Hobgoblins Ate My Daily!

[Shin Okada]

What's wrong with a type of monster being highly resistant to some type of powers?

That is no different from monsters having resistances or immunities. They can also negate (or almost negate) various dailies.

 

[Rechan]

I like the ally reroll. My idea is to at least make their Hobgoblin Resistance a little less daily-slaying (and perhaps more Encounter slaying):

Hobgoblin Resilience (Immediate Reaction, when an effect would end at the end of an enemy's next turn, encounter): The effect ends.

What's wrong with a type of monster being highly resistant to some type of powers?

1) Hobgoblins are encountered at very low levels. So PCs are only going to have one daily to throw at them, and then that daily just gets stepped on fairly immediately. It favors classes that do lots of damage vs. controllers. For a higher level monster (upper Heroic/Low paragon), sure, that's not a problem. But it just seems mean.

2) Matter of taste. There's nothing "Wrong" with powers that stun, but I personally hate and avoid them. But then, I have a houserule that lets encounters/dailies recharge if they miss, so I'm rather biased towards facilitating players' powers getting used.

 

[Shin Okada]

2) Matter of taste. There's nothing "Wrong" with powers that stun, but I personally hate and avoid them. But then, I have a houserule that lets encounters/dailies recharge if they miss, so I'm rather biased towards facilitating players' powers getting used.

Hmm ... It seems so. Not just as a DM but as a player. I mean, as a player, I rarely choose daily powers which rely on save end effects. Even if the opponent is not a hobgoblin, monsters make a save in 55% chance, or higher if they are elite or solo.

Regarding level, well, there are many low-level arcane dailies which inflicts fire damage (Flaming Sphere is a very popular daily, isn't it?) but even level 1 Fire Beetle has resist fire 10.

 

[Turtlejay]

This is one of the reasons I try to avoid (save ends) powers. I'd like to control a little more of what my character can do, and a save ends powers relies on 2 die rolls to apply and be worth it (1 to hit, 1 to fail at least one save).

Hobgoblins are far from the only offender. Elites and Solos with their bonus to saves are no fun to attack with save ends powers, and races with bonuses to certain things (dwarves/poison, gnomes/illusion, eladrin/charm) also have nice, fat saves.

Jay

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Hobgoblin Resistance is actually pretty interesting for hobs. Since most hobs naturally are designed to bunch up and fight in formations this power gives them a way to do so without getting murdered with AoE daily effects. If you take it away then their phalanx abilities become basically useless and you just have a monster with nothing special about it at all.

Yes, HR will sometimes degrade a daily effect considerably. However hobs really are 'grunt' type monsters that are intended to present more of a resource management challenge to the PCs than anything else. They're going to beat them and most often they appear as an auxiliary to another more threatening monster that is going to be the focus of daily spell use.

Besides, plenty of daily spells work fine on hobs, you just have to pick the right one to use.

I ran a whole story arc with hobs as antagonists and they worked fine with a party in the range of 4th-6th level. After the first encounter the PCs adjusted tactics and didn't use save ends effects against them. There were always some other monsters around like bugbears or a dragon, etc that was a fine target for those spells, or else the encounter didn't really warrant using the best dailies anyway.

tl;dr HR meshes well with hobgoblins tactics and makes them viable. It isn't a problem.

 

[Infiniti2000]

This is one of the reasons I try to avoid (save ends) powers. I'd like to control a little more of what my character can do, and a save ends powers relies on 2 die rolls to apply and be worth it (1 to hit, 1 to fail at least one save).

Maybe I don't understand what you're saying but I don't agree with it. A "save ends" power automatically functions at least once (meaning if you hit), requiring only the 1 die roll. If the second die roll (the save) fails, then your effect will exist for a second round.

So are you saying that need the power to function TWICE for it to be worth it? That's what I'm inferring anyway and I don't agree with that.

 

[keterys]

I'm pretty sure they get torn apart by all that AoE that doesn't deal save ends effects.

Heck, the reason I don't like the power is that it just doesn't come up. Kinda like goblin tactics, but even less likely to come up. Of course, when it comes up they don't even get to do anything cool.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm pretty sure they get torn apart by all that AoE that doesn't deal save ends effects.

Heck, the reason I don't like the power is that it just doesn't come up. Kinda like goblin tactics, but even less likely to come up. Of course, when it comes up they don't even get to do anything cool.

I guess my point was that at least they have SOMETHING that helps them survive all that AoE incoming. Without HR Phalanx is worthless. Its definitely a mixed blessing as it is, but then again they aren't meant to stand up against higher level PCs (even higher heroic ones) that can really rain death on them in a serious way.

I guess maybe hobs aren't SUPER cool, but then again low level humanoids are rarely the most distinctive monsters around. Its a heck of a lot better than any other edition where they were nothing but bags of 1+1 HD worth of hit points that did 1d8+1 damage and had AC4 (IIRC, gone are the days of having 1e MM 100% memorized). At least now they have leaders with some interesting abilities and even the basic hobs are pretty robust if you let a block of them get to melee with you.

And man to my players HATE hob archers! I had one setup where there were 3 hob archers on a tower. No monster in the whole campaign ever caused such havoc. They just never missed. Rogue pops out the door, down. Fighter pops out the door, down. Cleric pops out the door, OK the cleric manages to NOT take a couple crits and pops the rogue back up. Fighter rolls a 20 and manages to get back up on his own. Ever after all I had to do is drop a couple hob archers into a battle, party was wetting their pants. They may be a pretty vanilla monster, but its OK.

 

[Rechan]

Yes, HR will sometimes degrade a daily effect considerably. However hobs really are 'grunt' type monsters that are intended to present more of a resource management challenge to the PCs than anything else. They're going to beat them and most often they appear as an auxiliary to another more threatening monster that is going to be the focus of daily spell use.

If they're grunts, then the Pcs won't use dailies on them.

PC resource management is usually 'save it for the boss fight'.

Elites and Solos with their bonus to saves are no fun to attack with save ends powers,

Without their bonus to saves, any solo is going to get drown beneath all the conditions piled on top of it.

Consider that Elites are worth 2 monsters, they get a +2 and Solos are worth 5 monsters so they get a +5. The reason is because that's either one less, or four less, monsters that's getting the condition instead of the target.

 

[Turtlejay]

Maybe I don't understand what you're saying but I don't agree with it. A "save ends" power automatically functions at least once (meaning if you hit), requiring only the 1 die roll. If the second die roll (the save) fails, then your effect will exist for a second round.

So are you saying that need the power to function TWICE for it to be worth it? That's what I'm inferring anyway and I don't agree with that.

Kind of, because many of the powers with save ends conditions will apply that same condition until the end of your/its next turn. Which is effectively the same as if it makes its first save. For it to count as anything other than moar damage at least one missed save is needed.

Plus, doesn't everyone hate it when they put that really awesome status condition (stun, can't heal, can't move, etc) on the biggest, baddest mofo on the field and they save right away? Or even worse, they are a hobgoblin?!

Jay