How To Kill An Adult Black Dragon Without Dying Of Boredom

[brehobit]

Adult black dragon has 560 hit points. If you're facing 5 PCs (a fine fight at level 10 vs a level 11 solo), and assume each PC hits half the time, thats 2.5 hits a round. Over 20 rounds, that would be 50 hits. Are you saying your average damage was < 11 per hit? That seems really low. I'm in a level 6 game, and its pretty easy for a striker to dish out 23 damage a hit on average. If you round down for a defender and say 20 damage on an average hit (remember that daily/encounter powers should be more than that), you're still talking about 28 hits. At 2 hits a round (assuming some misses and some actions spent healing), thats still only 14 rounds.

So yea, I'd be interested to know the party makeup and if they were missing more than that.

AC 28. A Fighter should have something like 5(level)+5(stat)+2(item) +3 prof for a +15 for an attack bonus and could be +13 to +17 realistically. So without other bonuses you are hitting at _best_ 50% of the time. A caster might be close to 50% given the lower defenses.

Average damage for an at will with a bastard sword is probably d10 + 5(stat) +2 (magic) +1 (weapon focus) which is 13.5...

Seems about right.

So

 

[helium3]

I suspect it was a combination of being new to the system, and up against a creature that fights in an extremely defensive style. Out of curiousity, what level was this at, and about how much damage was each classes at-will's doing?

5 10th level PC's

Elven Paladin (Yes, I know. Instant suckage there . . .)
Bolstering Strike; +14 vs. AC; 1d10+6 fire (+2d6 w/ Crit)
Valiant Strike; +14 vs. AC 1d10+7 fire (+2d6 w/ Crit)

Human Cleric
Lance of Faith; +13 vs. Atk; 1d8+8 radiant (+3d6 w/ Crit)
Sacred Flame; +13 vs. Atk; 1d6+8 radiant (+3d6 w/ Crit)
Righteous Brand; +10 vs. AC; 1d6+4 (+2d6 thunder w/ Crit)

Human Warlock
Dire Radiance; +9 vs. Fortitude; 1d6+4 radiant (+3d6 w/ Crit)
Eldritch Blast; +13 vs. Reflex; 1d10+8 (+3d6 w/ Crit)
Eyebite; +13 vs. Will; 1d10+8 psychic (+3d6 w/ Crit)

Hafling Rogue
Deft Strike; +16 vs. AC; 1d4+7 frost (+2d6 w/ Crit)
Sly Flourish; +16 vs. AC; 1d4+11 frost (+2d6 w/ Crit)

Hobgoblin Fighter (Yet more suckage. As bad as the Paladin . . .)
Cleave; +15 vs. AC; 1d10+8 (+3d6 w/ Crit)
Tide of Iron; +15 vs. AC; 1d10+8 (+3d6 w/ Crit)

I attached the pre-gen character sheets in a .zip file. They're all Word 2000 documents.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

There are a few ways that this sort of thing could happen.

If you were running a recreation of the D&D experience demo, that dragon is a pretty high level opponent for the party. If the players are missing very often, and the dragon is unable to keep someone dropped, things can get boring fast.

Another potential cause would be that you were splitting the attacks between at least two characters more often than not. You may have been better off just dog piling everything you had on the Paladin initially, and then move onto the next target.

Then there is the defensive style of the monster using hit and run tactics against characters that may have been very melee oriented. If no one present was effective in ranged combat, things would get difficult fast. When your defenders are limited to melee and the opponent flies and plays keep away, the party loses much of its damage output.

Now, there are a few ways that the party could have worked around this.

1) The Warlord at-will power Viper Strike will make the opponent provoke an Opportunity Attack if he shifts. The Pin the Foe daily ability is practically made to solve this problem.

2) Basic Ranged Attacks: The Warlock, Wizard, and Cleric all have at wills which can function as ranged attacks (though some are close range only). For everyone else, I reccomend investing in either a Crossbow or a a Longbow. Or at least a throwing weapon. Though suboptimal, it is better to be able to attack than to be limited to hoping the opponent lands so you can charge in and attack.

3) Retreat and Regroup: If the players had burned through their per encounter powers, they could opt to retreat, rest for 5 minutes, and try again.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[KarinsDad]

Adult black dragon has 560 hit points. If you're facing 5 PCs (a fine fight at level 10 vs a level 11 solo), and assume each PC hits half the time, thats 2.5 hits a round. Over 20 rounds, that would be 50 hits. Are you saying your average damage was < 11 per hit? That seems really low. I'm in a level 6 game, and its pretty easy for a striker to dish out 23 damage a hit on average. If you round down for a defender and say 20 damage on an average hit (remember that daily/encounter powers should be more than that), you're still talking about 28 hits. At 2 hits a round (assuming some misses and some actions spent healing), thats still only 14 rounds.

Remember that not all PCs are necessarily attacking every round, especially when the OP posted that PCs had to ready actions due to the Dragon's create darkness. The best option for the Dragon IS to avoid as many attacks per round as possible.

So yes, I think it is necessary for the players to come up with strategies so that they can maximize the number of PCs attacking per round and so that they are not readying actions.

 

[matthewseidl]

Warlock is at 50/50 to hit for 17 damage (don't forget the +1D6 for the curse). The rogue is at 50/50 with combat advantage for ~22 damage. The cleric is likely throwing Lance of faith for < 50% hits, but when he hits the +2 to an ally who still has a daily/encounter power is great, and otherwise give it to a striker. Now, double defenders against a solo opponent will be a slight negative, but I don't think a controller would have really swung it that much.

 

[helium3]

AC 28. A Fighter should have something like 5(level)+5(stat)+2(item) +3 prof for a +15 for an attack bonus and could be +13 to +17 realistically. So without other bonuses you are hitting at _best_ 50% of the time. A caster might be close to 50% given the lower defenses.

Average damage for an at will with a bastard sword is probably d10 + 5(stat) +2 (magic) +1 (weapon focus) which is 13.5...

Seems about right.

So

As the numbers I posted show, you're right on target.

Using the above method to calculate DPR with just at-wills and no buffs or de-buffs, the party has an average DPR of 20.375. With the dragon's hit point total of 560 it'd take them 27 rounds to kill it. Not so good, since as I said combat starts to get dreadfully boring after about 15 to 20 rounds.

Something I started thinking about while I was writing up my last post . . .

A basic DPR calculation assumes that every character takes a pot shot each round.

With the "square of doom" tactic in my OP you can kind of see how (with difficulty, preparation and special circustances) the party could double that to around 40 DPR. Even then, you're looking at 13.5 rounds to target termination.

Or the party could blast through all their encounter and daily powers, which usually do 2X or 3X normal damage. Not sure what that'd do, but SoD is a sure thing once you've got it going and therefore a better strategy.

But here's the rub. Remember how I said I noticed that combat WAS much more cinematic and fluid? Well, the way that greater fluidity manifested was in tactical maneuvering on the part of both the dragon and the players.

Generally speaking, when they were moving around and generally "being cinematic" they weren't plunking away with any of their attack powers. The cleric was mostly trying to keep everyone alive. The rogue was mostly trying to get into a position to flank without getting hit by an OA. The Paladin and the Fighter were trying to close with the dragon after getting pushed back by Dragon's Tail Cut (heh heh) after they missed the prior round.

So yeah, if this were 3.5 you could do a basic DPR calculation and say (in your best nerd voice) "Accowding to my calculations we should have killed this Dwagon 13 Wounds ago!!!" but this is 4E and combat is NOT supposed to be a static slug-fest.

If there's a problem here (and I'm not saying there is) it likely could be that (a) solo monsters have too many hit points (b) powers don't do enough damage or (c) the underlying mathematical model that the devs used (and I KNOW that this model exists and that the devs believe it is THE TRUTH) assumed a static 3.5 slug-fest and forgot to take into account that (without the dread "system mastery" anyway) a character now spends a good 25% (a rough estimate on my part) of their time in an encounter doing something besides attacking the monster.

But we shall see. One of my buddies is coming over tonight and after the BSG mid-season finale we're gonna kill the poor dragon again, this time trying to use the Square Of Doom tactic.

 

[FadedC]

The only thing I have to add here is that jumping from 10 to 11 is a pretty huge deal. Your striker powers all do an extra d6, many of your damage boosting feats get an extra +1, your stats all go up by 1, and you get your paragon path and paragon feats.

It's entirely possible that the problem here was that 10th level characters are at sort of an interim level where they are about to get uber but haven't quite yet. This might make it hard for them to fight higher level foes.

 

[helium3]

What kinds of terrain were available? If it's just a fight-in-a-box, then I can see it getting boring sooner rather than later.

Well, interesting terrain can't by itself make an encounter interesting unless it's "interactive terrain."

In this case, the encounter took place in the courtyard of a "fortress". There were ledges along the inside of the courtyard but only the Dragon could really use them, being the only creature besides the Warlock capable of any sort of flight.

There was a Barbican (sp?) with a portcullis that could be lowered that proved to be the center of most of the "cinematic" action. I found out later that the party (while I was heeding nature's call) concocted a plan to trap the Dragon by pushing it into the barbican and then dropping the portcullis so that it was trapped and cornered. This would've worked very well, except that the dragon used Cloud of Darkness to obscure the area and retreat around the corner.

After that there were several rounds of very cool movement stuff going on where both sides sorta jabbed and feinted at one another through the darkness until the party remembered to put a light source in there. So it was cool, but seriously cut into the DPR.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Combat taking to long in rounds seems to be a common problem with solos and high level foes. Maybe a few months of actual play will change that, but it might actually be a systematic issue. It's not exactly a "math" problem, but it might still be a playability issue.

Basically, the idea of the "Bloodied" mechanic is to ensure that the combat dynamics can change, but if the time to bloodied is too long, this doesn't really help.

Maybe it would actually be best to use Solos as a "short-term" recurring villain. Especially Dragons typically have enough movement options to retreat from combat. So, maybe after a few rounds of combat, the Dragon retreats to a safe position and the party has to fight different encounters in the mean-time?

 

[helium3]

4-8 hours of play and fighting an adult black dragon? :O My players were barely coming to grips with kobold slingers by that time! That could definitely have something to do with it...

Yeah, I think that there's something to be said for experience here.

At the same time, I was under the impression that 4E was supposed to be easier for "newbs" to play so that they'd be more inclined to like it on first exposure.

If "system mastery" is still required at levels 3+ then where's the advantage. It's not like any of the other editions were any more difficult to learn at 1st level.