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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7908058" data-attributes="member: 29398">Only in the most general of terms, that being my rough guess as to average party level.What specific characters they decide to take in I probably won't know until they get there - they each have several, and cycle them in and out sometimes unpredictably.Again, only in terms of vague party level.  If they decide to take in an all-warrior party they're going to get the same dungeon as if they'd taken in an all-cleric party, or an all-Dwarf party, or a more typical mix.In 3e or maybe 4e I'd buy this, as the power curve is so steep there that misguessing the party's abilities by even a level or two can be catastrophic.  But 1e (a variant of which I run), 2e and 5e are much more forgiving - the power curve is flat enough that missing by a level or two isn't (usually) the end of the world, or the party.And once in a while I'll put something in their way that really is (in theory) well above their pay grade, just to see what they do with it; and often they surprise me and sail through it with little trouble!It's more often the "easy" ones where they come to grief.  And it's mostly due to sheer luck of the dice, which is somewhat reflective of how things might go in reality.The only TPK I've DMed in my life came in large part through bad luck: the party - already weakened by prior encounters - had their main warrior dominated against them on entering a room that held a nasty foe; by the time they'd dealt with their own guy (who, in fairness, was a handful!) they had basically nothing left, and the enemy just rolled up the line.  I couldn't legitimately use morale as an out; the foe had 65 hit points and the party managed to put a collective total of three (3) points of damage into it - they just couldn't roll worth a tinker's damn.  Negotiation was out of the question for a number of reasonsAnd it was on paper a reasonably winnable encounter even for a weakened group (and thoroughly winnable had they been at full pop), as are most fights where a party can in theory gang up on a single foe.  Their bad luck in having their main Fighter turn against them is mostly what did them in.The design flaw in the overall adventure, if there was one, is that the adventure put the PCs on a tiny demiplane and then forced the party to get through a certain set of foes (of which this was one) in order to get out and home; this was a canned module from the 3e/d20 era that I'd converted.  The problem wasn't so much the forcing-through-the-foes, it was the demiplane aspect meaning they had no way to get back to any kind of home base to restock, resupply and recruit.</blockquote>

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