XP working as intended?

[DracoSuave]

I have to say, my party of 3 didn't have too much trouble with 400XP encounters either, and they were in a meatgrinder of lots of encounters in a row. I mean, there were moments where it got hairy, someone'd go down, healing being at a premium and all, but it wasn't like they didn't have a plan to rally back.

I make sure terrain is an element, traps and devices, all sorts of interesting twists in the battle. Add in Story XP (that's my way of speeding up levelling so they could get to level 3, a nice spot to get serious) and things are turning out more, or less, how I want it. The players aren't getting frustrated, but there's definately a sense that they could die at any moment.

 

[Syrsuro]

In my experience there is also a huge difference between an encounter that is 'higher level than the players' made up of 7-8 creatures of the character's level or lower versus an encounter made up of 3-4 higher level creatures.

Because the higher level creatures are both harder to hit and hit harder they are much more of a threat to the players. So if you are building those 700 XP encounters by adding on more level 1 creatures or bunches of minions they aren't going to be as challenging as four level 4 creatures.

Carl

 

[keterys]

In my experience there is also a huge difference between an encounter that is 'higher level than the players' made up of 7-8 creatures of the character's level or lower versus an encounter made up of 3-4 higher level creatures.

I haven't noticed a huge difference - there's some difference, though it mostly seems to matter on creature type (like lower level brutes are really pretty innacurate and higher level soldiers can really have a painful AC).

For example, I'd think that two level 18 fire giants is often more dangerous than one level 22 death giant.

 

[wedgeski]

I'm running standard-build encounters despite the fact that the party is a man short. I'm not pulling many punches, and they're coping just fine with everything except climactic encounters, from which I do pull the requisite amount of XP beforehand. This is true for two distinct groups with very different play-styles. Hell, I DM'd a party through Treasure of Talon Pass, their first ever game of 4E, over the weekend, and they breezed through. (Admittedly they are experienced D&D'ers.)

What this means is that the PC's are levelling slightly faster than they should be (total XP per encounter divided by 4 rather than 5). I'm therefore slightly suspicious that the default assumptions about what a party of five can handle are a little bit off... but really, not so much as I could care.