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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AngryPurpleCyclops" data-source="post: 4712923" data-attributes="member: 82732">This is my experience too.  Encounters below N+2 are a cake walk for pc's and just a way for them to get some cheap exp and or move towards a milestone.  There's other factors, like is this encounter set in the wilderness where it's likely to be the only encounter of the day?  An encounter in a "dungeon" is potentially a lot more dangerous because it can spill over into a second encounter and is much more likely to be just one encounter in a series of encounters (which compounds the effects if having used dailies).  On the other hand, a wilderness encounter can place the pc's in a position of having little or no chance to use terrain to their advantage, since the pc's are frequently out numbered not having a way to shorten the front via some geographical choke point can put the pc's in quite a bit of jeopardy of being flanked and or surrounded.Put some enemy controllers out there too.  There's certainly a lot of ways to challenge a party.  Replacing brutes with soldiers almost always creates a more difficult encounter.  Throw 3-5 minion archers in an encounter without bunching them up and for the price of 1 std creature the monsters have added 5 attacks to their offense. Decrepit Skeletons are kind of wimpy and only do 3dmg with a short bow but 6 of them are the same exp value as normal skeleton.If you want to challenge a group of 5 level 2 pc's a group like this in the right geography (i.e. put the archers behind some sort of hard to cross terrain feature, or up on a ledge that can only be accessed by a flight of stairs.)This will really test them.  1 blazing skeleton 2003 skeletons 4507 Decrepit skeletons 1751 corruption corpse (zombie) 175total exp: 1000, level 5 encounter (N+3 for 5 level 2's)the blazing skeleton and corruption corpse both have solid ranged attacks with ongoing damage, and weaken.  They also both have a significant aura.  the 3 skeletons are basically to block pc movement and prevent the pc's from having their way with the decrepit skeletons.  The zombie and blazing can both start as ranged attackers trying to weaken and set on fire as many pc's as possible while the skeletal archers pepper the pc's with volleys of arrows.  a little focus fire from the 9 ranged attackers in this encounter could be deadly.  (I wouldn't put all 9 attacks on one pc but 4-6 would be intimidating for most pcs).  When the pc's get in melee with the skeletons the corruption corpse could move adjacent to one or more pc's using his aura to make the skeletons hard to hit.  4 level N+2 encounters is a solid day of adventuring for most parties in 4e and I'm sure by the end there were no dailies left.  This might be too tough below level 5 or so as only having 1 daily each for 4 significant encounters might stretch the party thin.  We run fantasy grounds which is similar to map tool.  We also usually only get 2 or at most 3 encounters in a 3-4 hour session.  part of this is do to roleplay and part due to trying to uncover the clues to the various plot lines we have going on.  This goes back to my dungeon encounters vs wilderness/overland travel encounters.  If you put an N+4 after 2 N+2's the party might be overwhelmed depending on the resources expended in the first two encounters.</blockquote>

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