Brutal Monster Combos

[Kinneus]

Recent discussion about the new 4e Tomb of Horrors rekindled my interest in this idea. For a long time, 4e has had kind of a reputation of the PCs being virtually indestrucible, or at least much, much harder to kill than in previous editions. I personally don't think this is entirely unfounded; the removal of save-or-die effects have certainly made the game objectively "safer" for the PCs.

But still, I think it's possible to design some truly brutal dungeons and encounters with 4e. Just as CharOp enthusiasts can mine various sources for unintended synergies, so too can DMs find truly nasty combos in monster powers, perfectly suited to screwing over players something fierce. Of course, most DMs opt not to do this; it's not like a TPK is hard to achieve (it's really not more complicated than saying, "Rocks fall, everybody dies"). So nobody's really pushed the envelope as far as "4e difficulty" goes.

But what if, like the Tomb of Horrors, you created a dungeon or series of combat encounters that were so tough, so brutal, so unfair, that you basically created a contract with your players saying: "Look, you'll probably die. The fun is seeing how far you can get." Assuming your players agreed to that, you'd have to throw down some ground rules to prevent you from just using "rocks fall"-esque DM fiat to blast them into oblivion.

The rules I'm envisioning would be something like:

-The DM can make no encounter tougher than level N+2, and can use individual monsters no tougher than N+3.
-The DM must use monsters from the Monster Manual, Monster Manual 2, and Monster Manual 3. He is free to reskin or rename them. He is also free to 'update' weak MM1 monsters as per the new monster creation guidelines outlined in DMG2, or to raise or lower the level of any monster by 2 levels. But no building "screw you" monsters from scratch.
-The DM is free to use terrain, traps, hazards, etc, but must factor this into the XP budget.

So, given these rules, what are some truly devastating monster combos or monster-and-trap combos you can think of? Here's what I have so far:

1. Beholder Gauth (MM2) paired with orginal MM1 Ghouls. The beholder's minor action immobilize allows the Ghouls to team up and inflict (save ends) stun and decent damage on some unlucky player. At level 5. Ouch.

2. A cadre of green arcanians (MM3) mixed with anything that causes close blast petrification. Some poor PC succeeds on their last saving throw... only to have one of the arcanians bust out orb of denial. Only trouble with this one is I'm not sure if anything in the level 8 range causes petrification.

3. Jackalweres. I'll just say it: a controller that inflicts unconciousness, and then bravos that do something like 2d8+25 damage versus helpless foes? At level 3-4? So brutal that it might just need errata.

That's what I got so far. I'm aiming for mid-to-high heroic... I'm afraid that Paragon or Epic PCs might be too durable, but I'm willing to entertain suggestions for higher-level encounters. I'm brainstorming combat encounters right now, but great ideas for truly evil skill challenges, traps, or puzzles are great too. The only rule there is that nothing can be save-or-die, as I feel like that violates some pretty basic assumptions about 4e.

So what ideas do you have? Let your diabolical DM side free, and help me build the most "unfair" dungeon imaginable.

 

[keterys]

An example combat I'd posted long ago to show MM1 could do damage would work. One or more of each:
beholder eye of flame, immolith, bloodfire harpy

Vulnerable 10 to fire, with ongoing 5 fire, aura 10 fire and aura 5 fire - start your turn and take 50 damage with fire resistance not counting (more if you use more than 1 of each) plus a possible beholder eye ray for another 20-30 damage.

 

[Kinneus]

Thanks, Keterys. That's some cool synergy, and I like the fire theme. One problem with making brutally effective encounters is that, sometimes, the monsters that really compliment each other mechanically don't make a lot of sense together story-wise. But it's easy to imagine a bunch of fire-powered monsters hanging out together.

I think I remember hearing somewhere, though, that the Bloodfire harpies were errated? Or possibly that auras were fixed in general so that multiple, overlapping auras no longer do cumulative damage? I might be off on that, though... I'll have to check my errata.

Anyway, I thought of another one. The dread archer (MM3) is extremely nasty. It has an ability that lets its master, if it has line of sight to the archer, use implement attacks as if it occupied the archer's space. I'm imagining an encounter in which the heroes arrive in a large, arena-like chamber. Dread archers are stationed on towers or balconies above them, and the ceiling is made of an iron lattice-work that provides the master standing above superior cover, but lets it have line of sight.

The master would "cast through" his minions as they pepper the heroes with arrows. What's worse, every time the master's attack hits, every single dread archer can use its Sustained Attack ability to make another shot as an immediate reaction. So... four Dread Archers and one master means the combat looks like this:

1. The PCs have their turns, and spend most of it trying to reach the archers and/or making ranged attacks.

2. The dread archers attack, using their area burst 1 within 10 attack where feasible. Assuming they hit, that's 4d10+12 damage on a single character, assuming they focus fire (and why wouldn't they?). They might get some collateral damage in, too, if they manage to catch others in their Arcing Volley.

3. The master attacks.

4. All four archers attack again, potentially doing another 4d10+12 damage.

So... the players have only had one turn, and they've just been exposed to 28-104 damage, not even counting the master's attacks. And, after the poor battered players have had their turn again, there is nothing stopping the enemies from using the exact same tactic again, and again, and again, because Sustained Attack is At-Will!

We all know that focus-firing with artillery is a great way to kill players, but this just seems brutal. Anyone have any suggestions on what the master should be? Probably a controller of some type... that way, if the melee characters somehow manage to reach the archers, the master could just push/slide them off.