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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Majoru Oakheart" data-source="post: 4112784" data-attributes="member: 5143">I've never run an encounter outside of the strictly equated CR/EL level.  This is because I want the PCs to win.It really is a difference in playstyles again.  If your goal is to simulate a reality exactly, then you are going to have a point where the PCs do something to piss off someone who is WAY too powerful for them and they are all going to die.  They are going to accidentally wander into that dragon's lair they didn't know was there and end up lunch.If your goal is a story based one then you simply don't write that sort of thing into the story.For instance, if the point of your story is that the PCs will eventually find the Great Seal of Pelor and use it to unite the villages in the surrounding area and then defeat the evil dictator then it would be silly to have a CR 25 dragon guarding the entrance to the temple where the Seal is located.  The PCs will die and the story won't reach its ending.  Not unless you already have a plan for how the PCs will get around the dragon.From a simulationist point of view it makes perfect sense to say "But the people who sealed the temple forever realized no one should ever wield the power of the items they put inside it, so Pelor blessed them with a dragon who made his lair in the entranceway so that no one could ever get inside."  And to have the dragon there when the PCs arrive and kill them.The same idea transfers over the skill challenges.  In the end, you WANT the PCs to pass it so the story can continue.  So you want them to be able to use their best skill to get to the end.  It won't work in every circumstance, but it will work a lot of the time.</blockquote>

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