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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kalendraf" data-source="post: 912843" data-attributes="member: 3433">It seems that there should always be some kind of penalty for dying, and at this level the monetary cost of a raise dead is far from being a penalty.  Otherwise, without having some type of experience loss, it seems like it encourages reckless behavior by the weaker characters.For the most part, the crafted items have been for the characters themselves.  They have only made a few items for other party members.I try to do this, but it's not always easy.  I tend to run a lot of pre-made adventures since I don't have time to always create my own material.  I notice that many of these published adventures don't throw very diverse groups at the party in any particular encounter, but they do tend to use a diverse amount of stuff over the entire adventure.  In general, I don't edit these encounters very much, usually only adding or subtracting a level or so, or adding or dropping a creature to keep the EL balanced for the party.  This is definitely an area for improvement in my own DM'ing, as well as an area I'd like to see the publishers improve on as well.I actually have a lot of monsters escape in this campaign.  Once a baddie gets to under 50% life, there's a chance they'll flee, and this chance increases as the life total drops.  Intelligent foes (which are the ones with magic) are those most concerned with self-preservation.  The party has gotten better at not letting monsters escape, but I still have managed to have several fly/dig/swim/teleport away before dying.I actually hand out a lot of potions/scrolls/wands and other charged items.  Many of the "problem" items have been purchased or crafted.  I use the standard gold-piece limit for cities regarding what items can be easily found.  Once the party got teleport spells, they hopped off the the largest metropolis they knew of and bought up a bunch of stuff.  And the whole party spent 2 months on hold for the wizard, sorcerer and cleric to craft a bunch of items.I know that as DM, I can control these things to a greater degree than I have.  I could rule that certain items still aren't available for sale in the big city.  And I could come up with some kind of emergency that interrupts their item crafting.  However, they had suffered thru a huge number of back-to-back adventures and it made sense for them to have earned a few months of vacation.I actually do this when the opportunity presents itself.  I tend to go after the tougher characters with the tougher beasts, and try to let the weaker ones find ways to pick on the weaker characters.  Often, the party pulls out something to break things up (unexpected moves, summoned creatures, spells) in a way that causes the monsters to have to adjust and switch targets.They actually have one for their campsite.  A magical box of alarm that triggers if a foe gets too close.  However, they seem to only remember to set it up about 20% of the time when they camp.  This item is of no help when they are moving, so stumbling into an ambush is still a problem for them.  Giving them an item to prevent ambushes seems too powerful, as I still want them to get ambushed sometimes.I believe that is one of the problems.  Even when I've managed to strike fear into their hearts, it seems forgotten in the next session.  At least it seems they are starting to dread Hell somewhat. Hopefully that will lead to more cautionary behavior as the adventure proceeds.</blockquote>

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