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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bacon Bits" data-source="post: 7084482" data-attributes="member: 6777737">Personally, I just make the dangerous areas actually dangerous looking or obviously too difficult.  I distinctly recall doing this in an expanded RttToEE campaign when the PCs arbitrarily decided to go straight to one of the enemy strongholds about 10 levels before they ought to be doing so:DM: OK, as you north, you see a odd cloud in the distance.  It almost looks like smoke, but it's kind of brownish.PC1: Have I seen anything like this before?DM: Yeah, it reminds you of the dust clouds that armies leave behind them when they're on the move.PC2:  I think we found it.  We go that way.PC3:  I'll try to keep an eye out for scouts.DM:  You travel another half hour, and come to a high ridge overlooking the valley.  You must be a mile away or so at this point.  At the far end, you see a decent size palisade wall with a bunch of tents inside and around the outside.  It's occupied by what can only be described as an army of hobgoblins.  You see a few loose groups training with spears, bows, or hand-to-hand, as well as several more that look to be arriving from a long march, some of which are mounted.  You can make out banners of Iuz flying on the palisade.** The party gets excited thinking they're going to get into a nice little combat **PC1: How many hobgoblins are there?  I use my spyglass and move where I can see what's going on.DM: Ok, you move out to where you can see better.  The hobgoblins appear to be very well organized, unsurprisingly.  The arriving formations are ordered into ranks, and doing some quick math they look to be about 100 hobgoblins.** Players get more excited **PC2: In total?  That's all?DM: No, that's in one formation.  There are four such formations arriving, plus two mounted formations of about 40 or 50 each, you guess.  Behind the formations you can see a long wagon train that has dozens and dozens of wagons in it.** PC1 visibly pales. The excitement begins to falter **DM: In the camp inside the palisade you can see row upon row of tents.  Based on what you see, you think the number of hobgoblins already in the camp at least matches the number arriving.  All told, the valley holds better than 1,000 hobgoblins.  In the distance, you see another column of dust rising that's several miles away.PC2:  <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=":)" /><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=":)" /><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=":)" /><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=":)" />.PC1:  Iuz is on the move.That, of course, is when PC3 and a hobgoblin patrol noticed each other, since the PC1 had basically skylined himself.  They were so excited to have a combat, I figured it would be rude not to oblige them!  The PCs hand to scramble to fight them, and just barely managed to kill the last one as he was riding back to camp to sound an alert.  They were able to bring back information that the "hobgoblin raids" reported from the north were, in fact, Iuz (which, in this campaign, had absorbed eastern Furyondy) trying to get to the Gnarly Forest and the Temple to stop the cult.  The PCs hoofed it back to the relative safety of Verbobonc, and for me it worked out very well, as they returned only a few levels later seeking (of all things) more allies as I ramped the campaign into a more obvious end of the world, only to find that the entire camp and most of the army lay destroyed in the valley with clear signs that earth and fire monoliths had been unleashed against them.  Throughout the entire campaign, they would find remnants of the hobgoblin host, sometimes hostile, but often just tired and trying to survive.</blockquote>

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