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<blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 9049795" data-attributes="member: 6877472">The last campaign I ran, I spent several hours for a week to create 5 encounters for what I presumed would be a &quot;weekend in Hell&quot;; the players were going to what amounted to a suburb of the Iron City of Dis.&nbsp; There were zombified hound archons, devilish weaponsmiths, cultists who had been transformed into infernal golems, I thought it was appropriately epic.I carefully went over the numbers, each encounter was considered deadly by the rules.&nbsp; The only fight that was challenging was one I regret now, because it was unfair; flying invisible archer devils with a large-sized bow that fired arrows that did force damage and could knock the target hit prone.&nbsp; While the players had the ability to deal with this threat in theory, in practice, it required too much action juggling and coordination for the party to realistically deal with the threat.&nbsp; Also, the Fighter died due to RNG while the Cleric was temporarily entombed in a Wall of Ice.They won, and the Fighter was Revivified, but not only did the players not have fun in that encounter, I felt I had gone a bit too overboard.&nbsp; And they still won.&nbsp; The rest of the session was basically a cakewalk, and that's when I stopped and realized that the juice (week of planning) wasn't worth the squeeze (vainly attempting to challenge the party, and only marginally succeeding with foes that literally require magical support to fight).So sure, maybe I can challenge high level players.&nbsp; Maybe I'm just not a good enough DM to do so.&nbsp; I can own up to that.&nbsp; But it really feels like the effort and what I have to do to accomplish that goal, are simply not worth the result.&nbsp; So if there's a next time, when the game approaches high level, I'm just going to have fun adventures and not stress myself over a goal that the game seems (to me, at least) to actively discourage.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="James Gasik, post: 9049795, member: 6877472"] The last campaign I ran, I spent several hours for a week to create 5 encounters for what I presumed would be a "weekend in Hell"; the players were going to what amounted to a suburb of the Iron City of Dis. There were zombified hound archons, devilish weaponsmiths, cultists who had been transformed into infernal golems, I thought it was appropriately epic. I carefully went over the numbers, each encounter was considered deadly by the rules. The only fight that was challenging was one I regret now, because it was unfair; flying invisible archer devils with a large-sized bow that fired arrows that did force damage and could knock the target hit prone. While the players had the ability to deal with this threat in theory, in practice, it required too much action juggling and coordination for the party to realistically deal with the threat. Also, the Fighter died due to RNG while the Cleric was temporarily entombed in a Wall of Ice. They won, and the Fighter was Revivified, but not only did the players not have fun in that encounter, I felt I had gone a bit too overboard. And they still won. The rest of the session was basically a cakewalk, and that's when I stopped and realized that the juice (week of planning) wasn't worth the squeeze (vainly attempting to challenge the party, and only marginally succeeding with foes that literally require magical support to fight). So sure, maybe I can challenge high level players. Maybe I'm just not a good enough DM to do so. I can own up to that. But it really feels like the effort and what I have to do to accomplish that goal, are simply not worth the result. So if there's a next time, when the game approaches high level, I'm just going to have fun adventures and not stress myself over a goal that the game seems (to me, at least) to actively discourage. [/QUOTE]

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