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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Tony Vargas" data-source="post: 5706053" data-attributes="member: 996">I'm familiar with that, yes.  Can't say as I miss it.  Wow.  Big party, with 3 hangers-on.  I think this prettymuch sums up the combat, actually. <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=";)" />  At least, I think I get it.  At some points in it's history, D&D has been like a massively complex game of rock-paper-scissors.  The DM comes up with some challenges, the players have to come up with the right resource/decision to overcome each challenge.  Not saying 3.5 was exactly one of those points, but what I think you're describing is the interplay of very choice-rich PCs and very choice-rich enemies - each with access to a /lot/ of the same choices (the important ones, of course, at that level, being spells).  And, you're absolutely right, 4e does /not/ provide that.   I even see how the symptom is that you find the encounters a little anticlimactic as a DM.  You have a lot less choice, and mostly very different choices from the players, in designing your encounters.  PCs'll have 4 or 5 attack powers at first level, and more than 10 by the end of paragon.  Standard monsters have two or three, sometimes only 1, and even Solos rarely have 10.  You /can/ custom-build monsters, but it is an entirely different process than building a PC.When you have a game where both sides have access to most of the same options, you have more, I guess, 'strategic' play.  D&D could often be played that way, as a strategic game pitting party vs DM, and one virtually 'won' before any fight actually started.  4e definitely doesn't evoke that style.  It's very much a cooperative game, the DM's job is to provide challenging fun as he helps to develope the story, rather than to give an honest try to 'win' each combat.  You /can/ do that in 4e - Lair Assault, for instance - but the same innovations that make it very easy to run a conventional 4e game, make it more difficult to run a balanced/'fair' adversarial one.So, I think I see the problem.  4e gives the players and DM very different resources with wich to build their 'side' of any conflict.  Players get tons of rich material to build their PCs with, including fair opportunities for power combos (nothng like 3.x, but they exist).  The DM, OTOH, gets a free hand to design (exception-based design) monsters, traps, and skill challenges, but he builds them from a very different set of choices than PCs.  That makes it an inherently unequal contest.  The DM can just go ahead and make something arbitrarily nasty that'll whipe the floor with the PCs, but there's no fun in that.  You /can/ stick to encounter design 'rules,' and devise level+5 encounters that'll seriously challenge you PCs, maybe even gank them.  But you're still doing it with a different set of choices, so it's never a 'fair fight.'  About the only time you'd get the feel you're talking about would be if you built an 'evil adventuring rivals' party of the PCs level, and used them.  Then you'd be playing on a level field, as it were, and the PCs would be in serious trouble.</blockquote>

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