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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lazerfish" data-source="post: 4602842" data-attributes="member: 60054">What do you do if you're DMing for players who are just... well, bad at the game? The group I'm speaking of consists of two veterans, two players with intermediate experience and one brand new player. It was their first game of Fourth Edition. I've played with most of them many times before and I've always come up against some problems with encounter balance. It took me until this most recent time to realize the problem:They are bad.In order for me to ensure that an encounter doesn't take two hours, I need to dumb it down so much that I might as well not have them fight anything. They have zero concept of tactics and will use stupid and repetitive attacks in a horribly boring attempt to grind monsters down, all the while freaking out if they take more than four points of damage and reacting in a way that just makes it worse for them.Now, I've tried everything with this group. I've helped them along every step of making their characters, given them a good primer of the 4e rules and pointed out better options when they're available. I cut down monster numbers and fudge rolls in their favor, but when a group of five can't handle six level-appropriate minions, then there's something wrong. I first thought it may have just been the new edition, but it came to me later that this is a problem they've had for a while. Two of them seem to be willing to learn and at least try, but the others are so stubborn (or thick-headed) that any advice or help I try to give just bounces off. Because of these difficulties, the encounters become tedious and incredibly long, lasting many more rounds than they should have. We are all getting very frustrated, and it's really on me to figure out how to handle this.Please, what should I do here?</blockquote>

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