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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Noumenon" data-source="post: 4499805" data-attributes="member: 70102">I haven't run a Solo monster yet in my game and I thought a Roc would be great because its flying would eliminate the "toe-to-toe slugging" effect.  I had images of an encounter in a canyon where the PCs would take cover behind spires, hide in caves, and climb up the walls to jump onto the creature's back.When I ran the encounter in prep, though, it turned out to go like this:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Roc flies 15 feet away from any melee character so they can't touch it</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Roc swipes with a talon and hits because of its +21 to hit</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Roc auto-grapples with its +37 and begins to do auto talon damage with Snatch.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">No hope for the character.  Grease isn't enough for the grapple, Freedom of Movement is a touch spell, small Air Elementals are too weak, the party uses Spider Climb instead of Fly.  </li> </ul>Even if I give the Roc slightly stupider tactics like stopping to grab two characters at once, it still has enough HP to survive and a high enough Grapple to ignore the -20 penalty for holding instead of grappling.  I'm not going to make it just land on the ground and start brawling.  That's what every other monster does -- that's why I wanted to run a Roc instead.If the battle is going to go this way, then my plan for the encounter is going to be "the Roc carries away one character at a time back to its nest, and eventually it pushes its luck or the characters track it and kill it.  Oh, and in the defile that the nest overlooks you see the Nightfang Spire (module)."The problems with this approach are:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">As a player, I would be pretty consternated if a monster auto-hit, auto-grappled, auto-damaged and flew away with me.  I would feel like the DM was dropping rocks on my head with no save.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">What makes the most sense is for the Roc to squeeze you until you are dying, then let up (assuming my goal is finding a way to keep a player alive once Snatched).  But I have no guarantee the player would stabilize after this, or be smart enough to go limp beforehand.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There's really no reason for the encounter to happen at all now.  The only tactic the party has that can work is to hide/go invisible/retreat into a cave, so they will, and then there's no fight.</li> </ul>I'm also a little confused by how to handle a Hide strategy.  First, what is the DC to notice a Gargantuan creature in the air?  It should be like -10.  The maximum Spot distance in the DMG is for Plains at 6d6*40 (760 ft).  But with a -1 penalty for each 10 feet of distance, it would be impossible to spot anything at that distance.  Anyway, a Roc is never going to win an opposed Spot check versus a whole party, so the party will always have time to hide and the encounter will never happen.  I should have the encounter in a canyon where the party looks up and sees the Roc crossing overhead, it sees them and then circles around to attack.  I like the visual of that because the shadow and bulk of a roc right overhead should be very impressive.</blockquote>

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