Did I miss something

[Evilusion]

Ok my group has been trying out 4th lately. We are just doing simple combats to see how the system works.

We have done a couple of 1st level combats with no problem. Everything seem ok there. A couple of 5th level combat still everything is going good. Now we have the 2 11th combats. 1st combat went good. So we all deceiced to try a solo monster. So I pick a 11th level Adult Black Dragon.

Ok the setup for this is Me(DM), plus my 4 players 1 Human warlock(infernal pact), 1 Dragonborn Paladin, 1 Human Wizard and 1 Half-Elf Rouge. The monster I chose for them to fight was a solo monster 1 Adult Black Dragon. Fight went on for a while. They did kill it, but as my players put it. It was a boring fight. None of the players was any where near hurt, only the pal had to use all but 1 of his healing surges.

So did I miss something there or what? Only thing I can figure is that Black Dragons are lurkers and do not do a lot of damage.

 

[Mengu]

Was this the very first encounter of the day? If it was, then the result shouldn't be surprising. Put the same encounter at the end of a grueling dungeon, and see how that one pans out, once people have exhausted half their dailies.

If you want to see a tougher fight, you need to throw an Adult Blue or an Adult Red at them when they are fresh. They should be able to handle the Adult Blue with some difficulty, and will probably die in the hands of the Adult Red unless they get very lucky with the Red failing some saving throws in succession.

The other problem is that as a Lurker, the Black Dragon is not going to be as good by itself, compared to a Red which is a Soldier. The Black should do hit and runs, and flee. Maybe wait for the party to be worn down, and then strike again.

 

[Chen_93]

Did you play the dragon properly? Its cloud of darkness ability is extremely strong. Everyone fighting it blind or just guessing what square its in should probably cause at least SOME problems. As you said, its a lurker. Its not supposed to just sit there and beat on the PCs. Should be using the darkness ability to control the field and maneuver so it can isolate players to attack them.

 

[Aexalon]

Error, Error ... Examine ...

None of the players was any where near hurt, only the pal had to use all but 1 of his healing surges.

Paladins have 10 + Con mod healing surges per day. They can spend Wis mod of those with lay on hands on others, and one in a second wind. There are 2 paladin powers <= L11 which use healing surges, and both are dailys. Since there are no leaders in the party (who could help the paladin spend more healing surges), can I conclude that (barring piles of healing potions, magical items that consume healing surges, like bloodcut armour, really high Wisdom, or really low Constitution) someone's misread the rules on using healing surges?

This post is as much a call to verify my own math & logic as it is a criticism on the implication that solo fights vs. dragons are easy in 4E.

 

[Evilusion]

Was this the very first encounter of the day? If it was, then the result shouldn't be surprising. Put the same encounter at the end of a grueling dungeon, and see how that one pans out, once people have exhausted half their dailies.

If you want to see a tougher fight, you need to throw an Adult Blue or an Adult Red at them when they are fresh. They should be able to handle the Adult Blue with some difficulty, and will probably die in the hands of the Adult Red unless they get very lucky with the Red failing some saving throws in succession.

The other problem is that as a Lurker, the Black Dragon is not going to be as good by itself, compared to a Red which is a Soldier. The Black should do hit and runs, and flee. Maybe wait for the party to be worn down, and then strike again.

Yes it would have been considered the first encounter of the day. Yea I was figureing about lurkers. Remember that as I said these are just test combats. By that I mean no terrian, just a battlemat and some figures.

Did you play the dragon properly? Its cloud of darkness ability is extremely strong. Everyone fighting it blind or just guessing what square its in should probably cause at least SOME problems. As you said, its a lurker. Its not supposed to just sit there and beat on the PCs. Should be using the darkness ability to control the field and maneuver so it can isolate players to attack them.

As far as it darkness ability the dragon has it does not move. It is a
stationary field and does not move. So staying in the field would not work. That would just mean the players would stay back and lob range attacks at it. As far as running the dragon correctly I hoped I did. I could see where having terrian favorable to it would help a whole lot.

Paladins have 10 + Con mod healing surges per day. They can spend Wis mod of those with lay on hands on others, and one in a second wind. There are 2 paladin powers <= L11 which use healing surges, and both are dailys. Since there are no leaders in the party (who could help the paladin spend more healing surges), can I conclude that (barring piles of healing potions, magical items that consume healing surges, like bloodcut armour, really high Wisdom, or really low Constitution) someone's misread the rules on using healing surges?

Opps I ment to say he was using his lay on hands ability. Sorry about that.

 

[ForbidenMaster]

Just note that all you did was put the party up against a standard level apropriate encounter. Just because a monster is a solo, that doesnt mean that its going to be tough. All it means is that the monster is going to be tough in comparison to other monsters of the same level. If you want a tough encounter you have to make your party fight an encounter that is above their level, not just a standard encounter.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Opps I ment to say he was using his lay on hands ability. Sorry about that.

His point was this:

Minimum surges the paladin could have: 10 (with an extremely low con)

Maximum surges the paladin could possibly use without magical items to help: 9

It seems unlikely that your paladin is built with the stats required to do this (as they make for a generally bad paladin in any other respect). How did he manage to pull this off?

Also it's worth noting that if your party fights a second encounter, the paladin is down to his last surge, meaning he will most likely go down early and stay down, leaving the party defenderless, which is a very bad thing.

 

[Regicide]

Also it's worth noting that if your party fights a second encounter, the paladin is down to his last surge, meaning he will most likely go down early and stay down, leaving the party defenderless, which is a very bad thing.

Then why would they? Rest.

 

[Chen_93]

As far as it darkness ability the dragon has it does not move. It is a
stationary field and does not move. So staying in the field would not work. That would just mean the players would stay back and lob range attacks at it. As far as running the dragon correctly I hoped I did. I could see where having terrian favorable to it would help a whole lot.

The darkness blocks LOS. Thus area attacks still have a reasonably good chance at hitting the dragon, but single target attacks have a very significant chance of missing (since they do not know where the dragon is) provided the dragon moves around in his own field which does not block LOS for him. Remember an adult dragon has a +21 stealth skill. That should be a fair bit higher than your characters' perception or at best equal to it. Even if it just gives him a breather (likely he'll get an attack or two against people as they move out of the field), it allows him chances to recharge his breath and the field again.

If the players surround the field they'll be separate allowing him to move to one side at attack them easier. If they group up, they are vulnerable to his breath weapon or it allows him to get out the back of the field and position himself somewhere that they cannot see (since the field blocks LOS).

Just having the dragon sit there and attack will be a boring fight. I know this because we had a similar fight with a young black dragon and it too seemed boring. But our DM did not use the darkness to its full ability either. That one ability is pretty much the key to making a black dragon fight challenging for an appropriately leveled party.

 

[James McMurray]

Then why would they? Rest.

Unless you're playing a computer game, constant resting probably isn't an option. Sure, some situations might not have any sort of time sensitivity, nor any chance that enemies in the area might find you, but they're not necessarily common. That will, of course, depend on the GM and how the adventures are set up. I've played in campaigns where time was never a factor, and also in ones where everything had to be done ASAP, so taking 6 - 18 hours out for a tea break and nap wouldn't have been a possibility.

Plus there's the RP factor, but that won't apply to all groups. Not every other PC is going to want to rest for 6+ hours just because someone went overboard with their surges. this is especially true if your fight happened very shortly after a long rest, and now you have to sit around staring at the walls before you can even start the actual rest period.