Fair One On One Monsters

[DracoSuave]

You want the fight to -feel- equal, or even better, have the fight -feel- like the PC is the underdog.

What you do not actually want is for the fight to be equal.

At that point, you're basically going to spend about one hour to decide what is essentially...

This is the reason why monsters and players have such different damage capabilities... to help the players feel like underdogs, when in reality, every monster they face is the underdog.


One mistake many DMs make is when they create an encounter, they look at the stats and go 'damn, the players aren't going to feel challenged by this, this doesn't feel right' but they don't remember is that monster stats are a black box to the players. They don't know what's inside until they've done a bit of poking and prodding to break the box.

 

[webrunner]

You want the fight to -feel- equal, or even better, have the fight -feel- like the PC is the underdog.

What you do not actually want is for the fight to be equal.

At that point, you're basically going to spend about one hour to decide what is essentially...


This is the reason why monsters and players have such different damage capabilities... to help the players feel like underdogs, when in reality, every monster they face is the underdog.


One mistake many DMs make is when they create an encounter, they look at the stats and go 'damn, the players aren't going to feel challenged by this, this doesn't feel right' but they don't remember is that monster stats are a black box to the players. They don't know what's inside until they've done a bit of poking and prodding to break the box.

Any tips to drive the feeling home? Maybe make sure every attack they have is flashy and impressive, and give them enough attacks that they don't feel "complacent" because they know a given attack is weak..

One thing i want to do is give each one a super-flashy encounter (or recharge) power, and treat it almost like a finishing move in wrestling: the announcers (magically enhanced voice volume) will play it up with stuff like "Is he.. he is! He's going for the Moonlight Smasher! It could be all over for the newcomer!" but give them thingsd like a two part hit:

hit: the target is knocked prone. Make a secondary attack
attack: +X vs Y
Hit: some damage and effect
Miss: the monster grants combat advantage

Having the powers have negative miss effects could emphasize the back-and-forth nature of the fights.

 

[DracoSuave]

Any tips to drive the feeling home? Maybe make sure every attack they have is flashy and impressive, and give them enough attacks that they don't feel "complacent" because.

One thing i want to do is give each one a super-flashy encounter (or recharge) power, and treat it almost like a finishing move in wrestling: the announcers (magically enhanced voice volume) will play it up with stuff like "Is he.. he is! He's going for the Moonlight Smasher! It could be all over for the newcomer!" but give them thingsd like a two part hit:

hit: the target is knocked prone. Make a secondary attack
attack: +X vs Y
Hit: some damage and effect
Miss: the monster grants combat advantage

Having the powers have negative miss effects could emphasize the back-and-forth nature of the fights.

Perhaps.

If you want to go for the finisher idea (and yes, that actually sounds really cool) instead, make it something the monster has to set up.

So, you have one attack the monster can do that sets a minor condition. Like 'marked.' What does marked do in a one-on-one? Nothing.

It's a useless condition. But you give it. And there, the player has it. Oh no. What will the player do?

Well, then you follow up with something that does extra damage to a marked player, but kills the mark, replacing it with immobilized.

Okay... that's a little scarier.

Then... the finisher. The monster's set it up... KABLAMMO! OH GOD! CRIPPLER CROSSFACE! OH NO!


The really cool thing, is such a monster could be reasonably interesting outside the arena setting as well...

 

[webrunner]

Well, I ran the session, it went over well:
1- I had each player come up with a music track and an intro
2- The players actually liked not having to be 'on' for the whole fight, just watching other people play for a bit was a nice change
3- in PVP matches fudging rules is something to avoid even if it's fine to do it against monsters.
4- the monsters both kind of had too much and too little hp.. they could be novaed half down, but without a nova it was just a slog. It was still not too bad, though.. although they kept missing their setup moves so i never really got to do the finishers.

All in all it was a fun session, but next time they'll be back to teammates. But they have expressed interest in having 'split' situations in the future.. they say never split the party but i guess our party it works for?

It helped that I played the enemies super over the top, one of the first was Grogbeard the pirate, who had lots of crazy drinky moves, and when i moved him across the field i had him go diagonally back and forth (as he was drunk).

 

[renau1g]

My group loved to split up, esp. in 3.5e. It always led to the most memorable encounters.