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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 5156955" data-attributes="member: 53980">I find that a balanced approach between damage and status conditions works best.  Creatures with great status effects often have low(er) damage, which (coupled with the control most conditions apply) can make fights grind a bit.  If in doubt, I try to err on the side of more damage and less conditions, as lots of damage tends to lend a sense of urgency to a battle.Just the other day, one of my DMs ran a fight where all the creatures had significant amounts of control (despite the fact that none were controllers) and the terrain was quite hindering (tons of chokefrost and we started with our backs to a slope which, if you were pushed onto it, required an Acrobatics check to avoid falling prone).  We spent the first half of that combat prone, dazed and unable to use any powers except at-wills.  While no one whined about it, I was kind of bored and so (it appeared) was the rest of the party.  We didn't feel threatened (despite the fact that I couldn't use my healing powers) because their damage was pitiful; victory was all but a foregone conclusion.  It was simply that being on almost total lock down for 4-5 rounds felt tedious (which ended once we finally killed the thing locking out our powers and immediately transitioned to the mop up phase).That fight would have been much more interesting (IMO) if the dazing creatures had been removed and a pair of high damage rogue types put in their place.  I imagine that change would have made the outcome seem a bit more in question, and left us with a few real choices intact.A house rule I use to help mitigate the impact of conditions (slightly) is allowing even conditions that aren't "save ends" to be saved against via a bonus save (such as that granted by Sacred Flame).  It's a fairly minor change, but having a chance to remove "dazed until end of next turn" from the fighter so that he can continue to use combat challenge is nice.</blockquote>

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