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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5503816" data-attributes="member: 996">The biggest complaint about 4e has consistently been that it's not 3e.  So, it's not surprising that it is slowly backsliding towards less balanced characters, harder-hitting monsters, and combats that are swingier and over in fewer rounds (if not less time at the table).  Maybe save-or-die effects will even come back at some point.Power inflation (or 'creep') is a fact of life for RPGs, and 4e's power creep has mostly been around offense.  Things like expertise feats boosting attack rolls, and numerous options and combos delivering ever-higher DPR.  Re-setting monster damage higher is one way to equalize that, but it's really just gasoline on the fire.  Giving monsters more hps so they could stick around longer against the ever-meaner PCs would also have worked, but, it wouldn't have made 4e more like 3e.  :shrug:With combats taking fewer rounds, it makes more sense to unload dailies earlier in a fight rather than later, which means going through them faster in the course of a day.  More monster damage may also mean going through surges faster.  So, you get an impulse towards shorter (in encounters) adventuring days.  The bigger monster damage, 'scaring' the party into unloading and resulting in fights ending in fewer rounds may also make the encounters look 'too easy' to the DM, who responds with higher-level monsters that might stick around for a few rounds, which cause the PCs to ratchet-up their alpha strikes and novas...   a sort of campaign 'death spiral' that should be familiar from - you guessed it - 3e.Essentials added some daililess classes, with more powerful at-will options. Such classes will tend to perform better, relative to conventional classes, the longer fights go and the more combats you have per day.  So, there /could/ be some enthusiasm to 'keep going' from anyone playing these classes.   (Though, again, the same was true of 3e, and the preponderance of campaigns tended towards the novas and short days, and the fighters and such were simply overshadowed).  While the addition of daililess classes may reduce the preasure towards the 5 minute work day, another change introduced in Essentials - the elimination of Item Daily limits & extra item dailies by Milestone - pushes in the opposite direction, removing one of the rewards for reaching another milestone.  Anyway, yes, the way 4e has evolved has provided more and more incentives for PCs to return to the 15-min workday.Early on, that was my experience, as well.  We could handle 6+ encounters in a 'day.'  Not every day.  It was grueling, with PCs entering combats with only 1 surge left, but with Action Points and extra Item Daily uses at each milestone, there were incentives to go one more encounter, even when you were pretty badly battered.  But, we had a Warlord and a lot of humans with Action Surge, so Action points were pretty butch, even at Heroic.</blockquote>

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