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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wisdom Penalty" data-source="post: 4299767" data-attributes="member: 13287">Interesting. "Retreat" is not a word, I believe, in my group's pre-4e vocabulary.Would be sorta nice to see an article on how to handle retreats without getting bogged down in an ever-scrolling battle mat. I suppose you could use the "reference point" the DMG suggests when discussing aerial combat (i.e., the reference point is the ship the PCs are on and everything is move relative to that).I haven't run an adventure, mind you - only a series of playtests where I just upped the EL each successive combat.  Don't get me wrong - I dig tough combats; it's just me trying to find the sweet spot for my group that's taking some time. Sweet spot - as I'm defining it - is a challenging encounter that does not preclude additional encounters that same adventuring day. If the PCs can win, but blow all their resources, then we've sorta gone against the 4e design paradigm of "no more 15 minute adventuring days", right? As a DM, we should want to see the players be compelled to ration their resources - action points, daily powers, surges, etc.Things I really like from 4e combats:1) The fluidity of a dynamic battlefield - front ranks moving about, front rank changing to rear rank in a heartbeat, etc.2) The monster roles vis-a-vis PC roles. Awesome to see PC artillery going against enemy artillery whilst melee guys beat on one another in between.3) The definitive encouragement of terrain/zones.Another thing that's neat is that PCs do drop quite a bit, but healing powers within the game allow their comrades to bring them back to the fight. I like forcing tough decisions on players, and it's generally a tough decision to decide between healing Bob or trying one last smack against Bob's enemy.Unless Bob is an ass, in which case it's an easy decision.Wis</blockquote>

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