Last night i DM'd our monthly game with friends. The game

>>55211449
>having friends

>>55211449
I agree with this. The issue is that removing any amount of a player's toolset is frustrating.

Look at video games. Anything where the player can get stunned, frozen, etc, where they can't move or do things tends to be one of the more frustrating aspects of a game. An underwater timed escort mission, for example, is annoying because you remove the ability to go at your own pace.

I've been playing a lot of XCOM 2's newest expansion, War of the Chosen, and how they've made the new Chosen adversaries works well IMO. They empower the villian, but don't take away from your units.

So a lot of the effects can be the same, but it's how it's presented. Being immune to conventional weapons feels extremely different than sending your mundane weapons to an alternate dimension. Being invisible is very different than making a smoke screen.

While mechanically the same, it's less "oh he took that toy away from me" and more "this guy has more toys that we do"

>>55211509

I guess that's right, internalizing the enemy's strengths would be a good way to do it.
It can still be frustrating if you throw everything and the kitchen sink at someone to no effect.

Perhaps gradually inneffective defenses? Invisibility that gets less and less effective the more blood is spattered?
Frost resistance buffs that visibly weaken the more frost damage you pile on.
Describing inneffective attacks as still irritating or distracting the monster, even though mechanically they have no effect.

>>55211598
Yeah, rewarding smart player behavior is better than rewarding stubbon endurance.

Also the ineffective attack as annoying or distracting is good, unless you're going for the "unstoppable juggernaut" vibe, in which case the most it should react is from the impact of the attack.

>>55211449
I find it is better to let players hinder themselves than to have the hindrance thrown at them. Like in your example, were the smokescreen something that the players saw the dragon use but still chose to actively walked into to hunt the dragon they would blame their own arrogance rather than the DM for getting their blind asses kicked around.

>>55211688
They fell back once the smoke rose, it only spreads 10 ft a round, but they dove back in in order to rescue villagers captured for food, as the dragon threated to kill one every round the players hesitated.

In hindsight they werent given much of a choice.

I had honestly expected them to disperse the smoke with spells, or magic items, they did have the means, i doublechecked the sheets before i designed the encounter.

I'm going to start by saying that what you did with the dragon was perfectly fine. Intelligent enemies and battlefield gimmicks (ie. the smoke) make encounters memorable, and allow certain players to use their skils/abilities to shine. Nothing is more boring than a fight where the party and the enemy just sit there and slap eachother until someone falls over.

You said later that you expected a player to clear the smoke with a spell, which is exactly what you want to be doing.... its just a shame that the player forgot their ability to do so. My only recommendation would be to implement more styles of this "counter-play". The smoke obsures their vision, but perhaps there could have been a few fires burning throughout the dragon's layer, which would let them see the dragon's shilouette through the smoke. Smoke is a tough one, though.... there are very few things players can directly do to clear it, spells and enviromental gimmicks aside.

Oh, and to give you an example of what i mean by counter-play, part of an encounter a while ago the party had to fight archers at the end of a long hallway. The fighter could have used his tower shield to create cover, the wizard could have casted windwall, and the rogue had smoke pellets in their inventory. Three players have a solution to the same problem, so in case the fighter forgets why he took the tower shield, the wizard or rogue can fill the gap.

>>55212342
I'll back up the last point this guy stated. Always provide more than one way to do sopve a problem. My friends would forget whatever they have with them, but they're all newbies so I can't really blame them, but I would give them a couple options out of their repertoire and then an option or two in the environment/encounter, but thrat's just me.

>>55211449
The frustrating part I sense is not being able to shine in what their characters should be pros at. Instead you made everyone a clumsy idiot. Your encounter made it like they were playing QWOP and being frustrated instead of being god tier dragon slayers.

So you need to approach encounter building from the opposite angle. Instead of how can you take things away from the characters, how do you use their strenght to build an encounter? Some examples of things that let players shine :

You can sense that the dragon's power is enhanced by this huge statue in the middle of the room that's radiating a magical aura. Fighter needs to break it? Is it unbreakable? Then he needs to carry/pull it to a lava pit another room over, all the while the dragon is fighting the party.

An item can take the dragon down but it's locked in this chest behind the dragon, anytime someone tries to get near the dragon attacks and the character is sent flying 20 feet back. The party will need to distract the dragon while the rogue/thief sneaks by with strong illusion magic covering his ass. Wizard + rogue need to tag team that task for it to work.

>>55216108
Forgot to add that I think it's a really cool and clever encounter that you did. I probably would have had fun having to find ways to overcome all the obstacles you threw at the party and made the players way less effective. But that's definitely not the style of encounter that every player would enjoy.