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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5762723" data-attributes="member: 2011">Precisely. This is why it's a challenge. Duh! <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/laugh.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":lol:" title="Laughing    :lol:" data-shortname=":lol:" />Doing it the damage fest ways says that the surprises are mostly limited to damage and that's something every player can account for with ease. It's why our team blew through the first adventure and would have blown threw the second if our primary leader hadn't been taken out in round one. Damage is super simple for players to plan for, hence, it's not a challenge. And challenging the players and eventually killing the PCs is the entire point of Lair Assault, at least the first time out.In our LA1 adventure, the PCs still had access to over 160 hit points of healing and 240 actual hit points remaining at the end of the encounter (in a 6 party team). Only one PC was bloodied at the end. It wasn't even close. It's because in addition to temp hit points and surgeless healing, they walked into the encounter with 9 heals, a few party healing powers, and a boatload of healing potions.Damage fests don't work from one group to the next because in order to throw enough damage at a group that walked in with that much healing, the monsters have to do crazy one shot kills (which gets some players rarely coming back for more, that's a level of threat that some people aren't willing to taste multiple times). Alternatively, if the monster damage of most monsters is too high (but not in the one shot kill category), then there are a lot of groups out there that will not optimize their groups for healing as much as ours did. Those groups will get slaughtered without necessarily knowing how to overcome the deficit, even in future sessions, just to challenge a group like ours.The point of the adventures is to challenge the players and strut the DM's stuff. Not to allow the players to interact and often be able to use their best stuff.By using subpar DM tactics, heavy damage scenarios, and allowing the PCs to cooperate to their fullest, you are neither challenging the PCs, nor are you allowing the DM to strut his stuff. It's the lazy man's way to threaten the PCs. It's easy to run a tentacle that just swings every round.Damage only is boring because it is so easy to overcome for a well optimized group. Real challenges are not boring because no matter how the group is designed, it will throw unusual and surprising monkey wrenches at all groups.You are putting restrictions on the contest to make it fair for the players.Why in heck would you want to do that? That's not the purpose (and hype) of Lair Assault.Not only that, but you questioned why I wouldn't want to come back and learn more. I question why you don't want to see cool DM challenges that you have never seen in your life, so that you can learn more. Puzzles and riddles (that change from session to session) and a wide variety of other cool Evil DM tips and tricks.The floor falling out from under the PCs into a hazard? Yeah, been there done that a lot more than once. An effect pushing the PCs into a hazard (in LA2 case, instant death), seen that too. Sneaking in to get the MacGuffin without getting caught. That's practically a cliche. I'd like to see something new and interesting. I don't understand why you don't want to see something new and interesting.I honestly hope that LA3 has a ton of interesting stuff that allows the evil DMs in the world to really shine and isn't just all about damaging the PCs. Stuff that DMs can learn from and expand upon in their own games (not necessarily at the same lethality level) to make them interesting in the future. To me, that's a lot better than a player learning not to shift too close to the tentacle via the GroundHog's day technique or getting a WotC point for diving into the water. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f615.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":confused:" title="Confused    :confused:"  data-smilie="5"data-shortname=":confused:" /></blockquote>

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