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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mpwylie" data-source="post: 7450202" data-attributes="member: 6802655">hmm,  I feel like I have heard this somewhere before....do you have a twin brother?Here's the thing,  D&D is a 1 size fits all game.  It has to apply to hundreds of thousands of tables which having varying levels of player experience, optimization, and RP/exploration/combat balance.  They give you a base template, then they give you options and guidelines and tools to massage it to fit your table and your style.  I have been at one table where 3 CR 1 monsters against our 5 person, level 3 party was a near TPK.  At the same time I have played and DM'd tables that where only marginally challenged with dangerous and deadlly encounters and I had to crank it up a notch. Heck,  I am playing in 3 games right now and all 3 are roughly the same level but are COMPLETELY different.  Just with different players and DMs there is such a variance that no one of those encounters would work for all 3 tables without tweaks.There are 3 basic things I would say that you should consider. First, not having enough encounters between rests is the number one way to screw the encounter creation math.  D&D above all is a resource management game.  If your PCs can go nova on 1-2 encounters and then reset instead of having to budget out their power over 5+ encounters, the math will be horribly off.  Now before people start crying and screaming,  I am not saying you have to run 5+ encounters,  I am saying that if you don't, you are going to throw off the math and need to tweak to compensate.Second, the game sort of assumes the baseline, if you add feats, multiclassing, plentiful magic items, or allow stats to start higher than standard array or standard point buy, it will throw the math way way off.  Again,  perfectly fine to do,  but expect to have to adjust to compensate.Third, gauge your table and build for it.  My last major campaign was full of experienced, strategic, and optimized players. For that campaign I dialed up the encounters by adding monsters, adding class templates to the monsters, or ourright creating monsters.  I also took time and care in designing the terrain and overall encounters to challenge the party. I tried to use monsters that were intelligent enough to be strategic, and I used casters on the monster's side to help wreak havoc and control the battle field.  The last one-shot (actually it was a two-shot) I ran was for a bunch of new players. At that table I stayed on the cautious side of the encounter guildlines and played my monsters with much less intelligence.  The campaign ran to 20 and I had no issues, and the one/two-shot was at level 10 and went perfectly fine.  I think the moral of the story really is,  this game is likely not written for your table and your exact playstyle.  Use it as a base, and build to fit.  Like most things in life,  you get out what you put in.</blockquote>

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