Purposefully Overpowered Encounter - Umber Hulk

[Trit One-Ear]

Getting the ol' campaign gang back together, and doing a little prep for when we finish the module we're wrapping up.

My party will soon be exploring the Feywild. They're set to cross paths with an Eladrin lord and huntmaster. He's bred he own race of hunting beasts, which I want to introduce to the players.
The idea I have is the heroes will accidentally stumble across a hunt as the Eladrin and his hunting beasts close in on their prey - an Umber Hulk.

The standard Umber Hulk is a lvl 12 Elite, making him more than a challenge for a group of 5 lvl 9 players. My goal is to put them into a brutal fight with the Umber Hulk as it flees the hunting party. My players have been feeling pretty untouchable for a bit now, so I have no problem knocking them down a peg. Then are things get dire, the hunting beasts arrive, finishing off the Umber Hulk easily. The heroes get a sense of these beasts as very real threats (there is a chance they may be hunted themselves later), and meet the Eladrin hunter in desperate need of rest and a little TLC.

Does this sound decent? Am I missing something in the math that will make this a disaster, one way or the other?

Trit

 

[BigVanVader]

Uhhh. I don't remember anything about the Umber Hulk in fourth edition, other than the fact that yeah, they're pretty tough. But for five players, maybe beef up his hitpoints or something, since he's gonna be doing one thing while five things happen to him.

 

[JamesonCourage]

I just looked over the stat block. If the party is at full resources (HP, healing surges, dailies, etc.), there's a really good chance that they'll win that fight. I think that my players could probably fight to pull out a win in that scenario (four level 8 PCs). If you want them to lose, you might want to wear them down a little first, or beef the hulk up a bit (maybe make it a solo?), or send some other creatures with it (baby umber hulks?).

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As I recall, Umber Hulks are reasonably intelligent and can dig quite rapidly- what is to keep it from escaping?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

This isn't really a tough fight for the PCs. It's getting two actions per round, compared to five. There's no reason you can't use more, perhaps down-levelling them slightly. For a hard encounter for these PCs, you're looking at 4000 XP. An umber hulk is about 1400 XP. Given its high AC, it could be frustrating for the martial PCs, too. So I'd recommend downlevelling the umber hulk to 800 XP 9th-level versions, maybe some not being soldiers: 5 elite 9th-level umber hulks are also worth 4000 XP.

Don't forget combos. Standard umber hulks daze, so some "new" umber hulk skirmishers with the combat advantage ability would seriously up the challenge level.

Also, the original umber hulk is pre-MM3. I don't know if there's a new version. If you're down-leveling it, then you have the opportunity to calculate its damage from scratch anyway.

 

[n00bdragon]

I'd recommend rebuilding it as a level 9 solo brute. Lessee, this is just back of the napkin stats from memory here:
Average High Stat Per Pair: 18
HP: 108 (assuming 18 con) before solo multiplier so 432 or 540 depending on whether you prefer x4 or x5
AC: 21
NAD: 21 (+/- a bit based on how stats compare to the AHSPP [e.g. a 20 will boost the relevant NAD by +1])

Players are going to have somewhere around 60-80 HP so if you want this bad boy to be able to bloody someone in one round you should aim for a full round of hits from this guy to deal about 35-50 damage. I recommend giving him three initiative passes, a basic attack he that can dish out an average of 15 damage (I like a die plus the monster's level, 1d10+9?), plus a couple recharge attacks. Something to dish out huge damage but that the party can prepare to defend against, and also something for crowd control. Umber Hulks have that whole confusion thing, why not build something around that on a minor action?

Instant boss battle

 

[Jhaelen]

When our party faced a group of umber hulks (of various roles), the most dangerous thing in the encounter were the holes dug by the umber hulks. Part of their tactics was to grab pcs and throw them down their holes. Apart from the additional damage that also effectively took those pcs out of the fight for several rounds (or forced them to fight in isolation). So, I'd definitely recommend to make the most of the environment and the Umber Hulk's ability to burrow to beef up the encounter. Note that these are basically Lurker tactics, so you may want to modify the standard umber hulk to make it a better fit.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The current version in the Compendium looks like it is fully MM3-ized. Its not too bad for a level 12 elite soldier, they can pump out 2 attacks/rnd at about 20 damage per, or rend a held opponent for 40 damage (autohit, you have to be grappled already). The minor action daze could be nasty depending on the terrain. It won't beat a 9th level party, but with a bit of luck it could chew a couple surges off more than one of them before it goes down. I don't think the defenses will prove TOO hard for 9th level, not if the party has only one to focus fire on. If it lives three rounds I'll be surprised (at 248HP 80 damage per round is not unrealistic, and if the party pulls out the stops they should be able to kill it in 2 rounds).

2 of these would be a tougher fight. Probably still not a lethal encounter, but one that will bang up the PCs pretty good, again depending on the terrain.

 

[MoutonRustique]

Yeah, I'm with the majority on this one. While I don't know your PCs, a regular group would not find a single Umber Hulk all that much of a threat...

I suggest you solo-itise it and add-in a couple of "inconveniences" for the players : strangling vines, exploding thorn bushes, poisonous spore releasing blubs. Nothing much, just to eat one or two PCs' actions for a round or two.

Also, I suggest making it so that the PCs are doing damage to it - but have it so that the "saving" comes when it bloodies (or the round after). Something like :
- PCs beat on it for a little while taking MASSIVE damage (a cool "trick" is to have the monster have a huge push effect - it makes a convenient excuse to hit on a different target)
- the PCs manage to bloody it, but they've been hit so hard, that they are grateful when something else comes in and deals with the monster.

Things I would do to "choreograph" something like this :
- have the monster have a massive push on his main attack
- have hindering terrain that "jams" a player pushed into it for a round
- have the monster deal a good deal of damage even on a miss (or another form of auto-damage)
- have PCs hit PCs (confusion eye-thing of the umber hulk is perfect for this)
- have the monster have a very impressive "on bloodied" effect
- very, very high damage attacks
- some form of protection from ranged attacks (cover, concealment, special ability, something)
- not to high defenses (nothing more anti-heroic than : you miss! (again...))
- fairly low mobility (you want the PCs to feel like they could retreat)

 

[Trit One-Ear]

Rethinking the use of the Umber Hulk after all the comments saying it'll be too easy a challenge for the party. I'm hoping to do very little tweaking to the monster I use as this is more an encounter for flavor and narrative than for a satisfying combat encounter.

Looking to use a higher level monster then perhaps. One that has higher defenses and higher average damage, so while he may not be a full challenge for a party of 5 heroes, the math will make him harder to hit and more deadly for a brief skirmish.

The Steel Gorgon is another iconic monster that would work well. As a lvl 15 elite, we're already talking about a harder fight. Glancing at defenses, we're looking at roughly a 15+ to hit, possibly more, and even if I started the Gorgon out bloodied (for narrative effect), they'd have to burn 151 hp to bring him down.

Damage-wise, this guy could easily bring down the party's ranger with 3 average damage hits, or bloody her in one max damage.
Even if the heroes beat him down, it should be pretty draining. I've been looking forward to an "oh sh*t" moment with them, as most encounters I've thrown at them have been either really well balanced, or a cake walk. Even if it's a grossly over-leveled monster, I'm happy with that kind of effect.

Trit