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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5314490" data-attributes="member: 51942">I think out-of-level-bounds challenges really enhance the game.  In particular, low-level trivial challenges, and here's why:If you're playing a long campaign arc, then in a sense you're playing against a treadmill: no matter how great your team is, the DM just picks appropriate challenges, and somehow the big-bad sends lackeys that are a little to weak at first, and never quite realizes what he's up against.  That's tactically fun (so most combat challenges should be like that), but it's not particuarly engaging, rewarding, or believable.Some of the best moments I remember in past campaigns are little recurring challenges - not too frequently - and the obvious sense of progress they convey.  E.g. the first orc scout group of the oncoming clans are a near-death experience (or even require a retreat).  The next time you encounter them, you know what to watch out for, and it goes a little better.  A few sessions later, they're a challenge, but nothing too dangerous - the real danger is when the scout group includes others you don't recognize.  And then, after you've defeated the clans' mastermind (you know, that illithid that had eaten the chiefs' brains) several levels later, on your way out of orcish territory, you encounter another orc scout group just like the first, and you just steamroller them.  That encounter is way too low level by now, and any other scout groups the DM just handwaves - but having one is fun.  And of course, it can help the pretense that the in-game world is not tailored to the PC's - a kind of reminder that even though we only usually play the encounters that matter, there are others that aren't worth the bother, but do happen.You can tweak this set-up according to the scenario too; so if e.g. the opponents are supposedly organized in game, the recurring encounters can be made nastier with specific tactics and traps by the monsters that are custom made to disrupt the PC's usual style.  If they're not; you can do the opposite, have the opponents use tactics that are easy to disrupt if you know what they're trying to do - and let the PC's figure it out.So, occasionally throwing the odd-ball encounter can be a tool to tell the tale of the PC's meteoric rise and it can be a tool to help believability.  It's not boring so long as you do so sparingly and, for over-level encounters, beware of insufficient information leading to TPK's; the PC's do need to know when to run. Of course, it's only useful if you're using the level-inappropriate encounter to get a message across.</blockquote>

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