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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cap'n Kobold" data-source="post: 7956524" data-attributes="member: 6802951">Hmm. A 5th level full caster can heal around 81 HP of damage each Long rest in general. That sounds like a lot, but bear in mind that is assuming that they're burning all their spells on healing. (Which is generally not the optimal use of all spell slots.) Spread out among the 6-8 encounters that a party should be facing, that's not much compared to the likely damage the party should be taking. They only get one or two spells per encounter, and the rest of the time they're down to cantrips or weapon attacks. There is a balance to be struck between "My character is an expert at everything that I am, even if I dumped their Int and Wis" and "Roll on skills for everything." You can't expect a player to be able to talk you through every step of finding a trap even if their character has Expertise in Investigation. A reasonable middle ground is to remind the players that they tell you what their characters do, and you tell them if they need a roll to resolve it. Get them to start giving you at least the approach that their character is taking, but don't abuse it with gotchas or pixel-bitching. Have successful checks give clues or information rather than the complete solution to a problem.You wouldn't hand the player an iron bar and insist they show that their character can make that Strength check, so requiring them to demonstrate the ability to make an Int check rather than their character is also a little unfair. However most problems take more than just an ability check to resolve. The baseline game and CRs assume a 4 person party of fairly casual players, no optional rules and no to minimal magic items fighting mixed encounters of multiple creatures over a 6-8 encounter "day" with two short rests. If you have more people, use feats, your players optimise, or you have more magic items, this will bounce the CRs involved higher.If you have few encounters per day, this lets the party "nova" to beat much higher CRs than they could if that encounter was their 5th or 6th tat day and they had already used resources.If you have the party fight a single creature, even a legendary one or with lair actions, the sheer action economy involved is massively in the party's favour. Almost always use minions or some other requirement to split the party's attention.</blockquote>

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