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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6050822" data-attributes="member: 42582">When I think of combat encounter-building guidelines in 4e, I think of a few interrelated elements:* XP values for monsters;* XP values for encounters;* advice on the use of terrain, role composition etc.On the whole, XP values for monsters are a reasonably reliable guide to their effectiveness, but (as the rules note) if you go too far outside the PCs' level band results may vary from those advertised! Minions are also fairly variable in their actual compared to advertised punch.Encounter XP values are often a good guide for the difficulty of an encounter, but there can certainly be variation. And terrain can make a difference. The <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-pathfinder/330383-underdark-adventure-demons-beholders-elementals-hydra.html" target="_blank">beholder fight</a> that I ran, for instance, was harder for the players than its level would suggest because of the incredibly punishing terrain.For me, what is really the key to 4e's encounter-building guidelines is that they are tightly connected to core features of the system's NPC/monster build rules and its action resolution rules. Mathematical swinginess is low - the surprises that occur aren't generally numerical surprises ("Oh look - we one-shotted the beholder") but plot surprises ("Uh oh, two out of five PCs have fallen 200' to the river below - how are they going to get themselves out of that?").As [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] describes, the game supports large numbers of opponents pretty well - especially once minions, swarms etc are brought into play. It's rare for me to have fewer opponents than PCs in an encounter, though not unheard of (the beholder fight had only 3 opponents for 5 PCs).I also prefer to embrace the "epic" orientation of the system, rather than push against it. So for quicker encounters I tend to use skill challenges or free roleplaying, while for combat it's rare for me to use an encounter below level +1, and most commonly I go for level +2 to level +4.As to whether these are "challenging" - they take a while to resolve, and require the players to deploy their resources cleverly to achieve what they want (including exploitation of terrain, of items, and of page 42). So I'd probably say "yes, they're challenging".Conversely, an encounter of par or lower level is pretty straightforward, and can typically be handled using only encounter and at-will  powers. The only challenge it poses is minimising healing surge depletion (and so an encounter at that level can be challenging if the PCs are very low on hit points and/or surges and/or healing capabilities).</blockquote>

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