Upper level limit solo encounter for this party...?

I have a deceptively easy question: what's the max solo level I should use against the PCs?

I have a party of seven PCs of 12th level. On International Table Top Day they will be going up against an "elder red dragon." By RAW that's a level 22 solo, but I'm custom-designing this dragon anyhow using AngryDM's 3-stage boss monster guidelines and doing a bit of conversion of Infyrana from Dragon Mountain (who is a powerful spellcaster, so a controller rather than a soldier). So changing the level is no problem. The question is: what level should this solo be?

I want this to be a very hard - but not unfair - encounter with the legitimate risk of multiple PC deaths or even a TPK. Already just five of the PCs (at 11th level) defeated a 15th level adult red dragon (designed as a 3-stage brute). Here is the party composition:

Bard/Warlord 12, captain of fortune, well-rounded leader
Fighter 12, weaponmaster, dual-wielding multi-attacker extraordinaire
Paladin 12, hospitaller/questing knight with lots of heals and buffs
Barbarian 12, nocturnal, charge machine
Wizard 12, unseen Mage and orb-wielder extraordinaire
Elementalist 12, Lyrandar wind rider, maxed out damage dealer
Vampire/Cavalier 12, Valiant Cavalier, practically unkillable build

Quickleaf said:

I have a deceptively easy question: what's the max solo level I should use against the PCs?

I have a party of seven PCs of 12th level. On International Table Top Day they will be going up against an "elder red dragon." By RAW that's a level 22 solo, but I'm custom-designing this dragon anyhow using AngryDM's 3-stage boss monster guidelines and doing a bit of conversion of Infyrana from Dragon Mountain (who is a powerful spellcaster, so a controller rather than a soldier). So changing the level is no problem. The question is: what level should this solo be?

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You know your players better than any of us, but I think that's too high.

I'm a big fan of the Angry DM 3-stage fight, though I've only used it once. It fought hard, and that was a pre-Essentials monster. Bloodknuckles, to be specific, as the PCs in that Saturday campaign were only 3rd-level. Is Infyrana going to be Essentialized? (Eg is she using Action Recovery, etc.)

I want this to be a very hard - but not unfair - encounter with the legitimate risk of multiple PC deaths or even a TPK. Already just five of the PCs (at 11th level) defeated a 15th level adult red dragon (designed as a 3-stage brute). Here is the party composition:

Bard/Warlord 12, captain of fortune, well-rounded leader
Fighter 12, weaponmaster, dual-wielding multi-attacker extraordinaire
Paladin 12, hospitaller/questing knight with lots of heals and buffs
Barbarian 12, nocturnal, charge machine
Wizard 12, unseen Mage and orb-wielder extraordinaire
Elementalist 12, Lyrandar wind rider, maxed out damage dealer
Vampire/Cavalier 12, Valiant Cavalier, practically unkillable build

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The PCs won't have enough attack bonuses to actually hit Infyrana, which will result in frustration as they whiff. Both with weapons and with spells.

But with seven PCs, it's hard to just use a solo (maybe a couple levels higher) because they'll overwhelm its hit points.

My suggestion is to use two solos. It's not in Dragon Mountain, but you could give her a mate, or an heir, to act as another solo. She could instead have two heirs who are elites of approximately her level.

Infyrana could be solo, with one or two other types of dragons for mates/heirs. In addition, not all of Infyrana's forms need to be controllers. Or brutes. Or whatever. I could picture a bloodied Infyrana "losing it", and, not using spells and being desperate, instead focusing on massive close burst attacks - a brute, in other words.

Due to option bloat, I don't know what a lot of those PC descriptors mean. (I say the same thing about Pathfinder. Everyone on the forum uses archetypes I've never heard of.)

What is a nocturnal barbarian? Unseen Mage? Lyrandar Wind Rider? (Vampires an be paladins? Well, apparently.)

These might not be relevant though, but I worry about the vampire, as it looks like the PCs will need lots of healing, and grappling a dragon and drinking its blood should be difficult.

(Psi)SeveredHead said:

You know your players better than any of us, but I think that's too high.

I'm a big fan of the Angry DM 3-stage fight, though I've only used it once. It fought hard, and that was a pre-Essentials monster. Bloodknuckles, to be specific, as the PCs in that Saturday campaign were only 3rd-level. Is Infyrana going to be Essentialized? (Eg is she using Action Recovery, etc.)

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Yes, I agree that 22 is too high. Yes, Infyrana will have Action Recovery & get two turns/round (an improved Instinctive Assault).

I am also thinking about "breaking" the monster building rules to essentially give lower defenses, more HP, and higher damage. If her defenses are around 32, that means that the party's paladin with +19 vs. AC will hit on a 13+ which feels about right. I also agree about the "PC multiplier effect" overwhelming solo HP, particularly a lower HP controller, so I'm thinking about tweaking the dragon's HP too.

Basically, my question is about monster math.

My suggestion is to use two solos. It's not in Dragon Mountain, but you could give her a mate, or an heir, to act as another solo. She could instead have two heirs who are elites of approximately her level.

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I'd really really like to make her 'the boss' with minimal support from perhaps kobold minions or wyrmlings. In the story, the PCs already defeated a red dragon earlier which is connec

As a matter of style, I don't like the story being constrained by mechanical issues of "well...4e doesn't support single monsters facing large groups of PCs'. This is the story we're playing, and it demands a frickin' bad-ass dragon! If I need to bend the 4e monster rules to make it happen, that's fine, the monster rules are really just guidelines anyway.

Due to option bloat, I don't know what a lot of those PC descriptors mean. (I say the same thing about Pathfinder. Everyone on the forum uses archetypes I've never heard of.)

What is a nocturnal barbarian? Unseen Mage? Lyrandar Wind Rider? (Vampires an be paladins? Well, apparently.)

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No kidding, I feel the same way!

These are PPs: 'Nocturnal' is a barbarian PP which lets her phase *thru* enemies when charging. Unseen Mage is a PP which lets the wizard maintain invisibility after attacking in some cases. Lyrandar Wind Rider is an elementalist PP... which I'm honestly not sure what it does. The Vampire-Cavalier is a hybrid using hybrid rules for those classes found in Dragon magazine; it actually totally works for the character's story, but the mechanics are a bit odd...grappling is not required to drink blood, just a special attack power...though IMC drinking dragon's blood has a whole host of special effects/bad conditions.

Thanks for your comments

Quickleaf said:

I'd really really like to make her 'the boss' with minimal support from perhaps kobold minions or wyrmlings. In the story, the PCs already defeated a red dragon earlier which is connec

As a matter of style, I don't like the story being constrained by mechanical issues of "well...4e doesn't support single monsters facing large groups of PCs'. This is the story we're playing, and it demands a frickin' bad-ass dragon! If I need to bend the 4e monster rules to make it happen, that's fine, the monster rules are really just guidelines anyway.

Click to expand...

You could make her, in essence, two solos "stuck together". She could get the "entire attack routine" eg a bite, two claws, two wings and a tail, all as an at-will, with double the hit points. Angry DM's multi-stage monsters usually have enough mobility to avoid problems here.

(If she's getting two actions per turn, she could even breathe fire more often.)

(Psi)SeveredHead said:

You could make her, in essence, two solos "stuck together". She could get the "entire attack routine" eg a bite, two claws, two wings and a tail, all as an at-will, with double the hit points. Angry DM's multi-stage monsters usually have enough mobility to avoid problems here.

(If she's getting two actions per turn, she could even breathe fire more often.)

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So...somewhere in the order of 1,000 HP? (I got that from doubling the 500 HP of the deathbringer dracolich, a level 12 solo controller, from Monster Vault).

Yes, so ~333 hp per phase, but note you're doubling the damage output too. So hopefully not grindy

For 12th level PCs I wouldn't use an encounter above 17th level, and would expect that to be fairly hard. You've got 7 rather than 5 PCs, though, so let's make that 18th.

As a solo, though, that that will suck defences-wise, so why not build as two 14th-level solos? That also gives you stages, which I tend to find work better for those high-level fights. You can even set up some mechanism where in the stage transition the players can choose a modest recovery option (in one encounter I ran, in the transition round I let them spend a standard action to recover an encounter power or spend two surges).

Two 14th level solos will have around 500 to 600 hp each, or somewhere over 1000 hp in total for them to hack through.

Even if you're not using hangers-on you will definitely want terrain, including terrain powers that both sides can use but that give the dragon an advantage (eg because of her fire resistance or flight).

pemerton said:

As a solo, though, that that will suck defences-wise, so why not build as two 14th-level solos?

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Seconded!
Single solos, even if you add a couple of minions already barely work well against a party of five, against seven it's pretty hopeless. Two solos however, work like a charm, even against a party of eight.
I haven't used Angry DM's guidelines in a game yet, though. Maybe single solos work better using them.

(Psi)SeveredHead said:

You could make her, in essence, two solos "stuck together". She could get the "entire attack routine" eg a bite, two claws, two wings and a tail, all as an at-will, with double the hit points. Angry DM's multi-stage monsters usually have enough mobility to avoid problems here.

(If she's getting two actions per turn, she could even breathe fire more often.)

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Right, I would look at two, say level 16, solos as the base reference. In addition to boosting HP, and instead of increasing damage too much, I would look at attacks that can hit multiple targets, ie if the claw hits one normally, maybe it can sweep across two.

pemerton said:

why not build as two 14th-level solos? That also gives you stages, which I tend to find work better for those high-level fights. You can even set up some mechanism where in the stage transition the players can choose a modest recovery option (in one encounter I ran, in the transition round I let them spend a standard action to recover an encounter power or spend two surges).

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Jhaelen said:

Seconded!

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Thirded! I've come to think that more monsters are better than higher-level monsters, because players can still use their powers effectively. I would also give the monster the ability to "spawn" some minions, just to give the players some extra stuff to swing at. That should soak a trivial amount of attacks, but cause some extra aggravation to the players.