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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 6175729" data-attributes="member: 42582">The archer builds I can think of that are not rangers are slayers (an Essentials fighter), certain cleric builds (using powers from Heroes of the Feywild, plus I think there is a paragon path for it) and seekers (a much-derided PHB3 class). All but a fighter will be pretty squishy in melee. At earlier levels in my game the ranger was notorious for finishing the day with many surges left over, because the other PCs took the hits whle the archer avoided melee - the dynamics of that sort of approach will be more complex in a two-person party, although the psion is ranged also and so perhaps their whole schtick will be to avoid melee.Psions are known to be potentially wonky, because they depart from the encounter power format, instead having PPs as an encounter resource to buff their at-wills. So be prepared for spamming of said at-wills!As far as story/theme goes, you might start with the fact that the Feywild is beloved by Corellon, orcs are warriors of Gruumsh, and Corellon and Gruumsh are enemies. So what is this odd couple doing together? And how will they respond to those who want to break them up?By the book skill challenges earn XP too (per Essentials, even if failed); and per DMG2 each quarter-hour of solid RP that drives the story forward without action resolution being engaged also earns a level-appropriate creature's worth of XP. This all contributes to the "about an encounter's worth per hour of play" pace.But I really don't think you can go wrong just going with your gut and the signals from your players. Because of the non-sim tendencies, you can relax a lot of stuff around levelling without deteriment (eg when level is more about pacing and stakes than inworld details, it doesn't matter so much if guards were 1st level NPCs at 1st level, and are now 8th level minions at upper Heroic).Money, which does have ingame manifestations, can undermine this metagame stuff, which is why the upgrade approach to items is better for me, as it makes a lot of the money a metagame rather than ingame thing too.When I started I would choose an encounter difficulty first, then build within my budget. Now that (i) I'm more familiar, and (ii) the PCs are epic and hence near-unkillable, I'm much more relaxed about building my encounter first, then seeing what the budget advice tells me about it's level, and then tweaking to taste. These days I rarely run an encounter of less than 3 levels budget above the PCs' level, but typically with mulitple creatures of around their level rather than too many higher-level creatures. At 1st and 2nd level most creatures of course will be at or above PC level, which is fine, but I'd start with encounters at or around level to level+2 just to get everyone warmed up. TPKing at low levels is quite possible, and a small group makes it easier. (I only had one, myself, at 3rd level, but others report much higher rates than that. My players play pretty tightly as a group.)I should also add - my group doesn't use Expertise feats - so to-hit bonuses are down by 1 per tier - but they are fairly good at optimising for combat advantage, plus have to hit bonuses from paragon path features and the like. If you are using the Expertise feats your players will find it a bit easier to hit higher-level opponents.Yes. If you wanted to bring it into the game, you could have it be a ghost or "daemon" or even a Feywild or primal spirit that helps the PCs. That could also provide a link into their backstory, future destinies etc.No worries. And a final comment for this post.4e's a system that's pretty resilient, and that at least for me doesn't push back when I push it - it goes in the direction that is advertised. And it's a lot more forgiving than classic D&D, I think - for instance, in classic D&D it would hurt quite a bit for a psion to take damaeg as "psychic backlash" when inspecting strange crystals, as hp are a scarce resource and low level casters are very squishy. But in 4e roll on your page 42 chart (1d6+3 psychic damage is a good amount of psychic backlash for 1st level)! The player can spend a surge to be ready for the next combat/trap, so there isn't an immediate attrition issue, and by inflicting damaeg you let the players see the fiction expressed mechanically, and also get them engaged with the whole page 42 idea that they can try stuff (like divining info from strange crystals by using Arcana and/or Dungeoneering) in a freewheeling way, but you'll be freewheeling too. For me, that's the paradox of 4e - a mechanically very tight system has for me at least produced some of my most freewheeling and open-ended RP experiences.</blockquote>

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