Monster Manual 2 and Elite/Solo design

[Obryn]

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!

Well, in fairness, the MM1 solo design still works. They've just changed things up for future books. It's not like those monsters can't be used anymore.

-O

 

[fba827]

Well, in fairness, the MM1 solo design still works. They've just changed things up for future books. It's not like those monsters can't be used anymore.

-O

Yeah, agreed. They aren't saying that the old stuff all needs errata/update (whether you agree with that or not is another matter). But rather they are saying that this is the new design basis that they are using for MM2 (and possibly onwards).

They only mentioned adjusting orcus if you did want the same design template applied to both monsters for the sake of having them battle one another like they talk about in that article.

That, however, does not stop anyone from making some or all of those changes to MM1 monsters if they feel it would work better for their group.

 

[Regicide]

They only mentioned adjusting orcus if you did want the same design template applied to both monsters for the sake of having them battle one another like they talk about in that article.

The "final" adventure isn't out yet? It'll be interesting to see if they adjust Orcus for that.

 

[CapnZapp]

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.

I wouldn't change anything for such powers.

Just because there are exceptions doesn't mean it is a bad idea to have sweeping changes if those are generally useful for the game.

However, if the only indication we'll get that the dev team views the MM1 Solos as off is this snippet, it is a sad day indeed.

It irritates me to no end that WotC simply aren't doing the decent thing, which is to 'fess up to their mistakes, and adding the changed Solo stats to the MM1 errata!

 

[Pale Jackal]

A brief glance does show some differences. Adamantine Dragon Adult (Soldier) vrs. Red Dragon Adult (Soldier), with the former having -2 to all defenses. However, their HP, and rough damage output seems about the same. Furthermore, I haven't really seen any fixes to prevent solos from being "stun-locked" in general. There are some exceptions, like Demogorgon, but other than that...

Iron Dragon has a significantly lower AC than the Black Dragon, a good thing, but that's partially mitigated by his -5 Resist All immediate reaction.

So, there seems to be some differences, but nothing too major. I suppose -2 to all defenses is a 10% change in staying power, and pretty easy to implement.

 

[Stalker0]

So, there seems to be some differences, but nothing too major. I suppose -2 to all defenses is a 10% change in staying power, and pretty easy to implement.

One thing I have learned in my many years of houseruling, is a little goes a long way. It doesn't usually take sweeping changes, even a few alterations can be enough.

 

[Nebulous]

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.

Well, i just ran our first solo fight yesterday with five 5th level heroes and one goblin NPC against an 8th level solo. I designed the monster with MM2 tenets in mind, and tried to give it some cool control powers. It was a nasty lurker that more or less ambushed the party. Here's how it ended about 10 rounds later:

The wizard botched, and i mean REALLY botched his rolls and was more or less ineffective. The dwarf fighter used Pinning Strike fairly early on and for the rest of the encounter the spider could NOT move. That just slaughtered it. It had a web attack it used to good effect in round 1, but then the PCs closed in and the damage dealers started whacking at it. The only character who was ever in danger was the single warlord who was grabbed, squeezed and bitten by poison several times.

While we were playing this out i told the players how much damage they'd done, what the monsters attacks were, how it had 2 action points, and when they had it close to death. I wouldn't normally do that but i wanted them to see behind the scenes way solos worked.

It scared them plenty bad at first (as any huge demonic spider-thing of Torog would do) but ultimately the fight was a little lackluster for me, as i could tell after a certain point that this thing was just screwed and there was nothing i could do.

It had less hit points than a MM1 solo would have, and it had some interesting attacks that could potentially dish out lots of damage. It also had ranged web and a sedative spray (that it never used) and a cool adhesive lure that drags prey closer. There was also terrain features that added some tactical nuances to the encounter, like the dwarf almost getting pulled into a river with webbing.

My opinion is that the monster needed HELP. It needed allies. It needed flanking opportunities and it needed for someone to drag that goddamn dwarf away and ruin her Pinning Strike. Plus, the barbarain was knocking the monster prone every other round, but it couldn't run away anyhow.

It was still very fun though, and i look forward to running a solo again, but it takes some careful tweaking to make a solo fight as fun as an encounter with many enemies. And avoiding a grindfest where the PCs will inevitably just win by war of attrition.

 

[tmatk]

I'm sitting here listening to the new D&D podcast, one of the designers admits the MM1 hydra is broken as a solo, but won't be updated with errata.

I appreciate his candor, but that's unacceptable IMO. The MM2 should be more/new monsters, not a replacement for a bunch of broken ones. I truly hope they offer some official guidelines for reworking MM1 creatures. They could have printed it in the MM2!!

 

[Regicide]

I'm sitting here listening to the new D&D podcast, one of the designers admits the MM1 hydra is broken as a solo, but won't be updated with errata.

It's broken, but editing the "update" PDF on the website is too difficult. Ya, wonderful. Remind me why I pay these people for their books again? Must be the pretty pictures.

 

[Pale Jackal]

I appreciate his candor, but that's unacceptable IMO. The MM2 should be more/new monsters, not a replacement for a bunch of broken ones. I truly hope they offer some official guidelines for reworking MM1 creatures. They could have printed it in the MM2!!

Yeah. You know, I was going to say that most of the MM1 is solid but then I remembered the fact that I went through the MM1 and gave almost every minion +1/2 level to damage. The exceptions being those with effects like Immobilize. Something that WotC seems to have done in the MM2.

I'm not entirely sure what is broken about the hydra (not enough damage or interesting abilities?) but it couldn't be that hard to offer some sort of rough fix. It doesn't need to be perfect. After all, they thankfully errata'd the damage of some of the other monsters.