After reading all the new 4E material and playing it for some evenings, all these nice encounter ideas kept coming up in my head. But then again I realised I'll never be able to run them all, especially as there's more than D&D to play. *heresy 
*
But luckily enough I've got all the Internet, and foremost EN World, to share.
In general the encounters published here will be those special ones, not the regular ones like random zombies wandering around, the Kobold guards in a dragon's lair or the negotiations with a Hobgoblin warlord. The ideas presented are meant to be the big last encounter of a dungeon or the skill challenge that paces the whole evening.
I will always add information how to run the encounter itself, how to include it in your adventure, provide hints how to refit it to your world and mention some possible player tactics.
Please feel free to point out possible imbalances and especially post some feedback if you included an encounter in your adventure and tell us how it turned out there.
*But luckily enough I've got all the Internet, and foremost EN World, to share.
In general the encounters published here will be those special ones, not the regular ones like random zombies wandering around, the Kobold guards in a dragon's lair or the negotiations with a Hobgoblin warlord. The ideas presented are meant to be the big last encounter of a dungeon or the skill challenge that paces the whole evening.
I will always add information how to run the encounter itself, how to include it in your adventure, provide hints how to refit it to your world and mention some possible player tactics.
Please feel free to point out possible imbalances and especially post some feedback if you included an encounter in your adventure and tell us how it turned out there.
The Summoner of Souls (part 2: Adaption)
Posted 3rd September 2008 at 05:00 AM by lgw
continued from The Summoner of Souls (part 1: Stat Block)
Adapting the encounter
Reflavouring the lore and elements to particular worlds or gods is easy enough. The summoner should probably not be a nameless foe but play a central role for at least an evening if not for a whole part of a campaign. It is also not necessary that he attacks the players right away, as he is well apt at bargaining and will trade their lives for more knowledge or even possible help - should the players be willing...
The summoner can be well reflavoured to an elemental version with flares instead of souls, then likely being an agent of a powerful dragon or similar creature. Just pay attention to include at least two different types of damage to not make it overly easy by having one certain resistance available. Replace the Battle Wight by a similar soldier that either has a control / drain ability or at least marks characters to help the souls survive. In a similar way his race can be changed by unapplying his racial template (p279 MM) and applying a new one.
It can be run in any location, although some location that is a little bit tighter in space and possibly includes some difficult terrain or even a superior position for the summoner is best. Do not include more than one extra monster, if any at all, because that distracts from the central summoning mechanic. Rather include a trap (chose an obstacle or blaster type) or best simply upgrade or downgrade the summoner's level (+/- 2 hit points per level for the summoned souls). If run as a paragon encounter, remember that paragon level solos have more health, which means add 25% to the summoner's hit points after level adjustment and also 5 extra hit points for the flares.
If you don't mind deluding the summoning mechanic and don't like the artefact version, you can downgrade the summoner to an elite. For that half his XP value and his hit points, make the souls minions, remove one action point and remove one die from Soul Discharge and Revenge of the Staff. Soul Discharge now does not recharge except by Might of the Staff, which loses the feature of summoning an additional Battle Wight.
Player tactics
This fight puts a heavy strain on the players' healing capacities, and adapting to the changing rhythm between summoning and destroying the souls and targeting the summoner himself when he is not summoning and thereby lower on his defences is the major challenge.
Also while the summoner does not do direct attacks against anyone while summoning, it is a wise idea to keep a Defender next to him to account for the moment he changes tactics. Strikers will concentrate at best on removing the flares quickly, while the rest should simply make sure everybody stays in good health and puts other status effects on the summoner.
Both a Fighter and a Paladin will be helpful in this fight - the former due better stickiness, the latter due his additional healing. A good Cleric will likely make the encounter a good bit easier, while a tactical Warlord as only leader will likely mean doom for the group because they will run out of extra healing before they can finish him off.
The players having all their Dailys available in the fight isn't that important, but having more encounters before or after this one that are heavy on Healing Surges will very likely result in dead characters.
Design notes
The damage from the souls is low for its level, especially for solo, but it continuously targets many group members and is hard to avoid. The melee and ranged attacks are high respectively medium damage, which still isn't too much considering that most solos get at least double regular attacks. The only real high damage attacks are Soul Discharge and Revenge of the Staff, using the limited damage selections as they are low-recharge or one time effects.
This is balanced by the great survivability of the summoner and the hard time a Defender has to keep him in check. Together with the dynamic development of the fight this should provide a good alternative to the common "tank and spank" or "condition stacking" experiences of solo encounters.
Running the summoner at low heroic does give his back story not enough credit, and the players have simply to few healing and damage mitigation available to survive it. A similar version at high paragon and epic wouldn't be that fun because of the massive options and the widely available healing to those characters.
The souls are balanced to be killed by about two successful hits, possibly one from a well built striker or with an encounter powers.
Adapting the encounter
Reflavouring the lore and elements to particular worlds or gods is easy enough. The summoner should probably not be a nameless foe but play a central role for at least an evening if not for a whole part of a campaign. It is also not necessary that he attacks the players right away, as he is well apt at bargaining and will trade their lives for more knowledge or even possible help - should the players be willing...
The summoner can be well reflavoured to an elemental version with flares instead of souls, then likely being an agent of a powerful dragon or similar creature. Just pay attention to include at least two different types of damage to not make it overly easy by having one certain resistance available. Replace the Battle Wight by a similar soldier that either has a control / drain ability or at least marks characters to help the souls survive. In a similar way his race can be changed by unapplying his racial template (p279 MM) and applying a new one.
It can be run in any location, although some location that is a little bit tighter in space and possibly includes some difficult terrain or even a superior position for the summoner is best. Do not include more than one extra monster, if any at all, because that distracts from the central summoning mechanic. Rather include a trap (chose an obstacle or blaster type) or best simply upgrade or downgrade the summoner's level (+/- 2 hit points per level for the summoned souls). If run as a paragon encounter, remember that paragon level solos have more health, which means add 25% to the summoner's hit points after level adjustment and also 5 extra hit points for the flares.
If you don't mind deluding the summoning mechanic and don't like the artefact version, you can downgrade the summoner to an elite. For that half his XP value and his hit points, make the souls minions, remove one action point and remove one die from Soul Discharge and Revenge of the Staff. Soul Discharge now does not recharge except by Might of the Staff, which loses the feature of summoning an additional Battle Wight.
Player tactics
This fight puts a heavy strain on the players' healing capacities, and adapting to the changing rhythm between summoning and destroying the souls and targeting the summoner himself when he is not summoning and thereby lower on his defences is the major challenge.
Also while the summoner does not do direct attacks against anyone while summoning, it is a wise idea to keep a Defender next to him to account for the moment he changes tactics. Strikers will concentrate at best on removing the flares quickly, while the rest should simply make sure everybody stays in good health and puts other status effects on the summoner.
Both a Fighter and a Paladin will be helpful in this fight - the former due better stickiness, the latter due his additional healing. A good Cleric will likely make the encounter a good bit easier, while a tactical Warlord as only leader will likely mean doom for the group because they will run out of extra healing before they can finish him off.
The players having all their Dailys available in the fight isn't that important, but having more encounters before or after this one that are heavy on Healing Surges will very likely result in dead characters.
Design notes
The damage from the souls is low for its level, especially for solo, but it continuously targets many group members and is hard to avoid. The melee and ranged attacks are high respectively medium damage, which still isn't too much considering that most solos get at least double regular attacks. The only real high damage attacks are Soul Discharge and Revenge of the Staff, using the limited damage selections as they are low-recharge or one time effects.
This is balanced by the great survivability of the summoner and the hard time a Defender has to keep him in check. Together with the dynamic development of the fight this should provide a good alternative to the common "tank and spank" or "condition stacking" experiences of solo encounters.
Running the summoner at low heroic does give his back story not enough credit, and the players have simply to few healing and damage mitigation available to survive it. A similar version at high paragon and epic wouldn't be that fun because of the massive options and the widely available healing to those characters.
The souls are balanced to be killed by about two successful hits, possibly one from a well built striker or with an encounter powers.
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