Lolth!

[keterys]

Well, in the case of something like Lolth, you could easily have her body disappear and turn into, say, a zone of biting spiders (automatic damage for entering or ending turn in kinda thing) for the duration.

So, good for getting a breather, potential, but _horrible_ for killing her.

 

[Bold or Stupid]

My rewrite of Orcus turned him into a roiling portal to the abyss that damaged the entire encounter when he was stunned.

 

[Aegeri]

To be honest, I'm most fond of a solo that has multiple attacks in a standard action and instead of being dazed/stunned it loses an attack. For example the Heroslayer Hydra loses 1 attack per daze/stun condition upon it, but otherwise isn't bothered by daze/stun. I like this a lot as it keeps daze/stun useful but it isn't about to be dominating the fight. Predictably enough said Hydra was a good challenge to an epic level party - when you can't lock it down and it has actions you end up with a great fight! Who would have guessed?

I'm also a fan of multiple initiative solos where a daze/stun removes an activation instead of normally affecting it. These solos are the best designed in 4E are coincidentally also produce the most fun battles.

This is where I think a solo rule that generally affects daze and stun conditions would be the best. It's action denial that truly screws solos and not general debuffs (though they don't help, in the end if you can't act at all you can't challenge anyone!). Making save ends effects better than "until end of next turn" is another entirely separate issue with its own problems. In reality save ends effects prove to be very good on normal monsters, but are worthless against solos due to their +5 saves. If you basically sabotage "until end of next turn effects" being better inherently on solos you make that balance much better anyway.

Because in the end the main advantage of "until end of next turn" is on solos. That's why you see PCs proliferate these, because the biggest and supposedly nastiest monsters are most trivially defeated with them. If solos are saving either way, then save ends becomes automatically better. If they're going to fail a save then save ends means it stays around longer, while they're going to have the same duration (or less) with an "until end of next turn" effect.

Against regular monsters the 50% chance of the effect continuing to last is good enough to keep save ends competitive. Change this dynamic with solos and you'll find PCs will be wanting to miss less with save ends effects on hits (and until next turn effects on a miss).

 

[MortalPlague]

One way I've looked at the stun / daze issue for solos is to relegate those two conditions to a weaker version (specific to solos). Maybe daze instead causes the solo to grant CA? Stun might stack that with a penalty on attacks?

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

Deities always roll saving throws in response to an attack or effect that imposes a condition or deals ongoing damage, even if that effect normally does not allow a saving throw.

Would this work? (modeled after the line in Vecna and Torog [I think], to be added under the Triggered Actions section of every being with the god, deity, primordial, or whatever such keyword)


Immortal/Primordial Resistance (no action*, when [Whoever] is hit by an attack or effect that imposes a condition or deals ongoing damage, even if that effect normally does not allow a saving throw; at-will)
[Whoever] makes a saving throw. On a save, [Whoever] is unaffected by the effect.

*or should this say Free, or be omitted altogether?

 

[keterys]

The multiturn solos actually tend to be the most screwed by 'stunned until next turn' powers, since they're the attacker's turn, so a Behir will be stunned for three of its turns by one hit. Then they can use the next power.

 

[Dr_Ruminahui]

One thing... does the "gets a save versus all conditions" apply to being marked as well?

 

[BrokeAndDrive]

One thing... does the "gets a save versus all conditions" apply to being marked as well?

According to this handy link, Marked is indeed a condition. Therefore, yes.

Of course, you or your DM can very well say "Nuh uh."

 

[Aegeri]

The multiturn solos actually tend to be the most screwed by 'stunned until next turn' powers, since they're the attacker's turn, so a Behir will be stunned for three of its turns by one hit. Then they can use the next power.

The better ones just lose an activation, not their entire set of turns. That's why I rather like them.

One thing... does the "gets a save versus all conditions" apply to being marked as well?

Strictly put yes, but the way I houseruled it meant that I targeted the specific action denial conditions that caused the problem - I left other effects alone for the time being.

 

[keterys]

The better ones just lose an activation, not their entire set of turns. That's why I rather like them.

I couldn't find any solos that do that, at all - could you give some examples?

Hydras lose one of their attacks each time they're dazed or stunned, but don't get multiple turns and, well, kinda suck as solos in general. Some other creatures like Behirs and Demogorgon get multiple turns, but a stun or daze until the end of the attacker's next turn (standard duration) will affect them for all of those turns.