Solo Monster Encounter Problems

[babinro]

I'm curious how other DM's have worked with Solo Monsters so as to help me in construction of encounters. Assuming the typical party of 5 among all the key types of characters...Fey Warlock, Artful Rogue, Wis based Cleric, Sanctioning Paladin, all arounder Druid. Currently level 11's.

I've found running a Solo alone to be pointless, as I'm sure most DM's have. The only way a true solo would challenge the party is if its defenses were unreasonably high meaning it would probably be at least +5 or so levels above. This isn't anything new though.

Since then I've tried running two solo creatures (often same level or -1 level) and still the battle runs poorly. The party can often all but lock down at least one creature at a time making it nearly useless with effects like daze, or immobile, or even slowed while keeping distance.

I've also tried running solo's with minions. This has worked to some degree, but it still typically means that the status effects shut down the solo's effectiveness for the round while the rest of the party focuses on minion duty.

What I haven't tried is simply running a normal encounter...say 5 PC vs 5 enemies, and simply adding a 6th enemy in the form of a solo monster. Would something like this make them more appropriate?

I'm at the point where I think I'd prefer to scale solo's back to elites, and just use them that way. Elites seem to mesh fine when working with multiple other baddies.

Any thoughts or suggestions? Do solo's become more effective past heroic tier as true solo's for anyone playing a high end campaign? Do they simply require some rediculous amount of terrain advantage to work as true solo's?

 

[Infiniti2000]

The word 'solo' is not quite accurate, which is the problem. Design the encounter as you would an elite leader, or spring the solo unexpected. If the party knows about the lone dragon at the end of the hall and prepares for it, you end up with what you got.

As for minions, one BBEG + a bunch of minions is a poor encounter. This design unfortunately exists in some published modules, but it doesn't work well at all. A BBEG, a couple of lieutenants, and then some minions for filler would work, however.

 

[RangerWickett]

I did a lot of tinkering with solos for a 3-shot campaign I ran this summer. Each session had a dragon hunt, and after the first encounter involved perpetual slowed/dazed/stunned effects on the dragon (or at the very least psychic lock for a -2 penalty to its attacks), I decided to throw out the book and do heavy redesigns myself.

Solos are usually:

A. Boring, because they don't do as much interesting things as 5 separate creatures would. Not only do they only have a limited number of powers, they can only be in so many places at once, and engage only a few PCs usually, so the fight doesn't have as many aspects.

B. Vulnerable, because status effects in 4e are designed to affect 1/5 of the opposing side, and so such powers are 5 times as powerful against solos.


I mostly fixed the problem by winging it. Like I used to do back in 3e, when I thought the fight wasn't going well, I just made sh*t up until it got interesting. Of course the dragon can snatch you with its mouth and transfer negative status effects into you. Says so right on the statblock in invisible ink. And obviously the high inquisitor main villain can ignore any 5 conditions of my choice. She has captured the souls of her enemies and redirects your attacks at them, obviously.

But still, that left players a little disgruntled. I'm inclined to blame the design of 4e, what with every other power having a rider effect.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Well, yeah, solos suffer from the fact that status effects just nerf the whole encounter, and that's basically what you want to focus on negating. You just have to give solos some status effect breaking goodies of some kind. It isn't a big deal at lower levels, but once you get up into paragon, and especially if you have a really optimizing or at least tactically savvy group, things can get difficult.

Still, good encounter design can take care of a fair part of it. Make the battlefield such that it isn't easy for the party to close with the enemy or if they do that they have to accept some kind of disadvantage. Then make the solo capable of controlling the pace and flow of the battle to some extent. An ability to create minions is one way that has worked fairly well. Just having good mobility helps too. Or a power that can make the solo very hard to engage for a period of time (like the black dragon's cloud of darkness). A solo that can split in two is another tactic which can both remove status effects and provide a tactical advantage. There are a lot of ways to do it.

I think the best solo fights are indeed not really solo fights though. Make the BBEG a bit lower level and add in some other real monsters that are synergistic with it. That both adds to the tactical options and complexity and also helps avoid those grindy endings that can happen when you have nothing but a big solo monster with high defenses and hit points.

You can try some weird combinations too. Like a solo that has a couple of pet Cockatrice. They're kind of a low level monster but one with a fairly nasty SOD aspect to them. They aren't likely to be deadly to a level 11 party, but there is always that nasty little chance they'll create a major problem if they aren't dealt with swiftly, and unlike minions they aren't likely to just get popped en-masse at the start of the fight. Level them up a couple levels if they're really too weak to matter. Another nice one are a few respawning undead like say some deathlock wights or even just undead that can suck life to heal themselves like battle wights. Those type monsters can be hard to ignore and can effectively distract a party from gang-stomping the BBEG for a few rounds.

 

[keterys]

There are a few things you can do to make solos more viable against status effects...

Unstoppable: This creature is only dazed, stunned, immobilized, restrained, dominated, or unconscious if critically hit or hit by an attack that also hits this creature's defenses with a +X bonus.

I'd suggest X be at least +5, but you could go as high as +10 for some critters.

Untouchable: This creature may make saves against any non-instantaneous harmful effect, including effects which last until the end of an enemy's next turn or the encounter.

Resilient (free, when affected by an effect a save could end)
This creature makes an immediate save against the effect(, with a -X penalty to the roll.)

The X here is optional, but consider that -5 would eliminate the bonus it normally gets making it a normal save. -2 on elites. Or ignore the penalty entirely. You could also make it only 1/round. You could also make it, instead of rolling a save, 'rolls a d20 and removes the effect on a 10 or higher' which sidesteps bonuses and penalties both.

Vigor
This creature makes saves at the beginning of its turn, as well as the end of its turn.

 

[Eric Finley]

Or you give them idiosyncratic effects in place of the normal status effects you know your party can inflict. "Violent Energy: Berzerker Schnazzbog does not suffer normally from the immobilized, restrained, or dazed conditions. Instead, if immobilized or restrained, at the beginning of its turn it thrashes violently and topples over, breaking the effect; make an attack in a close blast 2 plus against the Schnazzbog itself, +15 vs. Ref, 2d10 damage + knock prone. If dazed, it still grants CA, but instead of being limited to one action, it gains an extra standard action which it can only use to make basic melee attacks during its turn."

Or "Giant Bowling Ball is immune to prone; if knocked prone, it is instead pushed 2 squares in a DM-determined direction."

Think about the actual flavour of the powers the PCs are using, and when using a solo, come up with the appropriate effect on that monster of the description. Make it obvious you're doing this - and that you'll be more inclined to have it do cool stuff if the description is cool to begin with.

(I once played a LARP where one PC tried to cast the spell "discorporate self" to do some spying... and then botched the roll. Normally, this would suck in a small way, but mostly result in him not getting the result he wanted. But his description of the power was great - "I reach up with my hands, and as though they were claws, I take my skin from the neck down and peel it away, becoming spirit." So the ref, kudos to him, took one look at the botch and said "Okay. You succeed. You're a ghost. But that fifteen minute duration thing - nah. You die, skip the corpse step, and become a ghost. Get yourself Reconstituted when you're done.")

Also, things like Dominate do an excellent job of equalizing the action economy, even in the case of bad status conditions on the primary.

Another good way is to reskin a collection of other monsters as a single solo. Handle the dragon's head as an elite controller, his foreclaws as an elite brute, and his wings and tail as a regular skirmisher (with "move the rest too" as an implicit power there).

 

[Nebulous]

I mostly fixed the problem by winging it. Like I used to do back in 3e, when I thought the fight wasn't going well, I just made sh*t up until it got interesting. Of course the dragon can snatch you with its mouth and transfer negative status effects into you. Says so right on the statblock in invisible ink. And obviously the high inquisitor main villain can ignore any 5 conditions of my choice. She has captured the souls of her enemies and redirects your attacks at them, obviously.

But still, that left players a little disgruntled. I'm inclined to blame the design of 4e, what with every other power having a rider effect.

Well, i hate to make crap like that up in the middle of a fight, but those are still very valid ideas. If i knew a solo was coming up i would simply pull up a solo monster in the Monster Builder and slap a few new powers on it. I hate it though that such a fundamental design of 4e needs so much extensive tweaking.

 

[keterys]

I made a solo once who could swap places with his minions and the minions would gain every effect on him (including marks, bard abilities, whatever). It worked out very well.

Another one had minions who could interrupt an attack by jumping in the way of it effectively.

In both cases, the solo had a very healthy supply of minions and a way to generate more of them (though not infinite, with some restrictions and costs).

But yeah, I tend to find solos work best not alone, no matter how you do it. A solo that was truly meant to be alone I'd have to make... very heavily designed and varied... or intended to only last a very short time, not as a truly life threatening encounter. Like a module I played where the very first encounter is with a nasty solo brute who can basically bloody all of the PCs with reactive abilities and on bloodied attacks and what not all... but has basically no chance of actually killing the party.

 

[Iron Sky]

In my experience, lone solos aren't much fun to run as a DM, but players (in my group at least) love unloading dallies, locking a tough monster down, and loading it up with status conditions.

For example, when our mid-paragon group took down a Balor, it wasn't much fun for our DM, but man, were we on the edge of our seats, cheering for every hit.

He dropped a hydra on us at level 11, so it got to be the first monster to taste the wrath of Certain Justice. Not much fun for our DM, but as players we had a good time owning it with near impunity.

That said, when I DM, I rarely drop solos alone. I think the last solo fight I ran was a Solo at level +2 and two elites at level +1 and a fire trap (Young Red Dragon + 2 Blazewyrms in a flaming bog vs level 5 players, IIRC).

When I design solos, I always give them a power similar to what Keterys suggested.

 

[Blackbrrd]

I would through at least 4 ordinary or higher mobs at the party. For instance:
Solo + Elite + 2x Normal
Solo + 2xElite + Normal
2xSolo + 2xNormal

A well coordinated party can easily take down 6+ minions in one round, so it is something I would through in on top of at least 3 ordinary+ mobs. For instance:
Solo + 2xElite +6xMinion
Solo +3xNormal +6xMinion
Solo + Elite + Normal + 8xMinion

I don't like using mobs that are lower level than the characters because they have problems hitting and do too little damage. Soldiers being the only exception to this. Soldiers are OP compared to the other types.

An encounter with a Solo is often a high-point in a campaign and I want the fight to be the Fight to remember. A fight with a single enemy gets static real fast, which is no fun at all. Non-static fights is one of the high-points of 4e.

I came up with one house-rule for solo mobs: They can make a save against one effect at the START of their own turn at the normal +5, or make a save against all effects at the normal +0. This makes status effects a lot less fun on the boss. The players will then use them on the sidekicks instead, allowing the boss to shine. It might not be necessary if you run the solo-encounter as hard as described above.