IMO, Vicious Retreat can be made to work within the rules. I would make it a triggered power. Trigger: The villain falls to 0 hp. Effect (Immediate
Interrupt): The villain teleports 10 squares (or twice his speed).
He could teleport to a portal jump/teleportation ritual circle, set for him, which would immediately whisk him away to safety. Instead, he could be removed from play, and then return a round later invisibly. Most likely the PCs will either give up searching for him, or will be far away looking for him.
I guess I don't like that this gives him an attack. It's a power he uses when he has lost.
Seems pretty well fine, although the thought of an elf wearing plate makes me feel funny. It makes no difference in game terms, but I think he should wear chain mail and "make that Dex work for him" in a flavor sort of way.
I'm a real fan of Slayer of the Living. This makes it hard to lock him down.
I have no problem with any of these abilities. Some of them, such as Worthy Sacrifice, are
really cool. Having said that, that's too many abilities. I think you defended this point before though.
I really like poison swarm. I think of something like this as the drow version of Flame Strike
Along with the fear aura, I think this combination is too good. He's getting to be impossible to hit in melee. Even a defender (who would punish him if he shifted away) can't make him "stick".
[qu9ote]Implacable ♦ At-Will
Trigger (opportunity action): Xipe becomes marked, slowed, immobilized, dazed, or stunned by an effect.
Effect: Xipe makes a saving throw to end the triggering effect, even if the effect would not normally end on a save.
And I think this is a wonderful effect. It would make him "unsticky", but it gives the defender an option; just keep at it.
I'm going to steal this for a large number of elites/solos that I'm designing.
All in all, an interesting and probably long-lasting warlock, but I think he has too many abilities (making him complicated to run). I would recommend turning one of his minor action recharge abilities into a (necessarily weaker) at-will, so he can get his elite's two attacks per round. Although I suspect his counterattacks against melee attacks might have been designed to emulate this.
I think his Life Link should work the other way around; as long as he's alive, his boss gains resistance. Hopefully this would encourage the PCs to pick on the death knight, leaving the lich alive to dish out the hurt/mockery. Mind you, I have no real idea how to balance that, but IMO it shouldn't be active the whole fight, but should be able to be reverted somehow.
Either way, the PCs need a good, clear clue of how Life Link works. In the heat of combat, they could easily miss this feature.[/QUOTE]
Wow, you hit on just about everything I was wondering about, lol. After so many hours of digging through books and trying to put this guy together, towards the end my brain just started hurting and I was thinking a few things weren't working the way I had in my mind.
For the vicious retreat, I honestly didn't even think about having a triggered interrupt if he hit 0 hp, so I can fix that up to make it more balanced (although I did like the idea of leaving the party dazed and confused when he left.... made me think of solar flare from DBZ lol).
For the plate thing, I honestly didn't think about that too much. I pretty much gave him a base character where he got most of his stuff from that I found in MV2 I think, and that guy was wearing plate, but I don't really see the harm in swapping it to chain mail to make more sense as a Drow. It should really change his stats at all would it?
On the too many abilities thing, I agree. At the end of it, I was just kind've throwing stuff on him to see what stuck... make sure I had some good synergy between him, the soldier, and his minions, but I agree it's getting to be too much. And yes, you're right about "emulating" his two attacks per round. I thought about just tossing (one or two characters) as the target for Eldritch Blast, but with so many minor action recharge stuff and him constantly pumping out minions (or at least i'm hoping he is) and all the bonus damage, I figured it would make up for a 2nd attack.
And yea, the more I think about it, the more I think his aura's and opp attack is proly just a too powerful combo making him virtually immune to melee (and my PC's are a heavy melee party as it is). I wanted to give him lots of escape options and ways to keep the PC's away from him or be able to shift away from them and punish them when they got close, but I agree that I think I overdid it a bit. Maybe just losing the entire interrupt attack or taking the shift away from it would help even it out.
And I agree with you 100% on the Life Link ability, it definitely needs some work. My original goal with it was to kind've confuse the PC's since in the first encounter, they should ignore Xipe completely and try to kill Malakyr ASAP. Then, in the 2nd encounter, their goal is just the opposite, to do their best to get around/ignore Malakyr and kill Xipe. Then, in the 3rd, it's wide open since both are at full power and have to die somehow. However, I want them to be linked somehow and play off each other. And I was thinking about adding in Life Link (and maybe putting it on both of them) that when one does, the other is significantly hurt, like maybe a frenzy buff where they do an extra "x" amount of damage, but take extra damage or lose a flat amount of HP but gain a damage boost, something like that.
I'll do a little playing around and see if I can come up with anything, but in the meantime, if you have any ideas, I'm all ears! Thank you again for all the help you've given so far! It's MUCH appreciated!
