Do you feel cheated if an encounter isn't hard?

[Kalendraf]

As a DM, I'll admit a certain level of pride when it comes to encounters I design, especially if they are encounters against prime adversaries in the adventure. In those instances, it does sting somewhat to see the foe dealt with too easily. However, I also understand when luck is at work (like having 3 characters roll massive crits in the same round), and I applaud cunning tactics from the party as well. Such situations don't really make me feel cheated.

The times I do feel a bit cheated are when I totally overlook some feature of an encounter like a monster's special ability, a spell's alternate function or some rule that would have made the fight much more difficult. It's my own fault in those cases, but I feel like I really cheated both myself and the players of a challenging encounter.

 

[Wombat]

There are all sorts of kinds of encounters.

I feel cheated in a game if all, or even the majority, of the encounters are combat-oriented. I feel that makes for a woefully one-sided game.

Hard? Well, try convincing that snooty duke that you and your partner really should be invited to that ducal feast, despite the fact that you are commoners, just so you can keep an eye on a fellow you are sure is spying on your group.

 

[kamosa]

Depends on the group

It depends a lot on the group. I've seen some where the players didn't mind light strength encounters and some where they wanted every room filled with deadly encounters and the dungeon was like an in take valve for player death.

What I find as GM and as player is that the amount of work the player puts into the out come is more important than how deadly the battles are.

IE: I don't mind having a cake walk encounter with the enemy, as long as I worked hard or my players worked hard to make it a cake walk. On the other hand I don't like difficult encounters that require no significant work from my players to solve.

Examples: If my players are really on for a night and are investigating, interrogating, sneaking, plotting, scamming and in general really engauged in the adventure, I don't mind if they win the final encounter without too much sweat on their parts. They paid the price in all the hard work they put in setting up the final battle. Coming down hard on them at the end would in a way feel like all their work was for naught. I like to think in my game, you get rewarded for hard play and good play. Sometimes that means you just beat the situation with your play and good for you.

 

[MerakSpielman]

IE: I don't mind having a cake walk encounter with the enemy, as long as I worked hard or my players worked hard to make it a cake walk. On the other hand I don't like difficult encounters that require no significant work from my players to solve.

Yes! I understand this! I once designed an encounter for a group of ~10th level PCs. they were to encounter a collection of evil necromancers and clerics performing a ritual. There were 4 10th level wizards and 4 10th level clerics against a party of 6 characters. I designed it to be hard. Very hard. But they had their rogue scouting ahead, and spotted the enemy casters doing the ritual. Fifteen minutes and much planning later, the enemies were hit by a fireball and two flame strikes simultaniously.

The necromancers were toast, and only one cleric made all three saves. It was a glorious moment.

 

[Pseudonym]

Having a few encounters that are easy is fine with me, as long as they make some sort of contextual sense and are infrequent. The worst thing that can happen to a game is when the players realize that they have no fear of death as the challenges will be to easy to overcome.

 

[d4]

i like having a balance of easy and tough encounters... i think the campaign should spend an equal amount of time on both -- which means in number there should be more easy encounters than tough (because they take less time to play out).

i like feeling that my character can kick ass and look cool doing it, so those "easy" encounters against mooks are fun for me. on the other hand, the fights against the BBEGs should be commensurately difficult to give a proper climactic end to the adventure.

on the gripping hand, a campaign where every (or nearly every) encounter is a tough, challenging, by-the-skin-of-our-teeth victory is very, very unsatisfying to me. why? because i always feel inadequate; i never get to feel like my character is a Great Hero™, head-and-shoulders above the rabble around him. if he's constantly getting beat down or just barely managing to survive, i end up feeling weak and helpless -- even if my character is 13th level.

The worst thing that can happen to a game is when the players realize that they have no fear of death as the challenges will be to easy to overcome.

those don't always have to go together, though. it is eminently possible to have a campaign where the players do not have to fear for the deaths of the characters and know that not every challenge will be easy to overcome. there are many, many other things to challenge a PC group with besides just death.

 

[babomb]

I don't mind the occasional easy encounter, but it'd be boring if all of them were. Some encounters should be hard; some should be easy. So, no, I don't feel cheated if the encounter is easy.

I DO feel cheated if the reason the encounter's easy is that the DM cheats to keep PCs from dying. But that's a horse of a different color.

 

[Crothian]

Some encounters are goiung to be easy, some are going to be hard. Even if the DM tried to balance everything this will happen. Its not about easy or hard, its about fun.

 

[Eli-kun]

It seems to me that how hard or easy a battle is depends on the dice. Depending on who is rolling 20s and who is rolling ones,a creature that should be a minor annoyance can take all night to kill and a major threat can die in a few rounds.

 

[Kaleon Moonshae]

cinematic

I run more cinematic games, where there are hordes of what I call grunts (really easy guys who the characters usually plow through ala john woo/spegetti westerns/kill bill) with maybe one or two handlers that are more powerful. That way when you get to the bbeg who is leaps and bounds more powerful than the grunts were there is a real sense of suspense and danger. I also typically do my best to keep my players alive to see that climatic end battle and then I don't care if most or all of them get killed (like in afore mentioned movies). Most of my players have always enjoyed the concept since it keeps things moving (I typically play very rules light with the grunts, so if they get hit once for any reasonable damage they stay down, just like hired people in real life). They have told me that it keeps them ready for more and they love the visuals I give of their characters just wading through masses, getting cut here and there but coming out on the other side bloody but standing....only to have the main bad guy step out of the shadows and proceed to hand their a$$es to them for a time.