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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercule" data-source="post: 4366311" data-attributes="member: 5100">Forked from: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showpost.php?postid=4366089" target="_blank"> 4e Combat Frustrating Instead of Fun? </a>So, I threw this out and then decided I wanted to follow up on the idea.I like the encounter design in 4e.  It really isn't that different than 3.5, when you think about it:  Here's your goal, each critter counts for x.  The major factor is that 4e has a somewhat different baseline: 5 critters for 5 PCs.  Since I just happen to have 5 players, I took note at that and started adjusting my thinking, and it's been making encounter design a bit easier.My group is 5 PCs and a henchman, so 6 party members.  That means I really need to think of them as +1 level.  The party is also 15th level and generally balanced.The 3.5 method of encounter building says to look for an EL 16, prefer a single CR 16 creature.  If you need to, two CR 14 creatures can be substituted.  Bosses can be 18th or 19th, tops.The 4e method says to look for 5 "standard" opponents and substitute more or less powerful instances, as needed.  So, the first question I had to ask was "what CR monster in 3.5 in equivalent to a 'standard' monster in 4e?"  The answer I settled on, for a party of 6 PCs, was (party level -2), or 13.  That's something of a wild guess, but it seems to be holding up.From there, I decided that minions are standard-2, elites are standard+2, and solo are standard+4.  I'm playing with the idea of refining that by fixing the hit dice with standard as listed in the MM, elites at 3/4 of max, and solos as max.  I'm not sure about that last part, yet, and it'll probably be something that gets adjusted with play.I know the math doesn't seem quite right, but it does seem to work.  A single storm giant (CR13), for example, isn't a significant threat to a single 15th level character.  To only use two against a balanced party would be absurd.Anyway, for my group, that means my encounter builds are now based on starting with an assumed 5 critters of CR 13.  Two could be swapped out for a CR 15 critter, or four CR 11 critters could be added in place of one of the originals.Doing all of the above would result in an elite commander, two guards, and four grunts.  By 3.5 standards, that's an EL of 17 or 18, but the over all play seems to be better than that number would suggest.  A standard party of four might necessitate lowering all the CRs by 1.Thoughts?  Like I said, it's not revolutionary, but I am finding it much easier and faster to build interesting encounters.</blockquote>

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