Originally Posted by
1337 b4k4
I'll be honest, it seems to me that if you make challenging level appropriate encounters, 4e really isn't that much less lethal than older editions. The hydra was easily dealing between 1/4 and 1/3 character HP per successful attack, which isn't that much different from early editions. The characters might have survived an additional few rounds, but ultimately the damage inflation that has come with the HP inflation appears to mean we're doing the same thing, just with bigger numbers.