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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 5373845" data-attributes="member: 82106">This is a good point that the DMG's encounter guidelines don't really harp on enough. You can make an encounter that is within the budget but is still going to be really sloggy if you use only a couple overlevel monsters, especially (MM1/2 style) soldiers (and REALLY especially if they are elite). Unfortunately the DMG doesn't really say outright "you are really best off using the encounter templates". They present them, but they don't exactly say they are more than just a possible way to build an encounter. Really they are a pretty good hard guide to what you should do, at least starting out. You certainly can ignore them once you have a bit of experience with encounter design, but I'd advise sticking pretty close and being especially leery of higher level soldiers. The MM3 monsters OTOH all have pretty close to the same base level defenses, so you have less issues with MM3 soldiers being unhittable (and solo and elite monsters no longer have higher defenses either as of DMG2/MM2).As others have said as well, leader buff/debuff SHOULD factor in a good bit. The cleric for instance hitting with Righteous Brand can really up the striker's effectiveness, but they have to know to get into that level of coordination. The striker flanking with the defender for example is another one that they should get in the habit of. Finally of course the optimum use of encounter/daily powers helps a lot too. Dropping Brute Strike on the monster when you have flanking and Righteous Brand both buffing your attack is gold. This is a bit of a thing with 4e, it sort of builds in a bit of an expectation that the players will think tactically to some degree and take good advantage of these kinds of things. Some groups unfortunately never really 'get' those tactics. You can compensate with giving them better items or a bit weaker foes or better tactical advantage so they don't have to chew through the monsters so slowly if they are not going to play tactically, it will be more fun for them, though they aren't the 'best' at combat in the world that really doesn't matter if it's fun.Toss in plenty of terrain powers and such as well. That can also help with poor tactics. If the party can do some clever cool trick that whacks a monster every combat it will speed things up a lot. Plus it is ever so cool for them. Again the DMG doesn't really emphasize that point enough. It gives you the tools but there could be more discussion of how to make sure all the elements are put together well for each encounter.</blockquote>

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