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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5540769" data-attributes="member: 996">No, I wouldn't think so.  The PH1 was very clear that parties should cover the bases, and I think monsters were done with that expectation.I think the idea was to have longer, more dynamic combats.  That meant that both monsters and PCs should be able to weather OAs for tactical advantgae, for instance, so high-damage basic attacks would have  gotten in the way.  Thus, monsters had lots of hps and didn't do huge damage, so the fight could take longer, everyone could move around, and you'd have something more interesting than the stand-toe-to-toe damage trading and save-or-dies of 3e.  I think a lot of groups didn't catch on to that, and, due to DM and play styles, ended up trying to 'alpha strike' or 'nova' like it was still 3e, which, of course, failed since the monsters had so many hps, and devolved into static grinds after the first round or few.  It also seems there was a trend towards increasing PC damage (there were few attack bonuses to exploit, at first, but it was possible to cheese up a lot of damage), which needed to be compensated for either with higher-hp or higher-damage monsters.</blockquote>