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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lancelot" data-source="post: 4715804" data-attributes="member: 30022">1) All the Powers: In my game, it's the player's responsibility to track the conditions they place upon their targets with colored chits. We use small colored plastic beads to do things like marks, quarries, etc. It's also critical that all players have power cards. Most of my players use their own home-crafted cards, even if they're just pencil scrawls on a scrap of paper. That's for their convenience as much as mine.2) Combats aren't scary: I have a hard time with this one. Our group plays an average of 1.5 sessions per week (4 hours sessions), since the release of 4e. We've had 32 permanent PC deaths and 4 campaign-ending TPKs (I keep a record for my own warped statistical interest in the classes that seem to die the most often). 4e is BRUTAL. I've seen short modules in products like Open Grave which simply drop my jaw when I look at the quantity or power of monsters that my party is "supposed" to be overcoming. I've never, ever, run an encounter which is outside the recommended DMG range for XP challenge, and I've taken to rolling behind a screen so I can fudge things from time to time to help save them. Now, my group ranges from 3-5 players and they don't always choose at least one each of all the "roles" (sometimes they lack a controller, or even a leader!). But they're very experienced players, at least some of them are min-maxers, and they have a reasonable grasp of tactics.3) Combat Grind: ...and yeah, this is the point I sympathize with the most. It requires some real artwork from the DM. I ran some really grindy encounters in my first few months with 4e, but I'm slowly getting better. It's not always easy. The tricks I've learned to use are: a) start whacking the monsters once it's clear the party has won the battle (e.g. make the survivors flee, surrender, or start dying like minions); b) select your monsters carefully (e.g. some of them, particularly certain solos like purple worms, are just boring); c) make free use of attack forms and tactics that aren't included in the stat block (e.g. have a troll attempt to grapple a foe, chuck a table at a PC, or pick up a PC and attempt to hurl them down a well - use the "average DCs and damage values" table to figure out something appropriate, rather than just clawing and biting them every round).</blockquote>

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