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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celtavian" data-source="post: 4447347" data-attributes="member: 5834">I've been increasing the number of minions and/or completely eliminating minions from the games I was running. They were dying too quickly and serving no purpose.My parties are smart because of the way I run D&D (all editions including 4E). They often draw combats into 10 foot wide hallways and hold the fight at a point with two main melees in front and the ranged in back. The Controller has been utterly destroying the minions with AoE before they even have a chance to be effective. Smart parties in 4E can turn supposedly challenging encounters into cakewalks due to the lack of diversification of monster abilities. Some of this is due to poor module design such as putting solos by themselves without realizing that one attack per around with a roughly 50% chance to hit lowered by the defender's combat abilities while 5 or 6 people are beating on you isn't much of a challenge. My party one time held two ghouls with four zombies in the back in a hallway and annhilated the zombies with AoE before they even had a chance to attack. They beat a solo down without using one healing surge.I've had to beef up just about every major encounter in every module I've run just to somewhat challenge my PCs. Even then they are only challenged when they play stupid. But I had to do this in 3E as well as modules are designed for an average player using average tactics. And as the years have shown that is not the case with my players or myself.I find 4E far less challenging than 3E in terms of play. Monsters seem more challenging on paper. I look at them and go "Ooooh, that is tough". Then when it comes to actual play they turn out to be rather weak, which is surprising. Not too long ago I ran a few bugbear stranglers against the party. The bugbear strangler managed to get CA and grab the rogue, but the rogue esacped with their move action the next turn with utter ease. An Acrobatics or Athletics roll is easy for just about everyone but a caster. So you move action to get out and then strike the strangler. Died quick and was a total waste of time.They really lowered the lethality of the game in 4E and instead decided that long battles with high hit point, low damage creatures would be more exciting. Maybe this is what most people wanted, I'm not sure. I find it kind of tedious and boring myself. I had high hopes for 4E. I wish they had done things differently.</blockquote>

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