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Message: <blockquote data-quote="chaotix42" data-source="post: 4743698" data-attributes="member: 40530">From 1st to 13th I can count the amount of grinds on both hands, and those encounters were ones where I pretty much just threw monsters at the PCs without anything else interesting going on. After several rounds the monsters weren't capable of surprising the PCs so things got predictable.However, just because things are predictable doesn't mean they're instantly boring. Some of the best encounters I've ran have been composed of mostly brutes and a few skirmishers on a simple battlefield, like ogres and trolls amongst large tree stumps. With brutes the PCs can rather easily hit them, and since they do good damage they can still be pretty threatening. Plus, when the PCs see a bunch of large minis hit the table they're like "Oh <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" /><img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f631.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":eek:" title="Eek!    :eek:"  data-smilie="9"data-shortname=":eek:" />!"Pretty much the biggest grind factor I've experienced is when the PC's dice go cold. Add in a few soldiers and it only gets worse. For instance the PCs fought some rakshasas and cyclopses last week, and eventually the two defenders were going up against two rakshasa soldiers. They kept missing while the rakshasas kept hitting - they get to roll 2d20 and take the highest for their basic attack, plus mark the target as well as pounce on the target as an immediate reaction if they shift. This kept the defenders in one spot, missing round after round while the rest of the PCs chased down the artillery monsters. If they had called back the rogue & wizard they probably could have finished off the soldiers sooner, but the PCs stuck to their guns and ground it out. In this situation they probably contributed to the grind more than anything else!</blockquote>

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