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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark" data-source="post: 912894" data-attributes="member: 5">I've rarely ever found a player who wanted to roll up a new character so much that they were purposefully reckless with the one they had just taken the trouble to make.  It used to happen sometimes in 74-76 when we would roll stats in order and had to play whatever the stats dictated, but those were deadly games anyway so it seldom required reckless behavior. <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=";)" />I've never liked the idea of a penalty for dying, to be honest.  Dying is bad enough on its own, IMO, and I would rather that the players take more risks and do things heroically, than to worry that they will fall behind in the game if they charge over to help their buddy at the risk of their own lives.Such a scroll still might find the higher level character offering up his XP for the new items in the future.  Maybe you could ask the players about such a thing before the next session and see how they respond.You might look for creatures that level up and adjust some up and some down where you can.  Other methods to adjust modules easily is to swap out better or lesser weapons, raise or lower hit points so some in an encounter are tougher while others are weaker, and if a whole encounter is weak, throw a couple of potions down the throat of one creature in a group and make him the current leader of the encountered creature group.Sounds like you have most of my suggestions covered already.  I'll keep trying to come up with a few while this thread survives. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />I'm sure at the time it seemed reasonable, and it sounds it now, too.  It's that darned influx when someone dies, and I guess you just have to drop encounter treasures to the floor while the balance comes back. *shrug*The best laid plans, eh?  While you can only go so far to try and give them a chance.  After a while it's going to fall to the dice anyway, and I suppose if worse comes to worse you'll just have to fudge them a bit more if you ever want them to see the highest levels before next year at this time (guessing by the rate of advancement you described).Well, if they're covered while at rest, that's half the battle.  You may have to remind them, even if not explicitedly, by asking what precautions they are taking while camping.  Also, I had a group once that was lax and suckers for ambush.  In an effort to get them to pay more attention to things, I spent some time with them on their marching order.  I asked what their standard marching order was, what it was for wide open spaces, what is was for tight areas, and what it was for when they wished to be on very strong defense.  After that time whenever I asked which marching order they were in, they almost always said it was the very strong defense stance regardless of the circumstance.Start a session by asking "Who's going to die tonight?" <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /></blockquote>

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