it hurts so much.....

[Nemesis Destiny]

I loved using 'swallows whole' mosnters in 3.x, but have not had the chance yet in 4th. So far, the only really surprising moment we've had was when I used some Dark Sun monsters reflluffed for my viking campaign.

The characters were 1st level, we were using themes, as well as some bonus stuff I added, so it was not a matter of character power. In one fight, the monsters got surprise and managed to take the Paladin from full to below negative bloodied before she could act, thanks to a critical hit with a recharge power, and brought another character down to 1 hit point. From there, the characters pulled out a win, but it made me sweat, because it wasn't supposed to be all that hard of an encounter.

It was later on that I found out that those particular Dark Sun monsters were horribly under-leveled, so it was more like a level 5 fight.

 

[bargle0]

Ghost Legionnaires: they have a Reliable dominate, and they have a shared hit point pool. Focus-fire doesn't work well on them.

 

[Riastlin]

Can't remember the exact name but its something like Zombie Entomber or Pulverizer, etc. Has a power called Entomb that buries the target 2 squares down, no line of sight or effect, and stunned (I believe). Pretty cool fluff for the power even though I'm not a big fan of stuns as a DM.

Threatening Reach in general is also fun as it suddenly makes the party start thinking about their tactics.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I'm not a big fan of stun either. Denying players their actions accomplishes a couple of things, neither of which I find all that desirable.

First, it prolongs the fight, whether the players were going to win or lose, which is fairly annoying in a game that already gets plenty of flak for long fights.

Second, it frustrates the players. Either you still win the fight, but it took forever because of annoying monster x, or you lose and feel like it was totally unfair because you couldn't do anything for the whole fight.

Inflicting conditions in general, now that I've been playing and running 4e for a while now, seems to me a "safe" way to make the monsters feel powerful, without actually threatening the players much. "Oh, look at me, I'm slowing you and doing some damage. That's better than just damage, because now you have a move of 2!"

For that reason, as much as my last post might sound contrary to that end, I'm a big fan of damage, gobs of damage. It puts some fear into players if you can hurt them enough, but still leaves them free to do something about it.

I have been running the Reavers of Harkenwold recently, and I think this thread has helped me figure some stuff out. I had been feeling like, "ho-hum, this adventure is way too easy, none of my players appear to be all that challenged," but I think the reason might be a lack of damage. I might try adding a die to all the damage rolls my creatures make, see if that doesn't spice things up a bit.

 

[Ryujin]

I'm not a big fan of stun either. Denying players their actions accomplishes a couple of things, neither of which I find all that desirable.

First, it prolongs the fight, whether the players were going to win or lose, which is fairly annoying in a game that already gets plenty of flak for long fights.

Second, it frustrates the players. Either you still win the fight, but it took forever because of annoying monster x, or you lose and feel like it was totally unfair because you couldn't do anything for the whole fight.

Inflicting conditions in general, now that I've been playing and running 4e for a while now, seems to me a "safe" way to make the monsters feel powerful, without actually threatening the players much. "Oh, look at me, I'm slowing you and doing some damage. That's better than just damage, because now you have a move of 2!"

For that reason, as much as my last post might sound contrary to that end, I'm a big fan of damage, gobs of damage. It puts some fear into players if you can hurt them enough, but still leaves them free to do something about it.

I have been running the Reavers of Harkenwold recently, and I think this thread has helped me figure some stuff out. I had been feeling like, "ho-hum, this adventure is way too easy, none of my players appear to be all that challenged," but I think the reason might be a lack of damage. I might try adding a die to all the damage rolls my creatures make, see if that doesn't spice things up a bit.

Because of the massive amounts of healing, that are dished out by the Pacifist in the group I'm DMing for, I added a house rule. Anything tougher than a minion does additional D6 of damage, equal to one less than a magic item of its level, on a critical hit. It has made for some very interesting fights with some creatures you wouldn't expect to incite fear, doing exactly that. Rage Drake Ravagers and Foulspawn Manglers come immediately to mind. Dagger Dance really started to scare the crap out of them

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Because of the massive amounts of healing, that are dished out by the Pacifist in the group I'm DMing for, I added a house rule. Anything tougher than a minion does additional D6 of damage, equal to one less than a magic item of its level, on a critical hit. It has made for some very interesting fights with some creatures you wouldn't expect to incite fear, doing exactly that. Rage Drake Ravagers and Foulspawn Manglers come immediately to mind. Dagger Dance really started to scare the crap out of them

Yeah, one of the groups I am a player in has a pacifist cleric and another character with shaman multiclass and heal skill powers (my character), and so far, outside of "special condition" battles or fights with integral skill challenges, we have yet to be seriously threatened.

Okay, there was the time we triggered a trapped room in the temple to the god of ultimate evil that caused 6 stone golems to animate and attack us when we were level 9, but that was special too, in that it was pretty obvious that it was more a "run for your life" than an actual fight. Still, we managed to kill one and bloody another with some tricks and lucky criticals from the raging barbarian.

Still, the pacifist got dropped that fight (nearly to negative bloodied), and another party member (the greedy dragonborn dragon sorcerer who triggered the trap in the first place), nearly died trying to scoop an armload of loot from the room before fleeing. Meanwhile, the tank spent most of the fight holding his action, waiting for his "moment" - not to show his quality - but to flee.

The golems were dishing out Dazes like candy, which is fine because we could still act every turn, but other than that, the battle was memorably scary because we were facing damage that was nearly a full tier ahead of us. Half the challenge was finding a way to get enough movement (while dazed) to get past the golems without triggering an OA. Doubly tough because they were holding the chokepoints. Needless to say we made effective use of forced movement. By the end, all of us were out of healing, most of us were bloodied and out of action points, dailies, and encounters, and still had to run for our lives out of the temple.

To make matters worse, we then had to hold off a horde of cultists while the mage cast our linked portal to get the heck out of dodge. Even though it was mostly minions, even that battle was challenging because we were so depleted (and had a special condition - "Don't Let Them Disrupt the Ritual"). In our final escape, I think two or three of the seven party members (2 were NPCs) got dragged through the portal making death saves. That was a great session.

 

[was]

the Catoblepas death gaze..sigh..gimme another character sheet

 

[Bold or Stupid]

Guard Drakes, there damage has always been good and scary. Notice how they didn't get up graded in damge for MV. Saw two and a goblin archer kill outright a paladin in 2 rounds.