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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Blackbrrd" data-source="post: 6233268" data-attributes="member: 63962">I am running the combat quite differently from the usually 3-5 encounters per day assumption. I am assuming that they will have some small mini-encounters and at most, one big fight a day. The big fights are therefore really, really though.The big fights aren't something I will force on the players too much either. For instance they saw the camp, deemed it too hard and backed off. They pondered taking it down in several tries, but saw it as too risky as well. I really prefer this kind of play, where you can't be sure if a fight is one of those bite-sized encounters presented in typical 4e modules.I helped put together the characters and optimized them as best I could, sacrifising survivability for damage. The Rogue, Lubash, for instance, has a "alpha" strike, using his racial encounter power and his class encounter power that does 3d8+2d6+7 damage. The druid's worst attack does 3d4+15 damage (divied on three opponents, while the Paladin/Sorcerer Stelian has a Close Burst 3 Burning Spray that does 1d8+8 damage. He has 20/14/14/15 in AC/NAD, but only 25 hp and no healing/temp hp. The bard has some ok control powers and good healing.I really dislike how 4e makes the range of monsters available at each level really narrow, since the monsters get +1 attack/defense every level. Therefore, I adjust the to-hit/defenses of the monsters like they are at most +-1 level compared to the PC's. I leave the hp/damage alone though.This way, it actually worked out having multiple level 4 or level 5 monstes in the encounters. The last encounter actually had 1x level 5, 1x level 4, 4x level 2 mobs. It really was over the top and it was starting to look like a total party wipe, but then the players started to use their characters for what they were worth. I really liked how the player of Stelian (who is supposed to be a noble from the south, with ties to Redwood) looks at the situation with two nearly full hp mobs and goes outside the hack-and-slash box and tries - and succeeds in subverting one of the Iron Circle cutthroats.Strictly speaking, I might have been a bit lenient with Stelian's subversion of the cutthroat, but he had already failed his objective (avoiding a mess around the knight of Redwood) and had little to loose, switching sides. It also encourages my players to actually role play in combat as well. (He had kinda started that last fight showing of his family armor that clearly showed him to be a noble, and renouncing the knight as an imposter and what not.)Now, I am going to run the two printed modules mentioned in the first post, but I think I will use them more as a setting, and not necessarily running them more than 50% as written. If I want my players to be flexible and put some effort into making the campaign theirs, I will have to mold the campaign to them.</blockquote>

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