Solos, Status Effects, and a House Rule

[Elric]

The D&D Solos - just not that threatening thread in the Rules Forum had me thinking about a major design problems with solos: debuff effects (Stun, Daze, Weaken, attack penalties etc.) effect a solo very similarly to non-solos, but their impact is far greater because a solo is meant to count as five regular monsters.

Here’s a house rule meant to fix that, and then I’ll launch into a long explanation of the problem and how I arrived at this solution: solos get +2 to saves, not +5, but make saves at the start of their turn, after taking ongoing damage, rather than the end of their turn. Solos can also make saves against “until end of next turn” effects (either “your next turn” or “the monster’s next turn” type effects).

Update: note that I've got a lot of suggestions different from this one at other points in the thread. See this post, for example.

Though I call this a house rule, you don't have to think of it as such. It could also be creating a specific ability, called, say, Tough as Nails, that gives solos additional defenses against these type of effects, and adding that same ability to every solo.

Solos get a +5 bonus to saves in the rules as written, but this helps only a little bit, for two reasons. First, no matter what a creature's bonus to saves are, it still will be effected for at least a round (compared to a normal monster which still averages under two rounds being affected by a save-ends effect). Second, there are plenty of "until the end of your next turn" effects that do not interact with the save mechanic. At higher levels, a party can have many such powers.

The basic math, in the game as written:
A normal monster hit by a save ends effect is affected for 1 round, and then has a 55% chance of being no longer effected, and a 45% chance to have the effect continue. In the later case, you’re back where you started. So letting E be the expected (average) number of rounds on its own turn that the save-ends effect lasts for, E= 1+ 0.45*E + 0.55*0. So E= 1.82.

Similarly, an elite monster has expected rounds=1.54. However, since an elite monster counts as two monsters, weighting by two gives a “monster-equivalent rounds affected” of 3.08.

A solo has expected rounds=1.25. Since a solo monster counts as 5 monsters, weighting by 5 gives a “monster-equivalent rounds affected” of 6.25.

I’ll assume for the purposes of this thread that save-ends and until end of next turn type effects don’t cause major gameplay issues when applied to elites, meaning that elites don’t need a house rule fix and also that if solos had a “normal monster equivalent rounds” of around 3, where elites are, that this would be manageable.

Edit: I should note that a solo's offense shouldn't be 5x that of a normal monster's offense by default. See the posts later in this thread, here or here. Since status conditions primarily affect monster offense, treating a solo as 5 monster equivalents seems too high here. However, note that in MM2 WotC has shifted solo design towards more offense and less defense than before; MM2 solos seem to be about 4 normal monster equivalents both offensively and defensively.

WotC had the right idea with the rules for deities (very high level solos like Tiamat and Vecna), giving deities an immediate save to end conditions. This makes it so a deity is affected for less than one round on average, by a save-ends effect. However, this is too strong of a fix for normal solos. Two reasons: first, it prevents characters from taking any advantage from an ability most of the time (a grant combat advantage effect, for example, isn’t unbalancing to have last until the solo’s turn), and second, it decreases the “normal monster equivalent rounds” to 1.25, since 80% of the time the effect ends immediately and 20% of the time you proceed as normal for a solo. That means that “monster equivalent rounds affected” are lower for solos than they are for normal monsters, and much lower than for elites. If you had solos save at the start of their rounds, and kept the +5 bonus to saves, you'd avoid the first part of this but still end up with the second part.

With my proposed fix, a solo has a 65% chance to be affected for 0 rounds by a save-ends effect, and a 35% chance to be affected for one round, and be back to where it started. So the average number of rounds affected is E=0.35(1+E), or E=0.54, which gives “monster equivalent rounds affected” of 2.69. That seems much more reasonable than the 6.25 figure in the core rules, and is a bit less than the 3.08 figure for elites above.

For an “until end of next turn” effect, a solo now has a 0.35 chance to be affected, and is worth 5 monsters, giving a 1.75 “monster equivalent rounds affected.” Compared to an elite in the RAW, which is affected for 1 round and counts as 2 monsters, for 2 “monster equivalent rounds”, this is again comparable.

Some issues that could arise: A solo's save ability should work like the Warden's Font of Life: if they shake off a stun, they can take actions normally, with the exception as given above for ongoing damage.

There are many until end of next turn effects out there, and some may be unnecessarily weakened by this change. For example, a fighter’s mark and a warden’s mark are until end of next turn effects, while a Paladin’s mark and a Swordmage’s mark are not. So this would change the relative efficacy of defender marks used on solos.

You could create an exception to shaking off marks in one direction or another (either giving the solo a chance to shake off all marks, regardless of duration, with a save, or making it so that solos couldn’t shake off any marks in this fashion), but that would add complication.

Players might feel that their abilities have been overly nerfed. However, it’s hard to see a fix smaller than this one that leaves solos appropriately threatening. You could implement this change and give solos no bonuses to saves. That would leave them at 4.09 “monster equivalent rounds affected”, and might make debuffs on solos still too strong. It also has the slightly strange property that solos have a smaller bonus to saves than elites. Fixes that rely on altering a subset of conditions affecting solos (e.g., Stunned and Dominated become Dazed; solos ignore Dazed) seem generally unworkable, since they require too many specific rules and will be too hard to use in practice.

This change makes ongoing damage more potent against solos than it used to be. I see this one as a positive. It seemed to me like ongoing damage was overly nerfed by a solo’s saving throw bonus, as damage isn’t more effective against solos but the duration was decreased by a solo’s saving throw bonus. This will increase the value of certain dailies accordingly.

Without the +5 bonus to saves, static save penalties like the Orb of Imposition become even stronger. This would definitely be a problem, except that these abilities should get house-ruled anyway, because they're way too strong. My fix for the Orb seems like a common one: Orb of imposition’s save penalty power is a free action you can use only once per encounter, but you can choose to apply it after the relevant saving throw roll has already been made. The AV items that grant save penalties also need to be changed in general.

Lastly, solos might become too strong under this house rule. As people have reported some grind when using solos, a solution here could be to decrease solo hit points by a set percentage, say, 10-20%, so that solos become less of a threat than they would otherwise be under this change, and combats run faster.

Thoughts?

[keterys]

Hmm, you could do something trickier like giving them a save at +0 at start of round and +5 at end of round.

[Regicide]

A few problems. It makes orb wizards even better with the lower saves. It makes a lot of powers that do a bit less damage but tack on a -2 whatever a lot less desireable. It means the DM could be looking at an aditional 3 or 4 saves easily every turn. It doesn't address party stacking there they make their own scores crazy.

I'd recommend using caps. Something like... No creature can suffer more than -5 of the same penalty, be that AC, to-hit etc. Likewise, no player can get a bonus of more than 5 in each thing, like AC etc, unless it's from a single source.

Also, allow a monster to become immune or resistant to the same effect if used repeatedly to prevent something getting stunned for 20 rounds in row.

[Elric]

Originally Posted by keterys

Hmm, you could do something trickier like giving them a save at +0 at start of round and +5 at end of round.

I'm assuming you'd do this as: only the beginning of round saves worked on until end of turn effects. You get saves at the beginning and end of rounds against (save-ends) effect. This would add more saves to what I've got now. Since you're less likely to save against until end of turn effects, solos are weaker against them than under my proposal above.

However, solos are more likely to save against save-ends effects; the average number of rounds goes down from 0.538 to 0.495. Under my fix above, a save-ends effect gets noticeably more average rounds than an until end of next turn effect (0.538 to 0.35). Here the numbers are almost equal; 0.495 for save-ends to 0.45 for until end of next turn. I think you probably want save-ends effects to be longer than until end of turn effects under a system like this. In general I think this would be more complicated and require more rolls than what I have, and I don't know how much it would add.

Edit: If you used a +0 save at the beginning of a round and a +2 save at the end of a round, then the solo would average 0.534 rounds from a save-ends effect, almost the exact same as my proposal above. This would let you make until end of turn effects relatively stronger while leaving save-ends effects unchanged in average duration.

I can also think of a fancier proposal along these lines that doesn't require additional rolling or changing a solo's save modifier to get an effect like this, but instead requires some additional tracking:

A solo has the same +5 bonus to saves as RAW. A solo rolls saves against (save-ends) effects at the start of its turn, after taking ongoing damage, instead of at the end of its turn. If its total is 15 or higher, the effect ends immediately. If its total is 10-14, the effect ends at the end of its turn as usual.

A solo can roll saves against (until end of turn) effects at the start of its turn as well. If its total is 15 or higher, the effect ends immediately; otherwise, the effect wears off at its normal time.

This averages 0.56 rounds for (save ends) effects and 0.45 rounds for (until end of turn) effects. It also removes any problems with making RAW Orb Wizards even stronger.

[Elric]

Originally Posted by Regicide

A few problems. It makes orb wizards even better with the lower saves.

I mentioned this in my initial post. However, see my post above this one for a solution that doesn't have this problem.

It makes a lot of powers that do a bit less damage but tack on a -2 whatever a lot less desirable.

This is only against solos, where these powers are already at their strongest, because they affect 5 monster-equivalents. As I mentioned, even under this change these powers are only a little weaker against solos on average in terms of monster-equivalent rounds than they are against elites. Solos don't seem like a large percentage of combats (at least until epic levels, where they make up a large fraction of the monsters), so I doubt characters will be seriously affected by this. In the HR in my post above this one, until end of turn effects are stronger in monster-equivalents against solos than against elites.

It means the DM could be looking at an aditional 3 or 4 saves easily every turn.

Are there that many "until end of next turn effects" that hit on a typical turn of combat? Seems unlikely. If a party has 3 until end of next turn effects per round and, say, hits with 2 of them, then you're adding 2 saves a round.

It doesn't address party stacking there they make their own scores crazy.

I'd recommend using caps. Something like... No creature can suffer more than -5 of the same penalty, be that AC, to-hit etc. Likewise, no player can get a bonus of more than 5 in each thing, like AC etc, unless it's from a single source.

Bonuses from powers tend to be power bonuses, which won't stack. Given this, I don't think stacking bonuses is that relevant for solos in particular, which is the focus of this thread. If a Warlord hit a monster with Lead the Attack, and then Warlord's Favor, the power bonuses wouldn't stack. A change of this sort does nothing about, Stun, Weaken, Daze, and so on.

Also, allow a monster to become immune or resistant to the same effect if used repeatedly to prevent something getting stunned for 20 rounds in row.

This sounds like the kind of ad-hoc by-condition fix that I mentioned as being too hard to implement. "Well, you can have 3 Dazes, 2 combined Stuns + Dominates, etc, before Boss Immunity kicks in."

[LuckyAdrastus]

Originally Posted by Elric

Fixes that rely on altering a subset of conditions affecting solos (e.g., Stunned and Dominated become Dazed; solos ignore Dazed) seem generally unworkable, since they require too many specific rules and will be too hard to use in practice.

Perhaps a solution along those lines wouldn't be too difficult? You could simply give a save at the start of the solo's turn against dazed, dominated, immobilized, restrained, and stunned conditions. You could maybe or maybe not add blinded and weakened to that list.

This would avoid the problem of giving solo's a save against a fighter's mark, which I think is a very unfortunate side effect. It also leaves ongoing damage in place, along with other flavorful conditions that don't take away all or most of the solo's turn.

Also, kudos on a thoughtful post that addresses so many potential issues!

[keterys]

I actually at one point thought about having lines on the condition chart for what resistance to a condition would give you. That way you could just give out resistance to stun to a solo, or immobilize to a melee only brute, or whatever, and it'd work out.

It's complex enough I didn't think long on it though

[Elric]

Originally Posted by LuckyAdrastus

Perhaps a solution along those lines wouldn't be too difficult? You could simply give a save at the start of the solo's turn against dazed, dominated, immobilized, restrained, and stunned conditions. You could maybe or maybe not add blinded and weakened to that list.

Do you mean, solos get their usual +5 bonus to saves, but can save against the above conditions at the start rather than the end of their turn? That leads to 0.25 average rounds for save ends effects with these conditions, and 0.2 average rounds for until end of turn ends effects with these conditions. That's pretty low.

You can see that leaving blinded and weakened unaffected means that they take effect for 5 times as many rounds as the conditions on the above list. So any condition that is left off of the above list is going to be superior to the conditions on it. Changing the relative value of powers in this way seems like a significant negative. You don't want a Paladin wishing he could use Enervating Strike (Encounter 17, weakens) twice rather than having to use that and Stunning Smite (Encounter 27) once every time he runs into a solo.

This would avoid the problem of giving solo's a save against a fighter's mark, which I think is a very unfortunate side effect. It also leaves ongoing damage in place, along with other flavorful conditions that don't take away all or most of the solo's turn.

Thinking about it, if solos were only allowed saves against "until end of turn effects" that came from powers, this would solve the mark problems, as the until end of turn marks are all class features and not powers. I can't think of many class features with (until end of turn) that are too strong against solos, so this seems like a workable fix to the mark issue. Anything I’m forgetting here?

Also, kudos on a thoughtful post that addresses so many potential issues!

Thanks. I try

[Morgan_Scott82]

I think you're trying to paint with too broad a brush here by adding or applying a universal change to the rules. This adds another layer of complexity onto what is generally a very streamlined system, why should saving throws universally work different for solo's than other creatures? It's needlessly complex.

I do agree that solo's are more vulnerable to status effects than other monsters, but I don't think a houserule is the solution. Contrarily I think this issue should be addressed in the design process for writing solos. My earlier discussion of the Solo design process in the thread Elric mentioned at the top of this thread focused mainly on the Action Ratio and how to equalize that ratio of Solo's actions to PC's actions, through action equalizers that let the solo do more with is actions than typical of other monsters or PCs, and action mitigators that limit what the PCs can do with their actions. However I feel this thread highlights another element of solo design that I neglected in my previous discussion: outs. Solos need outs.

An out is any monster power that allows the monster to avoid or mitigate an effect placed on it. Immunity is one kind of out, extra saving throws are another, status effect mitigators are a third. For example lets say I were working on a solo to run in one of my games: Klang, a construct manufactured by a Dwarven artificer to be the ultimate combatant. Klang might have powers like this:

Impact Tested, Battle Ready
Whenever Klang would be effected by the stunned condition, he is dazed instead.

Redundant construction (Recharge 5,6)
Klang rerolls a failed saving throw.

Those are outs. The first spares Kang a more debilitating status effect, but instills a less debilitating one. This is in my opinion vastly superior to a simple entry in the immunity line of the monster's stat block that says "Immune Stun" for several reasons, first and most importantly the players still get mileage out of their powers albeit less than expected. Its very frustrating as a player to throw out some great daily power only to find out the monster is immune and you just wasted a scarce resource. If that feeling can be prevented while still helping the solo to be a viable threat, all to the good. Additionally this out gives the monster a degree of character and flavor that a generic immunity, or a universally applied house rule wouldn't. That mechanical reinforcement of a monster's flavor is one thing that can really help them come alive at the table and make for a memorable fight.

Which is more exciting, making all solos more resistant to all status effects, or giving each solo a custom set of strengths and weaknesses through the judicious use of outs?

One of my favorite priniciples of fourth edition is exception based design, a single simple set of general rules applied all of the time, unless something specific says not to. A house rule making saving throws work differently for solos moves away from this priniciple. I believe having saving throws that work one way most of the time, but a different way of solos is two sets of general rules. All solo's is too general to me, which is one reason I favor specific outs written into monster write ups as specific exceptions.

[LuckyAdrastus]

@ Morgan_Scott82: Thoughtful post, and I like the powers you gave Klang (nice names too). However, most DMs don't write all their Solo's from scratch. So I think there's a lot of value in what Elric is trying to do, which is create a houserule those DMs can apply to their Solos to help with this issue. Still, I'd love to play as a PC against some of your Solos! They are very flavorful (including the one you posted in the other thread on this topic).

@ Elric: For my suggestion (bonus save at start of term vs. ennumerated conditions) you could make the bonus save be only a regular save (10+ to save) so that it isn't too powerful for the Solo. I also don't mind nerfing stunned compared to weakened against a Solo, b/c stunned is much more powerful. Weakened could be included on the list of effects the Solo saves against. Perhaps all Solos could get a power like the one that Morgan_Scott82 suggested for Klang that gives them a rechargeable free action that gives them a bonus save?

As for your original suggestion (as edited), I like the direction you are moving in, but it still seems too complicated:

Solos get a bonus save at the start of the turn.
It also works against powers that last "Until the End of the Turn."
If they make it by less than five points, the power lasts until the end of their turn.
This doesn't work against "Until End of the Turn" effects that came from class features or other non-power sources.

[RangerWickett]

I think part of the balance built into the rules is that solos have higher defenses. So you'll hit less often with your stunning attack, but when you hit, it affects more "monster-rounds" than if you had attacked a standard monster.

I'm considering altering a solo so that, compared to a normal monster, it has x5 HP, normal defenses, and four standard actions per round, plus a move action.

[Morgan_Scott82]

Originally Posted by LuckyAdrastus

@ Morgan_Scott82: Thoughtful post, and I like the powers you gave Klang (nice names too). However, most DMs don't write all their Solo's from scratch. So I think there's a lot of value in what Elric is trying to do, which is create a houserule those DMs can apply to their Solos to help with this issue. Still, I'd love to play as a PC against some of your Solos! They are very flavorful (including the one you posted in the other thread on this topic).

Thanks for the praise. When I wrote both this post and the previous I was talking about designing solos, and how I think the design is the place to address their issues. I recognize that few of the printed solos conform to my recommendations, which is part of why I am so eager to evangelize them in hopes someone at Wizards of the Coast R&D will take my advice to heart (I also wouldn't happen to object if they wanted to hire me, or contract with me to consult on such matters , I wouldn't even have to relocate to their Renton, WA offices since I'm already local...).

I do think the quality of printed solos is slowly improving as the people contributing to the game work with Solos more and get a better handle on their strengths and weaknesses. For example compare Thorn, a solo from Dungeon 160, to an adult white dragon. Assuming the standart party of five, Thorn's action ratio is 4:5, while the White Dragon's is 2:5. Thorn is a better written, more engaging solo. I don't think he goes far enough (niether of them have any outs for example), but it's progress, and hopefully we'll see more progress, and the game will continue to get better for all of us.

While you're right that not all, or even most, DMs custom write their solos. I would of course encourage them to flex their design muscles and create more of their own, since solos are supposed to make for some of the most memorable encounters. By custom building your solos you can help ensure that they're engaging and memorable. However I recognize not all DMs have the time to do that, heck most sessions I'm cramming design into the adventure all the way down to the wire (go ahead just ask my players how many times I've delayed the start of the session by ten minutes so I could figure out treasure parcels). That said, I think you can start with a by the book solo, and spice it up such that it meets some of the design criteria I've talked about with just a little effort. What's more I think that effort will be well worth it.

For example our Adult White Dragon would be a good candidate for some spicing up. As it stands his action ratio is 2:5, and he has no outs. So lets look at the tools we still have to work with. He has four different ways to use his standard action, so anything we did there would be increaed competition for that single scarce resource, but he has no way to use his Minor or immediate actions, and no unique move actions. He has icewalk, so he ignores difficult terrain from ice, but has no way to create difficult terrian, we should do something about that. We think about some dragon-ish, or cold-ish powers and see what comes to mind.

Frostbound Earth Aura 2, the squares within the aura are considered difficult terrain.

Wingback strike (Minor action)
M; +10 vs Fort; 1d6+5 damage and the target is pushed two squares.

Iceshock Stomp (Minor action, recharge 6)
Close Burst 1; +10 vs Fort; 1d10+5 cold damage and the target is pushed three squares.

Font of Arcane Renewal (immediate reaction, when the adult white dragon is effected by a condition that a save can end, recharge 5,6)
The Adult white dragon makes an saving throw.

There we go in ten minutes time we've taken a boring solo with an action ratio of 2:5, and no outs to what I hope would be a more interesting solo with an action ratio of 3.5:5 and a versitile, somewhat reliable out. Its easier than most DMs think to spice up a solo, and the more you do it the easier it gets.

BTW Font of Arcane Renewal would be a good out power for all dragons...

I think with just a little effort, you can mitigate a lot of the challenges with Monster Manual solos in a way that's much more rewarding than a blanket house rule. Not to mention keeping the rules as simple and streamlined as possible.

[Elric]

Originally Posted by Morgan_Scott82

Which is more exciting, making all solos more resistant to all status effects, or giving each solo a custom set of strengths and weaknesses through the judicious use of outs?

One of my favorite priniciples of fourth edition is exception based design, a single simple set of general rules applied all of the time, unless something specific says not to. A house rule making saving throws work differently for solos moves away from this priniciple. I believe having saving throws that work one way most of the time, but a different way of solos is two sets of general rules. All solo's is too general to me, which is one reason I favor specific outs written into monster write ups as specific exceptions.

Originally Posted by LuckyAdrastus

@ Morgan_Scott82: Thoughtful post, and I like the powers you gave Klang (nice names too). However, most DMs don't write all their Solo's from scratch. So I think there's a lot of value in what Elric is trying to do, which is create a houserule those DMs can apply to their Solos to help with this issue. Still, I'd love to play as a PC against some of your Solos! They are very flavorful (including the one you posted in the other thread on this topic).

I think of what I'm doing as adding a property to each solo monster to resist status effects better, and using the exact same property each time. As LuckyAdrastus says, your solos look very flavorful and fun to play against. If you could only choose one resilience solution for every solo, which one would you pick? Now you have a default and if you want to create a solo from scratch or further modify an existing one, you can do that as a specific exception.

@ Elric: For my suggestion (bonus save at start of term vs. ennumerated conditions) you could make the bonus save be only a regular save (10+ to save) so that it isn't too powerful for the Solo. I also don't mind nerfing stunned compared to weakened against a Solo, b/c stunned is much more powerful. Weakened could be included on the list of effects the Solo saves against. Perhaps all Solos could get a power like the one that Morgan_Scott82 suggested for Klang that gives them a rechargeable free action that gives them a bonus save?

Even a bonus save like the one Klang has doesn’t affect the two big issues, though, which are that a solo has no special defenses against until end of next turn effects, and that it will be affected for at least a round by (save ends) effects. A solo is only affected for 1.25 rounds on average by a (Save ends) effect right now; even having it automatically make saving throws would only decrease this to 1.

A bonus save would be handy against RAW Orb Wizards and AV static-save penalty stuff, but I think those abilities should be fixed with a house rule so they aren’t so overpowered, instead of trying to immunize solos from the consequences of static save penalties being so overpowered.

I agree with you that Stunned is much stronger than Weakened against solos. Still, against most solos it’s not 5x as strong. Weakened is not that good, in any case, so not including it in a “condition specific fix” won’t lead to (until end of turn) weaken effects trivializing solo encounters.

As for your original suggestion (as edited), I like the direction you are moving in, but it still seems too complicated:

Solos get a bonus save at the start of the turn.
It also works against powers that last "Until the End of the Turn."
If they make it by less than five points, the power lasts until the end of their turn.
This doesn't work against "Until End of the Turn" effects that came from class features or other non-power sources.

When you put it that way, I see that the first line should read “Solos make saves at the start of their turn instead of the end of their turn”, and the fact that it’s hard to even describe it correctly means that it’s probably too complicated

[Elric]

Originally Posted by RangerWickett

I think part of the balance built into the rules is that solos have higher defenses. So you'll hit less often with your stunning attack, but when you hit, it affects more "monster-rounds" than if you had attacked a standard monster.

I'm considering altering a solo so that, compared to a normal monster, it has x5 HP, normal defenses, and four standard actions per round, plus a move action.

I didn’t mention this because in the context of comparing elites to solos, their defenses should be the same. I should have mentioned this in the context of comparisons to normal monsters, though. The DMG has essentially the same guidelines for increasing defenses for solos and elites (+2 to three defenses), and in the MM they seem to have generally equal defenses by level/role as well. So relative to standard monster, solos have higher defenses and higher “monster equivalents”, but relative to elites, they have higher “monster-equivalents” and the same defenses.

Additionally, even the +2 to defenses and saves elites have over normal monsters isn’t enough to make up for counting as 2 monsters instead of 1 (discounting the separate issue that until end of next turn effects affect both equally, where the save bonus doesn’t help). For example, an elite is hit 40% of the time by a 1.53 round (save ends) effect, while a normal monster is hit 50% of the time by a 1.82 round (save ends) effect. Including the to-hit chance, this gives 1.22 average “monster rounds” for elites and 0.91 for normal monsters.

[keterys]

Hmm. Remove the saving throw bonus from solos, then:

Solo creatures auotomatically make all saving throws at the end of their turn.

Whenever a solo is affected by an attack with a duration of one turn or less, it may make an immediate saving throw. If successful any associated conditions or penalties of the attack are removed.

So that would make one turn effects have .45 * 5 = 2.25 times as much effect as normal and save ends would have 1*5 = 5 / (what, 5/3 round normal expectation?) = 3 times as much effect.

So the save ends powers would still be very important for guaranteeing a round of effect, and the solo would have lots of outs against normal penalties. At that point it'd be a lot easier to work on its action economy and it would be far more resistant to things like just stacking a ton of attack penalties on it.

[Elric]

Originally Posted by keterys

Hmm. Remove the saving throw bonus from solos, then:

Solo creatures auotomatically make all saving throws at the end of their turn.

This would really keep Orb Wizards in check Having solos auto-make saves is a large change of the game's existing mechanics, though- maybe too large, since the saving throw bonus for a solo only ends up mattering on one-round effects. It also doesn't decrease the length of save-ends effects on solos that much.

Whenever a solo is affected by an attack with a duration of one turn or less, it may make an immediate saving throw. If successful any associated conditions or penalties of the attack are removed.

So that would make one turn effects have .45 * 5 = 2.25 times as much effect as normal and save ends would have 1*5 = 5 / (what, 5/3 round normal expectation?) = 3 times as much effect.

20/11 is the normal monster round expectation, so this is 2.75 as much effect. This proposal, like my most recent proposal above, has one round effects becoming 45% as effective as they used to be, though you've gone a little further by giving an immediate check to cancel them. That seems like a reasonable number, in general.

Overall, this is getting close to my original proposal (solos make saves at the start of the round and can save against until end of turn effects then), except replacing solos having a "+2 bonus to saves" with a "+0 bonus to saves." Issues of immediate saves vs. saves at the start of your turn aside (and exactly what conditions are covered, since our wordings are slightly different), if you make my original proposal +0 to saves you end up with average of 0.45 rounds for (until end of turn) effects and 0.82 for (save ends) effects.

This is the same ratio of relative effectiveness as for a normal monster, though compared to the RAW status quo one-round effects have taken a bigger hit than (save ends). Also, my proposal here is horribly vulnerable to Orb Wizards and static save penalties, which would have to be HRd before you'd want to implement a fix like this one.

[KidSnide]

Originally Posted by Morgan_Scott82

I do think the quality of printed solos is slowly improving as the people contributing to the game work with Solos more and get a better handle on their strengths and weaknesses. For example compare Thorn, a solo from Dungeon 160, to an adult white dragon. Assuming the standart party of five, Thorn's action ratio is 4:5, while the White Dragon's is 2:5. Thorn is a better written, more engaging solo. I don't think he goes far enough (niether of them have any outs for example), but it's progress, and hopefully we'll see more progress, and the game will continue to get better for all of us.

I tend to agree with the idea that the solution here is probably writing better solo monsters than are found in the MM1, and not writing a general rule that applies to all solo monsters automatically.

Originally Posted by Morgan_Scott82

Font of Arcane Renewal (immediate reaction, when the adult white dragon is effected by a condition that a save can end, recharge 5,6)
The Adult white dragon makes an saving throw.

There we go in ten minutes time we've taken a boring solo with an action ratio of 2:5, and no outs to what I hope would be a more interesting solo with an action ratio of 3.5:5 and a versitile, somewhat reliable out. Its easier than most DMs think to spice up a solo, and the more you do it the easier it gets.

BTW Font of Arcane Renewal would be a good out power for all dragons...

But the more interesting point in this thread is that good solo design requires "outs" as well as actions. Although every solo shouldn't have the same out capacity, each solo needs something.

The Font of Arcane Renewal shown above is a perfectly reasonable choice. You could also allow a Warden like "save vs. one effect" and, optionally, expand it to include until-the-end-of-X's-next-turn effects. A Warden-like effect has the double-effect of effectively giving an extra action. Immunities (or "resistances") to certain effects, especially Dazed and Stunned, are also a reasonable choice. A solo might also be able to transfer effects to its weaker allies or (even nastier) to its enemies. One could also give solos encounter (or recharge) effects that are "free actions, only usable once per turn". The primary effect is to give another action, but it also reduces Daze vulnerability because the free action isn't impinged. I'm sure others also have good ideas.

-KS

[Elric]

Originally Posted by Morgan_Scott82

For example compare Thorn, a solo from Dungeon 160, to an adult white dragon. Assuming the standart party of five, Thorn's action ratio is 4:5, while the White Dragon's is 2:5. Thorn is a better written, more engaging solo. I don't think he goes far enough (niether of them have any outs for example), but it's progress, and hopefully we'll see more progress, and the game will continue to get better for all of us.

Solo action ratio deserves a separate topic entirely. I will say that solos wouldn’t need as many actions to keep up with players if they weren’t so affected by debuffs.

Font of Arcane Renewal (immediate reaction, when the adult white dragon is effected by a condition that a save can end, recharge 5,6)
The Adult white dragon makes an saving throw.

BTW Font of Arcane Renewal would be a good out power for all dragons...

Would a dragon be able to use this as an immediate reaction to being affected by a Stun/Daze? If not, that’s a problem. The main problem with this kind of fix is that it does nothing for (until end of next turn) effects but severely weakens (save ends) effects. If the Dragon had this power available and uses it, a (save ends) effect lasts an average of 0.25 rounds.

So if the Dragon has this available for even every third (save ends) attack (roughly speaking, it gets hit by one effect it wants to use the power on each round), save-ends attacks end up being less powerful than (until end of next turn) effects. As the former are almost exclusively daily powers and the latter tend to be encounter powers, this would be a strange effect.

So far I've been discussing major fixes in the scheme of things. Your two examples so far have been comparatively minor fixes. It's just adding a specific ability or two to each solo. Let me try a proposal in this genre. Solos add the following two abilities:

Immutable Opponent When this creature would be stunned or dominated, if it is not dazed it can make a saving throw. If that saving throw succeeds, it is dazed instead (the effect has its usual duration).

Remarkable Resilience (no action, when this creature suffers an effect that a save can end; encounter). This creature makes a saving throw against the triggering effect.
Special: the first time this creature becomes bloodied in an encounter, this power recharges, and it can use it immediately against an ongoing effect that a save can end.

The first ability is aimed at until end of next turn stun effects in particular. The second ability only deals with save-ends effects, but is limited enough that it shouldn't change the balance between (until end of next turn) and (save ends) effects. Since it doesn't have recharge rolls it won't require much additional tracking. I haven't figured out whether the current wording makes Immutable Opponent take effect before the solo has to decide whether to use Remarkable Resilience, and also haven't thought too much about which order would be desirable

This doesn't deal with the problem of stacking to-hit penalties on solos, and won't prevent a dedicated stunning party from getting several rounds of stun in on a solo, but it should help ensure that solos are a more appropriate challenge, without requiring any major changes.

[Elric]

Originally Posted by Morgan_Scott82

We think about some dragon-ish, or cold-ish powers and see what comes to mind.

Frostbound Earth Aura 2, the squares within the aura are considered difficult terrain.

Wingback strike (Minor action)
M; +10 vs Fort; 1d6+5 damage and the target is pushed two squares.

Iceshock Stomp (Minor action, recharge 6)
Close Burst 1; +10 vs Fort; 1d10+5 cold damage and the target is pushed three squares.

There we go in ten minutes time we've taken a boring solo with an action ratio of 2:5, and no outs to what I hope would be a more interesting solo with an action ratio of 3.5:5 and a versitile, somewhat reliable out. Its easier than most DMs think to spice up a solo, and the more you do it the easier it gets.

This is a separate issue from the main point of this thread, but I'd worry that your changes to increase solos' action ratio would make them too powerful (edit: looking at the book, the Adult White Dragon does look pretty weak; still, these changes would substantially increase its power). In particular, solos have higher defenses and four at heroic (five at paragon/epic) times the HP of normal monsters. A solo is still essentially as powerful until the end of a fight (besides using its action points and having to recharge powers). By comparison the players get weaker over the course of a combat, using up encounter and daily powers and switching to at-wills.

In a normal combat, the players can and will focus fire, so the monsters lose offense over time as they are killed off, while the players have more ways to prevent the monsters from focusing fire and have healing surge triggers, which enables them to have "group hit points" in a way that monsters do not. So a solo should have lower damage capabilities than a group of 5 normal monsters. If a solo started out with the damage capabilities of close to 5 normal monsters of its level, it could easily be too strong.

While some effects are stronger in an encounter against solos than normal monsters (Lead the Attack, for example, in addition to the debuffs that this thread is mainly concerned with), other effects are weaker (Area attacks). At level 9, the White Dragon's level, debuffs are less of a problem than they'll become- I don't think there are any encounter stun powers in the heroic tier, for example

Now, I think that it would have made sense for D&D solos to be designed with slightly fewer HP and greater offense. However, given their high HP, you have to be careful with how strong you make their offenses. Edit: after having made this comment, I spotted the Adamantine Dragon MM2 preview (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20090413), and it looks both significantly better offensively and weaker defensively than the comparable solo 22 soldier Red Dragon. Its defenses are lower and its HP are four times that of a normal monster's, not the 5 in PH for paragon/epic solos. So if this is a trend, WotC is already redesigning solos in this way (no "outs", though).

[Neubert]

Another option, just to inject it, is to downgrade effects. Have the solo roll to save against an effect (let's use stunned in this example) in the beginning of it's turn (as you mention). If it saves against the stun, it is downgraded to a daze. However, it gets an new saving throw immediately after to save against the daze. This way, there is a chance it is still stunned, there is a chance it becomes dazed and there is a chance it clears it completely.

Without having done the math, I would guess a +0 or +2 bonus to the save would be most fair.


Another option is to have the solo save right when it is affected (so when a player stuns the solo, it rolls right away - this way you don't have to remember to do saves at the beginning of it's turn). This has the side effect of the players knowing that it isn't stunned (and the next player can use a new power to try and stun), but they will also not get the effect of the stun at all.
I think this should only be the case for conditions such as stun, as it would devaluate ongoing damage (but I think a list of which effects it can do immediate saves against would be best, in order to micro-manage what effects can be stopped).
In order to keep things consistent, the solo would also roll saves at the end of it's turn.