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Message: <blockquote data-quote="TBoarder" data-source="post: 2029600" data-attributes="member: 272">I'm fishing for some suggestions here...I'm DMing again for the first time in ages and it looks like I made a few errors in judgement in my game.  I started the players out at 1st level, even though we all have a preference for higher levels (at least 7th or higher) when the world opens up.  All of the PCs have a special ability that makes them immune to scrying (as well as making the attempt to scry on them a deadly gamble).So, I have the PCs being hunted and chased by a society of Illithid and Phaerrim in the Forgotten Realms.  By 3rd level, they make their way to Cormyr and learn that the only 2 NPCs in their group, the supposed only survivors of the Illithid and Phearrim massacring a thorpe the PCs just visited (a female bard and a 9 year old boy), were doppelgangers.  The Illithid sent the doppelgangers to infiltrate the PCs group, so they'd have someone to safely scry on when they try to locate the PCs.  The doppelgangers had absolutely no ill intent for the PCs though, doing what they did only because Illithid threatened to make their people (about 1,000 other doppelgangers) food slaves instead of work slaves that they are now.Long story short, the PCs decide the get the frell outta Cormyr before the bad guys send anyone down to kill any more innocents.  They *can't* take the doppelgangers with them though... being only 3rd level, they wouldn't stand a chance against even a single, base level Illithid, and don't tell *anyone* in Cormyr where they're going, just in case the bad guys manage to use *them* to now locate the PCs.So, they decide to go to Baldur's Gate to set up a power base for themselves.  It's about a month long journey and it's an absolute meat grinder.  Three gameplay days later, and the PCs went from 3rd level to midway through 4th level... by the time they reach Baldur's Gate, they could conceivably be 9th or 10th level.  This isn't what I have the problem with though... I was more than willing to simply say "Okay, you make your way to Baldur's Gate.  The trip takes you to 9th level, this is what you encountered, and we continue from here..."  The first problem is, there are some encounters that I don't know *how* the PCs could survive... Groups of Fire Giants, Red Abishai, Wyverns, Yrthaks, Trolls, Dragon Turtles,and  even an old White Dragon that crosses their paths on up to 3 different occasions.The second problem is, this is boring us to tears.  I'm trying to make the encounters as role-playing intensive as possible when I can.  A swarm of 60 ravenous gibberlings doesn't give too many conversation options though, so too much of the past 3 game sessions have been fight, fight, and fight, with a bit of fighting in-between.  I snuck an NPC into the group in one of the encounters to at least add some role-playing options to the trip, but it's not enough... not by a long shot.I can't just remove the encounters... the PCs want to see what the world is like and it would just ruin the *feel* of the world if suddenly overland travel was easy.  The world is a deadly place, and it's not going to throw low to mid level challenges at the PCs simply because that's what level they are.  On the other hand, they're at the midway point between where they left and the next major town... our game sessions are short and sparse as it is... I don't think any of us could handle another 3 sessions of these tedious fights.So... it looks to me like I'm stuck in a catch 22.  Continue individually playing out each encounter and bore everybody (myself included) to tears, or, in effect, take control of the PCs from the players by saying that they survive the trip, bump them up to the appropriate level (a level which we would prefer playing at anyway) for everything the encounter, and go from there... allow the players to make up the stories of how they fled the dragon and killed the Yrthaks (or vice versa), even though it opens up the oddity of a group of 4th level characters killing things that they wouldn't be able to handle without extremely clever tactics.They've shown these clever tactics in the previous 3 days of encounters... surprising me utterly when they soundly defeated a pair of vampires without the aid of a single weapon that could penetrate their DR... but I feel that I could be stretching things a bit by saying that the PCs remain equally clever in the next 30-some encounters they come across.So... does anybody have any suggestions about how I can handle this?  I'm sure that I'm missing an option or 3 somewhere... Thanks. <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=":)" /></blockquote>

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