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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5346206" data-attributes="member: 2011">[sblock=OOC]I run a ranged Cleric in a game I am in. He takes a 5 foot step back and does his thing. As long as River doesn't get totally swarmed, he should be ok most of the time. But if Pok, Sheeva, Faell, and River all decide that they want to hang back, especially in these wide open encounters, we will be making it harder for us to succeed, not easier.It just doesn't make sense for Faell and River to often be hanging back that much with the type of ACs that they have. It's detrimental to the party.I also really do not understand why you think that River will go down quickly if he is in the front rank. Val will go down faster if he is the ONLY PC in the front rank than River will go down if River is one of three PCs in the front rank. See the note below for the group positioning that I think puts River in the front rank, but still keeps him off to the side a bit so that he doesn't get over targeted.As for renau1g heavily targeting River, I think he is pulling your leg. If River does a lot of healing early on, yes the NPCs might target him. But, the key to that is to not heal unless River has to. If a PC is hurt but not bloodied, don't reveal River's healing capabilities to the NPCs yet except maybe with Astral Seal.I think you are overreacting to the fact that River went unconsious last encounter. How many times has River gone unconsious in the entire campaign? The reason he went unconscious is that renau1g rolled out of his butt and because Val isn't very sticky. Unconsciousness is a fact of life in hard encounters, especially if the NPCs are rolling well. Implying that it is more important for the healer to not go unconscious is not quite accurate. Every PC contributes and any one of them being out for a round weakens the entire team. The group has healing potions that can get River up and anyone in the group can do a Heal check as well. Yes, River can do it automatically and at range with a minor action, but River going unconscious is not the end of the adventure. If River would have gone done in the middle of the encounter last time instead of the end of the encounter, Sheeva would have gone over and given River a healing potion.PS. I use a rule in the two games I run here that any PC that is stunned or unconscious immediately takes his action at the start of the PC portion of initiative. The reason for the rule is that with PBP, players typically do not stay in init order (especially if using Mal's rules) and so, stunned and unconsciousness have no teeth to them. The NPCs get ripped off due to how we typically run PBP. renau1g has told me that he plans to start using this rule, so just FYI, NOBODY wants to go unconscious.[/sblock][sblock=OOC]Mowgli, this is exactly why I suggested that Val be in the middle. Faell should still do his guerrilla tactics, but he shouldn't do them that far from the party. We need to be able to take advantage of area effect PC buffs and PC zones that cut off a flank and other tactics. The concept of the party being flung out to the four corners of the map won't work with this group. A simple Daze or Immobilize will prevent a PC from going to help another PC. I'm actually envisioning the group to be in a more pentagram-like or diamond-like pattern some significant portion of the time.[code]. . . . . . .. . . V . . .. R . . . F .. . P . S . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . V . . .. R . S . F .. . . P . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . V . . .. S . R . F .. . . P . . .. . . . . . .[/code]Sheeva and Faell are Strikers. They should be near each other so that we can maximize the damage from them on foes. Pok should attack Sheeva's and Faell's targets as well if he is doing a more damaging or soft control power, he should attack River and Val's targets if he is doing a hard control power. Sheeva also has multiple area effect bursts and blasts which means that she should often move forward, blast, and then move back. I think Executioner's Noose is Faell's way of getting his extra +4 damage. Pull a guy into a flank position with Val (or pull a guy totally off of Val) so that the foe is not next to his allies. And if Sheeva doesn't have multiple foes she can fight, she should be Lightning Striking any foe that Faell is targeting.Although River should be in a near front rank position, he will often have to move towards the center in order to get his area burst encounter powers working. But after doing so, he should go back and hold a flank for the rest of the group. It was much better when Korthauk was on one flank, Val was in the middle, Faell was on the other, and River could stay in the middle. But, we don't have that option anymore. Now, River needs to be holding a flank and preventing foes from flanking Val because he's the best one to do so. He's got a good AC and he can heal himself. It's not just about healing the other PCs, River can be very useful just forcing foes to not attack other PCs.Pok should be capable of targeting from wherever. His problem is that with these wide open spaces that prevent his area effect controlling powers from actually being as helpful as they could be. The thing is, if Pok always hides, it means that the vast majority of the damage will be distributed amongst the other 4 PCs. This might not be a bad thing since Pok has the redistribute healing surge ritual which can readjust our surge resources, but if he hides a lot, the rest of us just have to be ready for the fact that we are the four that are going to get whaled on.But, this is a team effort, not an individual one. If four of the five team members try to avoid ever getting attacked, then the last team member is going to not only receive the focus fire of the enemies, but he will also suck through healing surges very quickly. If the last encounter illustrated anything, it showed that trying to set it up so with a two PC front where two PCs get the brunt of the enemy attacks doesn't work. The damage has to be spread out over the entire group more because we are starting to run into tougher encounters where focus fire by the enemies leads to PCs going down.The key to success in 4E is focus fire by the PCs, no focus fire by the NPCs. If most of us hang back and allow the NPCs to focus fire (and 3 of us are actually designed to do that), then one or more PCs will go down which defeats the entire purpose of focus fire. That's why Controllers are so important. If they can delay a few NPCs for a round or two, they lower the amount of focus fire the NPCs can do and give the PCs extra time to focus fire on the NPCs.With my changes for Sheeva for level 6 (along with a retrain of a utility power that she has never ever used), she will be punishing foes a bit for attacking her. So, I have no problem with Sheeva and Faell being on one flank and tag teaming foes on that side to take them down quicker. She can afford to (and with her AC, will) get hit a few times. But we have to spread NPC damage over the PCs and we have to focus PC damage on one or a few NPCs. And that means that while Sheeva and Faell are slowly taking down foes on the one flank, River has to be holding the other flank. Course, that doesn't mean that Sheeva and Faell won't go help River if he gets into trouble. It means that we have a general formation and plan that we stick to and we adjust as necessary.[/sblock]</blockquote>

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