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I think your missing the fact that a wizard can create a large amount of conditions on something like a solo. Not to mention a coordinated party loves a well planned wizard against a solo, especially flying ones.
Hello again everyone! I hope you all had a good Christmas/Winter Holiday of Your Choice. I'm back with more!
Tip #8) Use more monsters, not less
The math can easily get off/grindy if you use elites or monsters that are much higher level than the PCs. You really want the PCs to have a to-hit chance between 45-60% - even using a "boring" at-will feels a little better if you hit with it. Now obviously to-hits will vary between the party members - a rogue with a dagger is going to hit AC more often than a paladin with an axe, but the general principle holds. On the flip-side, you want your monsters to have a reasonable chance of hitting the PCs as well if you're doing as I recommend and trying to bring a reasonable amount of risk into the encounter.
Elites and Solos (esp Solos) are also things to use carefully, as are templates, since they turn monsters into elites. The economy of actions has been mentioned many times on these boards (elites and solos generally get less attacks than 2 (or 5) monsters of their level, so they're less dangerous). One side effect of this I haven't seen mentioned as often is that the designers have, in my opinion, given elites and solos too many hps in most cases (probably to compensate for the economy of actions problem). However, just giving a monster more hp doesn't necessarily make it that much more of a threat - in many cases it just makes the fight stretch on after its lost all drama - the elite is the only monster left, you have to hack through another 80 hp, but it has so few actions that it can't really threaten the players.
What this means when picking monsters is that you generally want to stick to normal monsters and minions of a range between n-2 to n+3. If a monster that you want to use doesn't fit there, you probably want to bump its level up or down a bit using the DM's toolbox from the DMG (one of my all-time favorite sections of any DMG ever). The DMG advises not using this to bump a monster up or down more than 5 levels - I would say 4 is actually the maximum ammount of levels you can tweak with this - anything more or less, and you're better off finding a monster of the right level and re-skinning it (or making up a monster from scratch).
Since you're using monsters that are close to the PC's level, you want to out-number them - most of the really good fights I've done use a collection of monsters at or slightly above the PCs level that outnumber the PCs by about 4 or 5. This gives the defender(s) a chance to shine by finding a good spot and locking down most of the monsters, while the back-line characters still have to stay on their toes to avoid the ones who inevitably make it past when the monsters have that great of an advantage of numbers. If you're lucky and play your monsters right, it'll also have a perfect curve of still-living monsters/PC resources - the last 3 zombies are a lot more threatening when everyone has already used their 2nd wind and the cleric is down to single digit hitpoints and is frantically screaming for someone, anyone to stand between him and the zombie 3 squares away from him.
Now of course, you still want to use elites and solos in your game - what would D&D be without at least the occasional dragon fight, right? You just have to put a little more work into these to set these up right. For starters, you probably want to reduce their hitpoints by about 20-25%, though your mileage may vary. Secondly, you need to surround them with a good complement of normal monsters - probably something that is the opposite of their role. Give an artillery/controller elite/solo some brutes up front, give a brute solo some artillery and skirmishers to circle around behind him, etc. It's very rare that you want to actually use a solo as a single monster, as it can easily get boring and repetive. If you do use the solo by itself, make sure to include some dynamic terrain to keep the tenor of the fight changing.
Hope all that helps!
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
I think your missing the fact that a wizard can create a large amount of conditions on something like a solo. Not to mention a coordinated party loves a well planned wizard against a solo, especially flying ones.
Heh, true enough. I've been DMing a tiefling pyromancer wizard for quite a while now, I sort of forgot how good orb wizards can be at de-buffing a solo.
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
By the way, I've been using some of the advice in this thread, and it's made a difference in my game. Thanks a lot guys.
__________________ "Dovie'andi se tovya sagain."
Quote:
Originally Posted by crazy_cat
That is a very logical, sensible, well reasoned, and rational point. This, however, is the internet. I'm therefore going to ignore it utterly and completely.
One point I feel should be added about the Happy/Sad Warlock earlier:
The description stated that minions were in the Sad Warlock category. I couldn't possibly disagree more. Spending your first round doing nothing but cursing two or three minions is a favorite tactic of mine.
3 Cursed Minions + Wizard's Scorching Burst + Improved Fate of the Void = +6 to any roll I darn well please. Sign me up!
I'll also take 6+ squares of free immediate teleportation (feylock) or a crapton of temporary hitpoints (infernal) any day of the week.
One point I feel should be added about the Happy/Sad Warlock earlier:
The description stated that minions were in the Sad Warlock category. I couldn't possibly disagree more. Spending your first round doing nothing but cursing two or three minions is a favorite tactic of mine.
3 Cursed Minions + Wizard's Scorching Burst + Improved Fate of the Void = +6 to any roll I darn well please. Sign me up!
I'll also take 6+ squares of free immediate teleportation (feylock) or a crapton of temporary hitpoints (infernal) any day of the week.
Yes, true, until you get the Rod of Cursplosion. My wife's warlock has gotten really scary since she found one. "Oh, no, I'll skip the +1 from that dead minion. Instead, put these poker chips under him, and him, and him, and...." Then she pops Armor of Agathys, blasts the BBEG and stands next to pre-cursed minions every round. I need minions with cold immunity!
Some of what has made the fights too easy is that I've had too few opponents in some encounters, or else the fight was by its nature staged in waves (reinforcements joining up after a couple rounds). It's clear to me that I need to pay more attention to the "economy of actions" by using more lower level opponents rather than fewer high level ones. I also need to make sure the foes have some good tactical options themselves. The PC's are good at working together and can probably outthink me when it comes to straight tactics. I need to use my DM powers to set things up with an advantage to the NPC's to start to make up for that, but so far haven't been very effective at it.
The next big encounter will be an ambush while they are inside a house in a remote area. I want to have a mix of foes - one big cleric dude who can heal his allies, some henchmen he hired, maybe a skirmisher/rogue type, and a couple guard drakes. I love guard drakes.
Since they will be in a house, I want there to be 2 doors that the bad guys will bust into simultaneously. One door leads from the outside to the pantry, with a trap door to the root cellar in that room. The PC's could open up the trap door if they want to create an obstacle (pit) and something to push people into. I'll have the usual large fieldstone fireplace in the main room/kitchen area, but it's pretty much just a house, so terrain can't be *too* interesting. I suppose if I have a pot of rendering fat over the fire, that could be spilled all over the floor to create a slippery area of difficult terrain. There will be 2 innocent bystanders present - one of whom can sort of defend himself, the other cannot. Hopefully the group will protect them and not simply allow them to be slain by the bad guys.
The PC's are: A human 2-handed weapon fighter, a genasi assault swordmage, an eladrin taclord, a halfling rogue, and a halfling feylock (all level 2). The taclord is very good at battlefield tactics, and is using his fey step to good advantage in most fights. He's setting up the rogue and fighter with some great flanking and bonuses. The swordmage is *not* very tactically oriented, and will often make suboptimal choices, but my objective is to keep her having fun with her character.
I want to make this a challenging fight where they need to think on their feet and pull out all the stops. Any recommendations?
I noticed this posted a ways back and though you've probably already run the encounter I have some advice to throw out to people running similar encounters.
There's lots of cool stuff you can do with the inside of a house, or any building. Especially with teleportation. Furniture can be used as cover/difficult terrain, light fixtures and other hanging objects can be knocked off the walls to immobilize/damage enemies. Windows can be used to teleport through or just jump through for the ambushers. If the home has multiple stories the second floor can have a balcony over the first floor which would be a great place for ranged attackers to set up with cover, or teleporters to use as an emergency location to retreat to. (your feylock would love it and the swordmage could find it useful as well)
The two innocent bystandards is a great tactical addition to the encounter. I'm curious how it went?
Well we just ran into some of the "grind" that was mentioned. Several trogladytes, and some harpies, + 1 carrion crawler = boring slow grind that never seemed like it was going to end! It may have just been a crapload of bad rolls, but it was so bad we just ended the session afterwards. Every stinkin' trog had 70hp, the harpies were high hp, so too was the CC. Just becuz of this instance, we are going to start trying a 3e if you don't move more then 5' you get a second attack. I mean it was so bad that everyone was almost wanting to scrap 4e. Horrible. Too many powers require a hit, and are one use items. Had it not been for the dwarven paladin weilding a greataxe whippin' out some 20s, we might still be fighting!
Awesome thread. It in fact, convinced me to finally ditch the published modules and go with one of my own (with some liberal stealing of encounters from H3).
The PC's hadn't fought much undead lately, so I sent them into a tomb on the way to find a second entrance to a shrine to Vecna taken over by a member of the Blood of Vol.
Of course then the Paladin PC tells me on the ride to the session that he's swapping out his Paladin for a Swordmage.
Still, the look on the player's faces when they opened the set of double doors to see a massive room full of more than two dozen zombies was classic.
A couple of points.
1. I can't remember if it was mentioned in the tips above, but it's important to give the PC's a reason to move. In this case, I knew the PC's first instinct would be to either close the door and flee or remain in the cooridor as a defensive position. (They had just had a minor ass-handing to them in the entrance encounter by two Trap Haunts, a Flamejet trap and two Flaming Skulls).
So a couple of elements were added to the room: a Skull Lord and 2 Corruption Corpses on a 20' high landing accessable by stairs, and 2 Lasher Zombies (the Zombie Dragon article yesterday was very timely.
Because of those elements, the PC's did actually enter the room.
2. Again I can't remember where it was mentioned, but the tip of dynamically adjusting hp was great. The PCs had been getting their butts collectively kicked by a Zombie Hulk (who in the previous round had criticaled the Rogue with a Zombie Smash...37 pts damage...yikes), and the Warlord set him up so that the Hulk would get hit for a critical on a 18-20. The Hulk went down that round but because of it's ability it got back up again the next round. The Warlord then used one of his big powers (not sure if it was a daily or not), and rolled an 18. That would have taken the Hulk down to 5 hp, but I decided just to kill it off.
I can't think of when I heard a cheer resound around the table like that in a long time.
But I'm loving the fact that I can throw everything I've got at the PC's without worrying about pulling punches. By designing my own encounters I've also upped the threat level a bit...the first combat had two PC's drop, the second (so far) has had the Swordmage drop (although he's by himself with the Skull Lord...fortunately he rolled a 20 on his death save).
But that, IMO, was one of the best sessions we've had in 4e, if not the best.
Location: Cedar Rapids, IA PCs now: Genasi Warlord 5 Human BRV Fighter 5
Posts: 8,000
Quote:
Originally Posted by hailstop
So a couple of elements were added to the room: a Skull Lord and 2 Corruption Corpses on a 20' high landing accessable by stairs, and 2 Lasher Zombies (the Zombie Dragon article yesterday was very timely.
Because of those elements, the PC's did actually enter the room.
I don't understand. Why would they find entering the room more tactically advantageous when there are ranged opponents in the room?
I'm beginning to think that the S.O.P. of all PCs should be "open door, step back about 3 squares, and let them come to you".
__________________ - Nail
Last edited by Nail: Today....just a few minutes ago
Awesome thread. It in fact, convinced me to finally ditch the published modules and go with one of my own (with some liberal stealing of encounters from H3).
Great to hear! Keep it up, it's a lot of fun. And steal from everywhere you can find stuff - check out the threads in the storyhour section here for some inspiration too. I recommend Piratecat's, anything by JonRog, and Shemeska's, though I'm sure there's good ones I've missed.
Quote:
Still, the look on the player's faces when they opened the set of double doors to see a massive room full of more than two dozen zombies was classic.
Always a great feeling. My players are getting pretty cocky after everything they've survived - I'm going to have to find a way to take it up another notch to see that look on their faces again.
Anyway, haven't been playing much lately due to a combination of holidays/new playstation/workworkwork. I did play in a paragon game a friend is running, and it got really grindy. I'm going to be DMing some paragon tier myself in a week, so I'll try and get some paragon specific tips up here once I've had a couple sessions of it to get the feel of it.
__________________ Rick Reroll -- Deadly Rickster Utility 26 Daily
Choose one: you reroll one die roll you just made and keep the higher result; or the DM rerolls one die roll he just made and keeps the lower result.
I don't understand. Why would they find entering the room more tactically advantageous when there are ranged opponents in the room?
I'm beginning to think that the S.O.P. of all PCs should be "open door, step back about 3 squares, and let them come to you".
Usually, the only characters with capable ranged weapons in a party is the wizard, and he's also the one who's best equipped to deal with minions. So if there's artillery in the back of the room pounding the party, that wizard is being forced to decide between clearing out all the little guys, or ensuring that the party survives in the long run by killing the artillery.
Artillery is great for drawing the party in, as they're usually quite vulnerable to attack, and deal bucketloads of damage if left to themselves. The party simply can't afford to "step back into the hallway and hold them off" - the melee front will be whittled down by both artillery fire and the wave of melee enemies going for them.
Artillery is great for drawing the party in, as they're usually quite vulnerable to attack, and deal bucketloads of damage if left to themselves. The party simply can't afford to "step back into the hallway and hold them off" - the melee front will be whittled down by both artillery fire and the wave of melee enemies going for them.
Agreed! This was exactly the situation my party faced in last week's session with Blazing Skeletons at the top of stairways and platforms and Chillborn Zombies & Skeleton Minions littering the main floor making it difficult for the party to rush the stairs.
I think the general party consensus was to "step back into the hallway and whittle them down" but the Blazing Skellies ranged flame attack has a range of 10 and the only way any PC could attack at that range (aside from the Ranger with her bow) was to be on the front line to trade shots with them. That would put them, of course, up front with the Zombies & Minions where most non-Defenders just aren't likely to last all that long. I thought the fight was going to turn into a grindy slugfest that would almost assuredly end with the party retreating outright or a TPK if they started this way and then tried to change tactics in the middle of the fight after realizing it wouldn't work all that well. (Someone commented at one point, "let's pull them into the corridor" but the mobs weren't going to leave that room!)
Thankfully the Cleric of Kord charged into the room (as usual ) and Nail's Fighter followed him in to protect him and establish a front line which pulled the rest of the party in. Unfortunately for the Cleric & Nail, most of the rest of the party hung back for several rounds which only left the two of them as targets for all the mobs, both ranged and melee, for nearly too long. However with some key smart plays and a few lucky rolls they managed to not lose anyone and emerge victorious! And there was much rejoicing.
I'm not sure if we need to number all the tips but this battle taught me to try and avoid too many similar monster effects. By that I mean with the Chillborn Zombie Auras doing cold damage at the start of PCs turns, along with both their Cold ongoing damage attacks & the Blazing Skeleton Fire ongoing damage attacks, Nail's poor Fighter and the Cleric of Kord were really getting hit with all kinds of hurt every round. With the rest of the party not moving in all that quick to help them and take their fair share of the hurt, and the Chillborn Zombie's Immobilize effect keeping them from moving back I had them unwittingly pinned pretty well. There was also a great deal of the players' time spent adding & subtracting markers from both PC & enemy minis, and we're still trying to figure out the best way to track all those conditions from round to round!
BTW, thanks much to Vayden for starting this thread and to everyone else who's posted with their own advice. Originally this encounter was using those same mobs straight out of the MM, but after reading this thread I lowered the levels on all the non-Minion mobs and increased their numbers by 50-75%. For my party of eight 2nd level PCs this was a much better encounter that was exciting & fun! As it was originally I'm pretty sure they would have just been frustrated and/or died against the Chillborn Zombies soldierly high AC.
Location: Cedar Rapids, IA PCs now: Genasi Warlord 5 Human BRV Fighter 5
Posts: 8,000
Good summary of what we faced and how it went down, DrSpunj. Speaking as a player in his game, I think DrSpunj's "tweaks" (more monsters, lower levels) made it much more fun.
__________________ - Nail
Last edited by Nail: Today....just a few minutes ago
Location: Cedar Rapids, IA PCs now: Genasi Warlord 5 Human BRV Fighter 5
Posts: 8,000
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nail
I don't understand. Why would they find entering the room more tactically advantageous when there are ranged opponents in the room?
I'm beginning to think that the S.O.P. of all PCs should be "open door, step back about 3 squares, and let them come to you".
Quote:
Originally Posted by hailstop
The party is largely made up of melee types.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cjais
Usually, the only characters with capable ranged weapons in a party is the wizard, and he's also the one who's best equipped to deal with minions. So if there's artillery in the back of the room pounding the party, that wizard is being forced to decide between clearing out all the little guys, or ensuring that the party survives in the long run by killing the artillery.
False diachotomy. Draw the melee monsters into the hallway, out of line-of-effect from the artillery and in range of the melee PCs. When the monsters break, then charge in and clean up.
In my other game (where I play a tac-lord), we do this often.
__________________ - Nail
Last edited by Nail: Today....just a few minutes ago
False diachotomy. Draw the melee monsters into the hallway, out of line-of-effect from the artillery and in range of the melee PCs. When the monsters break, then charge in and clean up.
In my other game (where I play a tac-lord), we do this often.
Sure, that's a good tactic. I can't see why they would leave their fire support behind however, if they're an organised and intelligent force.
As the enemy usually has more ranged firepower than the party, I'm thinking I should actually just have them stand back and let the party come to them.
or remain in the cooridor as a defensive position. (They had just had a minor ass-handing to them in the entrance encounter by two Trap Haunts, a Flamejet trap and two Flaming Skulls).
) and Nail's Fighter followed him in to protect him and establish a front line which pulled the rest of the party in. Unfortunately for the Cleric & Nail, most of the rest of the party hung back for several rounds which only left the two of them as targets for all the mobs, both ranged and melee, for nearly too long. 
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