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Message: <blockquote data-quote="jbear" data-source="post: 5410267" data-attributes="member: 75065">My personal experience with the new damage expressions is vastly positive.Combat has an added tension. Monsters are serious threats. Death is a step behind the PCs all the time.Retreating or finding ways to achieve goals and then fleeing the scene are now totally viable options for my players. And if they can find ways to completely avoid combat, they do. And I reward them for it.I like to use quite a few monsters below the PCs level, meaning they are easily hit and taken down usually with 2 good hits, maybe 3. I mix them up with a  few, one or two higher level monsters who are the main deadly threat. If they can quickly neutralise those ones, the followers tend to end things themselves by looking for the fastest way to the door. But like the OP said, those lower level monsters still have good damage out put and with combat advantage or a leader aura bonus of some kind they can be fairly accurate to hit quite regularly.If your concern is that 4-5 encounters in a day are too few (that is what my group is currently averaging) you could consider several very easy fights with very challenging terrain, or some fights with 'key terrain features' or 'vital non-combat situations' mixed in which can simply end a combat in one fell swoop (perhaps involving a parallel skill challenge) if activated or triggered adequately avoiding the loss of HSurges.Alternatively, you could use MM1 monsters when you want 'not-so-threatening/damaging fight' and MM3 monsters for your important battles.Personally I love the danger and tension that exists when battle occurs now. I adjust all monsters I use to the new damage expressions religiously. Resting isn't always possible for my PCs, not without consequences at least. But I prefer to put the challenges in front of them and let them decide how they are going to deal with them. Sometimes that means resting up despite knowing that doing so may affect their chances of success ... but thems the brakes. What I do avoid though is having intelligent monsters fighting on to the bitter end when the fight has been lost. Those monsters could probably siphon off another surge or two from the pcs, the fight might take an extra round and half (15 mins...?). Besides those one or two surges add up and siphoning them off is counter productive if you want the PCs to attempt pushing on after 3 or 4 brutal encounters. When a fight is over, I end it as quickly as possible.</blockquote>

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