D&D Solos - just not that threatening

[chaotix42]

Morgan, your method of development for your solo is awesome! She seems to have turned out quite nice, with quite a few interesting abilities to keep the battle fresh. I especially like her various immediate abilities. Great work!

 

[ChristopherA]

I've found that solos are very tricky to balance - whether the party has the exact right powers to deal with the monster, and whether those powers hit, can make the difference between an unbeatable monster that kills the party, a challenging but very lengthy and tedious combat, or an easy but lengthy and tedious combat.

I'm not sure how to solve the game balance problem other than being very careful when designing your monsters. But as far as making the fights more interesting, I was leaning toward making solos similar to Jaxia, in the sense of making solo monsters (and/or the setup of the battle) much more complex and interesting than normal monsters, designing them specifically to compensate for solo fights being intrinsically less interesting than regular fights. I'm glad to hear that Jaxia worked out so well. A friend of mine suggested that World of Warcraft would be a good inspiration for extremely interesting solo monster designs.

__________________
Come read my game design/analysis blog at: http://gamedesignfanatic.blogspot.com

 

[sfedi]

So far, my solos fights, as player and as DM, worked just fine, as the rules intended.

Of course, you have to pay a lot of attention on how to use the monster. And even if you don't have good terrain, a bold Solo helps a lot.

In one encounter, when things promised to get grindy (the fighter locked down the solo) I made it provoke OA and go for the strikers and the controller. That's when the combat got interesting once more.

 

[Elric]

Using certain debuff effects on solos is too effective. Stun attacks are the most obvious example, but Dazed, Weakened, attack penalties, and so on are all particularly strong when used on solos.

The bonus to saves that solos get isn't enough to compensate for this because many of these effects end after a round, or even saving after one round isn't enough because a party can hit with a new debuff every round for several rounds into the fight. At higher levels, characters can have many of these debuff powers (at low levels, it seems like much less of an issue).

Essentially, what ChristopherA said, except I'd emphasize that there are a whole class of powers that are particularly effective against the vast majority of solos.

 

[msherman]

Using certain debuff effects on solos is too effective. Stun attacks are the most obvious example, but Dazed, Weakened, attack penalties, and so on are all particularly strong when used on solos.

The bonus to saves that solos get isn't enough to compensate for this because many of these effects end after a round, or even saving after one round isn't enough because a party can hit with a new debuff every round for several rounds into the fight. At higher levels, characters can have many of these debuff powers (at low levels, it seems like much less of an issue).

It seems to me that a power like Hobgoblin Resilience would be a good thing for most solos to have.

 

[keterys]

Eh, maybe - you don't want to make 1 round powers much stronger against solos than save ends. As it is, save ends powers are already pretty powerful. I think if you did go that route, something like the Warden would actually work better. At least they'd get the chance to use combat advantage or whatever.

Though, I'm also fine with all solos being immune to Stun, or downgrading Stun to something else.

 

[Regicide]

Though, I'm also fine with all solos being immune to Stun, or downgrading Stun to something else.

MMOs do things like that, making boss or notorious monsters immune to various things, such as stun, movement penalties and the like. Also some have monsters build resistance, so the first couple stuns land but each successive stun is less and less likely to land until the monster becomes immune. It's not an easy mechanic to track for a DM though.

It comes from both sides though. Even making the monster immune to stuff, the players can do it to themselves. Just wait until your players slap a stoneskin on the dwarf battlerager who then is ignoring the first 25 or more damage on each strike.

 

[Goumindong]

So, what do you all think of Chillreaver?[New solo in latest scales of war module]

 

[Morgan_Scott82]

Well I for one thank you for your expose . I haven't gotten around to making any of my own monsters but enjoyed reading how you broke yours down.

cheers,

Morgan, your method of development for your solo is awesome! She seems to have turned out quite nice, with quite a few interesting abilities to keep the battle fresh. I especially like her various immediate abilities. Great work!

Thank you both for the praise. Always good to hear, it validates that I'm on the right track developing my design philosophy and feels good to contribute something that might help other DMs. Cheers!

 

[Elric]

I started a thread in the house rules forum about potential fixes for the "debuffs affect solos too much" problem. The thread is http://www.enworld.org/forum/4e-fan...os-status-effects-house-rule.html#post4747567.

The most appealing fix I've come up with so far:

1) A solo has the same +5 bonus to saves as RAW. A solo rolls saves against (save-ends) effects at the start of its turn, after taking ongoing damage, instead of at the end of its turn. If its total is 15 or higher, the effect ends immediately. If its total is 10-14, the effect ends at the end of its turn.

A solo can roll saves against (until end of turn) effects at the start of its turn as well. If its total is 15 or higher, the effect ends immediately; otherwise, the effect wears off at its normal time.

There's a long explanation of the problem and how I arrived at these solutions at the link.