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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Kzach" data-source="post: 5712988" data-attributes="member: 56189">One of the complaints about 4e that I see quite often is that combats are too easy. And yet, whenever I see this complaint from a GM or group, I'm often taken-aback by it because I perceived the combat as being quite difficult.It took me awhile to realise the reason behind this and I believe it has a lot to do with perception and one's understanding of the underlying mechanics of 4e. On the surface, a group can walk away from a combat with little to no difference from before they entered the combat. This gives a false perception that the encounter was easy. Added to that that the more that is used during the encounter, the more impressive that the characters seem to be.Yet the truth of the matter is wholly different. If a party expends all of their encounter powers in a combat, they may have looked impressive and done big damage numbers and pulled off all sorts of whacky effects that made it seem like they 'breezed' through an encounter, but the fact of the matter is that they expended a massive chunk of their total resource pool in doing so, ie. all their encounter powers.So, sure, they walk away from the encounter down a few healing surges and not much else, but that still qualifies as a decent encounter.The way I perceive encounter difficulty is based more on this method of viewing combats. If the party hardly expends any encounter powers and only one or two healing surges across the entire party, then that was an easy encounter. If the party had to expend a few healing surges each and used all or most of their encounter powers, then that was about average. And if they had to expend all their action points, encounter powers, daily powers and item powers and burned through several healing surges each, then that was a near TPK, 'cause if it had gone on much longer, they wouldn't have had any resources at all to draw on.How do you perceive encounter difficulty?</blockquote>

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