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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Psikus" data-source="post: 5641553" data-attributes="member: 66049">It's true that the tested party would sweat to beat those encounters, and might even fail to do so. But that's a pretty tough encounter sequence. I'm not convinced that the system is intended to present that kind of threat, outside of exceptional cases.[SBLOCK]The DMG describes hard encounters as ranging from lv+1 to lv+3, and recommends using up to one lv+3 encounter per level. lv+4 fights are rarely mentioned, and lv+5 is unheard of, at least in the DM guidelines. There aren't that many Level 35 solos in the game (I count 4, 2 of which are versions of Lolth), though we have a bunch of L34 ones which could be used with support. Also, the DMG is not explicit about the length of an adventuring day, but I have always assumed that you either My point being: that series of fights is fairly above the game's expectations. Yet I'm sure many parties use that kind of fights, particularly at higher levels. Optimized PCs can handle that, and more. But failing to do so should not be held as proof that a party is not performing well. Looking at official adventure modules (Keep on the Shadowfell and onwards), most encounters tend to range between level and level+2, with the final boss (one in ~30 fights) being level +3. This is actually less hard fights than suggested in the DMG, but it gives an indication of what is considered 'normal'. I haven't read E3, but I assume they have the final battle with Orcus as level 34-35 because a) it's the climatic end of the whole campaign, and b) it's not all that terrible if you TPK <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />To sum up, I think some adequate encounter sequences to test a party under average conditions would be: - Long Adventuring day with five encounters: 2x level+0, 2x level+1, 1x level+2- Hard Adventuring day with three encounters: level, level+1, level+3Extremely hard encounters (or series thereof) have their place in tests, but I think that observing more conventional scenarios should go first.[/SBLOCK] On-level encounters are still expected to spend PC resources. Using up to 20% of PC surges per encounter sound pretty reasonable to me, even for a fight of average difficulty. Also, these PCs were very conservative in their use of daily attacks, which was a factor in surge spenditure, but also would help them face tougher encounters at a later point (with both warpriest and mage having 3 remaining dailies each). As for the test results being skewed because the PCs had lots of surges... [SBLOCK]well, I admit THAT hadn't crossed my mind. When having Durable is cited as an unfair advantage, I know I have made a good job de-optimizing my characters. Take away the 2 extra surges, and one of the Con-dependent PCs, and I guess you cut the adventuring day of the party from 5 fights to 4. That's far from ideal, but still far from "no multiattack = TPK", in my book. Never mind that these guys have a lot of things stacked against them, already: no relevant gear, tons of filler feats, default paragon paths, and mediocre epic destinies.[/SBLOCK]Again, I agree that longer, more rigurous tests should be taken - and I'll do so. Then again, I'm afraid that what I consider the game's medium difficulty will still be too easy for your tastes.</blockquote>

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