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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mengu" data-source="post: 5408243" data-attributes="member: 65726">We've been using the increased monster damage values from MM3 for a while. And while I'm likely to be in the minority, I'm not sure I like the repercussions.Pre-MM3, I could run 6-7 encounters in an adventuring day without problem. Now my players are tapped out on healing surges and daily powers after 3-4 encounters.Pre-MM3, players didn't need a lot of ways to trigger healing surges during an encounter. Now every encounter sees one or two PC's drop or get close to it, and they are spending feats and powers on ways to trigger more healing surges to survive. Side effect of this resource expenditure is that they are not spending as many resources on actually killing the monsters faster, which makes encounters go longer, which costs them even more healing surges.Pre-MM3, some encounters were pretty safe and gave the group confidence to continue on their adventuring path. Now, even level equivalent encounters give them pause, and gets them looking for ways to take an extended rest.I also like using a lot of terrain, often giving monsters a bit more of an advantage than PC's. If the terrain causes any delay, it's just that much more damage coming at the PC's, making the encounters more dangerous now, than they did pre-MM3.Pre-MM3, I liked making encounters with numerous low level opponents, rather than few high level opponents, since the numerous low level opponents seem to die easier. But with the increase in damage output, the alpha strike of a large group of even lower level monsters is pretty devastating.I'm half tempted to go back to pre-MM3 damage expressions, or at least shave a few points off the MM3 expressions. I like a mix of marathon adventuring days, and days where there are 1 or 2 encounters. I don't like the module-style 3 predictable encounters a day. I like to be able to use interesting terrain without impacting combat difficulty too much. And I don't want players to feel they need more healing all the time. One leader and maybe one daily emergency heal should be plenty of healing for a party of 5-6. And a party should even be able to get by without a leader.Since the MM3 damage expressions have been around for a while, what are your experiences? How did it change your games? How did it impact your encounter designs?</blockquote>

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