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Message: <blockquote data-quote="ptolemy18" data-source="post: 2792183" data-attributes="member: 24970">Hello everybody,My player-characters (a group of 6 people, who are now an average of 5th level, going on 6th level) are doing pretty well; recently they've been defeating all the enemies I throw at them without even a single PC getting knocked unconscious. (They defeated 8 CR 3 Forlorn Husks (from SANDSTORM), which I thought might have been an excessively dangerous encounter... but the cleric managed to turn most of 'em, so they were saved by the old "cleric factor.")Because I'm just that kind of DM, I'm thinking of upping the ante again. Specifically, I'm thinking of some encounters which are not necessarily combat-focused, but which will put them face-to-face with excessively dangerous opponents.... whom they might have to outwit rather than just kill. I'm talking tactics/stealth/role-playing challenges, rather than mere "a wandering monster attacks you" challenges. For instance, having to match wits with a CR 11 giant or wizard, neither of whom are "out to kill" the PCs, but who the PCs have to encounter for one reason or another. The kind of encounters where, if the PCs *start* fights, they might get their butts kicked, but they don't necessarily *have* to fight to accomplish their goals. (Like, for instance, say that the party has to steal/get something from the CR 11 wizard, who's just defending his property.)Since D&D (particularly 3.X) is so skirmish-combat-focused, there aren't many guidelines for setting up not-necessarily-combat encounters with super-powerful opponents. I don't want to kill the PCs, but I do want to challenge them, and I'm prepared if a PC or two dies due to overconfidently attacking their super-powerful foes. How often do other DMs set up encounters like this? Does anybody have recommendations for running encounters like this? (Including "don't do it"?) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Jason</blockquote>

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