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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Badwe" data-source="post: 4849524" data-attributes="member: 61762">I have a plan for an upcoming encounter for my PCs to face an onslaught of undead.  The monsters will come in waves and, in addition, some of them will break off and pull away villagers.  This made me think of one of the early encounters of keep on the shadowfell, where you fight two waves of kobolds + irontooth.  The encounter is actually level 6 (!!) and was meant to be taken on by level 1 PCs. I was initially concerned that the party would be wiped out, but because there was a 3 round delay, they actually defeated it quite handily.This makes me wonder, just how much effect do things like waves or special objectives have on an encounter's difficulty? More specifically, a wave implies there is some kind of round delay or possibly even distance delay (with a big enough battlefield) that breaks up the encounter without providing a short rest to regain encounter powers.  Special objective might be escort (the monsters focus on attacking an NPC or zone instead of the PCs), capture (the monsters defend a zone or object that the PCs will gain a big advantage in the combat for acquiring), or defense (the PCs have a terrain advantage that the monsters walk into).I can't really quantify just how much of a difference it makes.  I'm more than happy to side with the PCs and give them the full experience points for taking out extra monsters with an advantage, especially if they completed a skill challenge or made a smart decision to do so.  Still, it makes me wonder how i can guage the extent to which they can take on a tougher challenge thanks to an advantage.  It would be a shame if i concocted an encounter so tough that even a massive tactical advantage couldn't prevent a party wipe, but it would be an amazing event if the PCs actually overcame an obviously tough encounter thanks to smart play (or the illusion of it thanks to the DM) and were rewarded extra as well.So, what are your thoughts?</blockquote>

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