Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="KesselZero" data-source="post: 5855846" data-attributes="member: 6689976">I see your point, and I will admit that my saying that the two variations on the 1000-XP budget could be identical in resource use was reductive. Of course it will be easier to take on smaller groups of monsters. But my experience has been that in 4e, it's even easier-er. That is, 4e is set up with the expectation that every encounter will be challenging; hence encounter powers, short rests, etc. So it tilts the balance even farther in the direction of the PCs totally dominating a lone foe or small group. Then the PCs get a short rest and are returned to full HP most of the time. If we think of something like 3e, where there are no encounter powers and far less healing, resources get spent at a much higher rate. So maybe the party will dominate against the first few lone monsters, but at a certain point the wizard's spells and the cleric's healing get used up, and then the math shifts so that the lone monster has a better chance of doing more than .5*D damage. This tilting point doesn't occur in 4e, at least not for quite some time, because anybody can spend healing surges at will between combats, and encounter powers will never run out. Another issue is the huge number of hit points in 4e. It's necessary for exciting, engaging set-piece encounters, but again the ready availability of out-of-combat healing (not even taking into account encounter healing powers that give more than a surge's value) means that most PCs enter most encounters at or near full HP. Imagine if HP were cut down again-- if, as in your example, a monster's 1*D damage were enough to seriously hurt or kill a PC on a high roll. The party may only take a few hits, but if those hits account for a significant percentage of HP and can't be healed as easily, they'll add up. For example, I recently played Pathfinder after four solid years of 4e. Our caster used her single spell in the first combat, we ran out of healing quickly after that, and I was left praying that I didn't get hit for 3 damage because I'd be unconscious with no means of getting back up. In fact, the party ended up running from a single monster because we just didn't have the resources to take the chance that it would do its bit of damage before we killed it-- every HP counted. Again, I do see your point, and I don't mean to be saying that there could ever be total parity between ten lone monsters and one group of ten. But some of the ways in which 4e is set up make a lone monster encounter far less meaningful than it has been in the past.</blockquote>

Verification