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<blockquote data-quote="machineelf" data-source="post: 7083233" data-attributes="member: 6774924">Why? Conflict is the main key to a great story, and getting the cr@p kicked out of you is part of the adventuring life. <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&nbsp; &nbsp; ;)"&nbsp; data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /> In all seriousness, I've found that when you throw tough encounters at your players, they often will surprise you with their ability to seize victory from the jaws of defeat, and it will leave a lasting memory of an epic battle in their minds. And if one or two of them die, then so be it. I tend to run a gritty campaign, anyway. My goal is not to kill the PCs. But the NPCs' goal is to kill them. My goal as a DM is to merely place them on that razor's edge of danger, where they can succeed, but it won't be a cake walk. I hope they succeed, because that makes for a great story.Now what I tend to do is run a sandbox game in terms of geography, but I still scale up or down encounters based on what I think would be best for the group (placing them on that razor's edge I mentioned above). So with the Princes of Apocalypse adventure, I'd say run it as is and let the chips fall where they may (sounds like fun), or if you want to scale things down a little bit, it's easy enough to do by reducing the numbers of monsters, or lessening the HPs of some of the big, bad monsters.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="machineelf, post: 7083233, member: 6774924"] Why? Conflict is the main key to a great story, and getting the cr@p kicked out of you is part of the adventuring life. ;) In all seriousness, I've found that when you throw tough encounters at your players, they often will surprise you with their ability to seize victory from the jaws of defeat, and it will leave a lasting memory of an epic battle in their minds. And if one or two of them die, then so be it. I tend to run a gritty campaign, anyway. My goal is not to kill the PCs. But the NPCs' goal is to kill them. My goal as a DM is to merely place them on that razor's edge of danger, where they can succeed, but it won't be a cake walk. I hope they succeed, because that makes for a great story. Now what I tend to do is run a sandbox game in terms of geography, but I still scale up or down encounters based on what I think would be best for the group (placing them on that razor's edge I mentioned above). So with the Princes of Apocalypse adventure, I'd say run it as is and let the chips fall where they may (sounds like fun), or if you want to scale things down a little bit, it's easy enough to do by reducing the numbers of monsters, or lessening the HPs of some of the big, bad monsters. [/QUOTE]

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