Wow. This was painful. The full round-by-round detail is behind the Sblock. Skip it if you just want the analysis.
[sblock]Round One
Party shows up, the swarm starts to climb the statue.
The barbarian drinking a potion of flying. The druid/master of moments summons a thunder bison (?) and tries to spot Lolth, who's hiding. He fails.
The warlord gives everyone 24 temporary hit points. The sorcerer uses a power to give everyone resist 10 poison. (Note to self: don't ever make boss monsters who deal just one type of energy damage!)
The swordmage activates an aura 5 that keeps enemies from teleporting, and any enemy that starts in the aura is slowed for its turn. He also uses a broken warlock power that gives him +8 speed and +8 to saves until the end of the encounter. Then he uses another broken power, this from his paragon path (Master of Flame) to become insubstantial until the end of the encounter, transforming into living fire. Oh, and whenever he teleports next to an enemy, the enemy takes 13 fire damage.
Oh, and he has a feat that anyone he's marked has vulnerable 5 fire.
Oh, and he has another feat that if he hits someone vulnerable to fire with a fire attack, they take ongoing fire damage.
Oh, and he has a flaming sword, so all his attacks do fire damage.
Oh, and he has a feat that whenever someone saves against ongoing fire damage, they take cold damage.
Oh, and he's a revenant tiefling, with a combination of feats and powers that whenever he goes below 0 HP he becomes insubstantial, gains resist 30 all, and remains conscious.
So yeah, he's about the most obnoxious defender you could ever imagine.
Lolth pokes out from hiding, web pulls the warlord off a ledge and drops him 150 ft. He takes like 90 damage but isn't bloodied. Then she teleports away and hides 30 ft. up on the pedestal the statue stands on.
Round Two
The barbarian flies around looking for Lolth. The warlord stands up, brushes himself off, and considers how he's going to get out up 150 ft. The flying sorcerer divebombs down beside him, planning to carry him back up.
The druid/master of moments spends three minor actions to look for Lolth. He spots her on the third try, and teleports next to her with his move action so the rest of the party can find her.
The swordmage teleports up to the pedestal with some attack power and hits her. He gets dominated, so he can't mark her. I'm thinking, "Yes, this is awesome. Show that obnoxious swordmage who's boss."
Lolth is in the swordmage's aura, so she's slowed and can't teleport. She scourges and poisons the druid (he has a feat that gives him resist poison 15), then uses her ire to make him lose his ability to resist poison. He's a dwarf, so he doesn't fall prone, but I'm thinking, "Yes, I'll focus my attention on the druid and kill him first."
(I should have had Lolth delay her turn, then command the dominated swordmage to run away, which would have let her teleport away at the end of her turn. Instead, I make a critical, dumb mistake.)
Lolth uses her 2 movement to walk off the pedestal, figuring she'll drop 30 ft. and end up outside of the swordmage's aura. But she muffs her Acrobatics check, and ends up reducing all but 1 damage from the fall. Because of that 1 damage, she ends up prone.
Round Two
The barbarian flies above Lolth and with his blade of the eldritch knight (giving him reach 5), he hits her with something that dazes her until the end of his next turn. (It's not save ends, so she can't use her divine resistance to break out of it. Oh, and because she's dazed she can't dominate him.)
The druid teleports down beside Lolth and has his pet bear (he's a sentinel) flank her. And his summoned bison moves over too. Then he summons another monster -- some sort of weird wasp/bullete -- to completely surround her. He doesn't attack her, though, so Lolth's power (that normally would prevent him from saving against the poison if he attacks her) doesn't apply. He saves against the poison.
The dominated swordmage cannot reach anyone (he's atop a 30-ft. high pedestal), so Lolth just has him run away so he won't screw up her teleportation powers.
The sorcerer starts to fly the warlord back up.
Lolth is surrounded by 2 summoned monsters, 1 pet bear, a druid, and a flying barbarian, and she's dazed. I don't like her not being in control, so I decide getting away is important. She uses impenetrable darkfire to blind everyone, then uses an action point to teleport away and try to hide on the escalator on the side of the area. Oh, and she's still prone.
Round Three
But the barbarian has blindsight. He shouts her location, then runs over to within 5 squares of her, hits her for 90-odd damage (she's still dazed), and bloodies her.
When she's bloodied, Lolth conjures 8 spider minions, each of which is linked to a PC so that when the last spider is killed, all the PCs take damage based on what the linked spider took.
The druid and his monsters kill a bunch of spiders. The sorcerer gets the warlord back topside.
The swordmage (with his ridiculous movement rate of 14) runs over hill and dale to finally get up next to her. He provokes from her threatening reach, but he avoids getting slid into a pit. He falls prone, and marks her. Then he action points and even while prone manages to hit her. She decides not to dominate him because he's prone and it would be a waste. Since he's using a fire attack, and she's vulnerable to fire, now she's on fire.
She makes her immediate save to end the fire, and so she takes cold damage.
Lolth stands up. She's slowed and can't teleport out of the damned swordmage's aura. She wants to have the barbarian beat the swordmage to death with insidious poison, but he's not poisoned yet, so she uses web pull on the barbarian to get him within range of her scourge. This causes the prone swordmage to teleport with aegis of assault (from adjacent to her, to another spot adjacent to her), which does fire damage to her. And when his aegis attack hits her, it sets her on fire again.
It's Lolth's turn, so she can't dominate him, even though she realizes now that it would have been a good idea.
Lolth scourges the barbarian. The swordmage has a feat that lets him aegis twice a round, even though it's normally an immediate action. So he teleports again (fire damage) and hits her again (fire damage). The barbarian is now poisoned, though, so she action points and commands him to attack the swordmage. He hits and bloodies the swordmage. A bit of a pyrrhic victory on Lolth's part, because she took about 100 damage to do 40, but at least it's something.
Round Four
The barbarian attacks her. She dominates him. I'm switching to plan B, kill the swordmage. It was a bad plan, but oooooh he's so annoying.
The druid and his monsters kill all but two of the remaining spiders. Then he action points (which basically grants him a whole second turn) and flies at Lolth. He gets scourged, but resists being slid down a crevasse. He's a dwarf, so he doesn't even go prone. He thwacks Lolth. She's low on hit points.
The sorcerer flies into the air and starts hammering Lolth with lightning.
The warlord uses a power that lets everyone make a basic attack against her. The swordmage hits, but the sorcerer and druid miss. Still, she's only got about 30 HP left in her first form.
The swordmage stands up, activates a ring of circling fangs, and misses Lolth with a daily. She's down at 10 hit points.
On Lolth's turn, she has the poisoned barbarian attack the swordmage. Another solid hit reduced by half because the bastard's insubstantial. Then she kisses the swordmage, figuring that once he fails his save he'll be dazed and she can actually get some distance.
Well, the ring of circling fangs hits her for 10 damage, killing her on her own turn. She screams and unleashes her true spider form. Since she's huge she can share a space with the medium sized PCs who had surrounded her, so it suddenly gets very crowded.
Turn Five
Lolth's transformation only stuns the swordmage and the barbarian (the others have crazy high Will defenses). But because she has to wait a whole round before she can take advantage of it, it's mostly useless. Between the druid and warlord granting healing and bonus saves, by the end of the round no one's dazed. She robs the barbarian of his turn, but that's useless, because he was dominated.
The swordmage at least loses a full turn, and when he makes his save and runs away, he jumps over a railing and falls 40 ft. into a ravine. Thanks to healing powers and insubstantiality, by the end of it he's not even bloodied.
The druid's monsters swarm Lolth. Her piddly 'immediate interrupt' kick isn't useful enough when there are so many enemies since she can only use it once. One hit would push her a few squares and make her either fall or drop prone, but I'm f***ing annoyed with her being prone or slowed or otherwise unable to move the way I want, so I say her 8 legs make her immune to being prone. The players take pity on me and are cool with that.
She starts her turn. No wait, she doesn't. The warlord has a free action power that lets two people attack, and if they hit they daze her and knock her prone.
She can't fall prone, but wow, she's dazed on her first turn as giant spider Lolth. (The power - A Plan Comes Together - doesn't say how long the daze lasts. It just says she's dazed, but since it's an encounter power, the player figured it was just 'until the start of her next turn.' Which means she couldn't auto-save out of it.) All she can do is one action, so she plants an egg in the barbarian's torso, which starts to transform him into a drider.
Turn Six
The barbarian winter phoenix rages at Lolth (giving him regeneration). He also uses his goliath stone's endurance to get resist 20 until the end of his next turn.
The druid and his pets thrash Lolth. The sorcerer lightning bolts her.
The swordmage (with his 14 movement speed) climbs out of the crevasse, then runs to the escalators and ends up only 10 squares away from the battle.
The warlord heals a bunch of people, then lets people get bonus attacks, which gives them temporary hit points. Then he uses a power that lets everyone regain expended powers. He regains 'A Plan Comes Together.'
Lolth starts her turn. No wait, A Plan Comes Together and dazes her again. Plus the combined damage bloodies her. I make up an off-the-cuff "close burst 3 attack when bloodied" that sends everyone around her flying 8 squares and knocking them prone. A bunch of pets and the barbarian fall off ledges. Two pets die, but the barbarian had failed his first save against drider-dom, giving him a climb speed, so he catches himself before he would plummet 100 ft.
Lolth, with her one action, charges the druid and bites him. She manages to actually penetrate his temporary hit points, but he's not even close to bloodied.
Round Seven
The barbarian crawls onto a tiny ledge, dismisses his 'summoned armor,' and plunges his sword into his stomach. Then he reaches into his intestines, grasps the writhing mass of spider eggs that is slowly infesting him, and tears it out.
I decide, "Okay, that would kill most people, but you're a bad-ass epic barbarian, so you take just damage equal to your normal full HP total."
He shrugs. He's got resist 20 and temporary hit points. He's still got over 40 HP after disemboweling himself, so he chucks the spider egg down the mountainside.
The sorcerer pegs her for, as usual, a ton of lightning. The druid doesn't have any pets, but the warlord let him regain a summon power, so he summons one back. The warlord shouts at the barbarian to get better, and brings the bastard above bloodied, while simultaneously healing the druid to full.
The swordmage rushes up the escalator to Lolth, hits her, sets her on fire, then deals cold damage to her. She's got maybe 150 HP left.
So far Lolth hasn't been able to focus her attacks on anyone. The closest she got was going after the swordmage with a few attacks plus the barbarian's thwacking, but the guy's unkillable. She can't possibly deal enough damage to kill anyone, since all the warlord has to do is spend a minor action to grant 100 HP or more, and she can only dish about maybe 100 points of damage per round if she's lucky.
So I do the only fair thing.
I tell the players, "If this were a real campaign, Lolth would run away. But this is a one-shot, and that's lame, so she charges the swordmage, grabs him, and throws them both off the mountainside to a 200 ft. drop."
The swordmage shrugs. 20d10 damage later, Lolth is dead, and the swordmage isn't even bloodied.[/sblock]
Too-Long, Didn't Read Version: Even after I gave her extra powers, enhanced a few existing ones, and added minions, the level 35 Lolth failed to reduce even one 30th level PC to 0 hit points or below. The party never felt particularly challenged, and though she was a bit annoying at times, she was ultimately a disappointing opponent.
Admittedly, my party had some pretty obnoxious builds. A swordmage who couldn't die. A druid who could attack four times a round (himself, a pet bear, and two summoned monsters). A warlord who handed out temporary hit points like drugs at Woodstock. (The sorcerer and barbarian were more 'normal' in my opinion.)
If I were to rewrite Lolth, I'd make a few changes.
Immortal Resilience would make it so that she could get a save to end any effect, even effects that don't normally allow saves. (Including the marked condition.) Whenever she would be dazed, instead she loses a minor action and grants combat advantage. Whenever she would be stunned, instead she is dazed.
As a solo, she's too vulnerable to action denial.
Lolth's Retribution would not only prevent people from saving against ongoing poison if they attack her, it would also remove any poison resistances or immunities. Also, multiple instances of ongoing poison damage should stack, but can be saved against as a single effect (assuming you don't attack her.)
As is, her attacks are too reliant on a single damage type, and can be too easily ignored.
Insidious Poison should let her move the target 6 squares before it makes its attack.
As is, almost never was she able to use that power when two enemies were adjacent, and no one in the party except the sorcerer had ranged basic attacks that could hit other PCs (and the sorcerer always stayed out of range).
Other: Her damage needs to be heavily increased. She's a solo, but she only deals about as much damage as a standard creature, with most of her minor action powers doing weak damage with some control effect. I'd probably give her an extra +20 damage for every attack.
Of course, another party might have done wildly differently, but if both I and the original poster had such horrid blow-outs when we ran her, I think I have to decree that she's just badly designed. Or maybe 30th level characters break the game's math too severely.
It was a fun exercise, but I'm really glad I'm not running an epic game.
