Tough quests...

[Drakill Tannan]

Yes, one thing is making an enounter of about the same level of your party with a position with advantage and a good combination of enemies, another one is throwing a level 10 fire giant on a level 5 parrty.

[petey512]

I dislike extremely difficult quests, for whatever reason. Probably because I don't enjoy RPing fighters. Occasionally I'll find a way to make a fighter interesting, and it turns out the only way he or she'll be successful is if they don't use the weapons that make them interesting or if they happen upon a treasure hoard of various buffing potions.

I especially dislike quests that require underwater travel. Drowing to death ticks me off, and so I avoid watery quests a lot. Mostly since dying underwater practically gurantees death at respawn.

[AKMatt]

Perhaps on the voyage quest, there would be somewhere along the chain to set a spawn point, so the group could come back later.

[Pup]

Please let one of these be a voyage quest.  There is so much opportunity for high seas adventure.

It would be sweet if it was like the Odyssey, but with each island you arrive at being another optional QA.  Somewhere in the chain could be really nice islands where you just get to rest and stuff, but most of them are horrible, deadly affairs.

That is the best idea in the history of the world.

[Sandstorm]

Or, alternatively, just have a quest where you sail to a random island, and each island had a different theme. That way the quest would be cooler to go on, because you wouldn't know which island you'd land on.

[johanmaxon]

I like the though quests, during them and DM quests while keeping barely alive, I like it. Also the RP in betwen as it is so hard and so, uh. I like it.

[Egon the Monkey]

Well, speaking from having just beaten the Longest Night, i stand by what I said even more. Epic quests where you're constantly having to face lots of threats are cool (longest night). The odd thing that can kick your ass in a couple of rounds isn't really fun. (shargaas disciples pretty much rule out offensive maging on Wild orcs II). A good tough quest is one where you don't need to run things "THIS way" to survive, as that just leads to metagaming tactics and boredom

However, the tough quests really do need some better payoff in a few cases. I know they have some truly powerful rare drops you can't get anywhere else, but if you can make more profit off Vrazdn or Broodhive then nobody's going to bother with them. Enclave, yeah, that's "epic test of a tough group", but Longest Night? Lizardmen? Never see them done. Both are long, challenging quests that will usually lose you supplies, have a considerable risk of fugueing you, and not

[The Beggar]

At the end of a difficult quest, players need to know that they'll get back the tonloads of consumables they used in getting through it. Otherwise, it means you need to farm easy quests to get them back, which is boring and droll.

[Egon the Monkey]

Well, or that you get something different but worthwile. Armors and things aren't so much of a draw for quests that sap consumables, as there's likely going to be competition for it. Unless you get good payouts on all quests, some will fall out of favour,

Gem Mines for example doesn't give out much healing or standard potions, but does have several unique, powerful consumables that are well worth doing it for.

[Egon the Monkey]

What I didn't mention on the last post is that one of the big upsides to short easier quests is that they allow you to try new tactics. I remember Daz's method of beating a large part of Trogs by having everyone used ranged weapons and cantrips to pick trogs off as they charged. Harpies has always been a favourite of mine as the shortness and number of good chokepoints make it an excellent practice ground to try AoE damage spells out.

Purple Crystal Mine is another quest where I like to try different spell loadouts, trap combinations, devices etc.

That actually gives me the thought of adding a few short, fairly easy quests where the usual tactics just won't work, with that obvious from the outset so you can prepare for it. Enemies with Fire Immunity, so no Flame Weapon. Quests where you know you'll only be facing Neutral foes so PfE is pointless to bring along. Enemies with a known Piercing vulnerability and a high Slashing and Bludgeoning immunity, so a lot of PCs will be fighting with unfamiliar weapons unless they like doing 1-2 damage. Elemental creatures with low HP but that have permanent Elemental Shield and Mestil's Acid Sheath, making ranged combat the only sensible option to kill them (Upgraded versions of the ghostly orbs that cast Death Armor.). In fact, I would love to see the Explosive Zombies from Tomb of Jubal back. The ones that set off a fireball when they were hit, and you had to spot and kill at a distance FAST.

Stuff like that would make knowing what you're facing as important as knowing who you're with so far as spells, weapons etc go, and add more variety to quests.