Awesome solo monster fight

the Jester · Feb 6, 2011

So we had a great pair of games this weekend, which included a fight against one of my homebrewed solo monsters, and I thought it a cool enough in use that I should post a thread about it.

Here are the monster's stats (ignore references to RADs if you don't play in my campaign or some kind of world with radiation):

My Adventure said:
RADIOACTIVE HYDRA--- Level 10 Solo Brute
Huge natural beast--- XP 2500
HP 535; Bloodied 267 (see Horrid Split); Initiative +7
AC 20; Fortitude 24; Reflex 20; Will 20; Perception +11
Speed 5; All-around vision
Resist poison 5, radiant 5
Saving Throws +5; Action Points 2

TRAITS
Radioactive Aura (poison, radiant) * Aura 2
Each creature that ends its turn within the aura gains vulnerable 5 radiant (save ends). If it already has vulnerable radiant, it also gains vulnerable 5 poison (save ends both).

Many-Headed
Each time the radioactive hydra becomes dazed, stunned or unconscious, it instead loses one attack from its hydra fury attack during its next turn. Multiple such effects stack.

Necrotic Dampening
If the radioactive hydra takes necrotic damage, its radioactive aura ceases to function until the start of its next turn.

Threatening Reach
The radioactive hydra can make opportunity attacks against all enemies within 2 squares of it.

STANDARD ACTIONS
(mbasic) Bite * At Will
Attack: Melee 2 (one creature); +12 vs. AC.
Hit: 1d12+16 damage.
(close) Radioactive Breath (poison, radiant) * At Will
Attack: Close blast 3 (each creature in blast); +11 vs. Fortitude.
Hit: 3d10+1 poison and radiant damage, and the target gains 1 RAD.
Special: Until the radioactive hydra is bloodied, if a creature is hit by multiple radioactive breath attacks on the radioactive hydra's turn, each attack after the first deals only 1d10 additional points of poison and radiant damage.
(melee/close) Hydra Fury * At Will
Effect: The radioactive hydra makes four bite or radioactive breath attacks in any combination.
TRIGGERED ACTIONS
(close) Horrid Split * Encounter
Trigger: The radioactive hydra becomes bloodied.
Attack (No Action): Close burst 3 (each creature in burst); +11 vs. Reflex.
Hit: The target is pushed 3 squares and covered in gore, leaving it blinded and restrained (save ends both).
Miss: The target is pushed 2 squares.
Effect: The radioactive hydra splits into four one-headed serpentine beasts in a shower of gore, and all conditions on it end. Each serpent beast is large sized and shares at least one square of the radioactive hydra's space. The serpent beasts share a single pool of hit points and all of the radioactive hydra's powers, abilities and traits. Each serpent beast acts on the radioactive hydra's initiative and they work together with one mind. Each serpent beast is considered bloodied. Area and close attacks can do damage only once to the combined hit points of the serpent beasts; if such an attack targets more than one of the beasts, apply the highest damage that applies (e.g. if a fireball hits two of the serpent beasts and misses one, apply 'hit' damage, but only once). Likewise, ongoing damage applies only once per round, even if multiple serpent beasts are suffering ongoing damage.
---
Skills Stealth +12
Str 21; Dex 15; Wis 13
Con 19; Int 1; Cha 7
Alignment unaligned; Languages -

The moment when they bloodied it and it split in four was priceless. The rogue that struck the bloodying blow actually screamed, "What? NO!" at the table. It was awesome.

***

The pcs never figured out to use necrotic against it, but they discovered its threatening reach. They also never go to the point where anyone had both vulnerabilities from the aura. Can't have everything, I guess!

The party has two wizrards and both had mass resistance, so by the end of the fight its breath wasn't super effective. However, being a hydra, I ran this thing as preferring to bite anyhow.

It was a good fight; the pcs were sweating it a little here and there, but never looked to be teetering on the edge. With their cleric and two pcs multiclassed into other leaders (bard and warlord), they are pretty good at handling their healing needs.

Nemesis Destiny · Feb 6, 2011

That's a neat homebrew monster. Sounds like a good time, and an interesting campaign.

What are the effects of RADs stacking up?

Dice4Hire · Feb 6, 2011

The splitting effect is cool. I love 4E for being able to do this weird kind of stuff easily.

Unwise · Feb 7, 2011

I like it a lot, I have a couple of questions though:

- If the 4 headed monster splits and becomes 4 seperate monsters, each with a head, then how does each seperate serpent still get to use the Hyrda Fury attack? That sounded like it was all 4 heads attacking at once.

- Do you find that solo mobs (especially ones with cool auras) tend to get nailed down and just fight the defender? I find that without a rampage style ability, or very long range burst attacks, it is too easy for a defender to lock down a single monster. Then as a GM I either kill him for doing his job, or the rest of the party gets bored as they are not being attacked.

the Jester · Feb 7, 2011

Nemesis Destiny said:
What are the effects of RADs stacking up?

Eventually you get sick and your hair starts falling off, and if you get enough, you start to bleed out various orifices and stuff. Think of radiation poison, basically. The pcs don't really know much about them except that they are very difficult or impossible to get rid of, and they are scared to find out more.

Unwise said:
I like it a lot, I have a couple of questions though:

- If the 4 headed monster splits and becomes 4 seperate monsters, each with a head, then how does each seperate serpent still get to use the Hyrda Fury attack? That sounded like it was all 4 heads attacking at once.

- Do you find that solo mobs (especially ones with cool auras) tend to get nailed down and just fight the defender? I find that without a rampage style ability, or very long range burst attacks, it is too easy for a defender to lock down a single monster. Then as a GM I either kill him for doing his job, or the rest of the party gets bored as they are not being attacked.

1. Yeah, I realized that I could have worded that more clearly as I was running it. Each serpent beast could indeed only use one bite or breath; the hydra fury should have had a "requirement: can't be bloodied" line for clarity.

2. Not too much. The party's defender (a shardmind warden) likes to stay mobile, so he's not much of a "stand and slug" kind of guy. He does a lot of "Ooh, I shardswarm across the battlefield!" stuff.

Our next session will have another solo monster encounter- I think I'll post that one too, my current crop of players don't look in on ENWorld enough for me to worry about them seeing it.

the Jester · Feb 7, 2011

So this is the solo monster the party is going to fight next time...

If you have the 3e book Sandstorm, this guy is a variant of a monster from in there- a crawling apocalypse. Basically, think of what would happen if you mixed the worst qualities of a tank with a mummy. It's a giant undead construct that looks like Cthulhu's head.

This guy makes for a great "damned if you do, damned if you don't" sort of encounter. Tell me, what's your best strategy here? Don't forget that aura!

My Adventure said:
CRAWLING APOCALYPSE TERROR--- Level 12 Solo Skirmisher
Huge natural animate (construct, undead); XP 3500
HP 656; Bloodied 328; Initiative +12
AC 24; Fortitude 26; Reflex 24; Will 24; Perception +10
Speed 5, burrow 5; Darkvision, tremorsense
Immune disease, poison; Resist necrotic 15; Vulnerable radiant 10
Saving Throws +5; Action Points 2

TRAITS
Apocalyptic Terror (fear) * Aura 10
Living creatures in the aura suffer 10 necrotic damage if they end their turn closer to the crawling apocalypse terror than they begin it.

Archer's Bane
The crawling apocalypse terror takes half damage from ranged and area attacks.

STANDARD ACTIONS
(mbasic) Tentacle Lash (necrotic) * At Will
Attack: Melee 3 (one creature); +16 vs. AC.
Hit: 1d10+5 damage, and ongoing 5 necrotic (save ends).

(m) Flurry of Tentacles * At Will
Effect: The crawling apocalypse makes 3 tentacle lash attacks (4 if bloodied).

(close) Furious Winds * Encounter
Attack: Close burst 10 (each creature in burst); +12 vs. Reflex.
Hit: 1d10+10 damage and the target is pushed 4 squares and knocked prone.
Miss: The target is pushed 1 square.
Effect: All marks on the crawling apocalypse terror end and it moves 4 squares.

MOVE ACTIONS
Rumbling Crawl (fear) * At Will
Effect: The crawling apocalypse terror moves its speed. It pushes each creature that it moves adjacent to during this move 2 squares.

MINOR ACTIONS
(close) Horrifying Screech (fear) * Recharge 4 5 6
Attack: Close burst 3 (each creature in burst); +13 vs. Will.
Hit: The target is pushed 3 squares.

(close) Doom Pulse * Encounter
Effect: All living creatures in a close burst 5 lose resist necrotic until the end of the encounter.

TRIGGERED ACTIONS
Automatic Escape * At Will
Trigger: The crawling apocalypse terror is dazed, stunned or dominated.
Effect (No Action): The crawling apocalypse terror burrows 5 squares to a space where it is completely underground.
---
Str 22; Dex 18; Wis 18
Con 20; Int 6; Cha 14
Alignment evil; Languages -

DarkLord Of DForce · Feb 7, 2011

the Jester said:
So we had a great pair of games this weekend, which included a fight against one of my homebrewed solo monsters, and I thought it a cool enough in use that I should post a thread about it.

Here are the monster's stats (ignore references to RADs if you don't play in my campaign or some kind of world with radiation):

The moment when they bloodied it and it split in four was priceless. The rogue that struck the bloodying blow actually screamed, "What? NO!" at the table. It was awesome.

***

The pcs never figured out to use necrotic against it, but they discovered its threatening reach. They also never go to the point where anyone had both vulnerabilities from the aura. Can't have everything, I guess!

The party has two wizrards and both had mass resistance, so by the end of the fight its breath wasn't super effective. However, being a hydra, I ran this thing as preferring to bite anyhow.

It was a good fight; the pcs were sweating it a little here and there, but never looked to be teetering on the edge. With their cleric and two pcs multiclassed into other leaders (bard and warlord), they are pretty good at handling their healing needs.

Too bad the party didn't have an Avenger with them - Painful Oath would have worked wonders on:

Necrotic Dampening
If the radioactive hydra takes necrotic damage, its radioactive aura ceases to function until the start of its next turn.

MortalPlague · Feb 7, 2011

Unwise said:
- Do you find that solo mobs (especially ones with cool auras) tend to get nailed down and just fight the defender? I find that without a rampage style ability, or very long range burst attacks, it is too easy for a defender to lock down a single monster.

I find that this happens a fair bit in my games, especially with a fighter tank. If it's happening, sometimes I'll get the monster to blatantly ignore the mark and attack another target. What fun is being able to punish someone for ignoring you if they never incur that punishment?

Mind you, I've had that go really poorly, many times. "The monster hits the wizard for thirty damage!" "Alright, I hit the monster for seventy-three. And he's blind, prone, and can't stand up, save ends. And now it's my turn."

jester_gl · Feb 7, 2011

Against the Apocalypse terror, I would say either swarm him with melee attack (the only thing not affected by archer bane and also his horrible AC compared to his other defenses) or simply magic missile him to death from range 20.

If the striker(s) is anything except a melee striker (and not a monk because of all the area attacks), then this monster will be a huge punching bag. It has the equivalent of insubstantial, but without having half the hp. Of course if the party is the warden, a barbarian, a rogue, a melee ranger and a warlord, then the fight is gonna be over before it starts.

the Jester · Feb 7, 2011

jester_gl said:
Against the Apocalypse terror, I would say either swarm him with melee attack (the only thing not affected by archer bane and also his horrible AC compared to his other defenses) or simply magic missile him to death from range 20.

The combination of effects that push you away via minor/move actions and that aura should make it hard to keep on in melee...

And the magic missile trick shouldn't be too easy to pull off since it can burrow under the ground.

jester_gl said:
If the striker(s) is anything except a melee striker (and not a monk because of all the area attacks), then this monster will be a huge punching bag. It has the equivalent of insubstantial, but without having half the hp. Of course if the party is the warden, a barbarian, a rogue, a melee ranger and a warlord, then the fight is gonna be over before it starts.

LOL, not too far off- we have a warden, barbarian, TWO rogues, a cleric and two wizards (one classic tome of readiness and one enchanter mage). It should be an interesting fight.