Need Help with 1v1 Encounters

Hey everyone, and thanks for your help.

I'm running D&D 4e, and I need help designing balanced 1v1 fights for my level 3 PCs. The hook is they are going to participate in a tournament for a hefty prize, but for their team to be eligible for competing, the majority of the team must prove themselves in solo combat. I want it to be challenging with a slight chance of failure, but not degrade into an at-will slugfest because I need to run 6 of them pretty quickly.

Any suggestions? I don't like the idea of throwing them up against a standard creature as the creatures are designed for taking a beating from multiple PCs. I need 6 creatures, preferably each unique and with their own twist, rolling for who fights who to keep things fair.

If it helps, the party comp is an Archery Ranger, Swordmage, Bard, Lock, Summoning Wizard, and Assasin.

Thank you for any advice!
-Myn

Problem is that 4e isn't great with 1 on 1 combat, that being said:

Couple suggestions:

1 - lower level standard monsters
2 - maybe a skill challenge instead of a battle?
3 - tailor each monster to the PC's, ie don't have a blindsight enemy against the assassin.

I second the suggestion to tailor monsters to show off your PCs' strengths. Also, would you consider making 6 NPCs using the guidelines in the DMG? That would allow you to tailor them more, they'd have fewer HP (faster fights), and might make more sense in a tournament-based adventure.

I'd avoid soldiers and controllers, and have each fight go till first character/NPC is bloodied. That should speed it up. Featuring lower level monsters should even the playing field.

Anyhow, some monsters suggestions for each PC...

Archery Ranger: A slow brute allowing ranger to skirmish.

Swordmage: What kind of aegis do they have? If they have teleporting a lurker could be interesting.

Bard: A solo fight for a leader is tough... I'd suggest making this some sort of roleplaying challenge disguised as a fight instead... like a valorous knight who is being made to fight to rescue his captive daughter... make it clear the bard is out-gunned

Lock: A creature with vulnerability the lock's power can exploit

Summoning Wizard: An artillery monster who the wizard can tie up with summoned creatures.

Assasin: Any brute should do the trick

Add in a bunch of terrain powers.

Give the other players something to do. Maybe there's a lurker off to the side who's spitting poisonous blow darts at the PC in the cage. They can make bets, shout words of encouragement, maybe beat up the NPC's helpful Warlord friend. Or things not related to the current fight; shady dealings covered by the roar of the crowd.

You could start the gladiators off in the middle of the cage, unarmed, with some weaponry off to the side past an obstacle. Add a lever or something near the centre that releases a tiger from a pit that can guard the weapons.

Multiple levels are good; something like a sand floor (falling damage is halved) over a network of beams. Of course there's an ankheg in the sand ready to drag whoever falls to their doom...

Other stuff:

Pits
Spiked walls
Gouts of flame shooting from the walls, combined with barrels of oil
Spiked chains hanging from the cieling (for climbing, swinging, strangling)
Teleport circles (randomly teleports you to another one)
Gas clouds
Rotting wooden cage that can be triggered to fall on a specific square


As far as monsters go, I think regular monsters should be okay - but I don't know, I've never run a 1-on-1 encounter like that*. I'd go with controllers for the most part since they can take advantage of the terrain in the most interesting ways. Skirmishers and lurkers might work. You really want someone who can slip away and not get bogged down in melee (unless, I guess, the PC is a ranged fighter; then a big brute whom the PC must stay away from would be okay).

* - okay, once I did; a level 4 fighter took on an ogre brute. The ogre didn't have anything interesting to do, he ended up pushed into a corner by the fighter and got stuck there. A lot of my advice is based on what I learned from that fight.