D&D General Should difficulty increase to match optimization

[TheSword]

A spin off from the optimization poll. The question is simple, when players optimize should difficulty be dialed up to match?

 

[TheSword]

I recently played in an interesting campaign premise. We were all experienced players with a decent (not silly) level of optimization. (No coffee-locks, or pun pun) Our DM started a Bloodborne like campaign with bosses fairly matched to CR at the start. As we defeated bosses he increased the CR ahead of the PCs by one.

So first boss matched level to CR. Second boss was level +1 third boss was level +2 etc. we got up to about seven or eight bosses as I recall. It was difficult but not impossible forwards the end.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

The (main) reason I like optimization is because it lets players feel more epic. They get to face off powerful enemies at lower levels if they're optimized. They can survive more difficult encounters, traps, and overcome tougher challenges earlier on. And when they finally reach Tier 4, they feel like gods and can face off against actual gods and have a fighting chance (Tiamat or Vecna, for example).

Just because a party is optimized doesn't mean that they should steamroll over every "challenge" they come across. Sure, let them and their strength shine often enough that they feel that their hard-earned optimization was worth it, but also let them feel challenged when it counts. Otherwise, in my experience, combat becomes a boring slog of "when are we finally going to defeat this enemy?" instead of a true battle to the death.

So, I would choose a 4th option "Turn the power-dial when it matters, and leave it at base when it doesn't." If you want to make an impression to your optimized players, turn up the dial. If not, let them breeze through it. (My optimized Icewind Dale party that was only level 6 survived a near-deadly encounter with an Ancient White Dragon that they accidentally pissed off. No, they didn't kill it, because that would be ridiculous, but they did manage to not die through a mixture of ingenuity and optimized mechanics. They felt awesome and worn out after that, which was my goal.)

 

[TheSword]

The reason I like optimization is because it lets players feel more epic. They get to face off powerful enemies at lower levels if they're optimized. They can survive more difficult encounters, traps, and overcome tougher challenges earlier on. And when they finally reach Tier 4, they feel like gods and can face off against actual gods and have a fighting chance (Tiamat or Vecna, for example).

Just because a party is optimized doesn't mean that they should steamroll over every "challenge" they come across. Sure, let them and their strength shine often enough that they feel that their hard-earned optimization was worth it, but also let them feel challenged when it counts. Otherwise, in my experience, combat becomes a boring slog of "when are we finally going to defeat this enemy?" instead of a true battle to the death.

So, I would choose a 4th option "Turn the power-dial when it matters, and leave it at base when it doesn't." If you want to make an impression to your optimized players, turn up the dial. If not, let them breeze through it. (My optimized Icewind Dale party that was only level 6 survived a near-deadly encounter with an Ancient White Dragon that they accidentally pissed off. No, they didn't kill it, because that would be ridiculous, but they did manage to not die through a mixture of ingenuity and optimized mechanics. They felt awesome and worn out after that, which was my goal.)

To be fair by difficulty, I’m talking about overall campaign difficulty. I would expect there to be a mix of easy, average and challenging encounters in every campaign. It’s just a question of where to balance these. For our group a CR appropriate challenge would be easy and we would steam roller those.

 

[delericho]

Yes.

I also take the view that XP awards for completing encounters should be divorced from the by-the-book difficulty of the encounter, so that increasing the difficulty to account for optimization doesn't also lead to an ever-increasing speed up in levelling.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

To be fair by difficulty, I’m talking about overall campaign difficulty. I would expect there to be a mix of easy, average and challenging encounters in every campaign. It’s just a question of where. For our group a CR appropriate challenge would be easy and we would steam roller those.

Okay. In that case, then, yes, I would say that it's fair to make the overall campaign more difficult. When you can handle more, you take on harder tasks. Maybe tone it back for some of the non-optimized characters (though they may have more fun at a different table) if necessary, but in my experience, if a character is optimized in the right way, they can keep the weaker characters alive.

 

[NaturalZero]

I used to try to make every encounter match the party's power level and give them a challenge each time. I eventually realized that it's tiring as a player to always scrape by every fight by the skin of your teeth. Now that I've got some grey, I try to mix up my encounters - give them some that they dominate so that they feel epic and give them some that they barely survive.

 

[Ogre Mage]

In my experience an increase in campaign difficulty is what happens when a significant number of the party members are optimized. That's fine. The problem is that it can turn into an arms race where the PCs are optimizing more and more and the DM keeps jacking up the difficulty. Eventually the campaign breaks under the strain. That is why I optimize -- but only to a point. Over the decades I have developed a pretty good sense of when it is time to stop optimizing.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

As a DM I try to play by the book, no matter the difficulty, so I voted no.
I don't want DnD to be an arms race.
I rather try to mix up hard and easy encounters and let players decide how to approach an encounter or if they want to approach it at all.

I can however appreciate what you described in the OP. Having a dynamic difficulty is a way to play and have fun.

II think this might be something to talk about in session zero.

 

[NaturalZero]

I didn't respond to the poll, btw, because my answer wasn't an option. I'd say "sometimes you should raise the challenges to meet optimization and other times you should let them dominate encounters."