Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Puddles" data-source="post: 8217994" data-attributes="member: 7026093">In my humble opinion, this is actually the wrong question to ask. I say this because if the reality of the sandbox is that players are only expected to go to an area once it becomes level appropriate, are the 2 methods really all that different?Instead I would say the question to ask is: “does the party have the chance to face encounters both below and above their level?”, and I think DMs should strive to answer “yes” with bonus points if it is the party that gets to call some of the shots, (for example, when chasing the villain they are given the chance to take a shortcut through the swamps but doing so risks them encountering dangerous creatures above their level). You can achieve that with either approach. I use a hybrid of the two.I also think with the way creatures are designed in D&D with set CR, it doesn’t really matter which approach you take. The most deeply unsatisfying experiences I’ve had with the “world levelling up” in computer games, is only when it’s the “creatures” themselves levelling up. For example, I hated that system in Oblivion and Final Fantasy VIII. But that would be the equivalent of a level 15 party facing “level 15 goblins” which isn’t what’s happening typically in D&D. If the players encounter a level appropriate number of goblins at levels 1 and 5, the fact that there was only 3 of them the first time and they took multiple hits to go down, whereas they faced a dozen the second time and heads were flying with every strike is going to make the players feel badass and the world believable. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="🙂" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" title="Slightly smiling face    :slight_smile:" data-shortname=":slight_smile:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" />Lastly, I try to make the party encounter a dragon as early as they can in the campaign, (in my current campaign, they did so at level 3). They don’t come into direct combat with it, but witness it do something destructive from afar. Having the players witness something like this early on, let’s them feel like the world is full of dangers round every corner, and when they are powerful enough to defeat it, the payoff should be very satisfactory for them. <img class="smilie smilie--emoji" alt="😀" src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" title="Grinning face    :grinning:" data-shortname=":grinning:" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" /></blockquote>

Verification