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<blockquote data-quote="DaveDash" data-source="post: 6640335" data-attributes="member: 6786202">The biggest difference really I've noticed is what happens before the fight, not during. Terrain and preparedness seem to have the biggest influences on a battle, since battles are over quite quickly. I had my group assault a Drow outpost and then flee for a rest. I decided the Drow would barricade the entrance and fortify their positions using bits of furniture from their dwellings - they have no issue with living spartan.&nbsp; Being able to shoot from behind full cover, reducing the players ability to close with them and engage, and giving them a bonus on saving throws against AoE effects due to cover turned a &quot;Medium&quot; encounter into something more like &quot;Deadly&quot; in terms of resource consumption. That's just one example. Basically things like terrain and preparedness has more influence on the difficultly of an encounter IMO that tactics once the battle is joined, although good tactics do help. The other big factor are numbers of creatures. Even numbers of low level things also have a big impact on fights in this edition. 8 CR2 creatures with 40hp each totals 320 worth of hit points to burn through, which will consume a lot of party resources. And even low level creatures can and will hurt high level creatures. Numbers can slow down encounters a lot though so I recommend pre-rolling a bunch of d20, especially for larger fights where the players have DM controlled allies.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="DaveDash, post: 6640335, member: 6786202"] The biggest difference really I've noticed is what happens before the fight, not during. Terrain and preparedness seem to have the biggest influences on a battle, since battles are over quite quickly. I had my group assault a Drow outpost and then flee for a rest. I decided the Drow would barricade the entrance and fortify their positions using bits of furniture from their dwellings - they have no issue with living spartan. Being able to shoot from behind full cover, reducing the players ability to close with them and engage, and giving them a bonus on saving throws against AoE effects due to cover turned a "Medium" encounter into something more like "Deadly" in terms of resource consumption. That's just one example. Basically things like terrain and preparedness has more influence on the difficultly of an encounter IMO that tactics once the battle is joined, although good tactics do help. The other big factor are numbers of creatures. Even numbers of low level things also have a big impact on fights in this edition. 8 CR2 creatures with 40hp each totals 320 worth of hit points to burn through, which will consume a lot of party resources. And even low level creatures can and will hurt high level creatures. Numbers can slow down encounters a lot though so I recommend pre-rolling a bunch of d20, especially for larger fights where the players have DM controlled allies. [/QUOTE]

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