Tips on Designing Encounters against Solo Monsters

Yes, that works just fine. For example, with a party of 4 PCs at level 5, an encounter of a level 4 solo brute, a level 5 soldier, a level 5 artillery, and 2 level 5 minions is a level 8 encounter, right in line with the guidlines for a hard climactic battle.

You can also use solos lower level than the PCs to help with your budget to fit more monsters in.

In my experience, it is sometimes fun as a player to lock down a lone solo and rock it hard, but doing it all the time would get old.

I've started using solos either backed up with other monsters (such as summonable minions) or in multi-stage fights. I think the latter works better. For example, a recent fight:

The PCs are chasing down a devil summoner as he attempts to summon a bodyguard. Unfortunately, he's assassinated first (oopsie) and so the summoning goes off uncontrolled. Queue (PC level + 1) solo brute...

The fight ran in three phases. In the first the devil was immobilized (he was _big_ and so stuck in the floor) so the PCs got to pile on damage without too much risk. They were running around trying to patch up the magic circle he had been summoned into, so it worked pretty well. And for some reason describing this guy as capital-H huge scared them

Phase 2 started when the big guy bloodied. He began thrashing around, which collapsed the floor. So now everyone's falling into this planar portal. The falling debris created pathways back up the library (basically four intertwined 5' wide paths) that the PCs had to scramble up. The devil was below them and didn't take part in this phase, but instead summoned fire elementals to harass the PCs as they moved.

The final phase began when the PCs made it out of the portal. I described it as sucking in the rest of the complex with them escaping just ahead of the vortex. Then the remaining fire elementals and the devil showed up

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To summarize:

1) Multiple badguys
2) Multi-stage encounters
3) Changing the terrain to keep things interesting.

Shin Okada said:

Even though Solo monsters are called solo, you still should not use them alone.

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This.

What I've done with great success:

Reduce the level of every solo by two and use the freed-up budget to add minions or standard monsters to the encounter.

Lower-level solos are a lot more fun than equal-level or higher-level ones.

These are all great ideas, thanks everyone!

There's been a lot about using lower level solos. Problem is, the players are at level 1 and the weakest solo is level 3. A solution could be to start at level 4 or 5, but that is not a road I'd like to take unless there are no other options, since the players are all experimenting with new classes amd races so starting at a higher level would increase the confusion that already abounds. Any ideas for giving the characters an advantage against a solo?

Camelot said:

These are all great ideas, thanks everyone!

There's been a lot about using lower level solos. Problem is, the players are at level 1 and the weakest solo is level 3. A solution could be to start at level 4 or 5, but that is not a road I'd like to take unless there are no other options, since the players are all experimenting with new classes amd races so starting at a higher level would increase the confusion that already abounds. Any ideas for giving the characters an advantage against a solo?

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You should be fine running a level 3 solo for a 1st level party. I put my party of seven 3rd/4th level PCs up against an 8th level solo skirmisher by itself - it made a hairy fight but not overwhelming and no PC deaths.

In the final battle I had a magic orb the PCs could engage with a mini skill challenge to break the curse which created the solo monster. This allowed a shortcut to defeating the solo.

Here's a quick list of things that I feel are imperative for fun solo encounters.

1. Don't use solos.
(Alright, alright. You want to use solos. But they're problematic for a number of reasons. Just remember you can make a tough elite almost as hardcore as a solo.)

2. Don't use solos higher level than the party level.
(The fight will take too long and be too grindy and boring.)

3. Don't use solos by themselves.
(People have already said this, but it's true. Scatter minions around if you have to, just don't leave him by himself or he will get spanked.)

4. Don't make your solo a Soldier role.
(For the love of god don't do this. Soldiers are the most grindy role there is and if you make a solo soldier the fight will be aggravating.)

Camelot said:

These are all great ideas, thanks everyone!

There's been a lot about using lower level solos. Problem is, the players are at level 1 and the weakest solo is level 3. A solution could be to start at level 4 or 5, but that is not a road I'd like to take unless there are no other options, since the players are all experimenting with new classes amd races so starting at a higher level would increase the confusion that already abounds. Any ideas for giving the characters an advantage against a solo?

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Make your own level 1 solo! It could be fun and rewarding.

Note that if you down-level any Solo of level 4 or less it should work well.