Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Seakog Nov 18, 2011 23:10:04	I am looking at converting over the Savage tide to 4e and in working through the first adventure, in order to come anywhere close to the originaly exp pacing, most of the encounters need to be level +1 or level +2. This would be for 1st level characters, so not a large amount of resources to spend every fight. My question is, in a single work day, could level 1 characters take 3 encounters, that are level 2, level 2, and level 3, and expect to survive? My play experience has suggested that equal level encounters tend to be a cake walk for the pcs, but I don't want the second set of encounters to be a tpk either. Any thoughts on how taxing this might be on the average party? Thanks.
#2 mathius78 Nov 19, 2011 8:08:03	I don't  know how optimized your party is but in my 3rd level game an N or N+1 encounter is not even worth running.  My group would not you any dailies any will probably only lose a 1 or 2 surges among the whole group.  To challenge them I need to use 7 or 8 N+2s, 4-6 N+3s, 2-3 N+4s, or an N +5.  Anything less and they will not have a challenging day.  Some tips though.  More monsters is harder then higher level monsters. 10+ Minions in an encounter gets scary especailly if they have range or death effects. Dont use monster higher then level 4 against a level 1 party. Mathius
#3 slobo777a Nov 19, 2011 14:51:34	I don't  know how optimized your party is but in my 3rd level game an N or N+1 encounter is not even worth running.  My group would not you any dailies any will probably only lose a 1 or 2 surges among the whole group.  To challenge them I need to use 7 or 8 N+2s, 4-6 N+3s, 2-3 N+4s, or an N +5.  Anything less and they will not have a challenging day.  Some tips though.  More monsters is harder then higher level monsters. 10+ Minions in an encounter gets scary especailly if they have range or death effects. Dont use monster higher then level 4 against a level 1 party. Mathius I don't have enough stats to decide what an "average" party is, or whether my own group would count as anywhere near that, but my feeling is that the group desribed in the quote is a very optimised, efficient party, or that other factors are in favour of the PCs for this group. With my own group, I find the official "mix of 8" L-1, 3 x L, 3 x (L+1) and 1 x (L+3) is a little too easy going, but that 2 x (L+4) would be almost guaranteed TPK. Recently we've been experimenting with difficulty level as new DM wanted to find good challenge point. We found back-to-back L+2 too much to handle, and I was thinking that if you modified the mix by adding +1 L to half of the encounters, it would be about right: 2 x L, 3 x (L + 1), 2 x (L + 2), 1 x (L + 3).
#4 mestewart3 Nov 21, 2011 5:38:55	L+1 or +2 is generaly a pretty good standard, on Level and below level encounters should really only be used to let the PC's show off.  That being said what your encounter make up looks like is going to have a major effect on the difficulty, know your party should be the first rule. If the party is striker heavy with sub optimal control like I am guessing Mathius' party is then I would shy away from following his advice because those +1 or +2 encounters are going to become wickedly hard. If instead you have a Party with solid control but a lack of striker power then follow Mathius' advice, it will create encounters that are difficult but not impossible.  Minimize Elites, solos and High level monsters because they will tear a striker deficient party limb from bloody limb. The standard rule is know your party and what their strengths and weaknesses are.  Take these into account when you are making encounters.