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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Guest 6801718" data-source="post: 6974820"><p>If you're looking at things in a vacuum, then sure feats like GWM, SS and CE easily outclass monsters.  In a straight up, by the numbers comparison the PCs always come out ahead.  I do agree that some of the feats need to be toned down a bit.  Though really, there are a variety of monster abilities, spells, terrain and tactics that should always be considered in encounters.  What's required for a ranged attack, for example?  You need your range weapon and ammo, to be in range, and line of sight.  Things like walls that are illusions, invisibility, cover, range penalties and enemies who are capable of firing back all mess with ranged PCs.  Or just outnumber the PCs more.  Tired of that GWM fighter slaughtering monsters left and right?  Have enemies with evasion abilities who slip in and out of melee range.  Have enemy archers pepper him with arrows from atop a wall or inside a tower or even up a tree.  A GWM fighter who doesn't have anything he can reach does 0 damage.  A range PC who can't see their target does 0 damage.  It makes things more interesting, mixes up encounters and keeps PCs on their toes.  You can also throw things into an encounter that PCs can't fight, like traps or terrain obstacles.  Plus you have monsters with resistances.  Put those solidly built PCs in a locked room fighting oozes while the ceiling presses down on them in an elaborate trap.  Now you have PCs trying to stop the trap and open the door plus a monster with some nasty resistances.  The ooze doesn't care if the ceiling presses into the floor.  They'll just slip through the cracks and be fine.  The PCs will get crushed to death though, if they don't stop that ceiling.  Even if that rogue is crazy good at spotting and disarming traps, it still takes time and takes them out of the fight.  That puts pressure on any build to survive no matter how good.  My point being there is a lot more that goes into challenging a party than just propping monster up in front of them.  I have a pretty good group of optimizers myself.  They can build some nasty characters.  I've made them afraid on many occasions and taken them down a few times.  I did it by using all the encounter tools the game offers you.  I never re-wrote a monster, stat block, trap or anything.  There are more tools in the DM toolbox besides monsters.  Some monsters do have low ACs, which makes things like GWM more dangerous.  Though there are situations where monsters have a high AC and that GWM is a lot less likely to take that -5 penalty if it means they'll miss more and do no damage.  The core of the game that the rules are built around is that players kill monsters to get rewards (either xp or treasure).  So naturally PCs are good at killing stuff.  It's what every class in the game is built around.  You can keep it easy and let the group slaughter their way through a game if you like.  You can also make it more difficult by adding things into an encounter that are hindrances to the group.  Neither one is wrong.  It's just what you want from a game.  Even if you run a tougher game, there is nothing wrong with the party being able to trash an encounter here and there.  Sometimes a solid victory is a good reward when the group has gone through tough fights.  This still doesn't strike me as a rules problem or a build problem or a range vs melee problem.  It strikes me as an encounter problem, which is a lot easier to fix than changing feats or monster stats.</p></blockquote><p></p>

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