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<blockquote data-quote="KidSnide" data-source="post: 5581197" data-attributes="member: 54710">Slavish devotion to the 4e encounter guidelines for level appropriate encounters and skill challenges may also be part of the problem with WotC's 4e modules.In his article about converting &quot;The Lich-Queen’s Beloved&quot;, Rodney Thompson discusses how breaking from the 4e DMG advice generated a more exciting game.&nbsp; Specifically, he avoided re-balancing the encounters to the 4e encounter guidelines or providing easy (i.e. skill check/challenge) ways around obstacles.&nbsp; That forced his players to be creative and cautions instead of assuming that each obstacle would be a level appropriate challenge.I think the DMG guidelines are very helpful, because GMs need to know how to create a fun and level-appropriate challenge.&nbsp; However, I have no reason to believe that &quot;mostly level-appropriate&quot; is the best way to design a module.&nbsp; Maybe 35% easy, 50% level-appropriate and 15% extremely dangerous (but with ways to mitigate or bypass) is better?&nbsp; A mixture of imbalanced challenges lets the players feel like powerful heroes exploring a legitimately dangerous environment instead of like magical office workers churning through a sequence of well managed projects.-KS</blockquote>

[QUOTE="KidSnide, post: 5581197, member: 54710"] Slavish devotion to the 4e encounter guidelines for level appropriate encounters and skill challenges may also be part of the problem with WotC's 4e modules. In his article about converting "The Lich-Queen’s Beloved", Rodney Thompson discusses how breaking from the 4e DMG advice generated a more exciting game. Specifically, he avoided re-balancing the encounters to the 4e encounter guidelines or providing easy (i.e. skill check/challenge) ways around obstacles. That forced his players to be creative and cautions instead of assuming that each obstacle would be a level appropriate challenge. I think the DMG guidelines are very helpful, because GMs need to know how to create a fun and level-appropriate challenge. However, I have no reason to believe that "mostly level-appropriate" is the best way to design a module. Maybe 35% easy, 50% level-appropriate and 15% extremely dangerous (but with ways to mitigate or bypass) is better? A mixture of imbalanced challenges lets the players feel like powerful heroes exploring a legitimately dangerous environment instead of like magical office workers churning through a sequence of well managed projects. -KS [/QUOTE]

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