Game difficulty setting

[Mark Hoover 330]

So, in another thread a poster suggested there's a game design mentality that suggests we, as GM's, just keep piling on. Every fight is hard; any time a PC puts their guard down, they're attacked. Or robbed. Or confronted by a superior foe.

Let's have a talk. Should every fight be a struggle? Should PCs never get a respite?

Personally I follow the Rise of the Runelords design model. By that I mean

RotRL:

after the PCs win a public battle, the folks of Sandpoint see/treat them as heroes.

Now, I don't mean to say that PCs are always "heroes." Lately I've been on a "you have to pick a Good alignment kick" but I don't mind the occasional murderobo campaign. No, what I mean by my spoiler above is that sometimes the PCs get a day off and reminders that they're a bit more powerful than their fellow mortals.

PCs in my worlds can have safe spaces; they rarely have to change their names to Underhill because 9 mega-powerful undead are hunting them relentlessly. Are there TIMES in my games when the stakes are higher? Certainly; the PCs spend a night in the dungeon, are hunting a foe that is hunting them, or are embroiled in a plot of intrigue going all the way up to the duke. But between adventures or beats of the campaign players deserve some time to breathe and think, and a secure place to do this.

As far as making every fight hard; I kind of do this. The players at my table are all veterans of TTRPGs so even the most base Vermin or Ooze uses every aspect of it's surroundings and tactics to try and get an advantage. Sometimes, however, I purposely add a monster or fight that very obviously should be a speed bump rather than an obstacle.

Please discuss the merits of either design style. Do you favor the really hard fights with little to no safe downtime games, or would you rather run/play games with occasional easy fights and secure downtime?

[VoodistMonk]

Encounters definitely have a tendency to snowball... things keep getting piled on, yes. I think it's a byproduct of leveling up. The game doesn't follow a linear path as levels progress.

As a GM, I need to test the party's defenses, their resource management, I need to push them to their limits so I can see what tricks they have acquired that might effortlessly end an encounter that I want to be thematic or interesting. So, yes, this group had another group as backup. Yes, the red dragon does have iron golem archers. Yes, the Leech Swarm does have the Aerial Creature template.

I don't take or break your gear. I don't have Sundering HornBow archers, or Rogues cutting your bowstring, or taking your armor. I don't want or need to play those games. Messing with someone's expensive toy is all but off-limits for me, personally. I can find much more interesting ways to challenge the party.

I think that using the available terrain should be a given. Swarms, oozes, even certain mindless undead... doesn't matter. They should either be actively using the terrain to their advantage, or placed in advantageous terrain for them to mindlessly meander with tactical superiority.

[Mark Hoover 330]

Challenge the players and their characters = good. I fully support and practice this in my own games. Do your players ever get a day off though? Do you ever intentionally throw your players a softball encounter intended for them to breeze through using no resources?

I make a lot of "5 room dungeons." I sometimes pad these with extra encounters with CRs = to APL or APL -1. After the adventure wraps I give days to weeks of downtime where the PCs can walk around with no armor and weapons and feel safe. If I DO include some kind of clandestine meeting or something, unless I foreshadow an actual threat I don't plan on attacking or robbing the PCs when their defenses are down.

That's just me though.

[gnoams]

I think it boils down to why you play/why you enjoy this game. To some, the combat game is the game. Someone whose in it for the game wants the game to always be a challenge. To other players, the game is a device they use to tell interactive stories. For these folk, it should only be difficult at pivotal story moments.

[DeathlessOne]

I generally take the often said 'Adventuring is dangerous and few survive it" statement and extrapolate from there. My job as the GM is to challenge the party, but not at every opportunity. Each fight does not need to be a challenge. It needs to wear them down in one way or the other. Then the challenge happens.

I tend to believe that people are only be who they truly are when things are on the line. Otherwise, they just get really good at pretending. This naturally applies to the characters that we play in these games. I want to build those characters up, to become the heroes that they want to be (or the villains) and see how the cards land when the wind gusts just right.

I also run games in a more realistic manner (except when I don't), where actions have consequences. Some long reaching, others not. The player's really get to decide how 'hard' they want the game to be.

[Scavion]

There are entire systems devoted to downtime(Retraining, Kingdom Building etc) in Pathfinder and there are few published APs that have no downtime between each other.

My personal games, I do not like the idea of only ever fighting ever increasing difficulty of enemies. Sometimes bandits run into the wrong adventurers. It's good to have easy curbstomp battles since I feel like it shows how far the party has come as adventurers or heroes.