Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?

[Stalker0]

As D&D is a level-based system, level should determine how powerful things are.

A 1st level goblin with a staff of the magi could do way more damage than any other 1st level creature.

Level isn't the only way in Dnd to determine power, its simply the primary one.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

This is likely because, as so many others have discovered in time, the model CANNOT be adjusted so simply.

Every model breaks down somewhere, no model accounts for everything.


The fact is a model that works very well modeling a 4 5th level character fighting 4 5th level goblins does not work so well modeling that same party against 1 "super goblin".

This is why 4e introduced the idea of rules exceptions for elite and solo monsters. If one model for all scenarios doesn't work, then lets use 2 models for 2 scenarios.

But that model didn't solve the problem either - a 1st level solo had 4x HP, did more damage but still only had one action. This didn't actually do anything that a level system couldn't do by itself and, as [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] says, created nonsensical results.

So if we want to use the Elite/Solo designations, then they must be fundamentally different beasts from the PCs, if only so that we can give them more actions!

If instead we want a level only system, it should span 1-80. A 4th level creature has 4x the HP of a 1st level creature but only does a fraction more damage. Fights get longer with level.

Really, truly, I would adjust the XP system so that you multiplied the XP value of an encounter by the number of creatures in it - simply to take into account the number of actions available to each side.

 

[Stalker0]

But that model didn't solve the problem either - a 1st level solo had 4x HP, did more damage but still only had one action. This didn't actually do anything that a level system couldn't do by itself and, as [MENTION=17106]Ahnehnois[/MENTION] says, created nonsensical results.

This was a consequence of early solo monsters in 4th edition, later designed solos were made much better.

They get additional attacks, better resistance to effects, more reactions, etc.

 

[GreyICE]

Lets discuss how this worked in 3E, with the level system. You have a party of 5 level 5 PCs.

Applying the CR system (+2 CR every time group doubles) 2 level 5s is a CR 7, 4 level 5s is a CR9. We'll say CR10, since we want this to be challenging, and there's 5 players.

But now we go to pick out CR10 monsters for our solo. We pick a Salamander Noble. Big critter, lots of fire damage, vulnerable to cold. Looks good.

The party druid tosses blinding spittle in its eyes. Blinded, its attacks hardly reliably hit, and it loses some AC. Then the Druid and Wizard start summoning animals around it, while the fighter and rogue rain arrows in it. With it having to kill summons (slowly, thanks to missing much more than it should) and taking summon and arrow hits, it begins to falter. The party cleric, meanwhile, is debuffing the hell out of it, making it just very ineffective, thanks to stacking debuffs.

Finally after shooting it enough, the stupid thing goes down. It failed to be a challenge in any real way for the party, because stacking debuffs and its lack of attacks meant it was mostly a punching bag.

While the party thought the encounter was a bit tedious and generally easily negated, the DM later decides that he liked it enough to try again.

This time he selects a nine-headed cryohydra...


And this is why solos require different design than 'they have a lot more levels than the PCs.'

 

[slobster]

One isn't necessarily preferable over the other. The point is that they serve the same purpose and are redundant. When you combine the two, you get nonsensical results (here is a 20th level 'minion' that can be instantly killed by anyone who can hit it, and there is a 20th level 'boss' that can destroy a hundred such minions; both the same level, yet wlidly different).

As D&D is a level-based system, level should determine how powerful things are. If it weren't a level-based system, maybe conceptualizing some monsters as being more powerful than others based on roles would actually be meaningful and worthwhile.

Yet combining the two works, in a mechanical sense. A level 6 mook is a challenge for a level 6 character. Level 6 minions falls in waves before level 6 characters, but can still harm them back; no level of monster (in a scaling accuracy system, that is; here bounded accuracy but scaling hp and damage actually may achieve similar results without a special minion class) does quite the same thing. A level 6 solo monster is a good challenge for a level 6 party, but simply escalating a single enemy's level will not achieve the same result, because of hp scaling and action economy reasons that have been explored above.

So no, the two aren't redundant if they each accomplish different goals. I would call them complementary. Your argument, at its core, seems to be more about subjective dislike of different monsters at the same level having wildly divergent capabilities in combat. That's a matter of taste, which means that your feelings on it are no more or less valid than mine, and that no amount of discussion will necessarily "convince" you (or me) that your tastes should change.

Monster difficulty tags can be made, with some creativity, to "make sense" in the game world. That it requires creativity to do so shouldn't be a surprise, you need to do the same thing to make sense out of a world neatly sorted into ascending levels of combat ability as well! Why aren't there many enemies with AC 39 and 338 hp, but an attack bonus of only +2? Obviously because such an enemy wouldn't be a balanced encounter for characters of any level, but in game fiction terms such a monster might very well be possible.

No matter how we create and label monsters there is going to be some abstraction. Levels and tags work.

 

[TwinBahamut]

One isn't necessarily preferable over the other. The point is that they serve the same purpose and are redundant. When you combine the two, you get nonsensical results (here is a 20th level 'minion' that can be instantly killed by anyone who can hit it, and there is a 20th level 'boss' that can destroy a hundred such minions; both the same level, yet wlidly different).

As D&D is a level-based system, level should determine how powerful things are. If it weren't a level-based system, maybe conceptualizing some monsters as being more powerful than others based on roles would actually be meaningful and worthwhile.

The problem with this is that, as has been pointed out several times in this thread, this assumption tends to fail on a mathematical level. Certainly, it seems like "higher level = appropriate boss" should work, but doing so requires a particular approach to the game's math that probably won't work out, and even then there will be major issues and consequences. It simply doesn't work as well as you want it to.

Also, I don't agree that the minion/solo divide is "nonsensical". It makes a lot of sense to me, so I simply can't agree with your statement. After all, we are talking about abstract game rules, not some kind of hard-coded simulation of reality. All I know is that the fun provided by having such mechanics is much greater than the problems caused by the occasional oddity created by mixing several layers of abstraction.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

This time he selects a nine-headed cryohydra...

And this is why solos require different design than 'they have a lot more levels than the PCs.'

A great example! A nine-headed cryohydra gets more actions, it makes for a great solo because it can effectively fight by itself. There are plenty of monsters that behave this way, beholders and dragons and the like.

Goblin chiefs though, do not. That's just the way I see it.

 

[D'karr]

This will surely reward 'creative' pilots.

Can't XP you, but your facetiousness has made me laugh. Well done.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

They are terribly written.

And avengers was so terribly written that they made a movie about them... Man that movie must have bombed... Anyone know how much money they lost doing that?

 

[Obryn]

The solution is not to have solo boss fights to begin with. It's a bad trope drawn primarily from bad sources (comic books, videogames, cartoons/anime).

...and where do you think those comic books, videogames, and cartoons got their ideas from? Surely not out of the ether? It's a trope of the fantasy genre, and having Elites and Solos as rules constructs helps the game properly emulate the fiction and artwork.

If "group of heroes ganging up on a dragon" isn't D&D, then I don't know what is.

-O