Hussar
Legend
Ok, I'm really new to 4e, believe it or not. I've played for a bit, but no DMing for me. And, like many here, I've heard a lot about the whole "grind" issue in the game. Not wanting to run into this, a thought occurred to me as I was brainstorming an adventure to write.
In the 4e DMG, under adventure design, it posits that the base unit to use is a soldier or a brute. By and large, the encounter templates were two or three soldier/brutes, with the remainder taken up by the other roles.
What if you shift that? Instead of the front line being soldier brutes, why not use skirmishers? So, the meat and potatoes of any encounter will be skirmishers, with the remainder being taken up by artillery, controllers and the odd brute.
And, as an additional thought, how much affect would it have to make up the xp budget with lower level monsters, but more of them? Instead of five baddies, drop a level or two on the baddies and use seven of them?
Again, avoiding using a majority of brutes/soldiers. But, with a two level drop, the brutes/soldiers go down pretty quickly. Or at least it looks that way on paper.
Would this work? Or would the monsters be totally ineffectual against the party? Does using a couple of levels down nerf the monsters to the point where they are too wimpy. I'm coming at this from 3e experience where dropping a couple of CR's turns a monster into tissue paper that hits like a wet noodle.
Would this work?
In the 4e DMG, under adventure design, it posits that the base unit to use is a soldier or a brute. By and large, the encounter templates were two or three soldier/brutes, with the remainder taken up by the other roles.
What if you shift that? Instead of the front line being soldier brutes, why not use skirmishers? So, the meat and potatoes of any encounter will be skirmishers, with the remainder being taken up by artillery, controllers and the odd brute.
And, as an additional thought, how much affect would it have to make up the xp budget with lower level monsters, but more of them? Instead of five baddies, drop a level or two on the baddies and use seven of them?
Again, avoiding using a majority of brutes/soldiers. But, with a two level drop, the brutes/soldiers go down pretty quickly. Or at least it looks that way on paper.
Would this work? Or would the monsters be totally ineffectual against the party? Does using a couple of levels down nerf the monsters to the point where they are too wimpy. I'm coming at this from 3e experience where dropping a couple of CR's turns a monster into tissue paper that hits like a wet noodle.
Would this work?