Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Vayden" data-source="post: 4688993" data-attributes="member: 57791">Hey all, Vayden here. Big 4e fan, love the game, etc. I've run two heroic tier campaigns, and am running a low-paragon tier and and a mid-epic tier one at the moment, for two very different groups. I've played in 2 paragon campaigns and 3 heroic ones, with 3 different DMs. I think it's safe to say I know the game pretty well at this point, and I feel pretty confident in saying I'm a damn decent DM at all times, and quite good occasionally when I hit a good riff. And I love the game at heroic and low-paragon - it takes a tiny bit of tweaking here and there (see my Grindspace thread: <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/247249-how-build-encounters-d-d-4th-edition-aka-only-you-can-prevent-grindspace.html" target="_blank">http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/247249-how-build-encounters-d-d-4th-edition-aka-only-you-can-prevent-grindspace.html</a>), and it certainly doesn't do everything, but by and large it's a dream to run. That being said, my experience with Epic play so far has been unbelievably frustrating for me. The monsters have so many hit points that even 6-7 players doing 30-90 damage a hit take forever to drag down a big monster, the monster's defenses make them extremely hard to hit unless the characters are A) lucky or B) working like a well-oiled machine (which you can't rely on all parties to pull off). However, the monsters don't really pose much of threat because their attacks do such meagre damage in comparison to the player's hp/healing/temp hp stockpile of tricks. Now I'll admit that the party for the epic campaign is a bit defense oriented, and definitely not the most skilled group of players I play with in terms of tactics. Still, everything I've tried so far just turns into the monsters slowwwwly trending towards 0 hp while the party waltzes along - I haven't even knocked one of them unconscious yet in 7+ encounters, and I've racked up 2 TPKs and 3 almost TPKs in the heroic/paragon games I've been running (not that TPKs are necessarily your thing - just letting you know that my DMing style tends towards the brutal). My conclusion is that the monster math does not level correctly in order to maintain that nice level of drama that 4e combat provides at all of the other levels I've played it at. However, I know I'm not as mathematical as some of the minds on these boards, so I come looking for assistance. My initial thought is to lower all defenses by 1 for 21-25 level monsters, and 2 for 26-30 level, to reduce all hitpoints by 1/3 to 1/2 depending on the monster, and to flat out double all monster damage. Does that sound good to the math gurus?Anyone else playing Epic and feeling the same way? How are you approaching it? Am I wrong? Help me out here - I want to make these combats match the high expectations the rest of 4e has given me.</blockquote>

Verification