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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Calzone" data-source="post: 5086348" data-attributes="member: 87629">I think of action economy this way: If an enemy has an ability that will deny a PC an effective action on their turn, he's reduced the party's action budget by one member's actions. For instance, if he denies 1 party member an effective action in a two man group, he's reduced their action budget by 50% for that turn. The action economy is how much can each side of the conflict do with their actions, roughly,(enemy's attack ability) x (enemy's action budget) vs. (PC's attack ability) x (party's action budget)Basically, "How much bang can I make with the actions I have?" Actions in combat affect the action economies of the two sides:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Status effects like dazed, blinded, prone, etc. lower the action budget for who is afflicted by them.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Killing a creature on one side lowers that side's action budget.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Creature type/role (e.g. minion or striker) and powers determine how much harm they can inflict.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Buffs/Debuffs can modify the attack ability temporarily or for the duration of the encounter</li> </ul>You want the party to, on average, have a higher action economy than the enemy (I believe the encounter XP guidelines try and follow this). You can induce tension in the fight by making the two side's action economies closer to equal (throw harder encounters), or having the enemy do things during combat to lower the party's economy or help theirs (kill a PC, call for reinforcements, activate a clever trap, etc.) If the enemy has a higher action economy that the party for too long, though, they'll likely TPK the group.So, if you are throwing tough monsters at the party, be really careful about monster powers that deny or waste actions. Similarly, be careful of Aid Another/group damage buffs for groups of weaker monsters (like minions). Also, controllers hurt smaller parties more because they remove a larger percentage of the party's action budget for each person they remove form combat.</blockquote>Yes, we want a battle banquet with many small varied courses, not 1 course with an entire cow.Ex: Let's say your 2 strikers can kill 1 monster per round. The monsters do 5 damage a round, each.Scenario 1: the party faces 6 monsters at onceRd1: 30 damage to party, 5 monsters leftRd2: 25 damage to party, 4 monsters leftRd3: 20 damage to party, 3 monsters leftRd4: 15 damage to party, 2 monsters leftRd5: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters leftRd6: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters leftTotal damage to party: 105Scenario 2: the party faces 3 waves of 2 monstersRd1: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters leftRd2: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left (2 more come in)Rd3: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters leftRd4: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left (2 more come in)Rd5: 10 damage to party, 1 monsters leftRd6: 05 damage to party, 0 monsters left Total damage to party: 45The two scenarios take the same number of rounds to resolve, the same number of monsters are killed, but the PCs take less damage with the smaller waves of monsters. In action economy terms, the enemy had a much larger action budget in scenario 1 compared to scenario 2.Edit: With respect to brutes, I think their lower defenses make them go down faster than say, soldiers, even with the extra HP.[/QUOTE]

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