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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AngryPurpleCyclops" data-source="post: 4714283" data-attributes="member: 82732">Well this was the point of the original thread.  Making it 0/+1/+2 instead of +1/+2/+3 is a matter of personal choice and not a significant change in the system.  There's a fine line to this.  I'm not suggesting a room full of traps, just the bad guys picking an area more suitable for their powers.  A cathedral that allows the ravager to extend the combat vertically is hardly a change in encounter value. I pretty much agreed to this in my first post.  I wasn't trying to make a "fair test" I was trying to suggest epic isn't easy for pc's if the dm is building challenging encounters.  I didn't set out to kill anyone just to leave the party tested.I agree with this also but I made a fire encounter (probably the power resisted most often) it could have just as easily been an thunder or lightning encounter. I agree to a certain extent.  The encounter could have been necrotic damage which has a lot fewer resistances.This happens to every party. The wizard would have gone down anyway if you continued the encounter to the end.  Not like his 30HP second wind was going to stop doresian from putting him down again.  How many healing surges did the party use?  You said all the healing was gone and everyone used a second wind before having them recharged.  I agree partially but that has a lot to do with the number of fire effects and fire resistances.  We have a lot less non fire resistances than fire resistances in our gaming group.Not if he's flying and doresian is slowing people down.  Was the ravager ever hit by melee attacks?He was 65% of the encounter exp wise.  It's expected he'll do the most damage.  He still had 20% of his hit points and I assume the party had expended it's most effective dailies up to this point.  Since the party had no healing left it's pretty likely he could have kept putting ongoing damage on pc's for a few more rounds and he likely would have been able to attack all 5 pc's if he recharged his frenzy power.  If he gets 3-4 slow effects on the party he can extend the combat quite a bit based upon his speed and teleport and once again time was definitely on his side since the party is running out of healing and already used up a significant portion of their dailies.As I've pointed out repeatedly the easy encounters are sort of non factors.  At level 22 I expect a party to be able to handle N+2, N+2, N+3 at a minimum per day and it could be worse.  At level 5 I sort of expect a party to be able to handle about this same amount, and they have far fewer dailies and magic item dailies.  This is a pretty important distinction.  I agree but... if you're making an advanced level PC you're supposed to get an L+1 item, a L item, and an L-1 item and the gold equal to a L-1 item.  This means 5 23's 5 22's and 5 21's plus enough gold for 5 21's.  No I don't consider 11 rounds to be quick but I think with teleport 22 and fly 8 these monsters are particularly hard to catch.  Doresian slowing multiple pc's roughly every 6 rounds also exacerbates the situation.  No archon should ever be flanked by the pc's unless they're piling into a situation to unleash cinder burst.  I am.  That doesn't mean I would move the monsters unintelligently and allow them to be gobbled up.  Since the monsters have powers that recharge, teleporting 20 and then moving 8 more away from the party is a viable tactic for the archons while waiting for the ravager and firelord to recharge.  After the buffeting blast is used up the ravager should be flying out of pc range until it recharges and circling the party looking for a chance to fly in 8 and use the ranged 5 wind devil to lock a pc down.  When the pc's have a character inside the winddevil, doresian uses his power to slow down multiple pc's so that they have trouble trying to move to the trapped pc's aid.  The archons meanwhile try and focus fire on another pc or catch groups with their various encounter powers.  Both tactics are viable.  Keeping it 10's off the ground letting it get to slam without taking any melee attacks seems pretty powerful. It can't be flanked, so it can't take sneak damage unless a second power hits it granting CA first.  I would have had the monsters gang up on the wizard, rogue or cleric maybe two of them.  Both the fighter and the paladin are super vulnerable to the wind devil and the rogue would also be challenged by it.  yes and no.  The encounter could easily hit a gap in the pc's resistances, it doesn't have to be a "fire encounter".  That's a little bit the nature of 4e and a little bit the fault of my encounter.  The limited monster dmg threat obviously cuts down on the "scary" but as the party was out of healing it might have gotten a lot more scary if you continued the game and doresian gets off another frenzy then hits 1-2 more pc's with the ongoing damage.  Level 22 pc's have 4 encounters and 4 dailies each.  Obviously the nature of 4e is such that most pc's are going to rely on encounter powers early in a combat and so level 22's are rearely going to use more than 1 daily prior to round 6 or 7.  As soon as the mage uses a daily with sustain the ravager should have moved in and stunned him.  The fact that this encounter had no aura's was also kind of weak on my part.  Look at the sorrowsworn for instance.  The leader has an aura that dazes.  This crushes a mage who needs to sustain a power or a cleric who would like to heal.   resources used has to be part of the equation.  If you randomly remove 1-2 dailies from each pc and start them with no action points is the encounter more threatening?  In this scenario the pc's started with 100% resources which is rarely the case in dnd and effectively only accounts for the first encounter on a given day.  Epic makes this less of an issue because of the sheer volume of dailies but it's still an issue.  The party was out of healing and still faced with a creature they were struggling to damage.  ongoing 10 adds up.  a single hit and ongoing 10 is roughly the value of a surge.  If we take into account that doresian shouldn't have been an undead in this encounter (gives a giant advantage to the cleric and paladin to have a single undead target in the encounter) doresian might have had a lot more hitpoints.  I wonder how much of his damage was from the paladins radiant mark?Once again this is partly due to my design.  Obviously +2 to hit for all the pc's  is significant.  If you believe it was too easy already why would you now change your mind and agree the +2 is needed? all std encounters are easy, I doubt a first level party would have much trouble going through 4 level N encounters.   seems like pretty solid tactics though I disagree that the attack was only worth 30 or 40 points.  Should probably have averaged 3+ hits for 44-60 dmg and a bunch of slows.  since the teleport is range 12 he should have been able to get away from being surrounded quite frequently.  Better to put the 10 ongoing on the rogue and then teleport out of range of the melee guys than to teleport to the wizard and be surrounded again.  Even giving up an OA is much better than being surrounded so he should have chosen to move almost every round and risk the small chance of being hit by OA.  Since he moves speed 8 he could have prevented the fighter and paladin from EVER using an encounter or daily power against him.  The best they can do is move and charge and therefore rely on 1 weapon attacks with no effects.  Take away the bonus radiant damage the paladin was likely doing and they're almost a non factor. The Wizard and Cleric tried to smack him a few times in the first 10 rounds, but for the most part, they tried more to concentrate on the other four.The other 4 should have been out of range.  Only choosing to attack once doresian had recharged.  This forces the party to either spread out, or circle the wagons.  If they circle the wagons it's only a matter of time before doresian gets a 4-5 hit attack slowing everyone and letting the other critters move in for area attacks and focus fire on one or two pc's.  if they spread out the monsters can teleport to one side of the battle field and isolate part of the party for a round or two. as expected. he's 65% of the encounter.That's awful but at least partly because the player was overwhelmed a tad.me too, but I'm more worried about the time than the challenge.  I think the monsters here did challenge the party I'm just not sure a 4 hr encounter is good for the game. I totally agree.  They still could have lost a pc if it had been played out.  If they use up more dailies that only enhances my perception it was challenging. it would have been plus 2.    the monsters were disadvantaged too, the space is big but not very big for creatures with 20 teleport and fly.  pretty valid point there too.  certainly being knocked below zero is a common expectation in dnd 4e.I definitely feel resources is the most valid metric.  doesn't matter if you don't have anyone go below zero if you use up all your resources on a fight that might be the fight that lines you up for the tpk later in the day.You also had a party with 1.5 healers(paladin being roughly half a healer) and 2 defenders.  It's much more likely the fight goes longer with more healers and defenders.  but tactics, traps and terrain can make the encounter a higher level by your own definition.I totally agree.  There has to be a credible threat.  This has been a lot of peoples point from day one.I don't agree here.  There are a lot of synergies for monsters at high levels as well.  Negatives to hit as well.  The sorrowsworn critters cause -2 to all ranged and melee attacks.  The fire creatures telelporting to other fire creatures makes them brutally mobile.  There are undead with large aura's that give bonus to hit and damge to all other undead in the aura.Things have a lot more hit points and players have a lot of hit points and a lot of healing.  grindy is semi inevitable.  I disagree that a level 4 encounter with a level 6 brute is tpk for 5 first level pc's  (cave bear and 3 gray wolves =  875 exp, level 4 encounter).  It's certainly going to be challenging but hardly imminent TPK.  Irontooth is a level 6 encounter for level 1 pc's.  It's also after a level 1.5 and a level 2 and it's possible to engage the N+5 encounter(outside the expected range) before the party can take a short rest.  Comparing Irontooth to an N+3 encounter is really not even remotely fair.  Him being a level L+2 has nothing to do with the problem.  The problem is the encounter is massively over powered for 5 level 1 pc's even before you subtract the resources used in the first two encounters.  To compare it to the level 22 encounter we would need to add 4 efreets to the monsters.  To be totally fair the party would have to lose some resources first in two previous encounters.  Add a fireblade, a cinderlord and two flame stryders.  I think you'll find this is a TPK encounter for virtually any level 22 party.</blockquote>

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