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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Thomasson" data-source="post: 800969" data-attributes="member: 4929">Chris Perkins likes to err on the side of more challenging encounters. I can speak on this with authority, having played in his Arveniar campaign for a year now. Boy howdy, does he try to kick our butts! I think he does a great job including some encounters that severely challenge the PCs' tactics and abilities with encounters that merely challenge. It keeps them on their toes.The mimic doesn't have to be a combat encounter. If the PCs are gung-ho for combat, they are likely to get stuck (ahem) with a nasty fight here. But that's not necessarily a guarantee.I run this campaign as an internal, ongoing playtest. When my characters ran into Patch, they asked him the same series of questions they were asking of each of the orphanage employees. When they got to, "Do you know anything about Terrem?" I had him take 10 on a Bluff check when he answered, and one of the PCs immediately picked up on it. The Vanishing is tough, and the two of my characters contracted it from the bag of tricks. I had them consult a local sage I made up on the spot (after some Gather Information checks and a couple tense days of Charisma loss) and pay a couple hundred gold to figure out a dispel magic would take care of it. As for the gear doors, I was incredibly disappointed when my characters learned quickly that the creeper/stalker tunnels circumvented most of them. When they found the first key, the party gnome immediately made the connection, and I didn't get to spring a single trap on them. Secret doors and other important goodies were found by the group taking a lot of 20s on Search checks. My group might sound like a bunch of pros, but they had their share of goofs. They triggered the trap on the stairs into Jzadirune even after they found it. They blundered through the encounters with Keygan Ghelve, stalking him, confronting him (but never actually asking about the kidnappings, even though they suspected him), and finally attacking him. See my editorial in issue #98 for an update on the final encounter, which was basically a disaster. Oh, and that encounter with the chain sounds fantastic!</blockquote>

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