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Message: <blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 9614387" data-attributes="member: 3586">It's hard to say with Wizards adventures because we're unaware of the skill level of the playerbase. Yeah, for my players they're really easy - but there are a LOT of more casual players out there. So what we see as very easy, they may see as a lot more challenging.I do think it is hard to dispute that many Wizards adventures don't allow for failure, however. Many encounters are presumed to be defeated on the first try. The situation just changes so much if the characters have to retreat, that the scenario no longer really works. One of my examples of this was in Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus. During the early stages of the adventure, you enter the hideout of a cult. And it does have difficult encounters in it (having a 2nd level party encounter a spellcaster with fireball is just a bit challenging!)So, the party may be forced to retreat. But if they've killed everyone in the hideout except the leaders who are the link to the rest of the adventure, why do the leaders stick around? Cultists are paranoid. They'd change hideouts, especially when damaged badly. (This also happened to one of my contacts in Eve of Ruin with the drow).It's a challenging design problem, in any case. How much space can you allocate to this? Should you just rely on the ingenuity of the DM?But building on this, it's why I say adventure structure is so important. If you're running an exploration scenario with no encounters that have to occur, then putting in over-levelled encounters from time to time is fine. If you're running a story-based scenario, then not so much.Of course, consider that the entire plot of Curse of Strahd revolves around becoming powerful enough to defeat Strahd. That's one adventure where you can ABSOLUTELY end up in areas that are too dangerous for you. Princes of the Apocalypse is much the same. Both are a lot less linear than other titles. Cheers!</blockquote>

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