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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(Psi)SeveredHead" data-source="post: 5546653" data-attributes="member: 1165">You do have a few problems there.First, the MM1 and 2 are widely viewed as underpowered. The issue is less at heroic levels and worse with elites and especially solos, but they're still there.MM3, Monster Vault and Dark Sun Monstrous Compendium have the new, updated damage figures. In addition, the DMG2 has rules for making monsters following the new rules. Learn those rules, because you'll be making a bunch of them, or at least converting wimpy monsters to the proper standards.And also learn the rules for levelling monsters up and down. Sometimes you'll find a great monster, but it's three levels too high. That's not an issue if you can level them up and down quickly.Second, why can't you reduce player power? What sources are they using? Are they following proper point buy rules or even following the rules?Third, you need to use "parties" of monsters - Monster Vault has a very large collection of gnolls - and make sure monsters can work effectively together. For instance, that party of guards plus berserkers plus a mage probably looks good at first glance, but human town guards have little ability to defend the mage, and berserkers aren't mobile enough to bypass Roger and get at that "overpowered" archer. You should have used another soldier type (reskin a better monster if need be), and if possible have at least one monster attack from "behind" (Roger would have been forced to defend the artificer/wizard and the archer from both directions, which is next to impossible since he only gets one opportunity attack per round).Monsters should be able to force "combos" on the PCs, which is only fair because PCs tend to do the same thing. A controller monster with a forced movement power could either push Roger away from the archer or artificer, or pull the archer or artificer toward them (or more importantly, their high-damage brute allies). The PCs did this to my NPCs in the last encounter they went through. They pulled a necromancer off his giant undead mount and dogpiled him for a round of nearly uninterrupted smackdowns. (Unfortunately for them, said necromancer was able to use dimension door to teleport back to his mount, but he'd gone from nearly undamaged to heavily bloodied during that beatdown.)Fourth, while I have little experience dealing with some of these PC types, it's possible their AC scores seem too high. (Rangers and rogues typically crank Dex at the expense of other ability scores, giving them high attack bonuses, high damage, high AC, high Reflex defense ... and low Fortitude and Will defenses. And of course fighters tend to have high AC as well.) I think the human mage monster you used has one power that targets Fortitude but otherwise targets Reflex, and the other monsters you used only target AC. You need to include varied attacks, not just ones that target what your PCs are good at. As a result, you might have been better off replacing that human mage monster with a custom "enchanter" with lots of single round "compel" powers (something like: Atk: +X vs Will. Hit: The target slides 1 square and makes a basic attack against an ally of the enchanter's choice), which would not only reliably hit the archer, but also let you turn his damage against the party. And that's more fair than domination, which is actually taking away the PC's actions.Of course, it's not fair to design every encounter specifically to screw over the party, but each encounter should be able to seriously challenge at least one PC, either by blunting their offense or hitting their weak spot "for massive damage".</blockquote>

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