An Observation on Encounter Powers and Enemies that Get More Dangerous when Bloodied

[Jeph]

So, conventional wisdom has it that it's a good idea to pen up with your encounter powers. This makes sense: eliminate a couple enemies with focused, massive fire right away, and you'll be taking hits from a smaller number of sources for the rest of the fight. In general, it seems to be a good idea. However, Morrus' actual play report made me notice something...

If you're facing off against a tougher enemy that's highly unlikely to lose half its hit points in one round of assault from the PCs, and that enemy has a power that makes it more dangerous when bloodied (for instance, it deals +5 damage on its attacks or gains access to a nasty area attack or something), you want to hold off on using your encounter powers. The reason being: a standard 4e enemy takes, what, four hits from a basic attack to take out? So a solo monster should take somewhere around 20 hits. Assuming attacks have a 50% hit rate, and encounter powers do about double the damage of at will powers, and you have five PCs attacking...

If everyone opens up with encounter powers, that's 5 hits. Two more rounds of attacking with at-wills is another 5 hits, and the monster is bloodied. Four more rounds of at-wills finishes it off. So that's three rounds facing the unbloodied baddie, and four rounds facing the scary bloodied one.

If you spend four rounds using at-wills until the enemy is bloodied, then use your encounters, then mop up with at-wills, that's four rounds facing the unbloodied enemy and three facing the scary bloodied enemy.

One fewer rounds of scariness!

Thoughts on other situations where the power use pattern that a group falls into might need to be adjusted? Using a bunch of different sorts of encounters, some where it's best to open up with limited use powers, some where you should space them out, and some where you should save them for the finishing blow, seems like it would add another dimension to a game's strategy and tactics.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Conventional wisdom is neither.

Frankly, I think it depends too much on the specific encounter design and foes, as well as particular character powers, to say this is a general rule. There should be points in combat where the use of an encounter or daily power (or action point) is more effective given the terrain, enemy, and friendly capabilities than at other points in the encounter. If "open with encounter on round 1, follow with at-will" works as a general rule, I 'd say your DM needs to get more creative with encounter design.

There will likely be synergies of power design that may make having character 1 use his encounter/daily on one round with character 2 using her encounter/daily on the following round more effective than if all characters use theirs on the first round. We'll need to see a bigger menu of powers to be certain.

Edit: For example ... the wizard casts sleep. Is it better for the fighter to attack immediately, or wait until the monster succumbs to increase the chances that his 3[W]-damage attack will hit?

 

[AllisterH]

Well, there was the discussion about putting minions in with normal monsters....

For example, depending on your DM, you won't be able to tell the difference between a minion (a.k.a ca be taken down with an at-will attack) and an elite (slap a template on the kobold skirmisher) much less a normal monster.

Doesn't make sense IMO to open with an encounter power. Depending on how your DM likes throwing battles at you (sometimes the XP battle will be less or more), I would've though opening up with an at-will power is the best bet.

 

[Mr. Teapot]

The angels we saw had abilities where they had higher defenses as long as they were unhurt (IIRC). If you had an enemy that dropped in defense once bloodied you might want to save the big guns until you were more certain that they would hit. Lots of Dailies seem to involve Miss effects, but encounter powers don't have that as much. So you wouldn't want to waste them if you could improve your chance of hitting later in the battle.

(Similarly, if you think you could get a better chance of hitting later on, through flanking or an ability that gives you a bonus when you are bloodied or other things like that.)

 

[Rechan]

It just depends on the monster.

Some just get an extra attack immediately upon being bloodied (The human berzerker, the dragon, boneshard skelly). Others are long-term (Gnolls doing more damage when bloodied).

I don't see a whole lot of monsters that get incredibly more potent when bloodied; looking at the Monsters and More, more monsters seem dangerous when the PCs become bloodied, not the monster itself.

But, I don't think you should open up with your encounter powers in round one. For multiple reasons: the monster gets more powerful, a second wave arrives, you don't know if those guys are minions, someone might go down, etc etc. Encounter Powers are best served When it Counts.