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Message: <blockquote data-quote="NewJeffCT" data-source="post: 1498638" data-attributes="member: 10784">Good question.  If an encounter is too easy, so be it.  Just chalk it up to smart and/or efficient players.  I recall once that we had reached a climactic early point in a long term epic campaign.  We arrived too late at the prison to free one of the good guys and the evil conjurer had just managed to summon a powerful demon.  For 2E PCs that were level 2 and 3, a demon with 75 hit points is an awesome foe that would normally take the whole party working together for several rounds to take it out.  However, our group’s first level paladin charged, rolled a natural ‘20’ and then got a freakishly good roll on our special 2E crit chart and did 72 points of damage in that one blow.  Instead of major encounter, the demon was an annoyance in our way to capture the conjurer.For hard encounters, it can be difficult.  We cannot really do DM fudging in our group because we make all of our combat rolls on the table – DM and players alike.  In that same campaign, we had an encounter with were-creatures and knew right away to retreat because we did not have any silver or magic weapons.If it is a set encounter, I would try to plan ahead of time for a ‘worst case scenario’ situation to get the party out of it – the party tank rolls 3 straight 1s on his d20, so instead of cleaving through a bunch of orcs like normal, he whiffs; the mage’s 7d6 fireball only does 11 points of damage and the ogres due unusually well on their saves against that 11 points; the ‘cannon fodder’ thugs roll 5 straight times with at least an 18 (happened to us a few weeks back, 5 evil town guard 1st level warriors took out our party’s 4th level elven ranger in one round!)  Maybe the orcs that the fighter missed above were being tracked by a gruff old dwarf who had held back in order to judge the intentions of the party?  A passing cleric of a peaceful god ministers to the fallen elf?  The cleric is a pacifist who will not interfere in combat, but will help the fallen.But, if you are in the midst of a long term campaign and the group is attached to their PCs, I think having a “deus ex machina” type of rescue can be in order once per campaign, but only once per campaign.  In the same campaign again, after we defeated the conjurer, a powerful sorceress gifted our group (now 3rd and 4th level) with its first magic items as thanks for saving her.  Unknown to us, one of the items was a little more than we thought.  We had a later tough encounter with a horde of lizardmen.  Our party of 9 PCs, 2 NPCs and about 30 caravan guards was just decimated.  3 PCs were killed outright and 3 or 4 more were downed, but stabilized.  I think all 30 caravan guards died as well.  We won, but it was obviously a Pyrrhic victory.  (Well, my ranger did manage to save the caravan drivers!)Next session, our DM starts us somberly and the 3 guys with dead PCs prepare to roll up new ones.  Lo and behold, the item one of the dead PCs carried was actually a sword out of prophecy that legend held would be carried by an elf that was struck down, only to rise again at the behest of his Goddess to help save the world (or something like that) – basically, we had access to a rare Resurrection spell that allowed our party to be whole again… (and, I think back in 2E, elves could either not be raised or resurrected?)  Obviously cheesy if it happens every few sessions, but once in a year-long campaign was cool, as we were mid way through and attached to our PCs.</blockquote>

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