He can only take the damage once per round, but he can take it in multiple rounds.
-Hyp.
Which is what happened. Those jerks! That 7 points per hit can add up. I didn't expect Sarothic to get involved in the fight this early, but he is a lizardman of great strength and intimidation but very little patience. He really didn't expect to do anything other than kill, brutally and single-handedly, everyone in the tower.
Guess he should have given that more thought. Our heroes put out a lot of damage.
To get Sarothic's stats: take a lizardman blackscale bruiser (lvl 6.) Make him elite (double his hit points to 172, etc.), lower his AC down to 16 because he's not well armored, and give him a second action point because he's feeling feisty. (He couldn't actually attack twice a round per se, he was just using his APs.) One of the things I love about 4e is that I could do all this on the fly, in my head. I was worried he'd be too tough for them. Not so much, mostly due to good tactics that kept him off-balance.
The exploding barrels: These suckers were meant to burn down the town of Floodford, and Sarothic paid good money for them! They use the limited damage expression, so each exploding barrel does 3d8+3 damage to everyone in a burst 5. Watching all three go up at once was a thing of beauty.
Stron: Fiery burst is so, so good against minions. Swoon.
The little lizards: kobold minions who have swampwalk. They look a little bit like baby raptors, only somewhat more humanoid.
The hooded spokeslizard: The person talking to the PCs, so far unseen, may have been the one person riding in a boat instead of moving through the swamp. He somehow knew to call Cobalt by name. Can he read minds, or is it someone who knows Cobalt from Floodford? He's certainly very well spoken.
So, next game! A mysterious leader? Half a (demoralized) army of lizardmen, along with a few giant frogs? An urbane spokeslizard? A wargod in the flooded basement? Stay tuned!