certainly includes simply avoiding the monster). Typically such a threat would either be telegraphed by the DM, or the players would be aware that they need to do their research (and have the capability of becoming aware of it).Neither playstyle is necessarily easier or harder. One puts more emphasis on strategic play (where the outcome of an encounter is often decided before it even starts) while the other emphasizes tactical decisions made during the encounter. Either can be easier or harder depending on the group.</blockquote>

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