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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Frozen DM" data-source="post: 3015421" data-attributes="member: 35841">snipI think one of the issues is that the balance (and tailoring) talked about here really apply to the game mechanics that form the backbone of the game. Mechanics in D&D cover a lot more than just combat, since they also cover social interaction between PC's and NPC's and how the PC's can cope with their environment. Social skills, trap finding, spells, all these mechanical constructs are used to overcome challenges. The DMG simply suggests that if, as a DM, you will be pitting players against challenges where none of their abilities will allow them to succeed, you should probably warn them, since the default assumption seems to be that encounters will, more often than not, have a solution available to the party. If the way the party is meant to overcome an encounter is through role-playing and social interaction, the expectation is that players will be rolling skill checks such as Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Sense Motive, etc... So in my opinion, an overpowering encounter is one in which the party would have little to no chance to succeed through combat, negotiation or stealth, where simple avoidance is the only way to survive. In these cases, their is still a question of "can the PC's at their level overcome these challenges?". If the 1st level characters meet a CR 10 dragon, they are clearly overmatched. Even negotiation will likely fail if the dragon happens to possess social skills in the +15 to +20 range. Now, of course, if as a DM you feel the party can simply role-play their way through that encounter with no skill checks, more power to you. But the designers cannot predict for every style of DMing out there. So skill checks become the measure of a character's ability. Remember, encounters are meant to be overcome, not just through combat. If I set my 1st level PC's up against a sleeping 15 HD giant, I would say this is a fair and balanced encounter, exactly because they could just try and sneak past. Obviously if they charge in and attack they will be slaughtered, but in this case, they really aren't solving the encounter the way it was meant to be solved. Perhaps this is true, but I've seen encounters in games where social interaction would be the preferred resolution. In fact, currently in my Shackled City campaign, our party wizard has probably overcome more encounters through social skills  than he has combat. But again, the default assumption is that a character's ability to socially influence a NPC is directly tied to their level (max skill ranks). If, as a DM, you would prefer your players to simply role-play through these types of encounters, trusting the player's skills as opposed to the characters attributes, that's a great way of doing it, but that's where a DM "tailors" the game to his players. As a DM who frequently purchases and makes use out of pre-published scenarios and adventures, I would much prefer the designers adhere to the philosophy that all challenges in the game will be overcome through a dice roll + modifiers, than assume that my campaign is one where non-combat encounters are handled exclusively through role-playing.It's a lot easier to ignore the giant's sense motive skill than it is to try and come up with consistent mechanics to represent these challenges.</blockquote>

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