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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5233872" data-attributes="member: 82106">I would nip this in the bud. Don't train your players to lean on you to give them extra benefits to make up for their lack of foresight. I know its a new group of new players and they certainly haven't learned all the ins-and-outs of resource management, but if you just give them free stuff whenever they get in trouble that will become the pattern. They won't ever learn to not blow all their daily powers because they simply have no reason to, the DM will just give them back! If there are not even any consequences for that then effectively you might as well just call them all encounter powers and be done with it.This kind of thing does happen a lot when you start out and its just part of the unwritten lore of being a DM. So don't feel bad, we have all gotten into this kind of situation. Generally speaking you're always in a somewhat tricky situation when you have a plot line that requires the PCs to carry off several encounters in a row with no real way to back out. Even if the consequences are bad if a party is in a position to withdraw they have some control of the situation. This starts to move into the discussion of player choice and "railroading". When you hit a spot in the plot that allows the PCs no real choices except "soldier on" the best advice is to keep that short, preferably one encounter if possible. Find ways to give the players options. They break out of their cells, fight a couple guards, then they can go down the sewer grate or fight some more guards, their choice. Each option should be a viable course of action (you can always present other obviously non-viable options, but just remember that those aren't real choices). Maybe the sewers are rumored to contain nasty monsters. The guard post down the hall OTOH has obvious dangers. Now if the players blew off too many powers or got unlucky they can risk the sewers and if they're in good shape maybe they'll take on the guard post. Of course they may not choose wisely but so it goes.Don't be afraid to rough them up if they make bad choices. You might even end up killing some of them, or even all of them at some point. That's OK. If its just one or two of them they can always find a way to get raised or at least they can make a new character and work it into the story. If its a TPK you'll have to decide what to do next, recapture is always an option. Maybe the next escape attempt involves breaking out of the salt mines where the troublemakers get sent.</blockquote>

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