Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 6721963" data-attributes="member: 3586">Originally posted by Huscarl: As noted somewhere on these boards, the encounter "No Room at the Inn" in episode 4 is way deadlier than it ought to be. I don't recommend playing it as it stands. Find my earlier response on that for advice on how to fix it. Otherwise, I don't think there are any encounters that characters can't get through somehow. That doesn't mean they can overcome every encounter through violence -- but see my sig line for my feeling about that. Wizards has made it clear throughout the development of 5E that D&D stands on three legs -- combat, exploration, and interaction. If characters run into a situation they can't win through with combat, then they need to try something else. It really is that simple. Is a situation unfair because characters can't defeat it with their swords, when they haven't explored other options? In HotDQ, "hit it" is the wrong response to many situations, just as it is in real life. Beyond that, there's the issue that an encounter that's tough but balanced for one party can be a suicide trap for another and a skate through the park for a third. Typing away at our desks in the great Pacific Northwest, we don't know how many players are sitting around your table, how experienced they are, what situations their characters are optimized for (if they're optimized at all), or how much and what type of magic they're packing. Unless you have a game where every group of characters adheres tightly to a narrow power curve -- and I expect we all remember clearly how popular that was during the 4E years -- then the idea that remote designers can build one encounter that's perfect for every table of D&D players around the globe is a bit far-fetched. In other words, the only person who's really qualified to judge whether an encounter is balanced for a group of characters is that group's DM. I suppose that sounds a bit like me saying, "It's not my job, man," but that's the reality of the situation as I see it. And it always has been, even when publishers try to claim it's not. Steve </blockquote>

Verification