Balancing a particular encounter

[Omegaxicor]

to those who posted in my earlier post, I decided to abandon the idea of having large gaps between the first few adventures but I will have medium gaps of a month or so between them

Now, I want to have a rather difficult encounter to reward brains over brawn (well, still brawn because it is a combat encounter), The Warrior has chosen Blind-Fight as a feat because he wants the Pierce Magical Concealment/Protection feats, I want to reward this, a bit.

If anyone has seen Outlander, a Baby Morwen. I was going to base it on the Baby Red Dragon but that is more powerful than I expected so I will have to customise the stats myself...

Hp 50 (ish, it is a Solo monster)
AC ?=5 (HR says +5 not +10)+BAB(0/1)+Dex(-1/-2)+Natural armour(0/1) (a pitiful 3/4/5)
Strength=12-14? (It is a big mass of muscle)
Dexterity=6-8? (It is agile but young and cumbersome)
Constitution=12-14? (It is a big mass of muscle)
Intelligence=4-12? (it may be an animal but it can use tactics)
Wisdom=12-14 (it has good senses, should this have a low Wis and a High Spot/Listen bonus?)
Charisma=erm? (I never know what to put here for non-humanoid monsters, 0 diplomacy, resist handle animal?)

It is a Medium (Long) (2 tiles, Large or Medium Long, I can't remember)
The Invisibility gives it 50% Miss Chance (25% to the Warrior)

It can leap from place to place and land silently as a cat (High Jump and Move Silently skills) which makes it almost impossible to fight, I hope the players will remember the rain outside, if not once a character (or the monster) is Hit I will have an NPC suggest the combat be taken into the rain (which I don't really know what to do with, does the Invisibility reduce to 0% or 20% or what?) and then, when the monster is Bloodied, the Rain stops but Magical Lighting creates a glow around the Monster (0% Miss Chance?).

I want the monster to rarely hit but hit hard when it does, so I am thinking 2 Claws (1d6), 1 Bite (1d4) and a Primary Tail attack (1d4) (I want this to be a Vorpal Tail strike, piercing damage until it hits a Natural 20 then Slashing damage and death (I want to kill a few NPCs with this OOC) but this may be bad for the PCs, thoughts?), maybe a Slam attack, but what would be a good Hit rating?

Sorry for the wall of text, confusing wall of text perhaps...

1) Hp=50, too High/Low? AC=3/4/5
2) What does the Rain do to Greater Invisibility? What does the Magical Glow do?
3) Is Vorpal too strong for a One-off Monster? Would it be OK if the Tail attack was the Monsters Secondary attack instead of it's Primary attack?
4) Should it have a Slam attack? (I don't think it can Bite and Slam at the same time but it seems like it should still have it)
5) What would be good stats for a baby? especially Charisma...

I know with this many uncertainties I should probably just abandon the whole thing but I really like the idea (until 20 people respond with "Forget it, it already sounds like a Level 19 encounter" )

Thanks for any help on the matter

EDIT: Yea a Wall of Text and I never mentioned this is for a Level 1 group, a Warrior (probably a Fighter, despite my best efforts, with Blind-Fight), a Ranger (probably 2WF) and two other players and a Custom class NPC (I haven't worked out the full powers and it kinda depends on the party's needs but it will most likely be a Warrior/Healer type)

 

[Herobizkit]

Your monster is vastly overpowered for a 1st level party. Instant death, permanent invisibility, multiple attacks a round, HP equivalent to a CR 5+ monster... even if you're 4e, it's still kinda tough.

If you want a monster that will frustrate 1st level players but won't be terribly lethal per se... behold the Carbuncle.

Also, I like my old Trobolds - simple kobold soldier-types with troll blood that gives them regeneration 1. I confused a whole party with the same pair of kobolds over and over as the party assumed that once they fell, the trobolds were dead...

 

[Omegaxicor]

Two important points, 1) I know the monster is over-powered, I want to weaken it without losing the concept and 2) The Carbuncle is a bit weak, 22 Hp and 9 AC, and dealing 1 damage per turn is pointless with Armour Health (which I should have mentioned we use, sorry) which basically gives you Temp Hp per turn, which isn't much but it renders the Carbuncle useless

I like the Troll-blooded Kobolds, I might use them later.

The Instant Death is more to kill NPCs, so I will drop that completely, the Permanent Invisibility is hampered by the environment, multiple attacks around is hard to get around with the monster, I will work on that, maybe lower the damage of each attack (which creates the above Carbuncle problem of doing 0 damage), High Hp is a problem I am well aware of, given your link to the Carbuncle I am thinking maybe 25 Hp (and...1 or 2 Temp Hp).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

to those who posted in my earlier post, I decided to abandon the idea of having large gaps between the first few adventures but I will have medium gaps of a month or so between them

Now, I want to have a rather difficult encounter to reward brains over brawn (well, still brawn because it is a combat encounter), The Warrior has chosen Blind-Fight as a feat because he wants the Pierce Magical Concealment/Protection feats, I want to reward this, a bit.

If anyone has seen Outlander, a Baby Morwen. I was going to base it on the Baby Red Dragon but that is more powerful than I expected so I will have to customise the stats myself...

Hp 50 (ish, it is a Solo monster)

Solos don't officially exist in 3rd Edition, but you could give it either extra hit points or temporary hit points to fill in the gap. 50 sounds fair for a "solo"; that's about as many hit points as 5 1st-level rangers.

AC ?=5 (HR says +5 not +10)+BAB(0/1)+Dex(-1/-2)+Natural armour(0/1) (a pitiful 3/4/5)

Take a look at this link: http://paizo.com/PRD/monsters/monsterCreation.html (it's close enough to 3rd Edition to be useful to you) - I would choose 1st-level values for everything except damage (you can use that for damage per attack though) and hit points. (A 1st-level solo in 4e would have 1st-level stats in most areas, but have multiple attacks and many more hit points.)

Strength=12-14? (It is a big mass of muscle)

A big mass of muscle should be as strong as your strongest PC, so it should have a Strength of 15-18. But what's important is your final damage and attack bonus. (Take a look at the link for approximate values and aim for those.)

Dexterity=6-8? (It is agile but young and cumbersome)

It's agile and jumps around a lot. It needs higher Dex. Also, that boosts Initiative.

Constitution=12-14? (It is a big mass of muscle)

A 14 sounds fair. You want to be as high as possible so your Fortitude save is good.

Intelligence=4-12? (it may be an animal but it can use tactics)

I don't know the source material, but if it's an animal, it's Int should be 2.

Wisdom=12-14 (it has good senses, should this have a low Wis and a High Spot/Listen bonus?)
Charisma=erm? (I never know what to put here for non-humanoid monsters, 0 diplomacy, resist handle animal?)

High Wisdom for a good Will save. With a low Will save, it'll just get hit with Color Spray or Sleep in round one, resulting in a boring encounter. You probably don't want a racial bonus to Listen and Spot, to give stealthy PCs a chance.

It is a Medium (Long) (2 tiles, Large or Medium Long, I can't remember)

That's Large (long).

The Invisibility gives it 50% Miss Chance (25% to the Warrior)

Invisibility is extremely frustrating due to poorly-balanced rules. IMO, it shouldn't be invisible all the time. Perhaps it can cast Invisibility, and has "sneak attack", with low base damage. So it spends a turn becoming invisible, then next turn it attacks, hitting hard, but now you can see it again... The fighter won't lose his Dex bonus to AC due to Blind-Fight, I think, but I might be mixing 4e with 3e here.

It can leap from place to place and land silently as a cat (High Jump and Move Silently skills) which makes it almost impossible to fight, I hope the players will remember the rain outside, if not once a character (or the monster) is Hit I will have an NPC suggest the combat be taken into the rain (which I don't really know what to do with, does the Invisibility reduce to 0% or 20% or what?) and then, when the monster is Bloodied, the Rain stops but Magical Lighting creates a glow around the Monster (0% Miss Chance?).

If PCs have lots of Climb and Jump, they can keep up with it. Remind them of this. Make a "cheat sheet" for how Jump works.

There's no official rule for rain, but lowering the concealment to 20% sounds reasonable.

I want the monster to rarely hit but hit hard when it does, so I am thinking 2 Claws (1d6), 1 Bite (1d4) and a Primary Tail attack (1d4) (I want this to be a Vorpal Tail strike, piercing damage until it hits a Natural 20 then Slashing damage and death (I want to kill a few NPCs with this OOC) but this may be bad for the PCs, thoughts?), maybe a Slam attack, but what would be a good Hit rating?

You don't want it to "rarely hit". 1st-level PCs tend to have high AC compared to their hit points. You're better off with a high attack bonus but low damage. The attack types seem good, but make them all primary. Multiple attacks suit a solo, I agree.

A vorpal tail is too good. Vorpal is a +5 weapon property, and 1st-level PCs can't handle something like that. If you want it to kill NPCs easily, just make them 1st-level NPC classes, and one of them gets sneak attacked. Dead.

2) What does the Rain do to Greater Invisibility? What does the Magical Glow do?

Drop concealment to partial, although that's technically a house rule. Replicate the Faerie Fire spell for the glow.

3) Is Vorpal too strong for a One-off Monster? Would it be OK if the Tail attack was the Monsters Secondary attack instead of it's Primary attack?

Don't give it "secondary" attacks as it can't hit with them. Vorpal is too good. If it sneak attacks an NPC, it'll probably instantly kill them anyway, so make it a gory decapitation.

4) Should it have a Slam attack? (I don't think it can Bite and Slam at the same time but it seems like it should still have it)

It already has claws, right?

5) What would be good stats for a baby? especially Charisma...

D20 Modern has a young template, which gives -1 Dex/Int/Wis/Cha, -3 Str/Con. Pathfinder has such a template too: +4 Dex, -4 Strength/Con, no modifiers for mental stats.

 

[Omegaxicor]

Take a look at this link: http://paizo.com/PRD/monsters/monsterCreation.html (it's close enough to 3rd Edition to be useful to you) - I would choose 1st-level values for everything except damage (you can use that for damage per attack though) and hit points. (A 1st-level solo in 4e would have 1st-level stats in most areas, but have multiple attacks and many more hit points.)

That's not straightforward, I will look at it later but it does look like, once I have a proper look, it will be helpful

A big mass of muscle should be as strong as your strongest PC, so it should have a Strength of 15-18. But what's important is your final damage and attack bonus. (Take a look at the link for approximate values and aim for those.)

Yea, THAT'S what I was thinking, High Dexterity AND High Strength would allow the creature to high every time and deal lots of flat damage (before rolling the dice) that seems too powerful

It's agile and jumps around a lot. It needs higher Dex. Also, that boosts Initiative.

Yea, I was thinking that too...

I don't know the source material, but if it's an animal, it's Int should be 2.

I know that Animals must have 3 Int or lower but since it is a Magical Beast with the ability to use Tactics and Stealth, I thought it might be higher but 2 will do

High Wisdom for a good Will save. With a low Will save, it'll just get hit with Color Spray or Sleep in round one, resulting in a boring encounter. You probably don't want a racial bonus to Listen and Spot, to give stealthy PCs a chance.

Ok, High Wisdom and not Spot or Listen bonuses

That's Large (long).

Thank You, I could remember

Invisibility is extremely frustrating due to poorly-balanced rules. IMO, it shouldn't be invisible all the time. Perhaps it can cast Invisibility, and has "sneak attack", with low base damage. So it spends a turn becoming invisible, then next turn it attacks, hitting hard, but now you can see it again... The fighter won't lose his Dex bonus to AC due to Blind-Fight, I think, but I might be mixing 4e with 3e here.

Blind-fight would mean he doesn't lose his Dex bonus to AC, but 1) with an Intelligence of 2 it cannot cast magic and 2) I don't think the Invisibility is a big problem because of the environment but I agree the mechanics are frustrating when you ALWAYS hit that 24% against 25/50% rolls :/

If PCs have lots of Climb and Jump, they can keep up with it. Remind them of this. Make a "cheat sheet" for how Jump works.

The Jumping is part of it's Invisibility so it jumps to move rather than leaving Footprints, but I like the idea of jumping on to a higher platform, I will have to redesign the area to account for that because it sounds great

You don't want it to "rarely hit". 1st-level PCs tend to have high AC compared to their hit points. You're better off with a high attack bonus but low damage. The attack types seem good, but make them all primary. Multiple attacks suit a solo, I agree.

I thought Primary attacks were a single portion of its attacks (i.e. 1 Tail attack or 2 Claws) not everything

A vorpal tail is too good. Vorpal is a +5 weapon property, and 1st-level PCs can't handle something like that. If you want it to kill NPCs easily, just make them 1st-level NPC classes, and one of them gets sneak attacked. Dead.

yea my second post addressed that, I was thinking it would be a good effect but I decided to drop it completely

Drop concealment to partial, although that's technically a house rule. Replicate the Faerie Fire spell for the glow.

I love that idea, I didn't think of Faerie Fire, and I know there are no official rules for Rain (Why on Earth would they not include such vital information!! ) so I was asking what people thought for a HR, I like EDIT: Reducing Concealment to 20%/EDIT

It already has claws, right?

I remember Slam being a Headbutt but that only works for creatures with Horns, I will drop the Slam attack completely as well

D20 Modern has a young template, which gives -1 Dex/Int/Wis/Cha, -3 Str/Con. Pathfinder has such a template too: +4 Dex, -4 Strength/Con, no modifiers for mental stats.

I don't know if they will be facing the Adult version until much later, but I like the idea of having it ready

EDIT: (The Link to Pathfinder and d20 Modern don't seem to work)/EDIT

I like the suggestions and I will look over the tables (see EDIT below, or next post if someone else posts before I have finished) and post a new Stat block and see what it looks like now

EDIT 2: The Monster is a Baby Moorwen

Hp=20 (2d8+(2*2))
AC=8=5+Dex(+2)+Natural Armour(+2)+BAB(+2)+Size Bonus(-1)
Hit=+2=BAB(+2)+Dex(+2)+Size Bonus(-1) (-5 for Secondary attacks)
Damages
(P) Tail (Piercing) 1d4+Str(+2)
(S) Bite (the SRD says P/B/S which I guess means ALL) 1d4+0.5*Str(+1)
(S) 2x Claws (Slashing) 1d6+0.5*Str(+1)

Greater Invisibility (50% Miss Chance, Rain causes 20%, Magical Light makes it 0% (Faerie Fire))

Str=14+2
Dex=12+2?
Con=14+2
Int=2-4
Wis=10+0
Cha=??

Now to me it looks quite weak, any ideas/thoughts?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Yea, THAT'S what I was thinking, High Dexterity AND High Strength would allow the creature to high every time and deal lots of flat damage (before rolling the dice) that seems too powerful

You could give it low Strength, drop the muscular part (it's a baby anyway) and give it Weapon Finesse.

I know that Animals must have 3 Int or lower but since it is a Magical Beast with the ability to use Tactics and Stealth, I thought it might be higher but 2 will do

It's up to you. Magical beasts can have more Int.

I thought Primary attacks were a single portion of its attacks (i.e. 1 Tail attack or 2 Claws) not everything

I'm too used to Pathfinder rules (a bit different). More to the point, different attack bonuses take up more of a DM's attention. It's just easier to use three attacks with the same bonus than four with different bonuses.

EDIT: (The Link to Pathfinder and d20 Modern don't seem to work)/EDIT

That's kind of lame. (I didn't try to offer a link to d20 Modern though, so I think you're talking about the forum's automatic-linking.)

 

[Omegaxicor]

I thought I had already responded, sorry.

I like the idea of lowering its Strength but if I give it Weapon Finesse then its combat bonuses haven't changed, just swapping 12 Strength for 12 Dexterity

I think it should have a more instinctive Intelligence but I will look up...Savage Species, I think, the supplement for Monsters and see what it says

Subtracting 5 from it's Hit doesn't seem that much, in combat perhaps though

Do you think it is "weak" enough for a level 1 party?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I think I responded to an older post earlier.

I thought I had already responded, sorry.

I like the idea of lowering its Strength but if I give it Weapon Finesse then its combat bonuses haven't changed, just swapping 12 Strength for 12 Dexterity

I think it should have a more instinctive Intelligence but I will look up...Savage Species, I think, the supplement for Monsters and see what it says

Subtracting 5 from it's Hit doesn't seem that much, in combat perhaps though

Do you think it is "weak" enough for a level 1 party?

Hp=20 (2d8+(2*2))

Those seem far too low for a "solo". You can just give it free Toughness feats until it has enough hit points.

AC=8=5+Dex(+2)+Natural Armour(+2)+BAB(+2)+Size Bonus(-1)

The AC breakdown is 10 + 2 (Dex) +2 natural armor =1 size = 13, which is probably too low. I think the PRD figure might say an AC of 13 for a 1st-level monster, but you should look at your 3/4 BAB PCs and give it an AC they can hit 50% of the time or a bit more.

(But I'll mention this a bit more when I talk about invisibility.)

Hit=+2=BAB(+2)+Dex(+2)+Size Bonus(-1) (-5 for Secondary attacks)

This is pretty low too. Even at 1st-level, a rogue will probably have an AC of 15 and a fighter would have an AC of 18 at minimum. You should be able to reliably hit those. (Again, PRD monster generation rules are a little sloppy at the low end.)

Damages
(P) Tail (Piercing) 1d4+Str(+2)
(S) Bite (the SRD says P/B/S which I guess means ALL) 1d4+0.5*Str(+1)
(S) 2x Claws (Slashing) 1d6+0.5*Str(+1)

I would make the claws primary, rather than the tail. And I would give the monster Multiattack. If the damage is low, also "sneak attack", but it could literally kill a PC with a full-round sneak attack, so maybe not.

Greater Invisibility (50% Miss Chance, Rain causes 20%, Magical Light makes it 0% (Faerie Fire))

I had originally thought about this ability being spell-like, and only lasting a turn (there's a Pathfinder spell that does just that). But if it's raining the whole time, that should be alright. But if it's raining for the encounter, the AC needs to go up just a little.

Str=14+2
Dex=12+2?
Con=14+2
Int=2-4
Wis=10+0
Cha=??

These seem reasonable, but I would boost Wisdom. 1st-level wizards tend to pack Color Spray or Sleep.

 

[Omegaxicor]

The main problem is that the monster is designed to strike unseen, taking that away makes it too weak...

Those seem far too low for a "solo". You can just give it free Toughness feats until it has enough hit points.

What level of Hp is reasonable, I thought 50 was good but I don't know what sort of damage the party will be able to do

The AC breakdown is 10 + 2 (Dex) +2 natural armor -1 size = 13, which is probably too low. I think the PRD figure might say an AC of 13 for a 1st-level monster, but you should look at your 3/4 BAB PCs and give it an AC they can hit 50% of the time or a bit more.

I should point out (I thought I had but clearly I have missed TWO large pieces of text) the Armour system we use is slightly different but my breakdown of 8 AC was wrong mathematically 10 AC was correct.

10 (Dice)+2 Str+0 BAB=+12 Hit, so 10 AC is a bit weak.

This is pretty low too. Even at 1st-level, a rogue will probably have an AC of 15 and a fighter would have an AC of 18 at minimum. You should be able to reliably hit those. (Again, PRD monster generation rules are a little sloppy at the low end.)

Don't forget that the creature is built to target flat-footed ACs, but I might raise it's Dex (I will be raising it to 14, not 12 as originally put, the +2 was correct) but to what level?

I would make the claws primary, rather than the tail. And I would give the monster Multiattack.

Giving it two primary attacks and strengthening its other attacks means it has four attacks that Hit frequently, dealing lots of damage per turn, at level 1 this seems good enough to kill any particular player, 2*1d6+Str and 2*1d4+0.5*Str maybe every turn

These seem reasonable, but I would boost Wisdom. 1st-level wizards tend to pack Color Spray or Sleep.

16 Dex, 14 Str, Con AND Wis (and I still don't know what to do about Charisma) is that not too strong?

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

What level of Hp is reasonable, I thought 50 was good but I don't know what sort of damage the party will be able to do

Since 3.5 doesn't have the "bloodied" value, to be honest you can decide after the fight starts. But I would give it as many hit points as four or five CR 1 monsters.

Giving it two primary attacks and strengthening its other attacks means it has four attacks that Hit frequently, dealing lots of damage per turn, at level 1 this seems good enough to kill any particular player, 2*1d6+Str and 2*1d4+0.5*Str maybe every turn

It might be too strong if it can focus on one PC. You could give it a Spring Attack-like ability, where it can move about the battlefield and make one attack per target.

16 Dex, 14 Str, Con AND Wis (and I still don't know what to do about Charisma) is that not too strong?

No, that's not too good. It basically needs to match each of a PC's decent stats (at least in Con/Dex/Wis) to have a chance. No matter how powerful it is, if someone hits it with Color Spray or Sleep, it's out of the fight.