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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Chzbro" data-source="post: 5172173" data-attributes="member: 83964">I apologize that this is getting the thread a bit off track, but I feel I have to stand up for the honor of my DM.KD, you make a pretty big assumption in saying that if you were the DM this wouldn't have happened. I'm sure my DM didn't envision the fight going this way either. The problem is, especially at epic, he just doesn't have any say in it anymore.As Hong Mesh said, Yeenoghu isn't a particularly well-designed epic encounter. He's a MMI solo with none of the advantages that more recently designed solos have. He has several minor action attacks, but when he's dazed those do him no good, and when he's stunned nothing does him any good. I was told that our DM had planned several ways for him to divide and conquer our group, but on round two he was slid 9 squares adjacent to the warden, was subsequently stunned (and dazed--as if it mattered), bloodied, made unable to teleport and immobilized, then got one more swing in on round three (still dazed) before dying at the top of round 4 (stunned again).You talk about all the tools the DM has at his disposal, but ignore that the party also has the same type of tools, and can use them more often. Sure our DM could have added traps and more creatures, but that would have increased the already steep xp budget.Last GenCon, our 2nd round judge in the Goodman DCC said the same thing to me about our round 1 judge. "He must have played the monsters wrong for you to have gotten through using so few healing surges." But in the end, he didn't fare any better than the first guy. Yes, the monsters/DMs are smart and should do everything they can not to die, but that ignores that the players are also smart and will do everything they can to prevent their opponents from gaining an advantage.I also have to take slight exception to your assertion that our 2 minute rouunds are slow in comparison to your group. You brought up (and expressed doubt) that the fight could have been over in 45 minutes. Now those rounds are too slow? As I described, 3 of the 4 of us were making at least 3 attacks each in round 2 on top of taking our move and minor actions. You then compare that to your own heroic or paragon tier players and call it slow.It's very hard to have a conversation when you keep taking the things I say out of the context I put them in and into whatever context you'd like them to be in. And really, this all is supposed to be a discussion about grind and whether or not DMs have to make a pre-emptive attack to squash it, not a discussion about how badly my DM sucks in comparison to someone else (and for the record, he's one of the most solid tactical players of the game that I know).So to get back to that topic, I still don't think grind is a problem if you (as a DM) know your party and build/tweak the encounters away from a place where they deliberately accentuate major weaknesses and if you (as a player) know your party and try to work together in the encounter--as opposed to having (Hangover reference) a wolfpack of 5 lone wolves all trying out out-cool one another.</blockquote>

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