How tough are your adventures?

[The Ghost]

I try to run my games as a three and prefer that as a player as well. The reality is they probably run anywhere from a two to four.

I am surprised to hear so many people having trouble with Paizo's adventures. We are currently in the middle of Savage Tides and thus far I have found it to not be all that challenging.

 

[El Mahdi]

To be 100% honest, I'd have to say 2. But I definately try to create the illusion that it's anywhere from 3 to 5. Some games I pull this off better than others. I've found that as long as the players think or feel that their characters are in danger, the enjoyment is high. However, behind the screen, it's all smoke and mirrors.

 

[blargney the second]

1d4.
-blarg

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I voted a 4 but I thought about a 5.

I'm DMing an Age of Worms campaign for 7 and so have ramped it up here and there (augmentations using the entire WotC catalogue). Character death has been fairly common but as of yet, the group have been too powerful to get a TPK on them. We are playing rules as written (no fruity house rules) where we are using the Core and Complete ruleset (with occasional benefits from the Spell Compendium here and there for the casters for good play). Only three characters out of the seven are the same as started the campaign back in Diamond Lake.

So many times, half the party should have been slaughtered but there's always someone who pulls out a supremely lucky roll that turns the tide that saves a whole heap of characters. All in all, the players are pretty hyped about it, knowing that poor play will see their character's killed. They love the challenge.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[CleverNickName]

My game difficulty level varies by character level.

I will always cut the 1st level noobs some slack, and make sure that their adventures end in rainbows and flowers...rolling up new characters is an ordeal, and I don't want to squish anyone's fun (especially when they have been looking forward to trying out a new character concept.)

More experienced characters (say, around 7th or 8th level) don't catch as many breaks from me...I stop fudging rolls, and while I might pull a hat-trick every now and then to keep the characters alive, they are going to answer for their own actions somehow.

By the time the PCs are world-beating badasses (17th level and up), they are fighting monsters that could destroy not just the characters, but the entire galaxy. Nearly every battle will involve careful planning, special weapons, and complicated puzzles, and they can count on putting those newly-learned true resurrection spells to good use.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

I am surprised to hear so many people having trouble with Paizo's adventures. We are currently in the middle of Savage Tides and thus far I have found it to not be all that challenging.

From what I gather from the Paizo boards, Savage Tide has not been quite as deadly as the previous two adventure paths. On a side note, what some may consider "trouble" others consider "exciting/challenging/fun".

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[EricNoah]

I go out of my way to avoid killer adventures. I'd much rather load up on interesting details and especially design encounters where the PCs have multiple choices about how to proceed.

 

[Tinker Gnome]

1

 

[Korgoth]

I said 4, but it may actually be more like a 3.5. I don't fudge the dice (the text for 3 made it sound like a possibility) but I don't usually throw in too many "you must run away from this" encounters.

 

[Runestar]

Fairly varied. Sometimes, encounters are fairly easy (to make the PCs look/feel good, for example, like when they are trying to impress a noble). Other times, they can be fairly challenging (sometimes intentional, others accidentally).

I do like to tinker around with the monsters' stats and play around with their feats/eq (or optimize them, so to speak) to add some variability to combat, which can result in them being more challenging that one would normally expect. Though the PCs tend to be fairly optimized themselves, so I guess it all balances out.

Usually hovers around 3, but sometimes gravitates towards 2, and may well become 4 when it comes to showdowns with end bosses (for that climatic bitter fight to the finish).