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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 4803225" data-attributes="member: 75065">I have almost made my characters back down from entering a temple by the mere description of the guardian that stood in their path and the location he was situated. I had prepared hours of fun in that temple and would have been gutted if I had intimidated them out of a fight.  It was a huge ancient Naga, that with slippery words offered them the chance to turn tail and leave the temple with his blessing. They (lvl 3 party) felt outmatched. Luckily one of the charcters asked him a question about whether he had seen the person they were looking for and discovered his lie with a very high Insight vs Bluff check which put them on the track that he was hiding something else. A successful religion test (Immortal creature) revealed he was sick and slowly dying, a very tough fight but killable.  If I hadn't given them that information (although they had to work for it a bit) they were seriously considering simply leaving cos it seemed an impossible fight.  After a hard-core fight at lower levels of the temple, during which 4 of the 7 pc's were unconscious and dying at one stage (including both leaders), everyone has agreed retreat is a viable option. As far as throwing an 'unbeatable' encounter at them... maybe they should only be in that situation after making some blunder... this could kick start an awesome Pirate Cat-like skill challenge in order to escape. On his Campaign thread his PC's entered into some kind of strange plane of existence and came face to face with some kind of Semi-God that chased them down to prevent them fleeing...It's worth checking out the thread (don't know how to post links to threads, sorry). How about after a tough fight, the deaths of the creatures that the PC's just killed trigger the release of the truly formidable creature their presence was holding at bay. You could give little clues that something is going on after each guardian is killed (walls trembling, things begging to take life, lights going on, things bursting into flames, the last guardian moaning unintelligibly: ttthhlooonnnt!  Rummmmmm flloooorrr yooouuullliiffffeess! yet it is compelled to relentlessly fight to the death...) The fleeing could be a dangerous and exciting challenge.  Failure: the beginning of a new and exciting adventure with the odds stacked against them. Or how about a Solo Monster way above their level that guards something but can't leave the room. The challenge is getting in, getting whatever and getting out on the other side. Just randomly chucking something at them to 'teach them' they aren't as tough as they think they are seems... pointless. As a plot hook or a Major Villain they will face again in the future seem like better options. That requires more planning. I liked the idea of an impossible fight with only non-combat solutions. Like a 'stay alive while you resolve the puzzle and disactivate/defeat/banish/desintergrate the menace' type situation. Again a simoultaneous skill challenge during combat seems like an appropriate structure here.</blockquote>

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