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<blockquote data-quote="Cerebral Paladin" data-source="post: 5196205" data-attributes="member: 3448">In my experience, this is a feature of 4E:&nbsp; you often have combats that start out going badly, producing a lot of fear, and then swing to the PCs winning with no casualties.&nbsp; I find that it can be very effective for making combats feel exciting.I'm not sure why it seems to happen more in 4E than in other game systems.&nbsp; Part of it is that PCs are like yo-yos--they may be knocked unconscious, but a minor action by a leader later and they're back in the fight, whereas the monsters tend to have no healing.&nbsp; A common pattern in my experience is &quot;PCs are bloodied or even unconscious at a point when all of the monsters are up--oh no this looks really bad--heal the PCs up and drop even one monster and suddenly we're 5 on 4 and the fight looks better--drop another monster and we start cleaning up.&quot;&nbsp; But that pattern existed in previous editions and other games as well, so it can't be all of it.&nbsp; Part of it might be the &quot;oh no we're doing badly--everyone drop your dailies&quot;?&nbsp; Not sure on the exact causes, but I find it happens all the time when 4E is working well.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Cerebral Paladin, post: 5196205, member: 3448"] In my experience, this is a feature of 4E: you often have combats that start out going badly, producing a lot of fear, and then swing to the PCs winning with no casualties. I find that it can be very effective for making combats feel exciting. I'm not sure why it seems to happen more in 4E than in other game systems. Part of it is that PCs are like yo-yos--they may be knocked unconscious, but a minor action by a leader later and they're back in the fight, whereas the monsters tend to have no healing. A common pattern in my experience is "PCs are bloodied or even unconscious at a point when all of the monsters are up--oh no this looks really bad--heal the PCs up and drop even one monster and suddenly we're 5 on 4 and the fight looks better--drop another monster and we start cleaning up." But that pattern existed in previous editions and other games as well, so it can't be all of it. Part of it might be the "oh no we're doing badly--everyone drop your dailies"? Not sure on the exact causes, but I find it happens all the time when 4E is working well. [/QUOTE]

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