Another kind of solo

In my campaign, the players are about to head into the Temple of Elemental Evil, trying to figure out how Tharizdun will be released 500 years later, destroying the universe. Unfortunately, they were drained of their power when sent back through time by the last living gods, so instead of being epic demi-gods, they are once again simple adventurers (now level 8).

Anyway, inside the Temple, they will find several factions, each working on empowering the Elder Elemental Eye, which they know is Tharizdun. One of the big fights I am prepping, is the fight against the Master Summoner, leader of cult of demon-worshipers that revere the Elder Elemental Eye as the one who can return and empower the Abyss so that it can swallow the universe.

I had from the beginning envisioned this as either:
1) With the Master as a n+0 or n+1 solo, and his summoned demons as a horde of minions, popping out at the beginning of combat, or the very least over the first couple of rounds.
2) With the Master as an higher level elite and the demons as standard monsters.

Then when I sat down to design the Master, it (once again) struck me how little I like humanoid solos. They just do not work well IMO.

Instead, I got the following idea. I made the Master a standard monster, and gave him a protective shield which must be “killed”, before the attacks of the players can affect him. The shield has currently hit points equal to 4 standard monsters of that level, so in total, the Master and the shield will have the same amount of hit points that a solo of said level would have. Of course, there will be the added benefit that no conditions will touch the Master until the shield is down, which would be the last 1/5th of the combat.

Now, there still was the issue of # of attacks. Obviously, a standard monster (The Master) can’t keep up with the damage output an equal level solo would have, so the natural thing was to turn to the demons. They will now be special minions, entering combat each round, so that there are always 4 demons present when the Master’s (and in this case, the demons’) turn. But instead of regular minion damage, they will do damage equal to a normal monster. They will still have 1 hit point, of course.

This means, that for the majority of the combat, the BBEG (Master + demons) will make 5 attacks every turn. That might be a bit hard on the players, so I thinking about implementing some sort of skill challenge/skill checks primarily based on arcana and religion, where the players can compensate somehow. On the other hand, since it’s only the Master who has AP’s, the AP rounds won’t be very brutal.

The shield and the demon mechanics also mean that the marking ability of the two defenders in the group will be next to useless, since they can’t get to the master, and marking the shield doesn’t do much, and if they hit (and kill) the demons, another one just reappear. Instead, I am going to make their defender abilities feel useful by having two or three portals, so that they can move around and place themselves in defender-y positions in order to at least control who takes the damage.

What do you think about it? Could it work? Did I miss something? Any good ideas that could improve the encounter?

The only concern I would note is how good your party is at killing minions. Some parties have abilities that can blow through minions very easily so that's something to watch for.

Also since the master can't be affected by conditions until well through the battle you shouldn't need the full damage of a solo (though by full damage I mean MM3 solos not MM1) since your guy will be going non stop until the shield is down.

EDIT: I just looked at your minion damage. I haven't checked the MM3 minions to see what their expected damage is, but your are 20 right now which seems pretty high.

The concept is great though I like it!

About marking defenders vs the minions:

Fighters mark on a miss, and paladins can mark without attacking (they just have to move towards the marked target), I'm sure other defenders can manage that. Done carefully, the Defenders should be able to mark some minions, and, if their mark-enforcement includes damage, it should be very effective.

It sounds like the replacement minions are generated on the master's turn? If so, a controller could still Ready to blast them as soon as they appear, reducing the number of attacks they can get off that round.

While I understand wanting to give the encounter the offensive punch of 5 standard monsters, the thing to remember is that 5 standard monsters generally get killed one at a time, so, after a bit, it's only 4 standard monsters, etc.

One thing you could do is have the power of the 'shield' and the minion-summoning effect linked (maybe they're the same artifact). So, as the sheild is worn down, it produces fewer minions.

Though, at that point, you might just as well set it up as 5 standard monsters, with the master somehow unattackable until the 4 demons are all dealt with.

Stalker0 said:

The only concern I would note is how good your party is at killing minions. Some parties have abilities that can blow through minions very easily so that's something to watch for.

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They aren't any good at it. Fighter, Swordmage, Bard, cleric, barbarian and psion, with not too many area attacks.

Also since the master can't be affected by conditions until well through the battle you shouldn't need the full damage of a solo (though by full damage I mean MM3 solos not MM1) since your guy will be going non stop until the shield is down.

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Yes, that was one of my questions. Maybe it should only be 3 demons. Will have to think about it.

EDIT: I just looked at your minion damage. I haven't checked the MM3 minions to see what their expected damage is, but your are 20 right now which seems pretty high.

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Minion damage is should be 10 at level 20. However, I must have poorly explained something, if you are looking at minion damage.

Normally, a level 12 solo would have 5x the hit points of a level 5 standard monster.

It should also have roughly the damage output of 5 standard level 12 monsters.

Now, instead of a normal level 12 solo, I made a level 12 standard monster (Master Summoner) with level 12 solo hit points. So he is seriously lacking in the HP department.

Which is why I add the 4 fake minions per round. That should up the damage output to be closer to what a level 12 solo would otherwise have, while not adding much in hit points. Which is why the (fake) minions deal real damage, ie MM3 guideline damage which is 8+level (12) = 20 on average.

While I understand wanting to give the encounter the offensive punch of 5 standard monsters, the thing to remember is that 5 standard monsters generally get killed one at a time, so, after a bit, it's only 4 standard monsters, etc.

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As mentioned earlier, the fact that the minions auto-respawn on the Master's turn, will ensure that there are 4 demons to attack every round, unless as noted below, players start to ready actions to kill them as they pop. Which is totally possible, but if some players are killing demons present while others are reading attacks to kill those who pop, there won't be much DPS on the Master's lifeshield, which means more rounds where he can shoot at them from his safety zone.

While I understand wanting to give the encounter the offensive punch of 5 standard monsters, the thing to remember is that 5 standard monsters generally get killed one at a time, so, after a bit, it's only 4 standard monsters, etc.

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Its meant to mimic a solo (not 5 standard monsters), which should deal as much damage (or around) as 5 creatures.
But I like your suggestion with the shield. Or maybe it should just be (as I mentioned at the beginning of this post) 3 monsters, because really, how often do we see solo monsters who really pack as much punch as 5 standard monsters? Mostly they are a bit on the low side of 5, damage-wise.

I'd suggest halving the shield take a certain amount of damage and then being destroyed. After they destroy it the BBEG retreats to a protected location that is visible, while he summons more demons.

Move into a skill challenge that pits the party against a ritual that protects the BBEG in a different way. Claim that the BBEG is bloodied if that helps explain the transition. Bring in a non-minion demon at this point that can be marked. This will give the fighter and swordmage something to do with their marks for a little bit. I bet they'll be ecstatic at having their marks back.

The smart PCs can decide between working on the skill challenge (standard), assisting (minor) or fighting normally. Imply that the BBEG starts regenerating somehow. Or perhaps he starts killing captives at a rate of one per round. It's a race to save them.

Once the skill challenge is over really ramp up the BBEG personal damage as a result of his sacrifices. You can tweak this based on how hard you've beaten up the PCs during the prior two phases.

Anyhow, some food for thought. Have fun.

I like the idea. The only two things I'd change from your setup are:

-Your master summoner dude has too many hit points. It should have 92 by the book, and the arcane shield ought to have 368 (unless I'm doing my math wrong). I'd say that's plenty!

-I'd lower it to 3 demons at a time to compensate for the fact that conditions are pretty well wasted until the shield is down (since most effects that inflict a condition also inflict damage), and the pcs have no way to really lower the bad guys' damage output.

Its a great idea but there is something that troubles me in the design.

I think it is the minion mechanic you are using, as you have it set up there can never be more than 4 minions, and they are replenished each turn.

I understand that you are trying to mimic a solo having 5 attacks but the way you are doing this means that technically there is no point in attacking the minions. They are effectively a red herring. The players best course of action is to ignore the minions and attack the shield, of course they might not realise that.

(to explain my thinking: Creatures usually have to expend an action to summon other creatures, this balances the number of creatures against the damage that could have been wrought with an attack. So the advantage of killing summoned creatures is that the creature will have to spend a turn not attacking to summon more. This is a tactical decision that has some weight, if instead the summoned creatures return to a set maximum for free each turn there is no advantage in wasting actions killing them)

In your encounter set up you have a fairly static threat. Personally I prefer escalating danger, I would design the encounter with a continual stream of minions arriving so that the PCs had to deal with them before they were overrun. I think I would use lower damage minions and have 1d4+2 minions comming through a turn.

I think I would also set the Master Summoner up as an elite instead of a standard creature. Otherwise it might be a bit of an anticlimax when he is defeated so easily after an otherwise interesting fight.

Anyway these are just my thoughts, I hope they are useful.

I think your approach can definitely work. I ran a combat that was very similar, conceptually, to this design. Not sure how much this info will be of use (since instead of a hitpoint shield, I instead had a 'skill challenge' shield, and instead of monsters with minion hp and standard damage, I just had a mixed group of minions and standard monsters being summoned.) However, hopefully it is close enough to give you some idea how things might play out...

The party had been chasing after this enemy, who had found the resting place of Tenebrous and was draining the last godly power from the vestige. (An act that, ironically, would lead his lord, a Primordial, to eventually try and awaken the Elder Elemental Eye and claim/free the power of Tharizdun...)

In any case, the party finally gets to him and he is in the midst of working some grand planar ritual - and surrounded by several magical portals. One to the Shadowfell, one to the Elemental Chaos, one to the Abyss, and one to the Material World. One surrounded him on each side, preventing any attacks from directly getting to him - they had to weaken each portal, and when the final one was weakened, all of them would collapse and they could fight him directly (a high-level Elite.) Alternatively, they could try and enter through the portal, fight across whatever realm it led to, and come out on the other side with him - but the party didn't make any attempt to do so.

Meanwhile, each portal summoned monsters through the combat. Each round one portal would produce a standard monster, and the others would produce minions. They could disable each portal through a short skill challenge (and any successes could prevent a monster from being summoned that round). In addition, they realized that throwing something anathema to the portal into it could help shut it down. (So they had recently passed through a room with a mindflayer corpse - someone ran back, grabbed it, and hurled it into the portal to the natural world for several automatic successes.)

It worked out relatively well - the portals weren't too hard to overcome, but the PCs were enraged by their inability to get to this adversary as he hurled attacks and insults against them. Those who wanted to work on using skills could try and disable the portals, those who just liked to hack things up could fight it out with the various monsters being summoned, and those who wanted to be creative could try and find the appropriate items that would help shut down the portals.

Eventually, they went down, and he was quickly overwhelmed.

Plenty of great ideas so far.

I'd suggest halving the shield take a certain amount of damage and then being destroyed. After they destroy it the BBEG retreats to a protected location that is visible, while he summons more demons.

Move into a skill challenge that pits the party against a ritual that protects the BBEG in a different way. Claim that the BBEG is bloodied if that helps explain the transition. Bring in a non-minion demon at this point that can be marked. This will give the fighter and swordmage something to do with their marks for a little bit. I bet they'll be ecstatic at having their marks back.

The smart PCs can decide between working on the skill challenge (standard), assisting (minor) or fighting normally. Imply that the BBEG starts regenerating somehow. Or perhaps he starts killing captives at a rate of one per round. It's a race to save them.

Once the skill challenge is over really ramp up the BBEG personal damage as a result of his sacrifices. You can tweak this based on how hard you've beaten up the PCs during the prior two phases.

Anyhow, some food for thought. Have fun.

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I like that idea, but I am not going to implement it 100%. While I do use skill challenges often enough, I want this fight to be a real fight. I will however try to incorporate some skills into the fight, options for those who might rather want to do something else, besides just spamming at wills. I am thinking arcana checks to weaken the barrier, like a successful check and you deal X damage to the shield - or is that too boring? I have also considered that successful arcana (depending on how successful they were) could inflict certain conditions on the Master Summoner, who otherwise is protected against those as long as the shield is up. Easily fluffed as the player’s character creates a magical backlash inside the shield, weakening it a bit and hurting the Master Summoner. Maybe a normal success gives him -2 to hit until the end of next round, a hard check dazes him until the end of next turn and a very hard check (houserule) stuns him until the end of his next turn. II was also thinking of religion checks could banish a demon - at least for a round.

I like the idea. The only two things I'd change from your setup are:

-Your master summoner dude has too many hit points. It should have 92 by the book, and the arcane shield ought to have 368 (unless I'm doing my math wrong). I'd say that's plenty!

-I'd lower it to 3 demons at a time to compensate for the fact that conditions are pretty well wasted until the shield is down (since most effects that inflict a condition also inflict damage), and the pcs have no way to really lower the bad guys' damage output.

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Math part: 13 (level+1) *8 (controller hit points)= 104 + 16 (con) = 120. My mistake was using the old rules for solo hp (times 5). So the Master’s hit points are correct enough, afaict, but the shield should have 360 hit points, instead of 480.

Regarding lowering the amount of demons. Its a good idea. After reading your post, I am fairly certain that I will either lower the amount.. or maybe instead lower their damage output (for the same end result).

Its a great idea but there is something that troubles me in the design.

I think it is the minion mechanic you are using, as you have it set up there can never be more than 4 minions, and they are replenished each turn.

I understand that you are trying to mimic a solo having 5 attacks but the way you are doing this means that technically there is no point in attacking the minions. They are effectively a red herring. The players best course of action is to ignore the minions and attack the shield, of course they might not realise that.

(to explain my thinking: Creatures usually have to expend an action to summon other creatures, this balances the number of creatures against the damage that could have been wrought with an attack. So the advantage of killing summoned creatures is that the creature will have to spend a turn not attacking to summon more. This is a tactical decision that has some weight, if instead the summoned creatures return to a set maximum for free each turn there is no advantage in wasting actions killing them)

In your encounter set up you have a fairly static threat. Personally I prefer escalating danger, I would design the encounter with a continual stream of minions arriving so that the PCs had to deal with them before they were overrun. I think I would use lower damage minions and have 1d4+2 minions comming through a turn.

I think I would also set the Master Summoner up as an elite instead of a standard creature. Otherwise it might be a bit of an anticlimax when he is defeated so easily after an otherwise interesting fight.

Anyway these are just my thoughts, I hope they are useful.

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Very useful indeed. You are completely correct in your way of thinking. The minions were created as a sort of red herring. Sure, you can ignore them to a certain degree, unless of course they start ganging up and hitting your casters/healers. In which case things will go south quickly. Perhaps too quickly, now that I think about it.

I am not a huge fan of too much randomness, since I feel that the tohit/damage rolls offer enough, but I can definitely see where you are coming from. Will keep it in mind. I am however a bit vary about just letting monsters pour in, since there is no way of controlling how much damage the players will take, ie keeping the combat “balanced”. IME, that can lead to either an awesome combat, or a TPK.

Looking over my answers, I see I will have to mix things up a lot, if I want to implement all the good ideas. But I think it might work, so I am considering the following changes.

Changes:
Changing Master Summoner to elite, adjusting powers - the biggest problem with this is that the shield will last far shorter and in general, elites (especially casters) get raped when alone, it just takes longer time.
Adding an interrupt when the shield goes down, it blows up.
Adding skills. Arcana (moderate) check (deal 1d6+5 damage to shield and Master takes -2 to hit on his next roll
Arcana (hard) check (deal 1d6 + 10 damage to shield and Master is dazed (or rather, loses an attack, his move and minor action)
Arcana (very hard) check (deal 1d6+10 damage to shield and Master is stunned)
Religion (banish a demon)

Instead of getting 4 (or 3 as someone suggested) demons every round, I might change it to a random 3 demons (average 20 damage), 4 demons (average 15 damage), 5 demons (average 12 damage or 6 demons (average 10 damage). That should put the average damage down, but doesn't really solve any of the balancing issues.

I guess I need to think some more about things

One option you also have if you don't mind a little fudging in your combats.

Whatever number of minions you decide to go wtih, you have a flavor way of modifying them mid combat.

When the shield goes down, you have the option of increasing or decreasing the difficulty of your combat.

1) If the combat is going to easy, breaking the shield means the wizard's power is not being expended with the shield as much. Now he can summon more minions at a time!

2) If the combat is too hard, the wizard was drawing energy from the shield. When it breaks, the number of minions decreases as well.


Not every dm likes to fudge like that, but its an option if you want it.