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Message: <blockquote data-quote="IndyPendant" data-source="post: 2380031" data-attributes="member: 8738">Meh.  If your worry is that they tool back to town every time they're hurt, give them in-game related time limits.  Let me provide an example, from my current Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil campaign.  It requires some background and there *are* spoilers, so read at your own risk.Spoiler:[spoiler]Background: The party cleared out Earth and Air temples, but in the process got the attention of Water.  Now, in my campaign I decided that Water did do the raid on Fire, and failed.  So Water decided to contact the party, kidnap the druid PC's companion, and use it as hostage to force the party to attack Fire.  The party performed a daring TP rescue of their companion, neatly avoiding a *particularly* nasty trap I had set up for them.  *shrug*Time constraint: They then delayed for a few days--maybe as much as five--before actually attacking Water.  Some reasons were IC, some were just...fear of the risk involved.  Anyways, Water in the module is broken into two factions: (most of) the kuo-toans, and the humans/elves/etc.  So, I had the kuo-toan half-demon get disgusted with the Priestess' recent repeated failures and switch sides back to the kuo-toans, who staged a coup, slaughtering all the non-kuo-toans in the Temple.  The party was going to find a much weaker force there, but...never attacked.  So, since I had had one of the Priestess-side people survive (basically a hireling the party has a big hate-on for: ), as the party delayed even longer, he joined Fire in exchange for information and help, and staged a raid on the kuo-toans at the weakened Water, slaughtering them all.Result: The party *finally* scouts Water to find it utterly destroyed.  And, since Water ended up getting most of the loot from Air ('why' would take too long to explain, but was part of the whole holding-companion-hostage thing), that meant that Fire now has most of Water *and* Air's loot as well.  So the party misses the loot and xp they would have gotten by attacking Water, and because Fire has it *all* now, they are even more nervous about attacking Fire.  And are very, very aware of the effects too many further delays might have on the game...: )[/spoiler]Use your imagination.  *Play* the opponent, and work out what is happening as the PCs delay, hesitate, and dawdle.  Then hit them with the consequences.Done properly, it works out a lot better than mere random encounters.--Oh, and random encounters have a serious flaw in them: 1) they either happen many times per day and are boring, or 2) they happen only once or twice at most per day--which allows the casters to power-dump their spells during the encounter, essentially reducing the risk of the battle significantly.  A real pita, that.</blockquote>

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