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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5680443" data-attributes="member: 2011">Interesting. Our PCs never die anymore, even though the DM often throws N+1 through N+3 encounters at us.The trick is to have well designed PCs that work as a team, but also to take advantage of striker capability.We have 8 players, 5 or 6 who generally show up at a game. 5 are strikers. 1 is a hybrid leader/leader. 1 is a hybrid defender/controller. 1 is a defender. I play the hybrid ardent/bard, hand out quite a few temporary hit points, and don't heal anyone until they go unconscious (part of his personality which helps force the other players to not do stupid things because I might not be close enough to help them). The strikers tend to mow through foes and the DM has a tough time really challenging us shy of making the monsters so high level that it's not feasible to expect us to win.You should, however, assume that the NPCs know that a PC has healed his allies though. It might not be a Leader. It might be a Paladin or a PC that has a single Daily heal through multiclassing. Monsters should take out bloodied PCs first, leaders second, strikers or controllers third (targeting strikers or controllers first, but switching to a leader if one is found), and defenders last. Controllers and strikers tend to be pretty even, depending on how well the controllers are controlling. If the controllers are sucking, then definitely switch to the strikers. Obviously, if a defender has a foe (or foes) marked, it makes sense for those foes to concentrate on the defender most of the time if it means that the defender is going to do a lot of damage if they do not.And, I agree with you that it's generally bad form to target unconscious PCs. But, I would do so for a re-occurring villain that has seen the PCs in action multiple times. He should learn that killing the PCs is the only way to win, and it also makes the players come to hate the re-occuring villain even more. <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=";)" />But I've found that if you let players fail, they tend to get better at playing the game tactically than if you make poor decisions by the NPCs. If you are going to do that, you should drop the difficulty of the encounters (e.g. from N+1 to N or N-1) and play the NPCs to the best of their abilities. As the players get better, slowly up the encounter difficulty back up.And, players that succeed using their own abilities and wits appear to enjoy the game more than players who rely on the DM to bail them out via poor NPC target selection. Regardless of whether the DM thinks that he is being clever and hiding the fact that he could run the monsters a lot more ruthlessly, not all players are stupid. Some of them will usually figure that out and that makes the game a bit less enjoyable for some players, even if they never mention it. Other players, on the other hand, might like the fact that the DM protects them, but most people like to succeed on their own.The fact that my ardent/bard refuses to heal anyone until they go unconscious has really upped the game of everyone else at our table. I now often see them using novel ways to use Action Points, or maneuvering their PCs so as to avoid bursts and blasts, etc. By being stingy with healing, I've forced the other players to succeed on their own and it has made our game a lot more enjoyable for everyone.The game has really devolved into striker territory. Groups that figure this out are the ones winning Lair Assault. Every role has its place, but strikers (and by extension, leaders that hand out free attacks to strikers) are the ones that allow the PCs to win quicker, especially now that the monster damage has been upped so that taking foes out quickly is so important. Part of the reason you have a high PC mortality rate is probably because of the increased monster damage from last year. Your players have to adapt, especially to hot DM dice and cold player dice, or they will continue to have a high PC mortality rate.</blockquote>

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