A subtle reminder from wizards.(or not so subtle)

[AngryMojo]

Anything you feel like. So long as it matches a reasonable party.

Alright, we'll go classic then. Sword and board fighter, Brutal Scoundrel Rogue, Wis Cleric, Wand Wizard and CHA Paladin with a big ol' hammer, all level 16 to make it a standard encounter.

Setup is in a desert badland, with rocky terrain an a large number of 15' rock formations with channels from dried riverbeds. Each platform is roughly 5" square, with a 5' gap between platforms. The Purple Worm bursts forth from an adjacent bluff and begins attacking.

Tactics:
The purple worm uses it's reach to grab weaker looking foes (in this case the Wizard or Rogue) and pull them onto it's platform. If engaged by stronger foes, the worm retreats, accpeting an attack from a fighter's mark due to it's high HP. The worm continues using isolation tactics and retreats frequently using it's Burrow speed.
In the event a character is bloodied, the Purple Worm immediately spends an action point to Swallow the PC before retreating under the ground for a few rounds to let it's stomach do the work before returning to the fight and focusing on another weaker PC, or a PC with a two handed weapon who can't attack while in the worm's stomach.

If the worm attacks intelligently, it should be able to deal a decent amount of damage, assuming it can keep away by moving from platform to platform. It's not likely to kill a PC outright, but the swallow is very dangerous if the PC is ill equipped to deal with it. Just right for a standard encounter. It takes a bit of creativity, like all MM solos, but it can be done.

The biggest problem with the Purple Worm is that it's a soldier. It should be a skirmisher.

 

[Aegeri]

That's an interesting set up, but it breaks the first time its immobilized (common), dazed (common), stunned (common) or dominated (uncommon outside of certain builds and I think bards). All instantly break the creatures grab and the purple worm will then have extreme difficulty ever grabbing an enemy again. Remember he has 2 attacks round 1, 2 attacks round 2 and after that 1 attack per round. He won't be keeping up with 5 PCs worth of attacks - even when you've tried to bias the scenario. In fact you've made life worse for the poor creature, because you aren't using its APs up front meaning he'll have no chance of doing any damage at all.

Swallow only targets bloodied enemies, at paragon do you think the leaders healing will be so awful he can't heal a couple of rounds of 2d8+7 damage trivially? Especially a Wisdom Cleric.

 

[The Little Raven]

That's an interesting set up, but it breaks the first time its immobilized (common), dazed (common), stunned (common) or dominated (uncommon outside of certain builds and I think bards). All instantly break the creatures grab and the purple worm will then have extreme difficulty ever grabbing an enemy again.

Immobilized doesn't break grabs.

Dazed, Stunned, and Dominated do... but most of those will be EoNT or Save Ends (and the purple worm gets a +5 bonus), so it's fairly likely these won't last beyond a round or two.

Remember he has 2 attacks round 1, 2 attacks round 2 and after that 1 attack per round. He won't be keeping up with 5 PCs worth of attacks - even when you've tried to bias the scenario. In fact you've made life worse for the poor creature, because you aren't using its APs up front meaning he'll have no chance of doing any damage at all.

Actually, using the APs up front is wrong. Read Clamping Jaws. You have to begin your turn with a target grabbed to use it, so no grabbing then using AP to clamp. So, the APs should be saved for when the grab attack bloodies a creature, so the worm can do Bite > Grab > Swallow.

Swallow only targets bloodied enemies, at paragon do you think the leaders healing will be so awful he can't heal a couple of rounds of 2d8+7 damage trivially? Especially a Wisdom Cleric.

I agree that its low damage is the number one reason the purple worm isn't much of a threat to a prepared party when its used on its own. But then again, me personally, I don't tend to use Solos on their own.

 

[Aegeri]

Immobilized doesn't break grabs.

No, but it prevents him moving and that's basically doom in this scenario, because you'll notice he makes an assumption about it being mobile (the purple worm has only 3 burrow speed btw and its burrow is tunneling so they can follow if required, making this not very viable anyway). Also winged horde and it's a cakewalk, not to mention the wizard is wand of accuracy so he'll probably be able to guarantee breaking a grab if required.

Also his tactics assume being able to run away. Can't do that while immobilized

Dazed, Stunned, and Dominated do... but most of those will be EoNT or Save Ends (and the purple worm gets a +5 bonus), so it's fairly likely these won't last beyond a round or two.

You've never seen what a paragon party can do to a monster in a single round I see . A wand wizard with a stun power and an orb of ultimate imposition

Actually, using the APs up front is wrong. Read Clamping Jaws. You have to begin your turn with a target grabbed to use it, so no grabbing then using AP to clamp.

Wait, that's a really good catch making him even more spectacularly useless. Incidentally did you realize he can't make any opportunity attacks while he's grabbing an enemy, so PCs can maneuver as they see fit with no fear of reprisal (this is actually a flaw in the purple worm I made, that I will now think about correcting). Also, this is something from another thread but without a houserule near any reasonably optimized party gravitates to using non-save ends effects on solos for precisely that reason. I houseruled that solos could save them (the major action denial conditions) anyway and that fixed that in a huge hurry.

So, the APs should be saved for when the grab attack bloodies a creature, so the worm can do Bite > Grab > Swallow.

The problem is his damage is pitiful. A poorly optimized fighter with 10 con by level 16 has (6*15+11) 101 HP. It takes a lot of rounds to grind that down to bloodied with 2d8+7 damage. Especially when we factor in temporary HP - say the Paladin is Hospitalier and then the Purple Worm is instantly boned to never doing damage.

I honestly think you should try running this encounter. It's simple to say "Saves it for a swallow", but that's never going to happen. If the Cleric and Paladin are anywhere near competent players, nobody is going to get bloodied and the purple worm is never going to have the actions to harm them.

I agree that its low damage is the number one reason the purple worm isn't much of a threat to a prepared party when its used on its own. But then again, me personally, I don't tend to use Solos on their own.

I just used Turaglas as a solo - a genuine solo - and he was murder against my epic tier level 29 party (Cleric/Fighter/Sorcerer/Wizard/Barbarian). By himself. No tricks. No cheats. Just him and upgraded damage maths from MM3. It can be done. If you're willing to design something with good powers and enough damage, a solo can challenge a party by itself now. The one and only thing you need to overcome is "How do I stop this being locked down?" and that can be solved through power design or a houserule.

It wasn't a grind either, taking only 55 minutes and much of that is because I had a player absent (so confusion over what to do on his turn). I refuse to believe it is impossible to make solos challenging if you put the time into their powers. Turaglas + MM3 damage = fun, challenging and engaging EL + 2 encounter! I nearly killed 3 of the PCs! Been a bit better on recharge rolls and it would have been even dicier!

Edit: I'm not trying to poo poo his encounter either BTW. I think his core encounter concept is actually really good and sound tactically. The problem is the monster in question doesn't support it.

 

[SteveC]

As much as I keep hearing it said that Essentials isn't a new edition of the rules, I have to respectfully disagree. Even if the people who are making the game claim otherwise.

The thing is, I know why WotC would not want to market Essentials as a new edition of the game, largely due to the fiasco that 3.5 became and their reactions to how things would be different this time around.

My point is both that the Essential's edition is a new edition for the game and also that things are different this time. The Essentials are the first in-print version of what 4E has become. Since launch there have been a lot of changes to the mechanics (skill challenges, actions, stealth to name just a few) to classes (almost all of the classes have had major changes to their powers) and monsters (again, major changes to design philosophy here). In fact, I'd say that the 4E of today is as least as different from 3.0 to 3.5.

The difference is, and why I'd say "don't have kittens!" over this, is that we've been in the loop for each of these changes. Imagine 3.5 and how it would have been received if each step along the way the changes were made available in small chunks online. The difference, and why 3.5 made such a bad taste in (some) people's mouths, is because the changes were dropped in the form of revised rulebooks in everyone's lap. If the same changes were made, but we had a compendium available the whole time, there would be much less concern.

So as much as we're seeing major changes to the written rules set, we've known about the changes to the stealth rules (for instance) all along the way. And as there have been multiple revisions, we have been kept in the loop each step of the way.

So Essentials is the first time you can buy the revised 4E rules, but those rules are already available to you right now, just not in fully printed form. Is Essentials a new edition of the rules? I would definitely say yes, but it's also a new edition done right, where previous material isn't made irrelevant.

If you disagree, and were around for the transition from 3.0 to 3.5, ask yourself if there were more or fewer changes between those two editions. I would say there have been more changes since launch of 4E. I'd also ask if you think that the transition from 3.0 to 3.5 would have been any big deal if the rules compendium had been available at the time.

That's just my $.02 worth... coming from a 4X fan.

--Steve

 

[AngryMojo]

@Aegeri- I think you overestimate that particular party's ability to deal damage. Yes, there are a lot of stun/daze/immobilize effects out there for a paragon party, but they do run out. And unless your party is willing to chew through all their dailies for a standard encounter, the big bag o' hit points that a MM1 solo is will still be around. It only takes one swallow to scare the PC's, and while 2d8+7 damage isn't much for a Fighter, it can be quite a bit for a Wizard. Not to mention few clerics will bother healing until someone is bloodied, and with this creature, a softer character will go from unbloodied to swallowed in a flash.
It's not designed to be a difficult encounter, hence the party level = monster level. It's designed to be interesting and fun, which these monsters can easily be. By your admission, it's an interesting setup. All you wanted was a decent encounter, and there you have it.

 

[The Little Raven]

You make two key wrong assumptions in your response.

You've never seen what a paragon party can do to a monster in a single round I see .

I honestly think you should try running this encounter.

I have seen what a paragon (and epic) party can do, and I have run this encounter. My party had trouble with it, probably because I didn't throw it at them when they were fresh as daisies (since it would obviously fail). They had been adventuring through the desert and had a run-in with a caravan of tiefling diabolists, got attacked by a group of desert bandits, wandered through a sandstorm and was ambushed by the purple worm. The fighter was down to 1 healing surge because of the failures during the sandstorm and the healing during the fights (and between). He was about 20 above bloodied and was waiting for a chance to get hit by a Healing Word or something to get more benefit from his remaining surge, but the rest of the party was at or within 5 hit points of full.

On the surprise round it got, the worm bit the fighter, grabbed him, and bloodied him with max damage. It won initiative, and swallowed the fighter immediately. It spent an AP and bit the cleric, grabbing him (for max damage agaim). It then took a few rounds of damage while the fighter died in its stomach (after its pesky Second Wind) and it clamped the remaining heals out of the cleric, who it then swallowed.

The wizard was almost entirely useless, as all of his remaining big guns were illusions. The ranger was out of dailies, but was pretty consistent with his other exploits. The avenger was moderately useless, because the player was rolling pretty poorly most of the fight.

It ended with the cleric at 2 failed death saves, the wizard at 1 failed death save, and the avenger at 10 hp or so. The ranger was the only one that was relatively unscathed.

Yeah, this was against a party that was already hurting a bit. However, even at max HP, the worm's double max damage could have bloodied the cleric immediately and the worm could have swallowed him before anyone could act. And that would mean no heals for the party until the thing is dead, which does change things.

But I agree that the purple worm, like most MM1 solos, need some love.

 

[AngryMojo]

But I agree that the purple worm, like most MM1 solos, need some love.

I agree too. You can make interesting encounters with them, but it takes too much damn work. I want solos I can take right from the book and throw at my party.

 

[Aegeri]

@Aegeri- I think you overestimate that particular party's ability to deal damage. Yes, there are a lot of stun/daze/immobilize effects out there for a paragon party, but they do run out.

That is true, but many of these are encounter powers and that works well also. Like, between those 5 characters you listed I can make a party composition out of them that will easily kill the purple worm. Even in the extension where the party is immensely badly injured and almost out of resources I think I could still manage with your party composition to win easily. It all depends on if you agree to let me have the wizard with Winged Horde.

If the wizard in the party has winged horde that's the end of the Purple Worm To be honest winged horde is still one of the best at-wills in the game for a wizard - one of the things it does best is really work over monsters that rely on grabs.

And unless your party is willing to chew through all their dailies for a standard encounter, the big bag o' hit points that a MM1 solo is will still be around.

This goes back to the "grind" argument. They grind out combats - they do not make them entertaining or fun.

It only takes one swallow to scare the PC's, and while 2d8+7 damage isn't much for a Fighter, it can be quite a bit for a Wizard.

A level 16 wizard with 8 starting con will have (4*15+9 = 69 HP). 2d8+7 still takes more than a significant amount of rounds to get him to bloodied - at least two. Given that the squishy wizard can often teleport per encounter (couple of times often), the Purple worm isn't presenting any significant threat unless he's pre-wounded for at least two rounds. Or the DM gives it a surprise round (as is the case below).

Not to mention few clerics will bother healing until someone is bloodied, and with this creature, a softer character will go from unbloodied to swallowed in a flash.

Assuming it has the actions to swallow and can even grab a PC to begin with. If the wizard has Winged Horde you might as well forget about the Purple Worm doing anything (As you can't grab when you can't make OAs).

It's designed to be interesting and fun, which these monsters can easily be.

I disagree it will be either. By your own admission in the post you concede the only thing the creature can do is grind down HP (as that is, in a nutshell what MM solos are good at). Essentially it hopes not to get affected by a large number of conditions that will instantly prevent it doing anything. For example, if it gets immobilized and the party just walks out of reach the worm is instantly doomed to doing nothing.

You either get obscenely lucky with dice rolls or you die without doing anything significant. That's not a good monster.

All you wanted was a decent encounter, and there you have it.

I disagree, because I cannot see it competently challenging that party composition at all. Your encounter design is fine but it doesn't actually help the purple worm any for the reasons I gave, so you haven't succeeded

They had been adventuring through the desert and had a run-in with a caravan of tiefling diabolists, got attacked by a group of desert bandits, wandered through a sandstorm and was ambushed by the purple worm. The fighter was down to 1 healing surge because of the failures during the sandstorm and the healing during the fights (and between). He was about 20 above bloodied and was waiting for a chance to get hit by a Healing Word or something to get more benefit from his remaining surge, but the rest of the party was at or within 5 hit points of full.

That was a very poor mistake on their part, but getting very lucky with a monster does not make it effective.

On the surprise round it got, the worm bit the fighter, grabbed him, and bloodied him with max damage. It won initiative, and swallowed the fighter immediately. It spent an AP and bit the cleric, grabbing him (for max damage agaim).

So an obscenely lucky set of circumstances against an immensely wounded party let it manage to actually do something? This isn't the most convincing scenario - especially as it relies purely on luck.

The wizard was almost entirely useless, as all of his remaining big guns were illusions.

So if he was an illusion wizard why didn't he have winged horde (unless it wasn't available), which would have instantly prevented the purple worm from being able to reliably grab any PC for the rest of the encounter? Unless of course he's a wizard who takes lots of daily illusion powers and then neglects the best powers for someone with illusions.

The ranger was out of dailies, but was pretty consistent with his other exploits. The avenger was moderately useless, because the player was rolling pretty poorly most of the fight.

So very lucky rolling on your part, poor rolling on the PCs part, plus you throwing a surprise round on them, they have barely any healing surges left, with a creature that is all HP/high defenses means that in a grindy encounter a grind based solo monster actually has a slim chance of doing something. I could have told you this

Of course if it hadn't been given a surprise round, hit, rolled maximum damage, got higher than every PC in the party in initiative, hit again and rolled maximum damage again I doubt this would have gone anywhere near the same. That's an obscenely lucky set of circumstances I must say, but it doesn't demonstrate this encounter works or makes the purple worm challenging.

Yeah, this was against a party that was already hurting a bit. However, even at max HP, the worm's double max damage could have bloodied the cleric immediately and the worm could have swallowed him before anyone could act. And that would mean no heals for the party until the thing is dead, which does change things.

So I can assume that the Cleric has only a maximum 82 HP (bloodied would be <46) HP. Assuming he has moderate con (starting con maybe 11?), he's got con 12 + (70/5) = 14th level? As the purple worm is 16th level, that's roughly a EL + 2 solo (minimum), with a surprise round, with most party resources exhausted, with soldier maths and lots of defenses/HP that's very little wonder they had a problem. Of course I am wondering what powers the party had, including dailies and similar.

In the end though you've actually proven my point (ironically) as technically this isn't actually a success for the purple worm. In reality that should have been a TPK immediately with that situation. It's only the fact the purple worm is so terrible that it couldn't actually manage to finish off such a party in an immensely weakened state, with literally the stars aligning absolutely perfectly for it. Let's say we took another "early" solo and did the exact same encounter, replacing the worm with it.

It sounds like a good encounter and you picked the right monster: You picked the right monster because you took something that is absolutely terrible that WOULD work in that situation.

Zany logic I'm employing here isn't it? But let's put in another monster in this exact same situation shall we. If that had say been an elder brown dragon, which is a level 16 lurker the first round would probably have seen multiple PCs hit by its breath weapon (blocks line of sight). On its own turn it would have then used frightful presence, probably stunning a good chunk of the party and then APing for a dual claw attack (same damage as the worm, but he gets +3d6 damage due to having CA from breath weapons effect). Then he would have used sandcloud for an additional 2d6+4 damage.

So in the equivalent situation where the purple worm got lucky and managed to challenge the party, the Brown dragon would have done:

Surprise round; Breath weapon: 3d10+4 - assuming this is on the fighter or perhaps the whole party in a surprise round penalty box scenario (not unreasonable given your example). It blocks line of sight, so the dragon will get CA (as he'll be invisible to the PCs when attacking).
PCs within the sand cloud cannot see the dragon, so his attacks will gain CA against them - this means we're about to hit the ridiculous switch for damage.

First round: Dragon gets initiative (It has better init than the purple worm)

Standard: Dual claw: 2d6+7+3d6 damage x 2. If both hit the fighter will take roughly 10d6+14 damage.

Action Point: Frightful Presence: Most of the party is probably stunned (or a good chunk of it)

Move: Sandcloud, move through the PCs affected by the breath weapon. Deal a further automatic 5d6+4 damage and blinded to every PC (as the combat advantage is worded when it deals damage, not when it hits with an attack and he certainly has combat advantage!). He can make a stealth check too while he's doing this to become hidden so the blinded and LoS blocked PCs have utterly no idea where he is.

Every PC takes 10 damage at the start of their turn, has no LoS due to the breath weapon and is blind.

So in that scenario, the purple worm that I decry as terribly designed gets to deal 23+23=46 damage in one round, in optimal conditions when you've stacked the deck absolutely in its favor.

When I do that for the Elder Brown Dragon in that same theoretical situation I get - optimally if I hit with all attacks (against the same PC) and taking an average damage:

4d10+15d6+22 damage in the surprise round + first round - before any PC has acted. That's an average of 96.5 points of damage. How many HP did your party have out of curiosity?

Against the whole party (on an individual basis, assuming attacks hit - which isn't likely to occur with every PC). I've done:

4d10+5d6+8 damage in the surprise round and first round - before any PC has acted. That's an average of 47.5 points of damage. Again, to every PC in the party before they've acted.

On top of all this I've likely stunned, probably outright killed someone and blinded the entire party. All without them taking an action and the dragon is hidden so they don't know where it is so they can't fight even if they didn't get stunned.

So... does my point about the Purple Worm stand

Like I don't bring this up to pooh pooh your example, but it does rapidly show the gulf in power adequately. That the purple worm is terrible enough not to lead to a TPK in a situation made for it to do so proves my point. You're also a really good DM if you picked it especially because it wasn't very good for that purpose. Had you picked something else like my Elder Brown Dragon above, you just killed your party!

Edit: Look at those numbers, I mean wow. I don't even need to roll max damage - just the average in the same situation to outdo almost 3-4 entire rounds of purple worm damage in the same situation. If I roll a crit or two that just gets ridiculously sick.

Edit2: Another damage breakdown for the Elder Brown dragon, without using frightful presence and the interpretation that sand cloud will get damage added to it for CA from their CA feature. This time the dragon gets lucky in recharge rolls. I assume he rolls his breath weapon and sandform recharge rolls.

Surprise round: Use breath weapon, dealing 4d10+4 damage to all PCs.

First Round: Move Action: Use sandcloud to blind all PCs, dealing 2d6+4 autodamage and blind to all PCs.
Standard Action: Breath weapon dealing 4d10+4+3d6 damage to all PCs.
Action Point: Dual Claw attack against Cleric - coup de grace twice if he's already down. Either another 4d6+14+6d6 damage, or alternatively 74 straight damage all the way to negative bloodied.

Overall damage (Single PC): 8d10+15d6+26 damage = 44+52.5+26 = 122.5 single target damage. I outdid my previous calculation here and I didn't use a somewhat dodgy rules interpretation about the sand cloud getting the bonus CA damage. This is more valid than my argument above because of that. Noting that I assume luck only in getting the recharge on both powers - not on hitting with every attack. As the dragon will be attacking the whole party most likely, he has the pick of the litter in terms of who to kill first in this scenario. Whoever is hit by both breath weapons or goes unconscious is effectively doomed in this hammering. Plus the dragon can just follow it up with frightful presence if he feels like it.

In the same time the purple worm did a whole 46 damage and swallowed a PC. Bear in mind that damage above is immensely optimal, assuming no misses and such. But also bear in mind that dragon is wasting the entire party simultaneously. Also the dragon has completely crippled the entire party: Not just one member (Sand cloud has no roll to hit, there is no luck involved there!).



The point of this is, that if you use the example of a party being pre-wrecked before an encounter with a purple worm, how does it fare against a similar "era" solo (Draconomicon) in the same situation? The answer is pretty obvious. Now if the purple worm can't do what the elder brown dragon trivially does in the same situation - I think that proves my argument.

 

[AngryMojo]

All the mathcraft in the world doesn't trump actual play. I've run the encounter, Raven's run the encounter. Both wound up interesting and fun. I wound up with a nearly dead wizard in the worm's gullet, and the rogue on the way down before the rest took him down.

It's not difficult to build a party to take down a specific solo. The Purple Worm can also be used effectively to challenge a party. It is not "horribly broken and beyond repair." I'll agree, it needs a little love to be useful right out of the box, but it can still be used. Your statement was that it's worthless, and couldn't be used in a decent encounter. I made an encounter that was decent. Now you claim it has inferior damage output. That, my friend, is moving the goalpost. Brown dragons are great solos. They don't potentially remove a PC from the fight entirely. Different monsters for different circumstances.

If MM1 solos are flawed and broken, then I must have been doing something wrong that first year, because I used them a lot, and they worked fine. You may have a problem with it, but that doesn't mean the entire monster, or the encounter is invalid.