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<blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5312105" data-attributes="member: 51942">My vote's for &quot;monster is too strong for its XP budget&quot; as the biggest issue.&nbsp; A DM should give hints when a combat is particularly unusual, and most will automatically - but that means you've gotta know how hard an encounter is in the first place; here, the incubi really were too hard and the drop essentially added a dangerous trap.With other monsters, the rest of the issues probably would not have mattered.As a DM, beyond double-checking monster stats to recognize when a situation is hopeless, you can ask yourself how the PC's should have recognized the hopeless situation.&nbsp; In this case, the PC's should have been aware of the extreme danger of the drop not so much due to the damage, but because of the splitting of the group.&nbsp; So, with 20/20 hindsight, a few insight checks to hint at the danger of splitting up and a monster knowledge check revealing that the incubi are more dangerous than they seem might have been enough to encourage the party not to fight this fight.It's a little lame to tell the players the effective XP budget of an encounter, but it's entirely reasonable to implicitly convey that information.&nbsp; Both from a game-play perspective and from a believability perspective it just doesn't work to have heroes fighting unwinnable battles.&nbsp; Unless you're fishing for some tragedy angle, of course...</blockquote>

[QUOTE="eamon, post: 5312105, member: 51942"] My vote's for "monster is too strong for its XP budget" as the biggest issue. A DM should give hints when a combat is particularly unusual, and most will automatically - but that means you've gotta know how hard an encounter is in the first place; here, the incubi really were too hard and the drop essentially added a dangerous trap. With other monsters, the rest of the issues probably would not have mattered. As a DM, beyond double-checking monster stats to recognize when a situation is hopeless, you can ask yourself how the PC's should have recognized the hopeless situation. In this case, the PC's should have been aware of the extreme danger of the drop not so much due to the damage, but because of the splitting of the group. So, with 20/20 hindsight, a few insight checks to hint at the danger of splitting up and a monster knowledge check revealing that the incubi are more dangerous than they seem might have been enough to encourage the party not to fight this fight. It's a little lame to tell the players the effective XP budget of an encounter, but it's entirely reasonable to implicitly convey that information. Both from a game-play perspective and from a believability perspective it just doesn't work to have heroes fighting unwinnable battles. Unless you're fishing for some tragedy angle, of course... [/QUOTE]

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