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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 6642318" data-attributes="member: 2011">The thing about these "tougher than normal encounters" type of encounters are that hey are nothing of the sort.If the 20 bad guys can only get 4 attacks per round against the PCs, then it's not really a 100,000 XP encounter. It's only a 100,000 XP encounter if the 20 bad guys can get 20 attacks per round against the PCs starting in round one.The concept that "my DM throws super tough encounter at me" when in fact, that's not the case is a bit misleading.Most DMs have the occasional "wave of monsters" come at the PCs, but XP should not necessarily equal the total number of monsters. It should be a fraction of that because by definition, only a fraction of the monsters were in on the fight at the very start. That's not to say that there isn't an action economy tipping point where XP should increase (WotC tried to do that, but failed in their implementation IMO), but a wave scenario shouldn't necessarily be full XP.Now, a given player might say "the reason we were able to win is because we created a chokepoint". My response is, "no, the DM arranged the terrain so that you could have a chokepoint and that terrain feature modifies the XP of the encounter, just like other terrain features can". For example, a flying monster encounter where there is a lot of difficult terrain for the PCs but not for the monsters ups the XP of the encounter in my game. If the players actually create their own chokepoint (e.g. wall spells), then it's a legitimately full XP encounter. The PC's resources are the reason for the win (and the chokepoint), not the DM's terrain.</blockquote>

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