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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 5789534" data-attributes="member: 2011">Although I agree that monster healing shouldn't be as common and powerful as PC healing, there is definitely design room for it, especially in major encounters.Take the following encounter in one of my PBP games:<a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/living-eberron/311263-adventure-rhapsody-part-2-judge-renau1g-8.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/living-eberron/311263-adventure-rhapsody-part-2-judge-renau1g-8.html</a>The encounter lasted 9 rounds and the NPCs actually had a few different ways to heal themselves. The one undead creature could heal other undead creatures, the leader had a 5 square aura which allowed a fellow ally to keep fighting for one round after going negative, the non-leader humans could as a minor action gain back 5 hit points (which if used while in negative hit points, would bring them back), and the humans carried a potion which gave them 10 temp hit points, but dazed them for a round in return.The PCs had already had a few encounters that day, so they had already used up some Daily powers and were not fresh. Some of the PCs were really low on healing surges. By round 3, 2/3rds of the PC summoned/conjured creatures were gone, one PC was unconscious, one was bloodied and two PCs were almost bloodied. Only one PC (the Defender) was hardly touched. But, they rallied back from that to win the encounter.1 level 5 Elite Artillery4 level 6 Soldiers1 level 5 Controller4 level 3 Artilleryand a low level set of pit traps that the a PC only actually fell into once.So, 2200+ XP encounter for a party of levels 4, 6, 7, 7, 7 (effectively, a 6th level party), so just shy of an N+4 encounter, but the NPCs also had healing.Being outnumbered 10 to 5 (10 to 7 if you count the Shaman's two creatures), the encounter was designed to last longer than the normal 6 rounds.The encounter was a bit more interesting because dead foes stuck around for an extra round (which when it first happened, players were taken back by it) and one NPC even managed to go from negative to positive hit points, just like a PC.I think that encounters can last for more than 6 rounds and not be grindy and NPC healing can play a part in that if the players are really into the encounter. What becomes grindy for players is when they run out of Encounter / Daily powers and they have to spam At Will powers for a lot of rounds. That's not a problem with monster healing, that's an issue with WotC introduced player entitlement in 4E.In 1E through 3.5, the potent spells from the Cleric, Wizard, or other spell casters on the team occurred a few times per encounter. They didn't necessarily occur every single round because in a Vancian magic system, spell casters had to conserve spells, at least at lower levels. A major part of encounters were just doing damage.In 4E, potent spell like abilities are handed out to all classes (these are called Encounter and Daily powers). When those run out, then players have been trained to no longer be content (like they were in 1E through 3.5, 30 years of gaming) to just do damage. Players were conditioned by the game system that every single attack had to not just do damage, but it had to do something else cool as well. It's not a fault of the players, it's a game design fault of 4E. Everyone in 4E is a superhero with super powers, hence when those powers run out, people do psychologically feel the grind when spamming At Will powers (even though most At Will powers do more than just damage). It's human nature.One of the nice things about Essentials is that WotC made it a bit cool to spam the same set of Melee or Ranged Basic attack and not feel bad about it. Those classes are designed with players in mind that don't want a ton of options, they just want to be effective in combat on their turn.And 4E grind has decreased due to Expertise and due to the vast plethora of classes, items, powers, and feats in the splat books. The PCs are more effective, hence, they wipe out monsters faster, hence, the game feels less grindy than it did when it first came out.</blockquote>

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