Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Huntsman57" data-source="post: 6783449" data-attributes="member: 6803721">I also don't typically have several encounters each day. It's entirely unrealistic, and the first few encounters really feel meaningless. Occasionally the party could experience this day of days where the <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> is just hitting the fan and as a one off that could be a fun change of pace, but normally the best way to make a combat encounter feel meaningful, IMO, is to make every encounter feel like it's possible someone could get dropped. Even as a player, any time I've faced a battle that was zero risk and merely threatened to eat up some resources...it just made me sigh in exasperation inside and wonder when the game session would be over.Allow short rests only once per day and increase the challenge rating. You should also never be using encounters that are less than a hard encounter. If your players get a thrill from overcoming an encounter and feeling that it was their own quick thinking and skill that made the difference between life and death, then simply throw out these moderate encounters. If you're not quite sure how far to push, then start out slow. Get a bit harder and harder till you find that sweet spot. If your players are unaccustomed to these challenges you should let them know in advance the direction you're taking the game. 5E can inspire something of an "asleep at the switch" way of playing. They don't understand that if you forgot to search that door, or you missed that poison needle, you could be killed instantly. The word "mistake" is code for somebody probably just died. That's not normally a thing in 5E, so let them know that survival is gonna start being a roll of the die unless they start putting their thought into how to weight the die in their favor by carefully consider their tactics, and how to work together as a team. Don't shy away from occasionally giving them an encounter that is too much for them either. Knowing when to exercise the better part of valor is an important part of survival as well.Before making changes to your game, you definitely want to talk to your players though. Some players just want to be along for the ride and goof around with friends. This whole concept of working together competitively against opposing forces and deriving satisfaction from surviving by the skin of their teeth after a hard fought victory is just confusing for them. They just might not get their jollies that way and they'll just wonder why you're such a mean DM. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

Verification