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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cadence" data-source="post: 6195881" data-attributes="member: 6701124">Part of this reminds me of discussing whether or not exam grades should ever be rescaled or curved. A: "I would never scale or curve an exam.  They get what they earned." B: "What happens if you find out some of the problems were much harder than you thought they would be?  Do you just let a huge chunk of the class fail because the question was too hard?" A: "I never have questions that are that badly written."B: "But even professional test makers at places like ETS and CITO have bad questions slip by once in a while.  What would happen if you did have one that missed the target slip by?  Don't you at least have the right to lower the grade thresholds if that happens?"Is A backed into the corner of choosing one of: (i) it is inconceivable they would ever write a bad question, (ii) if they do write a bad question then the students will all get bad grades, or (iii) they do have the right to adjust for that on the fly but haven't had the need to yet?So, (i) is it inconceivable that you would ever write a bad combat encounter, or (ii) would you let half the party die, or (iii) do you reserve the right to alter your pre-written encounter but have never needed to?[There could be a tangent here about what ways of altering a pre-written encounter count as forcing vs. non-forcing  -- playing the opponents sub-optimally for the remainder of the combat,  deus ex machina, reducing the hitpoints and BAB of the attackers in mid-stream but still having them be tactically on, ignoring critical rolls or adjusting down the larger damage rolls, or deciding the enemy was actually out to just capture them instead of killing them -- but I'm passing on that for now, so, if you grant me that pass...] Assuming you don't pick (i) or (ii), isn't the next question is how much DM force is ok?I think a lot of us who seem on the "pro-forcing" side would agree that taking it to "much higher levels" isn't good. One  problem I think the "pro-forcing" side is having here is that it sounds like a lot of the anti-folks are choosing (i) or (ii) above...    Your quote here on the other hand is talking about "degree of DM force".  In the 1e DMG Gygax comes out as a (iii) but seems to definitely want it to not happen too much.  I completely get that.</blockquote>

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