Are all monsters created equal?

[WalterKovacs]

Basically, there are ways for a DM to raise, or lower, the encounters difficulty without having to raise the XP budget, helping to challenge the party without having to throw really high level monsters, or tons of monsters, at them. You can have a high level encounter with lots of monsters get split up into waves allowing for something like the Iron Tooth fight which is about 4 or levels above the expected level of the PCs. Or, you can set up an ambush with favorable terrain, and the right mix of monsters and have a difficult encounter with out it being that much higher than their level, maybe even the same level.

 

[Mengu]

No, not all monsters are created exactly equal. They are approximately equal. But 5 lurkers are a much easier and quicker encounter than 5 soldiers, which could drag on forever. Monsters are designed so we can mix them up and make interesting encounters.

As mentioned, party makeup can also change the difficulty of an encounter drastically.

 

[fba827]

I'm only relating what has basically already been said in other posts above me.

In my experiences (from both the DM and player perspective), monster level/role/xp value can't be looked at in a vacuum.

The party composition and terrain plays a bigger factor in 4e than in previous editions.

As an example, if I have 2 controllers (say a wizard and a druid) and 2 defenders (a fighter and a swordmage) and a leader (walord). I could toss out waves and waves of minions equal in xp value to a solo, but the party would take them out quickly (mostly due to the controllers). Or I could toss out a bunch of lurkers equal in value to a solo, and the party could still take them out relatively quickly (mostly due to the defenders), but toss that same group up against a solo and it will take a while (there aren't any heavy hitting strikers).

Same could be said with terrain. lurkers are great but if the party finds a good bottleneck to fight from, then the lurkers may never be able to get in to make a good hit (all the while getting picked off by ranged attacks), or put in any sort of pit or cliff and if your group has slide abilities the pits will get used more against the enemies than by the PCs, otherwise it will be the enemies that use it to their advantage.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

One of the most serious differences was comparing a fight involving wights (level 5 skirmishers, 200xp) and one involving wraiths (level 5 lurkers, 200xp each). The wraiths were a far worse fight than the wights were, thanks to their improved mobility and their regeneration.

Similarly a gelationous cube (level 5 elite brute, 400xp) was far, far nastier than an elite Duergar Theurge (level 5 elite controller, 400xp).

Monsters have roles too. Skirmishers are hit and run, and can inflict decent melee. They often have sneak attack like damage. Lurkers need to hang back more, and are more effective with melee support. I suspect if you had run something like 2 Lurkers and 3 Skirmishers, you would have had a fight a great deal more difficult than you did from just using 5 Skirmishers.

Likewise, a brute is basically a hard hitting low endurance opponent. Making it elite will give make up for the relative endurance trade off that Brutes have relative to Soldiers. But a controller, elite or otherwise, works best with backup. If you want a level 5 type battle, I suggest using a 4th level elite controller with minion support.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Plane Sailing]

Monsters have roles too. Skirmishers are hit and run, and can inflict decent melee. They often have sneak attack like damage. Lurkers need to hang back more, and are more effective with melee support. I suspect if you had run something like 2 Lurkers and 3 Skirmishers, you would have had a fight a great deal more difficult than you did from just using 5 Skirmishers.

Likewise, a brute is basically a hard hitting low endurance opponent. Making it elite will give make up for the relative endurance trade off that Brutes have relative to Soldiers. But a controller, elite or otherwise, works best with backup. If you want a level 5 type battle, I suggest using a 4th level elite controller with minion support.

END COMMUNICATION

The fights all came out of Thunderspire

[sblock]
1. 5 Wights (5 skirmishers, and the room didn't really give them much room to manouver. They were not such a big threat in themselves, but they reduced the endurance of the party for later encounters because they sap healing surges)

2. 1 Elite Theurge, 2 Spined devils, 2 Duergar Shock Troopers (1 elite controller and I can't look up the other two - I imagine probably 2 skirmishers and 2 brutes? )

3. 1 Gelatinous Cube, 2 wraiths (if I'd used 3 wraiths as per the encounter, and played them even slightly aggressively it would have been a TPK. Even as it was I was slightly generous).

[/sblock]

Because wraiths are insubstantial and take half damage, it is almost as if they have regeneration 10 rather than regeneration 5. Their phasing ability also makes it much easier for them to avoid being ganged up upon. As Lurkers they like attacking the strikers and controllers and certainly managed that rather too well in the encounter I ran. The fact that they can spawn additional wraiths too would have made them even more dangerous if I'd had them concentrate their attacks.

The gelatinous cubes ability to 'hoover up' people and do automatic 10 acid damage to anyone in them made it an incredible "controller" in that it dominated and shaped the battlefield as well as handing out huge amounts of damage - during the combat it must have inflicted well over 100 damage aggregated across the PCs.

However, I'm interested that apparently nobody else has found creatures which turned out to be unexpectedly difficult for their XP (which is, after all, one of the essential balancing factors for putting creatures together in an encounter).

Has nobody else found the equivalent of the Remorhaz?

Cheers

 

[CubeKnight]

The fights all came out of Thunderspire

[sblock]
1. 5 Wights (5 skirmishers, and the room didn't really give them much room to manouver. They were not such a big threat in themselves, but they reduced the endurance of the party for later encounters because they sap healing surges)

2. 1 Elite Theurge, 2 Spined devils, 2 Duergar Shock Troopers (1 elite controller and I can't look up the other two - I imagine probably 2 skirmishers and 2 brutes? )

3. 1 Gelatinous Cube, 2 wraiths (if I'd used 3 wraiths as per the encounter, and played them even slightly aggressively it would have been a TPK. Even as it was I was slightly generous).

[/sblock]

Because wraiths are insubstantial and take half damage, it is almost as if they have regeneration 10 rather than regeneration 5. Their phasing ability also makes it much easier for them to avoid being ganged up upon. As Lurkers they like attacking the strikers and controllers and certainly managed that rather too well in the encounter I ran. The fact that they can spawn additional wraiths too would have made them even more dangerous if I'd had them concentrate their attacks.

The gelatinous cubes ability to 'hoover up' people and do automatic 10 acid damage to anyone in them made it an incredible "controller" in that it dominated and shaped the battlefield as well as handing out huge amounts of damage - during the combat it must have inflicted well over 100 damage aggregated across the PCs.

However, I'm interested that apparently nobody else has found creatures which turned out to be unexpectedly difficult for their XP (which is, after all, one of the essential balancing factors for putting creatures together in an encounter).

Has nobody else found the equivalent of the Remorhaz?

Cheers

My party hates Needlefang Swarm and Guard Drakes to no end. Their damage and defenses are insane.

 

[James McMurray]

The Drake Swarms are crazy.

There's also the Yuan-ti with the dominate that recharges on a 3+. It's to hit bonus vs. Will is higher than other 17th level monsters have when attacking AC.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Their phasing ability also makes it much easier for them to avoid being ganged up upon.

Question for you... Are you sure you're using phasing correctly? I ask not because I want to assume that you're doing something wrong, but because I know that my DM in my last campaign made a similar mistake, and it vastly increased the deadliness of some wraiths.

Specifically, remember that even creatures with phasing have to end their turn in an empty space--they cannot end their turn hiding "inside the wall"--and that auras (for those wraiths that have them) require line of effect, so a wraith can't phase through a barrier and then bombard people on the other side.

Again, not assuming you are making one or both of these errors; just putting them out there, since I've seen them.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Question for you... Are you sure you're using phasing correctly? I ask not because I want to assume that you're doing something wrong, but because I know that my DM in my last campaign made a similar mistake, and it vastly increased the deadliness of some wraiths.

No worries, it is a good question - I had noticed that they can't end their movement within a solid object, but when there is a network of corridors (quite typical for a dungeon) it made it easy for them to move where they want to (and they could have set up flanks for extra damage very easily if I'd wanted to).

Cheers

 

[Rechan]

On the topic of phasing, would a creature 'pass through' a boulder rolling down the corridor, or would it still get an attack against the phasing monster?

Also, huh. I didn't know the phasing monster couldn't end in a solid object; that certainly addresses the issue of 'shift 1 square into wall, haw haw'.