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Message: <blockquote data-quote="marelion" data-source="post: 5948067" data-attributes="member: 6679828">Hi, folks,I`ve been DMing for a group of friends a couple of times now in a Paragon Campaign and quite frankly, the party composition gives me the creeps. The synergies are amazing and they can effictively shut down anything I throw at them. We have a Drow Rogue/Daggermaster (Artful Dodger) who can dish out some serious hurt but is played by a rather unexperienced player. He is the only striker in a party of 5, but he is quite capable. Next we have a Tiefling Ardent/Argent Soul (MC into Runepriest, mainly for Shield of Sacrifice). Nothing too impressive, save for the Ability to lower defenses a couple of times per encounter by spending some Power Points. The player tries to dabble in the territory of an assistant-striker, but despite the fact she could theoretically deliver d12s for damage rols and has a high-crit Weapon she is hardly a threat due to constant misses. She rolls poorly and the +2-proficiency bonus of her War Pick does not help either.We have a Eladrin Psion/Timebender. After some initial problems the player (who normally is the DM) managed to adjust his play style to Psionists and is an effective, but not outstanding controller. He uses Psychic Lock and additionally he spams Mindthrust, Ego Whip and Dishearten. Add in the abilities of our Ardent and you can see where this is going. Still, no complaints from my side. He is a controller and debuffing is his job.Then we have a Brawler Fighter/Avernian Knight, who has a Fortitude Score of 32(!) at Level 12. His close-quarter control is amazing and the player has picked up some encounter powers to knock prone and daze. Here things start to get messy. He has Figter`s Gritt to ignore 90% of all conditions for two entire turns and his grab is nearly unbreakable, even monsters with high strength who are trained in Athletics need to roll ~14+ to break free (assuming Level 14, Strenght 22) and then he gets to trigger his utility powers which allow him to stay close to the target. Not to mention the fact they have to spend a move action, so it`s essientelly at-will action denial. I find it very hard to design interstimg encounters for this type of fighter because the majority of monsters lacks the ability to escape from his grab reliably, save for those who slide or daze at-will. He is very sticky with Toughness, Lightning Reflexes and Plate Armor, so it is hard to bring him down on his knees. In theory, I could ignore his mark quite easily, but the group has a second fighter and the Daggermaster, who is the squishy in the party fights from range. meaning melee monsters or ranged attackers have to move and provoke, which leads to them being grabbed again.If you have thought things could hardly get worse for a DM you`re wrong, because the second fighter is a rather uninspired Sword and Board Fighter/Iron Star Marauder. Reaping Strike allows for another -2 penalty to attack rolls, so Elites or Solos are often down by -4 on their first attack each turn. He can silde 2 squares with OAs which shuts down skirmishers very quickly and the shifty types get grabbed by the Brawler. He is planning to take a feat to increase the mark penalty to -3. -7 on the first attack against anyone who is not the fighter and -4 against a fighter with an AC of 31. Horray <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" /><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" /><img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/erm.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":erm:" title="Erm    :erm:" data-shortname=":erm:" />I`ve tried lots of tactics and failed.The fights were all rather uninspiring so far and it is getting frustrating for me and the players as well.Do you have some advice on monster tactics, terrain or encounter composition to challenge this party in a fun encounter. I`m not out to kill them, YET!!! <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f600.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":D" title="Big grin    :D"  data-smilie="8"data-shortname=":D" /> I only want to show them a good time, mind you. Despite my troubles about keeping them busy they are a fun group to play with!Looking forward to some enlightning answers <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

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