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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Goonalan" data-source="post: 5550364" data-attributes="member: 16069">we've been doing this crazy thing where we employ a minion to sit at the table and record every action, attack, damage etc. for all of our combats when we game- and we've been at it for over a year now.We started to notice that at level 7+ the PCs were kicking ass and taking prisoners, and not getting through their Healing Surges, APs, Daily Powers et al- even in Encounters PC Level +4. And this was playing with multiple PCs (ie same players but many different PCs and adventures). It may have been just us but the PCs connection rate was going up all the time, damage done going up and yet the monsters damage output was only advancing very slightly- the threat went out of the game.It took us a while to figure this out, we're not bright etc. we caught it at Level 10-11 Paragon, I think, I rejigged the Monster damage and it was like going back to 1st level again, Encounter PC Level +1 were dangerous again. Connection rates didn't change much but the monster damage started to increase at a much healthier rate and the PCs were back to being afraid again. Also encounter times dropped a little- not massively because the players were having to do a lot more thinking about what to do next, they had become pretty cavalier prior to the change in maths.I engineered the maths in to a new campaign I started approx 6 months ago (from Level 1- with different players again) and fights are much much better now- the PCs still go toe-to-toe with Level +2-3 (and worse) Encounters every now and then (like two sessions ago) but they're Level 4-5 PCs now and most every serious fight is down and dirty, with a better than 50% chance that at least one PC is going to visit 0 HP or below.Two sessions ago a Level +2 Encounter, the PCs fourth encounter of the day (all other Level +/-1) left all bar one of the six PCs on one Healing Surge remaining, we'd not seen a fight as bloody as this, possibly, ever- it was truly titanic and left several players and this DM breathless, I was going to apologise when the players started gabbling about how great it all was.If its working for you as is then don't mess with it- for us rejigging damage, even for Level 1 Monsters has proved to be glorious- we would never go back, and I'm genuinely frightened for the players for when we get to Paragon Levels this time around.Cheers Goonalan</blockquote>

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