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Message: <blockquote data-quote="BSF" data-source="post: 2103403" data-attributes="member: 13098">I suppose you could look at it like that, but in most cases they aren't.  No more so than it would be cheating to use a packaged module, or monsters out of a book really.  But a lot of it falls back to intent.  As a DM it is difficult for me to outthink the 7 players at the table.  With all the odds stacked in my favor (because I know the PCs and I know the story and I can make up almost anything) I have trouble staying ahead of the players.  All I really want to do is make a fun, exciting game.  IF I am stumped, or I can't create a challenge that will be challenging, then I have the option of stopping the game, letting it be boring, or asking for help.  Imagine your reaction to the following if you are a player."You know guys, I just can't figure out anything that is challenging anymore.  I think the campaign is done.  Let's play some munchkin and next week we start off at 1st level."Or"Yep, you just fell down that pit into a room filled with 200 kobolds and overlapping anti-magic fields.  I bought a couple of penny rolls just to represent them.  I figure some of them will roll 20's each round.  Lets start with initiative.  You guys roll and setup on the mat while I roll for each kobold."Or you might end up with a cool encounter that you pull out by the skin of your teeth and have a new gaming story to tell.On the flip side of things, you might design a cool encounter and want to run it by other DMs to be sure it isn't too tough.  Killing PCs is easy if you get too exuberant.  Consider the follow fictional post."I have a group of 15th level PCs.  It's a low magic game with the fighter possessing the sole magic weapon (+2 long sword).  The Sorceror prefers lightning based spells.  I thought a Nalfeshnee and 2 Babau demons hiding in a cave would be a good challenge before the PC's end up at the castle where they are trying to save the princess."In this case, the CR of the creatures makes the EL seem correct, but a low-magic game with a single magic weapon and a blaster sorceror that favors attacks the demons are immune to might not be the best challenge.  The PCs won't easily bypass the DR and the EL should probably be scaled higher.  This fictional DM might have missed the significance of creatures with DR in a low-magic game.  Would he be cheating to ask for help?  Now, a DM asking for advice on how to achieve a TPK is being a little unreasonable.  I mean, we all know that half-fiendish paragon Tarrasques of Legend is the best route for that.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

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