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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amaroq" data-source="post: 5140484" data-attributes="member: 15470">Yeah - I'd suggest that if you want quick fights, you want minions a level or three below the solo PC: you want the solo PC to hit almost every time he takes a swing. Its also really going to depend on the build: a ranger with Twin Strikes can chew through 16 minions in 8 rounds, while a fighter (edit: without Cleave) using only At-Wills is going to get through just one a round. Until he gets powers like Rain of Steel and Come and Get It, when he's going to suddenly take out an entire army of minions in a single round. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Fully agree: as a DM, you need to play the minions as though they think that they have more than one hit point. Cluster them together, overwhelm by numbers, have them expect that the PC is no tougher than they are ... that way they come at you in droves, and die in droves. Having them spend all their effort on defensive tactics will really drag a combat out: a minion can conceivably spend his Standard action to "Aid Another" and give the other a +2 AC bonus. Well, if all your minions are doing that every round, they're not going to die easily ... but the PC is in no danger, because they're not actually attacking him. Long, boring combat ensues.You probably also want to: 1. Allow the character to have a Twin Strike equivalent as an At-Will: attack twice but without damage bonuses, unless your character has some sort of area-based at-will. (E.g., a solo sorcerer doesn't need Twin Strikes; a solo fighter kind of does.) 2. Encourage the character to focus on "crowd control" encounter powers, even if it takes explicitly stating "remember, you're going to face lots of minions, even in the big boss fights."  ... let them focus their Dailies on really walloping a single target, though, so that they get a "I can really go to town on a single guy" effect too.</blockquote>

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