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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mustrum_Ridcully" data-source="post: 4641863" data-attributes="member: 710">I remember comments from D&D 4 on this board or CM that mentioned that they have become more "adversarial" towards their players. Not by putting unfair situations against them, but by having their NPCs and monsters use effective tactics and having them target the groups weaknesses. The PCs have a certain robustness to themselves - if 4 Kobold Slingers open fire against the Wizard, there is actually a chance he can survive the first assault and the PCs can try to help their Wizard (healing him, engaging the Kobolds in melee, the Wizard retreating to cover). The way the player characters are designed means that they can survive a lot of punishment. The lack of Save or Die is particularly noteworthy here, I think. A Finger of Death targeted at a Wizard either kills him or doesn't - but there is no time to react for any of his allies if this comes unexpected. If a monster in 4E surprises you with one of its nasty attacks, you can usually try to find a counter-measure or at least "repair" the damage it did. The surprise attack alone was not what will take your down, your inability to find a suitable counter-tactic was. (Well, that or constantly rolling low. Little can protect against that. <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=";)" /> )A lot of the 3E challenge is to be prepared. Build your character in the right way (good saves, AC, most powerful offensive options, cast the right buffs.) If you are no adequately prepared, it is easy to find your weak spot and target it. And it is easy for the DM to see that, and many shy away from exploiting such errors - because the players at game time won't necessarily see their mistake and there is a good chance he will just perceive the DMs behavior as unfair. A lot of the 4E challenge is being able to adapt. If your enemy uses powerful ranged attacks, find a way to neutralize their effectiveness (or the monster itself). If there is a nasty but slow brute, evade him and deal with the Skirmishers. Try to bypass the Soldier to focus on the heavy hitters. Find a way to make it impossible for the Lurker to disappear. If the DM targets your weak spots or merely uses nasty monsters, you look for your way out. If you fail in the end, you might actually see that you should have targeted the enemy archer earlier, or that you shouldn't let the Wizard stay around bloodied for a Lurker to take down. The mistakes are more transparent because they happened during the combat, not hours before.</blockquote>

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