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Message: <blockquote data-quote="mearls" data-source="post: 4084602" data-attributes="member: 697">The dragon was intentionally hamstrung a little - no real room to fly, not much water to swim around in, to give the party some chance of victory and to force the action. Since it was a demo, we didn't want the fight dragging on too long.There was no story reason for the dragon to be there, other than to eat PCs. Again, as a demo the adventure's entire purpose was to give people a chance to check out the game. The encounters served to show off the mechanics, specifically combat and traps.The encounter's difficulty came down to two things: had the party saved its daily attacks, and did the party work together as a team? If the answer to both those was yes, then the party had a half decent chance of victory.IMO, Scalegloom Hall followed a classic D&D progression of difficulty: the first few encounters were easy, but the difficulty scaled up quickly as you reached the demo's climax. If you never reached the dragon, it might've felt easy. If you did reach the dragon but made the earlier fights even easier by using daily abilities, then the final fight was overwhelming. That's not unlike earlier editions, where a wizard or cleric who burns his high level spells early on might regret not saving them later. The game quite intentionally holds on to that strategic level of planning and risk.</blockquote>