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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5345596" data-attributes="member: 2011">[sblock=OOC]Feall isn't a squishy and neither is River. They both have decent ACs. Sheeva and Pok are squishy.The last encounter was a tough one where PCs were getting Dazed and knocked Prone. That's +2 to hit for the NPCs. And there were a few rounds there where renau1g was rolling well in IC and the PCs weren't.On top of that, River rarely attacks. Compared to a more normal party, that means that our dpr is about 15% less per round. That means that every encounter is 15% longer (~1 round) and the PCs take 15% more damage.And finally, River, Pok, and Sheeva rarely get into combat. That means that 2 of the PCs are taking about 75+% of the NPC attacks. This is the real culprit. Regardless of squishiness, River, Pok, and Sheeva have to spend at least a few more rounds than they typically would up close every encounter and spread out the healing surge usage, otherwise the vast majority of attacks are (like in this last encounter) going to be against Feall and Val.When Kortauhk was part of the group, 3 PCs were taking the majority of the damage: Feall, Val, and Kortauhk. Now that this is down to 2 PCs taking the majority of the damage, the other 3 PCs have to step up and pull a few extra attacks each encounter off of the front 2 PCs and onto the back 3 PCs. This will result in more overall PC damage, but it will also more equally distribute damage over the party and the chances of the front 2 PCs going down decreases. River only has so many Encounter healing options and typically, we do not want him using Daily healing options too often.The other aspect here is resources. The party probably has between items and powers, 18 Daily powers per day. We could easily afford to use 2 or 3 of them every single encounter. Each player should probably use a Daily power every other encounter on average. We also have 5 action points at the start of the day. We could easily afford to use 2 action points every single encounter as well. We need to make sure that we are not hoarding our resources to the overall detriment of the group. We have to take foes down quickly and since River rarely attacks, that means that the other 4 PCs have to not only focus fire their attacks against individual NPCs, we also have to do this with action points and Daily powers early in each encounter (not necessarily round one, but once we are sure that a given foe is not a minion). We have to change the action economy into an advantage for the PCs and we need to do it quickly each encounter. Otherwise, we'll run into more encounters where Val and Faell get whaled on heavily.Another issue we have is that the vast majority of our encounters have been out in the open where the NPCs can react to protected PCs. We need to start controlling terrain somehow if we are going to be fighting in larger areas where Defender powers and zones can easily be avoided. The only way we have to do this is with PC positioning. For example, Faell, Val, and River in an arc-like front line and Sheeva and Pok behind them. Not with Sheeva to the NW, Pok to the SE, Faell to the E, Val to the W, and River to the S. We've got to stay closer together and in a controlled fashion, not spread out all over the map if we are going to fight in these wide open terrains.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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