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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tequila Sunrise" data-source="post: 6293540" data-attributes="member: 40398">Once was enough. After that, I started campaigns at 3rd level at the lowest, and advising new players about trap options.Sure, any DM can run a game on zero prep -- just pull stuff out of your nether regions, and roll those dice! The question is: how fun is the result? In my case, improving is not my strong suit, and my experience says that while some DMs are better at 'winging' it than I am, none do it so well that prep isn't preferable. So naturally, I want the game to help the DM out as much as possible. And that's one of the reasons I like 4e so much: it's proven that it's perfectly feasible for the designers and the game to take responsibility for much more of an encounter/adventure/campaign's quality.I recently wrote up two NPCs for a PF one shot I plan to run; I ignored half the chargen rules and invented some of my own to keep things short and sweet. (Giving NPCs 'innate' bonuses to shore up their numbers is actually something I recommend to remedy the 'NPCs are pushovers without a kingdom's worth of magical gear' problem.)Will the results be fun? Well, 4e has taught me a lot about what makes NPCs fun and engaging, but ultimately time will tell.So your solution to the cakewalk is 'Throw tougher stuff at them,' or 'Just have the bad guys surrender'? The first one may work for you, but I've managed to accidentally overwhelm the PCs on several occasions when I did the same. Deciding whether to fudge the dice to save a PC or whether to force a player into another 30-90 minute chargen session because I'm bad at gauging power level is not my idea of a fun decision.Your second solution just sounds lame.I'm seeing a pattern here: I say that I want parity, and you think I want every 10th level character to be exactly equal. I say I want to avoid random cakewalks and TPKs, and you imply that I want totally predictable adventures. I say that I don't like PCs getting killed in their first encounter, and you jump to "TS must not like the possibility of death, ever!"So maybe not immediately jumping to the most extreme implications of what others say would be better for civil discussion, dontcha think?Making tactical mistakes and chargen choices that result in in-game setbacks are good ways to start the game.Dying in your first encounter is a good way to become soured to the hobby forever, or at the very least be forced into another 30-90 minute chargen session. (I've never met a player who didn't want to make their own PC, despite my offers to provide pregens.)</blockquote>

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