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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 5206238" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't think I can give you percentages - I don't have my records handy, and my memory is not reliable enough - but I would say that at least one PC drops unconsicous in probably a little more than half these combats.Most of the encounter levels I use are between level and level+3, with probably every 5th or so being more like level+4. As you've probably already worked out from these numbers, I tend to use a lot of monsters - often twice as many as the PCs, plus minions. I find that large numbers have the same virtues as artillery - the combat gets spread over the battlefield, automatically bringing terrain and tactics into play, but invidivual threats are getting dropped at a reasonably rapid rate, which means that there is a sense of dynamism rather than grind.I think that large numbers of opponents also reduce the "speed-bump" feel of a low-threat encounter. With large numbers there is always a sense that the PCs may be surrounded, or that one enemy might break through and start butchering the wizard and sorcerer. So even if the encounter is not that dangerous in the abstract mechanical sense, for the players to actually achieve that absence of danger can require them to engage in interesting tactical play. I should add - this is an approach to encounter design that I bring out of GMing Rolemaster, where higher level foes can be very deadly, but large numbers of lower-level foes can still be interesting without being deadly, precisely because good play is required to prevent them becoming deadly.In the past 18 months I've only GMed two encounters with a single monster - a black dragon and a solo vampire - and in both cases terrain figured heavily in making the encounter interesting rather than just a grind.EDIT: I'm thinking back over some recent sessions - maybe the drop rate is a bit below, rather than a bit above, 1 in 2. I should also add - one thing that adds to the excitement of our game is that we only have half a leader. So the PCs are relying on attacking rather than on healing as their basic strategy for getting through a fight (this is also the way the same group used to play Rolemaster). I think this is an approach to play that pushes in favour of dynamism and excitement, but unlike the encounter build stuff, is obviously not something that the GM has control over.</blockquote>

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