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<blockquote data-quote="Doctor Proctor" data-source="post: 5180059" data-attributes="member: 78547"><p>As others have pointed out, those templates were never meant to be applied to Solos. They're for making normal monsters into Elites, and Elites into Solos. By applying a healing template to a Solo with already high HP, you just added a LOT more length to the encounter. In fact, you said so yourself that you knew that going in: "It wasn't meant to illustrate anything other than an encounter that should have increased by slightly more than 50% in duration due to a healing capability".</p><p></p><p>You mentioned nothing about wanting to add excitement or suspense in any way, just duration...which is what you got.</p><p></p><p>If that type of "Oh crap, I thought he was almost dead, but now he's back up!" scenario created such excitement and suspense, then why it something that always comes off as cheap and lazy in movies and video games? You know what I'm talking about...those "final bosses" you have to beat, then beat again in their "second form", and then beat again in their "third form" and such nonsense. No real excitement comes from a neverending encounter, it just becomes a slog.</p><p></p><p>Now, this isn't to say that healing can't <em>ever</em> bring excitement. Quite the contrary actually. But it must be tempered by other things. There were examples in the DMG 2 of beneficial terrain that could do things like recharge encounter powers, which would be perfect for a longer fight you wanted an epic feel for. This way, it wouldn't be just At-Will spamming, and players could use some of their favorite powers 2 or 3 times in the fight.</p><p></p><p>Healing can also be a great way to keep really scary, but individually weak, monsters in a fight during a normal encounter. For example, healing enemy Artillery so that they can keep pounding the PC's with long range fire <em>could</em> add some excitement to the encounter. Healing on a Solo with high HP though just, as you yourself said, adds duration and nothing else. And that's boring.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Nothing about your encounter was really following any of the DMG or DMG2 guidelines for how to made dynamic encounters. You never even mentioned any terrain at all, so I would assume that it played very little role in the fight.</p><p></p><p>So while yes, it might be somewhat easy to mess up and create accidental grind, I think that if you follow the DMG's guidelines for creating encounters you'll usually end up with relatively well balanced and dynamic encounters. Barring a few outliers of course...namely, those that have a LOT of Soldiers. But for the most part, they give some pretty solid advice that you can work with and modify.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Doctor Proctor, post: 5180059, member: 78547"] As others have pointed out, those templates were never meant to be applied to Solos. They're for making normal monsters into Elites, and Elites into Solos. By applying a healing template to a Solo with already high HP, you just added a LOT more length to the encounter. In fact, you said so yourself that you knew that going in: "It wasn't meant to illustrate anything other than an encounter that should have increased by slightly more than 50% in duration due to a healing capability". You mentioned nothing about wanting to add excitement or suspense in any way, just duration...which is what you got. If that type of "Oh crap, I thought he was almost dead, but now he's back up!" scenario created such excitement and suspense, then why it something that always comes off as cheap and lazy in movies and video games? You know what I'm talking about...those "final bosses" you have to beat, then beat again in their "second form", and then beat again in their "third form" and such nonsense. No real excitement comes from a neverending encounter, it just becomes a slog. Now, this isn't to say that healing can't [I]ever[/I] bring excitement. Quite the contrary actually. But it must be tempered by other things. There were examples in the DMG 2 of beneficial terrain that could do things like recharge encounter powers, which would be perfect for a longer fight you wanted an epic feel for. This way, it wouldn't be just At-Will spamming, and players could use some of their favorite powers 2 or 3 times in the fight. Healing can also be a great way to keep really scary, but individually weak, monsters in a fight during a normal encounter. For example, healing enemy Artillery so that they can keep pounding the PC's with long range fire [I]could[/I] add some excitement to the encounter. Healing on a Solo with high HP though just, as you yourself said, adds duration and nothing else. And that's boring. Nothing about your encounter was really following any of the DMG or DMG2 guidelines for how to made dynamic encounters. You never even mentioned any terrain at all, so I would assume that it played very little role in the fight. So while yes, it might be somewhat easy to mess up and create accidental grind, I think that if you follow the DMG's guidelines for creating encounters you'll usually end up with relatively well balanced and dynamic encounters. Barring a few outliers of course...namely, those that have a LOT of Soldiers. But for the most part, they give some pretty solid advice that you can work with and modify. [/QUOTE]
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