D&D 4E Adding powers to elites and solos (4E)

[NewJeffCT]

And, just to be clear, I was saying that my Elite or my Solo monster isn't firing off a whole extra at-will power per round. It just has 2-3-4 choices for its at-will power, instead of one or two. Sort of like a 3E wizard that can choose between Magic Missile, Burning Hands or Grease for a first level spell. The wizard can't cast all 3 at once - but, he can choose what is best for the situation - magic missile for longer range, burning hands for close up damage, and Grease for a defensive/control type spell.

 

[NewJeffCT]

One thing I really agree with you on, and I experienced this with a very rules-lawyery player, is that 3.X has been around so long, and some folks know it so well, that there's really no room at all for creativity. If anything even remotely resembles the DM having gotten creative with health or statistics or spells or abilities of a creature, you get called on it. I enjoy that 4e allows for more suspension of disbelief in regard to the fact that the BBEG can do that...because he's the BBEG! He's the magically-empowered servant of an extra-planar being of pure chaos. So he's got powers that do crazy stuff that reflects that? Of course he does! Or the master of illusion can create illusionary clones of himself to distract and defeat players? He sure can! There's no questions of "well what prestige class is he?" there's no "Well he's a humanoid whose a rogue so he can only have d6/level health!" there's no "what spell was that he just used, it's not in my big-book-o-spells!" It just is because it is. They have those powers because those powers are an extension of what they are. Not because they took the right class or specialized in the right school.

I do like that about 4E.

However, my problem with 3.5E was that I felt obligated that Evil Cleric level 11 wasn't just Evil Cleric level 10 with an extra level of hit points and spells. Not obligated by my players, but that's just my mentality. So, when I went to give them a level 11 bad guy, it would be maybe a Level 8 cleric and level 3 of a PrC, or a level 9 cleric with a template that was LA+2 or maybe a cleric 6/paladin of tyranny 5. So, in order to come up with just the right BBEG, I had to go through a seemingly infinite number of options. (or, maybe it would be a wizard this time out, but it wouldn't be the wizard from 2 levels ago with 2 more levels of hit points and spells...)

 

[Quickleaf]

I second [MENTION=1165](Psi)SeveredHead[/MENTION] 's suggestion to check out AngryDM's 3-stage boss monster as a way to keep solo fights fresh. I used it for a red dragon fight campaign opener that was frickin awesome, and I plan to use it again with another dragon fight.

Generally this approach requires more time to design the monster (since you're essentially generating 3 similar but different stat blocks), but it is well worth it. Save time with common monsters, but a real boss monster needs more effort to pull off.

 

[Sunseeker]

I do like that about 4E.

However, my problem with 3.5E was that I felt obligated that Evil Cleric level 11 wasn't just Evil Cleric level 10 with an extra level of hit points and spells. Not obligated by my players, but that's just my mentality. So, when I went to give them a level 11 bad guy, it would be maybe a Level 8 cleric and level 3 of a PrC, or a level 9 cleric with a template that was LA+2 or maybe a cleric 6/paladin of tyranny 5. So, in order to come up with just the right BBEG, I had to go through a seemingly infinite number of options. (or, maybe it would be a wizard this time out, but it wouldn't be the wizard from 2 levels ago with 2 more levels of hit points and spells...)

That goes into what I meant by it's creative, but at the same time creative at all. Everything had to be "by the book", an official template, an official PRC, an official class, official spells. It looks creative on it's front but it's really not.

I can make a half-demon undead elemental dragon in 4e by simply slapping some subtypes on it, themeing it's powers appropriately, setting the fight appropriately and RPing the beast to fit.

But in 3.x I have to give it a half-demon template appropriate for it's level, then the undead template, and then an elemental one. After that it's roughly 5 levels worth of HD and stats lower, or it's far too high for my party. Then it's on to spells, classes, etc.... It looks creative, but really isn't. There's really no room for you to just imagine you own idea of what such a thing could be, and if you do, it becomes a million times harder.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Read! Link: http://angrydm.com/2010/04/the-dd-boss-fight-part-1/

Seriously, this guy's monsters turn out to be more fun (through using them in play) than mine. I have a group that's just reaching 4th-level. They were 3rd-level when they took on Bloodknuckles, and it was fast, furious and brutal.
or some reason you don't have the Monster Vault:
A) Buy it. Sell your MM1.
B) Take a look at Calastryx on this page: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4pr/20110606

Thanks - some good stuff in Angry DM and Calastryx.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

As a person who primarily DMs, I loved that 4E made things easier on the DM in terms of building encounters.

I felt that once my 3.5E game got past the level 9/10 range, it felt like a second job to me just to build an encounter that was challenging and unique. I had a big group of gamers and the gist of the campaign was that they were going up against an evil cabal of clerics and wizards who followed the deity of slavery and tyranny. So, in order to make the BBEG of each encounter different, I had to delve into different prestige classes (mystic theurge, arch-mage, etc) or oddball races, or templates, or look through every spell in the Spell Compendium to give them different spells that still felt like they were followers of this deity. And, of course, the BBEG would have to have melee support (guards) and lower level casters (apprentices) for counter-spellling and/or dispelling in order to make it a good encounter. I got to be very good at this, and most of those level 10-18 encounters were ones where the PCs got knocked around, beaten up, thrashed within a millimeter of death, but barely pulled through in the end. The BBEG would still have good options to use 6-7-8 rounds into the combat, right up to the very end.

Cut to 4E. As I said, I loved that encounters were a lot easier to build. I’m guessing that it took me well under 10% of the time it took me to build 3.5E encounters. However, even a tough Solo bad guy would end up being boring for me to run. Round 1 would be Daily Power, Action Point, Recharge Power; Round 2 would be Daily or Encounter Power, Action Point, and then At-Will Power (or Recharge Power if it recharged); Then, after Round 2, the bad guy is stuck doing At-Wills while hoping his Recharge Power recharges. When the combat went on for 5-6-7 more rounds, it got to be kind of boring for me as a DM. Maybe the bad guy has an Immediate Reaction or Interrupt, but there wouldn’t be more than that.

So, if I wanted to tweak 4E monsters without having to build entire PCs as bad guys, I was wondering how these changes would affect things:

1) Each Elite monster gets an additional at-will power of equivalent level. That way, a bad guy with a “fire” based at-will isn’t completely nerfed if the PCs have some fire resistance. Each elite would also get an additional encounter power of equivalent level as well, for basically the same reason.
2) Each Solo monster gets the Elite extras, plus one more at-will of equivalent level, and one more encounter or recharge power of equivalent level. I would also add in that once the Solo gets Bloodied, they also get a bonus to their Recharge power roll or rolls (either for the next round, or for the remainder of the encounter…). This way, I would at least have more options and potential options down the road.
3) I’ve already typically added an immediate reaction or interrupt to most Solo monsters (and some Elites), just so they’re not totally helpless if hit with a status effect or cornered or similar. It had not really affected the outcomes of combats.


Are my ideas okay? Overpowered? Any other suggestions?

No, I don't think your ideas are at all overpowered. OTOH there are various approaches possible.

There's an example, just a very simple monster mechanically, but pretty tough and fun to fight (it was a romp by itself for a group of level 7 or 8 PCs). A lot of the fun was the tension. The creature was roaming around in the woods, leaving weird trails, appearing, disappearing, and generally being existentially scary until finally it came crashing out into the midst of the party, munching on pack animals and characters indiscriminately, tossing the fighter and the cleric aside and just generally ALMOST doing for the party, but not quite. hehe. The gnaw demons were funny too (look them up, they're in MM3 IIRC and are real pests).

Anyway, that just illustrates the possibilities for a really simple straightforward set of solo mechanics. This type of monster probably won't work well at Paragon, you'll need action recovery mechanics ala MM3/MV solos for that.

I do like having a reaction attack. In this case, combined with 3 fairly robust normal attacks per round means the monster can usually deliver 4 attacks a round, and at least generally gets one at the fighter/rogue even if the PCs try some clever kiting. The ponderous form is mostly theatrical, but in my case it helped by letting me have the monster show up in an area with a fair amount of terrain and still charge around bashing PCs left and right. This brings up the concept of really tweaking this sort of monster to the situation. Don't be afraid to give solo/elite monsters specific powers that tie directly into the one encounter they're likely to show up in.

I also heavily advocate tweaking existing monsters. For example I built a very nice bad guy giant werewolf by slightly tweaking a young white dragon and refluffing it. Bonus, WotC obviously tested this monster pretty well, as it turned out to work excellently in both major encounters where it appeared. While I can definitely make my own monsters I bow to the masters of the craft. As usual steal shamelessly, it is a DM's best trait.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Thanks Abdul - looks good.