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Nov 16, 2012 -- 7:01AM, Wolvercote wrote:

I'm searching for a way to implement a rule like this but I'd like some feedback from anyone who is currently doing so first.

In games in which players voluntarily don't use encounter powers, fights to the death take longer to complete. But, if the DM is in on it, I don't see why the standard encounters couldn't be adjusted. Fights to the death are a troublesome issue anyway.

It's a product of your encounter design.  

If you come over from 2E/3E, you're probably used to the 2E/3E design philosophy.  See, 2E and 3E really didn't have a firm grasp on how powerful your party was going to be.  So as a system, it encouraged chucking tons of weak encounters at the players, because they'd almost certainly win, and progress could be defined by how MANY weak encounters they could triumph over before continuing.  A weak party might only take down 3-4, a really strong party could take down a good 6-9.

In this sort of system, you must wear down the PCs.  You must chunk down their resources, so they feel threatened.  Can all of your encounters be beaten with encounter powers only?  Cool, you're not threatening the PCs.  

Here's an example climax encounter I threw at a group of level 3 PCs:

1 Necromancer (Level 3 Elite)
2 Zombie Warlords (Level 4 Leader/Controller)
2 Wolf Zombies (Level 3 Brute)
12 Minion Zombies (Level 3 Minions)
A random Spawn of 1d3+1 Minions per turn.

Overall it turned out to be 20 zombies overall, and consumed virtually every daily power the team had. I threw 2 dozen enemies at them.  Did they feel overpowered?  Hell no.  They felt like they were fighting for their lives.  And they were.


If you're not threatening the PCs, you're thinking too small.  Ramp the encounter up.  Don't have them encounter threats in ones and twos.  Have them encounter a room full of pain.  Ramp the solos up.  Pump out the damage.   

P.S.  Make sure you're using Monster Vault or MM3 instead of MM1.  MM1 was big on slow grindy encounters that no one liked.  MV/MM3 has some truly scary damage numbers.  People can be chunked down in 2-3 hits, and a lot of big monsters can do that to 2-3 people at a time. 

Wolvercote, if you're running Encounters, at a public location as it's meant to be run, PLEASE don't do this. Encounters is meant to introduce players to 4E, and what you are describing is absolutely not 4E. In this situation, you're not really running you're own game, you're acting as an ambassador to 4E as it is intended.

If you're running Encounters as a home game group...meh, go for it, I guess. I've never tried anything like it and I suspect anyone I play with would revolt at the idea, but we're mostly people who prefer 4E to older systems, and I'll respect your difference in tastes where that is concerned.

Really, though, if you prefer 2E, and your table prefers 2E....why aren't you playing 2E?

Cool - enjoy your game!

Just curious, did you also try cross-posting this in the House-rule forum? I'm in no way trying to kick you out of here....just thinking there may be folks over there with a perspective that don't make there way into this group.

Nov 16, 2012 -- 8:01AM, Wolvercote wrote:

Oh I've down this sort of thing plenty of times. Pulled out all the tricks and it does "ramp up" the tension meter. Waves of foes, time-limit session where there is no chance to rest, chipping away at the party for the course of a session, all these kind of approaches. I'm looking more for Houserules that might tone down the power of the party and how they work for your campaign.

The Wound system might be what you're looking for.  Basically, whenever people go down, they take a "wound" that hampers them in some way.  The presented one in Dungeon magazine had wounds being Mild/Severe and a bunch in different locations, with the possibility of downgrading a wound with an endurance check after every fight.  That might give you the feeling of degrading power from encounters that you're looking for.

Other than that, I'd strongly discourage anything that reduces player access to abilities.  4E is built around most characters having less abilities than 2E Spellcasters, but having them on an encounter basis.  At a minimum I'd give the players 3 encounter powers for each level they should gain a single encounter power as a house rule if you want to make encounters dailies (that sounds like a lot, but with 5 encounters/day base, you actually have LESS power that way).  

Unfortunately that would create HUGE nova potential if players can manage your encounters without spending encounter powers, meaning that it would really strain your abilities as a DM - you'd have to spend a lot of time planning every fight, and if a fight is too easy then you might have made every fight for the rest of the adventuring day "too easy" as a consequence.