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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Levitator" data-source="post: 2844898" data-attributes="member: 40099">This is the main reason I don't use CR's.  My players have learned not to bite off more than they can chew, because the world around them is truly random and realistic.  A wealthy baron with bottomless pockets is not going to guard his limitless wealth with a couple of 1st level warriors at the gate.  He would get the best men he could afford, and hire a good military leader to be in charge of his security.  If I were using a pack of Dire Wolves as a random encounter, I might describe them as rooting around, emphasizing that they look hungry.  Since the dire wolves didn't just charge from out of the shadows, my players probably would take the hint that they are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and would probably just shut the gate.  The Dire Wolves would then most likely go off and try to find easier prey.  The Dire Wolves could even be worked in as a running theme in the area, where the players figure out they are being hunted and the wolves just waiting for the right opportunity until they get out of their territory.  Having a pack of Dire Wolves "out there somewhere" but not instantly attacking the party is a great way to add suspense and atmosphere.  The Dire Wolves may follow the group for a while, but would probably rather find easier prey.Just 2 weeks ago I had a 2nd level party encounter a Juvenile Green Dragon.  It was coming down from the hills to grab some livestock for a snack.  What did they do?  They hid!  They watched the thing fly and swoop down and select which sheep to grab and learned a little about the habits and flying ability of dragons.I personally don't like the idea of my players feeling invincible.  It's an uphill battle to build suspense and drama when they aren't afraid of anything.  Of course, it's just as bad on the other extreme.  I don't want them afraid to leave their homes either.  We've adopted some mechanical changes in the game that make combat a little more dicey:+  We use the Opposed Roll Variant so that hits and misses aren't foregone conclusions.+  I use DM Genie and we play diceless, using DM Genie's autoroll feature.  This means that the players don't know their actual HP total at any given moment.  We use a color coding system for relative health: Green=healthy, Yellow=slightly injured, Orange=moderately injured, Red=critcially injured.  We use a VT with an HD projector on an 8' screen, so I've been using Corel to color the digital miniatures.  I've recently switched to RPTools and they have text conditions that you can add to each counter.+  We use the Clobbered Variant.  This can put someone at a quick disadvantage if they are getting ganged up on as being clobbered only allows a Standard Action.  It makes retreating when you are injured more difficult.+  I've developed a Healing Rate for healing potions and prayers.  There's no more back to full HP in a round anymore!  I created this initially to make healing a little more miraculous than other prayers and spells, but it makes combat more tactical too.  There are 5 levels of Healing Rates dependent on the caster or creator of the potion:Level 1  -  Healer Lvl1-4  -  prayers and potions heal at the rate of 1 HP/8 rds.Level 2  -  Healer Lvl5-8  -  prayers and potions heal at the rate of 1 HP/4 rds.Level 3  -  Healer Lvl9-12 -  prayers and potions heal at the rate of 1 HP/2 rds.Level 4  -  Healer Lvl13-16 -  prayers and potions heal at the rate of 1 HP/rd.Level 5  -  Healer Lvl17-20 -  prayers and potions heal at the rate of 2 HP/rd.Healing now takes a few minutes instead of 6 seconds.  It's not long enough to screw a party that needs to heal up before moving on, but it's long enough to take away the healing potion's "video game power up" ability during combat.The group I'm gaming with (some of them for more than 6 years) helped to develop these additions to make the world feel a little more dangerous without feeling overwhelming.  These changes combined with as detailed descriptions as I can create help give the players a pretty clear idea of which encounters are necessary and which aren't.  The interesting side effect is that I thought it might lower the amount of combat in our sessions.  It's actually had the opposite effect, because the group enjoys calculating strategies and focus on being more efficient combatants.  They still avoid confrontations that might kill them, but they aggressively seek out those they think they can win.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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