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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jgsugden" data-source="post: 1266185" data-attributes="member: 2629">Some other helpful ideas: 1.) Trim the campaign a bit so that the main storyline gets played out faster. I had to do this in my first 3.0 campaign.2.) Try throwing some weaker foes at the PCs. Some battles should be a breeze. It helps them lower their guard. If a single kobold walks up to them in a swamp and they've faced nothing but tough encounters for the past 8 sessions, they'll expect a trap. If that same kobold walks up to them when they've run into a number of weak encounters mixed amongst the strong ones, they'll be less likely to suspect that he is actually a powerful sorcerer. This is an excellent way to keep experience down.3.) Give them ways to use their experience other than for leveling. Having them all work together (and donate experience together) while making a magic item needed for a quest. I wouldn't overuse this idea, but used once or twice in a campaign, the idea can be a handy way to keep the PCs at a certain level for an extra adventure.4.) Throw longer battles at your PCs. Mix in some foes with less offense and more defense. A single foe with a lot of hit points, a lot of armor, good DR, good resistances, good SR and good saves can drain a lot of party resources, even if it lacks a strong attack. I have giant worms in my game that are really hard to take down, but deal little actual damage unless the ingest you. The players have not figured out that I use them primarily to reduce their resources before an interesting battle in which they are vastly more powerful than their foes.5.) Just give out less experience without telling the players. They'll never know the difference between 100% experience and 75% experience. If they do manage to call you on it, just tell them: "Appearances can be deceiving. Some of the encounters that you faced were not what they appeared." Not only will it cover your subterfuge, it will also make them paranoid that every encounter is actually an illusionist screwing with their heads.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f61b.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":p" title="Stick out tongue    :p"  data-smilie="7"data-shortname=":p" /></blockquote>

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