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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Saeviomagy" data-source="post: 7096707" data-attributes="member: 5890">Ways to telegraph an area that is too high level:1. Start the dungeon(s) with something that can be escaped. Hopefully your players get the hint that they should run when one of them is one-shot to unconsciousness. 5e is fairly merciful when it comes to letting those people get back up and run off too: unless your PCs are willfully avoiding healing word for some reason, escaping is fairly easy. Even without it, you can let someone pick up the fallen and leg it. Good monsters for this are:Monsters that are just plain slow - anything with a movement of 20ft is trivial to run away from, even if it is inclined to give chase. Make SURE that your players KNOW it's slow, or they'll assume that like some 80% of the MM, it can outrun them and they're stuck fighting for their life.Monsters that don't want to or cannot leave their assigned area - this is pretty standard for dungeons. Monsters that are bigger than the doorway are a good start, monsters that just want to be left alone, undead or constructs with "guard this area" as their instructions, monsters that are somehow tethered.Monsters that have some agenda other than "kill the characters". The players walk into a fresh dungeon and the first thing that happens is something one-shots one of them, then says "I'll let you live if...". Or "you are not fated to be here". Or "you are too weak for my purposes". Or "knock them out and enslave them". Or even "om nom nom nom nom" - character gone (or for the clever party maybe they sacrifice a horse or something similar), but everyone else gets out while the creature feasts.2. Add some NPCs to the mix: redshirts or even named NPCs can be useful as polish mine detectors. You can do it live: "OMG, that creature just one-shotted Durvan the incredibly tough and dangerous!" or ex post facto "OMG, this is the blade of Durvan the incredibly tough and dangerous, lying here next to this burnt skeleton! He didn't even have time to draw it!"3. Traps. Traps don't chase you, and typically PCs can recover from them. A long hallway filled with obvious traps should be able to deter players even if the first trap can't instant-kill a PC (ie - does enough damage to take them below 0, but not enough to take them to -hitpoints). At higher levels, death is a bit of a revolving door unless the entire party carks it: you can 'discourage' a party with access to revivify by flat-out slaughtering a party member.4. Like certain video games, hard puzzles that require specific resources to pass. Collapsed passageways that require something major to clear them (like high level spells or large quantities of black powder etc). Areas filled with molten lava that needs to be cooled before you can walk across/near it. Doors with no keys, or keys from somewhere else. Riddles to open the way.5. Throw them in the grinder: persistent players may make it past all of these tricks. Let them. They're choosing to tackle those higher level threats, and failure needs to be an option.</blockquote>

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