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<blockquote data-quote="RangerWickett" data-source="post: 1011028" data-attributes="member: 63">I once had a crash course on all the things you can do wrong in a high level adventure.&nbsp; The problem was, it was the ending to a long campaign, and my ineptitude rather ruined it.First, be flexible.&nbsp; If the PCs want to summon a dozen water elementals to capsize an attacking warfleet, don't panic and have a kneejerk reaction to say that they can't do it.&nbsp; Sure, you want the invasion to take place so your PCs can't rely on their home base, but you need to accept that they won't just run away without a little fight.&nbsp; Realize that if the defenders have high-level spellcasters to summon elementals, the attacking army probably has a few too.&nbsp; Also, consider their plan and decide how logical it is.&nbsp; The fleet's out in a large harbor, destroying local ships before they make their landing.&nbsp; The ships aren't all clustered together, so movement restrictions alone will prevent any given elemental from capsizing more than one or two enemy ships.&nbsp; Plus, unless the PCs want to teleport or fly out to fight the ships up close, their elementals won't reach it at all before the duration ends.Second, don't screw with the players.&nbsp; I had a friend who tried to support my decisions by saying that whatever the GM says is okay, because of rule zero.&nbsp; So now, our group uses &quot;to zero&quot; as a verb that means to screw over or mess with people.&nbsp; Toward the end of my adventure, I got rushed for time and didn't properly plan a dungeon they were exploring, so to try to make it more difficult, I made it an antimagic area.&nbsp; The whole thing.&nbsp; Except for the magic traps.&nbsp; So yeah, the players got miffed.If I could do it again, I know things would be much better.&nbsp; For one thing, I wouldn't try to run a game on the evening of the preshowing of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="RangerWickett, post: 1011028, member: 63"] I once had a crash course on all the things you can do wrong in a high level adventure. The problem was, it was the ending to a long campaign, and my ineptitude rather ruined it. First, be flexible. If the PCs want to summon a dozen water elementals to capsize an attacking warfleet, don't panic and have a kneejerk reaction to say that they can't do it. Sure, you want the invasion to take place so your PCs can't rely on their home base, but you need to accept that they won't just run away without a little fight. Realize that if the defenders have high-level spellcasters to summon elementals, the attacking army probably has a few too. Also, consider their plan and decide how logical it is. The fleet's out in a large harbor, destroying local ships before they make their landing. The ships aren't all clustered together, so movement restrictions alone will prevent any given elemental from capsizing more than one or two enemy ships. Plus, unless the PCs want to teleport or fly out to fight the ships up close, their elementals won't reach it at all before the duration ends. Second, don't screw with the players. I had a friend who tried to support my decisions by saying that whatever the GM says is okay, because of rule zero. So now, our group uses "to zero" as a verb that means to screw over or mess with people. Toward the end of my adventure, I got rushed for time and didn't properly plan a dungeon they were exploring, so to try to make it more difficult, I made it an antimagic area. The whole thing. Except for the magic traps. So yeah, the players got miffed. If I could do it again, I know things would be much better. For one thing, I wouldn't try to run a game on the evening of the preshowing of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. [/QUOTE]

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