Badwe
First Post
making several threads about grind doesn't make it true. additionally, there are several potential complicatiosn factoring into each person's post:
1) an unclear definition of grind. in this case the OP seems to imply grind is encounter length. for some people it is round length. for some people it's weather the encounter is interesting. for _my_ group, it's neither, and we generally resolve 3 combats with 5-6 PCs in 5 hours plus exploration/roleplay/etc.
2) speaking of 5-6 PCs. the OP has 7, which is by no stretch of the imagination within the normal bounds. 4-6 is considered normal with 5 being what most modules assume. Your options to keep the XP levels of an encounter the same are: more monsters or bigger monsters. I made a post in another of the grind threads about how 2 brutes have the same XP of 1 brute at level+4, but the HP total initially favors the single brute.
3) at least one person was counting multiple encounters as a single encounter. I have thrown multiple encounters at PCs for barging into doors, but i have no illusions about what i've done. if you've made a delve with 3 level n encounters and the PCs pull all of them, you can either classify that as:
a) still 3 level n encounters, nothing has changed except it will take LONGER since they'll never recharge their encounter powers.
b) a single level n + 5 encounter. if you consider it a single encounter, congratulations you are likely to TPK your party according to the expectations of the book which caps at n+3 as a good idea. in order for your PCs to SURVIVE they must resort to slow, methodical, tactical planning and indeed doing things like taking advantage of chokepoints and sitting and waiting for the enemy to whittle down.
ok, so there are some incongruities when we talk about grind, as well as failing to address individual situations. as i've pointed out elsewhere, i have a group of PCs mostly (but not entirely) slanted towards damage, and i have trouble keeping the monsters standing. I can't tell you how many things in H2 get awesome when they're bloodied only to be summarily stomped to bits by the PCs before getting another action.
additionally, NUMEROUS places have offered suggestions. many people resort to -25%HP/+33% damage or some variant thereof. others use the solo guides from MM2 rather than MM1. still others will absolutely never use all brutes/soldiers, and maybe even favor more heavily artillery, lurkers, and skirmishers (you want to be careful about overloading controllers too, but it's not as bad as brutes/soldiers).
Honeslty it's hard for me to wrap my head around all this because i've never had any consistent issues with grind. but there are most CERTAINLY recommendations if it is, in fact, an issue for someone. and some of these recommendations even come from WotC themselves.
1) an unclear definition of grind. in this case the OP seems to imply grind is encounter length. for some people it is round length. for some people it's weather the encounter is interesting. for _my_ group, it's neither, and we generally resolve 3 combats with 5-6 PCs in 5 hours plus exploration/roleplay/etc.
2) speaking of 5-6 PCs. the OP has 7, which is by no stretch of the imagination within the normal bounds. 4-6 is considered normal with 5 being what most modules assume. Your options to keep the XP levels of an encounter the same are: more monsters or bigger monsters. I made a post in another of the grind threads about how 2 brutes have the same XP of 1 brute at level+4, but the HP total initially favors the single brute.
3) at least one person was counting multiple encounters as a single encounter. I have thrown multiple encounters at PCs for barging into doors, but i have no illusions about what i've done. if you've made a delve with 3 level n encounters and the PCs pull all of them, you can either classify that as:
a) still 3 level n encounters, nothing has changed except it will take LONGER since they'll never recharge their encounter powers.
b) a single level n + 5 encounter. if you consider it a single encounter, congratulations you are likely to TPK your party according to the expectations of the book which caps at n+3 as a good idea. in order for your PCs to SURVIVE they must resort to slow, methodical, tactical planning and indeed doing things like taking advantage of chokepoints and sitting and waiting for the enemy to whittle down.
ok, so there are some incongruities when we talk about grind, as well as failing to address individual situations. as i've pointed out elsewhere, i have a group of PCs mostly (but not entirely) slanted towards damage, and i have trouble keeping the monsters standing. I can't tell you how many things in H2 get awesome when they're bloodied only to be summarily stomped to bits by the PCs before getting another action.
additionally, NUMEROUS places have offered suggestions. many people resort to -25%HP/+33% damage or some variant thereof. others use the solo guides from MM2 rather than MM1. still others will absolutely never use all brutes/soldiers, and maybe even favor more heavily artillery, lurkers, and skirmishers (you want to be careful about overloading controllers too, but it's not as bad as brutes/soldiers).
Honeslty it's hard for me to wrap my head around all this because i've never had any consistent issues with grind. but there are most CERTAINLY recommendations if it is, in fact, an issue for someone. and some of these recommendations even come from WotC themselves.
