Rowan's page

I was wondering if anyone could help me. I'm going to be DMing a party of six or so PCs. I'm glad to enough PCs, but I'm having trouble designing adventures. When they all get to second level they will have a combined level of 12 and an average level of 2. Now a monster with even a CR of 10 would eat them alive, while a monster with a CR of 2 would just lay down and die. I know I can put them up against a bunch of low level monster, but that can get old. So, where is the happy medium? What single CR level can I pit them against and give them a challenge without ending in massive amounts of PC death?

Recently I've been spending alot of time thinking about a mage-knight type character. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about: A character who combines fighting prowess with arcane magic. However, I am un satisfied with a cross class fighter/wizard (or sorcerer). I think there should be more to it. Perhaps not all of the wizard/sorcerer spells should be available to such a class? Perhaps this character should have access to some spells that are not available to wizards and sorcerers? Perhaps something in the special column besides a familiar and bonus feats? Anyhow, I would like it if someone in Dragon thought this idea was worth pondering and wrote an article on this. Perhap it should be a prestige class, rather than a base class? Anyone else think this is a worthwhile idea?