Is D&D too hard?

[Calthropstu]

I don't follow. Could you please elaborate?

I mean "experience equal to fighting the dungeon" doesn't work when there is no fixed dungeon. In a sandbox world, you often have to make up stuff on the fly. And PCs have a tendency to go onto WIDELY different paths that you never thought of. Flexibility and adaptability are an absolute must.

But if you throw stronger monsters then, under the xp method, you accelerate level progression far faster than if you did "Equal to ecl" encounters. Since, in my experience, "Equal to ecl encounters" generally equates to cakewalk, I tend to pit my PCs against actually challenging monsters that are well above their CR. With no TPKs to date, I seem to have a knack for identifying and making challenging but not party wiping encounters. (No TPKs, but plenty of character deaths)

So, I decide ahead of time when my PCs should be level X based on larger events within my world, rather than "exp should equal this after X many monsters have been killed."

[Bartmanhomer]

If D&D was easy then it will be a very boring game.

[Psychoalpha]

So, I decide ahead of time when my PCs should be level X based on larger events within my world, rather than "exp should equal this after X many monsters have been killed."

This is more or less what we do. Also we play Pathfinder so no spending xp for anything. :p

[Calthropstu]

This is more or less what we do. Also we play Pathfinder so no spending xp for anything. :p

Same. Even when I ran 3.5 I always hand waved the xp cost of crafting. It was a bs mechanic in my opinion. It doesn't even make much sense. How can we have these gigantic magic marts when crafting required xp costs?

Instead, I wrote a very different requirement into my universe. It needs something to bond the magic to the item. One such thing that was in widespread use was elemental souls. This was kept secret from anyone who wasn't a magic crafter. Another possible way is to place a part of a magical or planar creature into the item in question. ie: a feather from an angel's wing, a dragon's claw, etc. Only problem with this use is that it twists the magic towards the alignment of the creature the item came from. A paladin with a sword that was created using a demon claw would feel uneasy every time he picked it up. That sort of thing. I like this a lot better than standard magic item crafting rules.

[Talakeal]

I mean "experience equal to fighting the dungeon" doesn't work when there is no fixed dungeon. In a sandbox world, you often have to make up stuff on the fly. And PCs have a tendency to go onto WIDELY different paths that you never thought of. Flexibility and adaptability are an absolute must.

But if you throw stronger monsters then, under the xp method, you accelerate level progression far faster than if you did "Equal to ecl" encounters. Since, in my experience, "Equal to ecl encounters" generally equates to cakewalk, I tend to pit my PCs against actually challenging monsters that are well above their CR. With no TPKs to date, I seem to have a knack for identifying and making challenging but not party wiping encounters. (No TPKs, but plenty of character deaths)

So, I decide ahead of time when my PCs should be level X based on larger events within my world, rather than "exp should equal this after X many monsters have been killed."

Ok, got you.

Yeah, it isn't really a pure sandbox, more of a freeform hex-crawl. The players were wandering monster hunters, and they got milestone XP for killing one of forty legendary beasts that roamed the wilderness in the region. Half of these monsters were in dungeons, and those that were gave out an XP reward roughly equal to clearing the entire dungeon, even if the players ignored or bypassed the actual fights.

[omegaghost]

In my games most encounters are overpowering at least. But more often than not my players (all of whom are beginners) are enjoying it and are successful at overcoming them (with some DM help here and there on my part, which they usually don't even notice). So I'd say it's just that people you're talking to aren't the people this game is meant for.