Chaining Encounters
So just had a rather flat session where some of the players were upset about how it turned out and thought I'd see what people think.
The setup:
The group was entering a town that was being held by an enemy faction. There was a small group of enemies holding out in the tavern and a couple of other groups patrolling around some distance away but within earshot.
What happened:
The rogue tried to sneak and eavesdrop on the tavern group, critically failed, and the group was alerted but had not actually seen him, with the commander telling two to go investigate. The rogue snuck away. But another member of the group engaged the enemies.
I said that after a couple of rounds i'd make checks to see if the patrolling groups noticed the combat around the inn. Then the players started getting really loud with big flashy spells (fireball etc) so the patrols joined in, turning a moderate encounter into an extreme one.
Outcome:
Players had a really rough time. At the 9th level enemies have so many hit points and the group is very dps light so it turned into a slog. One of the players complained it was my fault, as it was clearly designed as 3 separate encounters, and I had instead combined them. Whereas I felt that yes, while it did make it more difficult, it was the players who had combined them. They could have approached it differently and had a very different outcome. That it would take some pretty heavy suspension of disbelief to have the patrols not notice fireballs exploding and people transforming into elementals, etc.
Just wondering how other GMs handle realism vs. keeping things balanced. I certainly didn't purposely combine them just to make it more difficult.