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In your own version of this challenge, you might play these two as originally presented, or you might reconfigure Orcus closer to the newer solo monster design tenets: give him 20% fewer hit points, -2 defenses, but also increase his damage output by 50% when bloodied.
From the previews, it looks like solos are becoming roughly 4x the offense and 4x the HP of normal monsters. It also looks like elites (as well as solos) do not have a bonus to defenses over normal monsters. The DMG's guidelines (page 184) give +2 to three defenses to elites/solos, and this seems to be widely followed in the MM. Can someone with MM2 confirm that solos/elites generally don't have higher defenses than normal monsters (of their level/role) in MM2?
If so, this is a major change: elites and solos no longer have a bonus to defenses, and solos have reduced HP at Paragon/Epic (and do more damage).
I read that the day after running a session and just thinking "Thank God!". The session from the night before ended with the party running into an appropriate leveled solo but the fight lasted much longer than it needed to because they never hit him!* The lower defense but higher damage output is something that I think will make my games run a little faster and be more fun.
*The problem was also probably in part due to me picking a solo creature shortly before the session without giving a lot of though to whether it was appropriate to the party. Well, that may have been the main problem, but its nice to blame something else.
I actually took a thorough look at the solos in MM2 because I was thinking of writing a post about this
Bottom line, its absolutely true.
Compare the hydras for example. The razor hydra has about 100 less hitpoints for its level than in standard 4e MM1 math. It also spots more damage that increases as the fight continues.
Also many solos now gets multiple turns per round which helps. There defenses are roughly -2 compared to MM1 math.
I haven't looked at elites much, but minions also got an upgrade at higher level.
You now have minions throwing out 12 and 15 damage on their attacks! Further, almost all high level minions have some kind of "aid their buddies" effect. Whether its an aura that gives -2 to defenses, giving temp hp to their buddies when they die, or making the party more vulnerable to something" the new goal of high level minions is "even when I'm not attacking, I'm doing something nasty".
Which I completely agree with.
I have not yet tested out any of the new MM2 creatures to see how effective the changes are, but I applaud the effort.
Bottom line guys, let's not beat up WOTC too much for actually listening to our complaints and altering how they design monsters to cater more to our desires. They have gathered the evidence, and have altered their designs based on it....and that is a beautiful thing for any game company to do.
While I do wish we could get some more errata to back track the changes into previous books, I don't mind that newer books push through better and better game design and that sometimes that requires me to convert some of the old stuff into the new model.
Last thing I'll say about this....in 3e if I was making a dragon I would spend 30 min to an hour picking feats and spells and magic items and special effects...so if it takes me 5 min to knock 20% of the HP off a red dragon, take off -2 to defenses, and then give them some extra damage...I can deal with that
Last thing I'll say about this....in 3e if I was making a dragon I would spend 30 min to an hour picking feats and spells and magic items and special effects...so if it takes me 5 min to knock 20% of the HP off a red dragon, take off -2 to defenses, and then give them some extra damage...I can deal with that
But it would be nice if this was announced in a manner other than buried in a preview {articles which I rarely read}....
This also makes it harder to have computer generated monsters. Sure, the basics are simple, but tacking on a variety of extra damage/powers/turns...
Speaking of, I wonder if the WoTC online monster generator has been updated?
...and it looks like I have an excell spreadsheet critter generator to update now
PS. Thanks Elric for catching this and letting me/us know!
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I'll have to take a look at my copy of the MM2 when I get home.
It's interesting though. When we first started playing, solo's were scary and often quite grindy. Now, they play out as rather whimpy if they aren't a few levels above the party or teamed up with a couple of other monsters.
Could be the selection of monster, that the party is just getting really good at what they do or both. More damage and hit points are fine in my book when coupled with lower defenses.
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"Last thing I'll say about this....in 3e if I was making a dragon I would spend 30 min to an hour picking feats and spells and magic items and special effects...so if it takes me 5 min to knock 20% of the HP off a red dragon, take off -2 to defenses, and then give them some extra damage...I can deal with that"
I agree. I would really love to have a basic rule that let me do it all in my head. I will soon get really good at cutting 20% in my head. (I actually cut 25%).
I really like the new solo design, I ran a Young Adamantine Dragon against my group (who had recently faced down a Young Black Dragon a level ago) and the experience was very positive. Admittedly Black Dragons are grindy, but the group enjoyed the faster paced fight a lot more.
It's prompted me to go back through the MM1 and try to adjust the solos to be a bit more like that.
Minions and swarms seem to have gone through a redesign too. Swarms got nerfed and now just have a small passive damage aura, and minion damage seems to scale much more quickly as it gains levels, and they are more likely to have other abilities besides damage, such as auras, nasty status effects on a hit, and nasty on death effects. There are several monsters that spawn minions as well, with the minions being considered part of the xp for that monster.
How would a 50% increase in damage affect abilities that don't really rely on hp?
For example, Orcus's touch of death ability simply reduces the player to 0 hp. How might this be affected? An increase in recharge rate? Or no benefit at all? This is a key signature ability which the DM will likely want to use as often as possible since it is the most effective attack in his arsenal.
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