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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chzbro" data-source="post: 5171376" data-attributes="member: 83964">Do you actually, in practice, only hit what you're "swinging" at in your 4E games about 50% of the time? Is it really, on average, taking 5+ hits to drop any given opponent?If so, then I really do feel your pain. That really would make every combat a grind. In practice though, you ought to have things like combat advantage or bonuses from leaders to turn that 50% miss chance into something more like 30%. You ought to have strikers who can jack an enemy for more like 33% of it's total health. You ought to have access to controlling effects that speed combats up by limiting the options of your opponents (daze, immobilize, knock prone, etc.)That's not in any way to say, "You're playing wrong." But those numbers you're using are supposed to be a starting point, not the end result. If it's the end result...yeah, those combats are going to drag.While I agree that published WotC stuff can often be big offenders when it comes to publishing grindy encounters, there's a simple reason for it. They can't predict your individual group. As Mallus (I believe) pointed out upthread, it's not hard nor does it take much time to go through a published encounter and tailor it a bit for the group that will be running it. Now you don't HAVE to do this for the encounter to succeed, but if grind is a problem at your table, you'll almost certainly find the result to be worth the effort.If, for example, you (unspecific you) know your party lacks ways to improve accuracy and often has a hard time hitting, why would you throw level +2 soldiers at them? That's going to be miserable. Turn them into brutes (takes next to no time with Monster Builder) or just ratchet back their defenses by a couple of points. If you know the party doesn't generate a lot of damage, yoink one opponent out of the encounter or turn it into 4-6 minions.If, on the other hand, your players are already good at avoiding grind, you might find that you need to ramp the WotC encounters UP. I had to do this with Seekers of the Ashen Crown. For one, there were 6 players in my campaign and the adventure is written for 5, but for another, this group has been playing together a long time and they just mow through stuff. It's hard to scare them. It's worth noting, though, that it's usually more effective to make an encounter tougher by adding more enemies than by raising the level of the enemies...although I suppose even that might vary from group to group.</blockquote>

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