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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tiornys" data-source="post: 5560185" data-attributes="member: 17633">Of course it isn't.  In fact, it's not really accurate for a 3rd level party, and it sure isn't accurate for a 7th level party.  The point isn't to model play at a given level.  It's to establish a metric for determining the ratio of baseline PC damage to monster HP.  The decrease in that ratio is, in fact, a necessary and desirable part of the system; it's what makes it possible to have encounter and daily powers that are significantly better than at-will powers without making combat ridiculously easy. No, that's not what I'm saying at all.  What I'm saying is that higher level groups need the increased power level from encounter and daily powers in order to compensate for the increase in the ratio of enemy HP to baseline PC damage.  In some cases, that power boost comes in the form of attack bonuses, which can be viewed as damage multipliers, but the power boost can also take the form of directly increased damage through a variety of mechanisms, stronger control effects that prevent or hobble the added attacks a monster makes when it has a longer lifespan, and/or stronger defensive effects that reduce the impact of those added attacks.Now, it's not practical to directly measure the increased power from encounter and daily powers to say whether or not it's equalizing the HP/damage ratio disparity.  It is possible to observe that the average combat length (assuming PC victory) will primarily be determined by three factors:  the ratio of baseline damage on hit to monster HP, the percentage of attacks that hit, and the added power level from non-baseline powers.  And therefore, it's possible to get useful information out of our model by carefully choosing assumptions.If, to take a non-arbitrarily chosen and highly relevant example, we want an idea of the upper bounds on combat length from the PC side (to be compared with PC ability to handle incoming monster damage without dying), we would figure our baseline PC damage based on minimum expected combat optimization: 16 starting attack stat boosted every level, "correct" enhancement bonus for the level, a martial weapon or non-superior implement, and average encounter and daily power level.  And, if we were picking that example to prove a point, we might make somewhat unrealistic assumptions on the power level of encounter and daily powers, deliberately erring high on that assumption.So, let's assume that the average encounter power is 3x as strong as an at-will power (which is actually pushing the upper limit on encounter powers, as demonstrated by the scarcity of triple-attacking powers*), and further assume that a daily power is 5x as strong as an at-will.At first level, assuming a Warhammer vs. AC, our PC averages 8.5 damage with a 55% hit rate.  He needs to chew through 30 HP.  That takes him 3.53 hits, which will take 6.42 attacks to achieve.  His one encounter power counts as 2 extra attacks (three times the power, three total attacks, two extra), so he'll need about 4.42 rounds to kill an enemy.  Since standard combat assumes one enemy per PC, we can say that an average combat with unoptimized PC's will take 4.42 rounds at this level (ignoring action points and daily powers for the moment).At third level, our PC should have a +1 weapon, and consequently has gained 2 points to his attack rate which equals the 2 points added to monster defenses.  He now does 9.5 damage and has a second encounter power.  He needs to chew through 46 HP.  That takes him 4.84 hits, or 8.8 rounds.  Each encounter power is 2 added attacks, so the overall expected combat length is 4.8 rounds (again ignoring action points and dailies).At 21st level, generously giving the PC a +5 weapon and stat boosting ED, our PC has gained 4 enhancement, 9 from level, and 4 from stat to his attack.  The monster has gained +18 to his defenses.  Our PC averages 23 damage, has 4 encounter powers, and enough daily powers that we'll assume he uses one.  He's chewing through 190 HP, which takes 8.26 hits at a 50% hit rate, or 16.52 attacks.  Factoring in his 8 extra attacks from encounters and 4 from his daily, that leaves 4.52 rounds of combat.  Which seems great!  Except we just made a whole host of assumptions that favored this particular comparison and barely held even.So now let's look at 20th level.  At 20th, we'll go ahead and keep the +5 weapon.  We lose 2 attack bonus from the epic destiny and the 21st level stat bump, while the monster loses 1 defense.  We lose a whopping 7.5 damage.  So now we're chewing through 182 HP with 15.5 average damage and a 45% hit rate.  That's 11.74 hits and 26.09 attacks, less 12 = 14.09 (!) expected rounds of combat.  Of course, this is in some ways a worst case just as the 21st level comparison was a best case.So let's look at 28th level.  From the 21, we've gained 1 from enhancement, 4 from half level, and 1 from stat.  The monster has gained 7 to his defense.  Damage is 25, monster HP is 246.  We're looking at 9.84 hits, 21.87 attacks, or 9.87 rounds, twice as long as the low level combats.  edit: oh, and keep in mind that I ignored daily powers in heroic (should be about 1/5th of a daily per combat at low levels), so things are even worse here than indicated by the model, including the comments in the next paragraph.Keep in mind that this is with an overgenerous estimate on encounter and daily power level, which has more impact at higher levels because those levels have higher dependence on encounter and daily powers (admittedly, I'm ignoring PC synergy and cooperation at all levels, but then I'm also ignoring monster control effects and the fact that those get stronger at higher levels).  Therefore, we can conclude that a practical example of the situation is likely to be worse than this model.  That is, for a group that does do the minimum combat optimization recommended by the PHB, but nothing more, combats will become more than twice as long as the PCs reach high paragon and epic tier.*note: keep in mind that a 3[W]+stat attack is not three times as powerful as a 1[W]+stat attack.  Stat+enhancement starts out equal to slightly less than [W], and is sitting at about 2-2.5x[W] by epic tier.  Therefore, to make a single attack hit as hard as three baseline attacks, you're looking at 4-5[W] in heroic and 8[W] in epic, neither of which occurs on the encounter level with anything like regularity.  more edit: since baseline in epic is up to 2[W], you're actually looking at 11[W] to be three times as powerful in epic.  Which simply does not happen in terms of pure damage on a single attack (because it would be far to swingy when factoring crits in).</blockquote>

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