Monsters and Heroes

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

If the GM had followed the rules as quickly as possible, they would still have to change the NPC.

A 24th-level warlock would have at least three encounter abilities, three utility abilities, and two dailies, not to mention the warlock-specific abilities (cursing, sorcerer-king pact, etc). That's quite complicated to run, at minimum. But said NPC would have been balanced and had decent but not crazy hit points.

Alternatively, the DM could have created a "monster", although they could have made them a standard 24th-level monster with warlock templar-themed powers.

Unfortunately, that's not what your DM did. The problem here was not the rules, but the DM. They showed a lot of favoritism toward a single player, effectively promoted a PC into a super NPC (probably a solo, hence the ridiculous hit points), gave them a ridiculous artifact and then had them betray you. That's got nothing to do with the rules as written.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Actually, in this case, making the player a solo after ascensoin is not that wrong... but doing so after a hard battle, when all were exhausted was really just unfair...

I heard from a similar thing in a fellow 3.5 group, some years ago... giving the half demon template to a rogue was essentially raising his encounter level by 4 i guess. (which is quadruppling his xp value -> making him a solo in 4e terms)

It really has nothing to do with the game system... I second that... it was just a too hard encounter after a hard encounter...

 

[Aegeri]

Personally I think that whole situation sucks Greylord and you have every single right to be really upset about it. Personally, I don't see this as a problem with the rules in 4E but definitely with the fact your DM was brutally unfair. Did he even give you checks or indications to know something was inherently wrong here? Is everyone even still playing together - I mean something like this often makes different players really embittered.

There is so much "What not to do when DMing 101" here that I don't really know where to begin.

 

[Sunseeker]

Personally I think that whole situation sucks Greylord and you have every single right to be really upset about it. Personally, I don't see this as a problem with the rules in 4E but definitely with the fact your DM was brutally unfair. Did he even give you checks or indications to know something was inherently wrong here? Is everyone even still playing together - I mean something like this often makes different players really embittered.

There is so much "What not to do when DMing 101" here that I don't really know where to begin.

Pretty much this. Party betrayls can be interesting, but this was handled so, so poorly.

 

[MrMyth]

Yeah. The problem with that scene wasn't the betrayal itself, or the specific differences between the stats for the NPC compared to when they were a player - it was having the party enter a fight, down one character and out of resources, against an apparently overwhelming opponent. It would have been just as much an issue, I imagine, if after the fight some other solo monster teleported in out of nowhere and proceeded to demolish the party.

DM is entirely at fault here, and it has little to nothing to do with the specific mechanics used for the PC/NPC.

 

[Barastrondo]

Yeah, definitely it rests in the execution of this particular instance. The thing about the abstraction of NPCs and monsters is that it can actually reinforce people to think in-character: not to think of an NPC as "a ranger," but rather as "a deadly swordsman." That's ultimately how many players think of their own characters, after all. The character, as everyone in-game knows her, is a tiefling swordswoman of great speed and strength, who uses a deadly two-scimitar fighting style she learned from a dervish master in a desert realm. Mechanically, she's a whirling barbarian with some reskinning. But another dual-scimitar dervish might be a tempest fighter or a ranger (if a PC), or likely some form of skirmisher (if an NPC). The mechanics aren't what the characters see, they're just a way to resolve actions.

In this case, it seems like what the characters saw was "a person who is as strong as any one of us" that has suddenly become "a person who is as strong as all five of us". With the right exposition it would make sense, but it seems like the ascension wasn't really handled well such that the PCs, and their players, would buy into the sudden increase in power. At the very least it should have been totally clear that it wasn't from turning PC to NPC, but from turning templar to sorcerer-queen (if somewhat quickly and easily).

 

[GreyLord]

Personally I think that whole situation sucks Greylord and you have every single right to be really upset about it. Personally, I don't see this as a problem with the rules in 4E but definitely with the fact your DM was brutally unfair. Did he even give you checks or indications to know something was inherently wrong here? Is everyone even still playing together - I mean something like this often makes different players really embittered.

There is so much "What not to do when DMing 101" here that I don't really know where to begin.

Not currently. The two players that were really upset about it refuse to play in any game the DM is Dm'ing, hence the end of that campaign. I started a small game with just those two this past week, with each of them having two paragon characters each. Trying to run Tomb of Horrors, at least part of it, interspersed with some Dungeon Delves among them. Haven't gotten that far in it yet though.

With the other DM...we haven't started anything new...as I think he's still waiting to see if the other two will come around to finish up the Dark Sun campaign. I'm pretty certain they aren't going to however. Instead, we've played boardgames recently with the two of us that show up and the DM...so three people out of the five players (six people including the DM) originally.

Edit: So in short, I suppose the answer is no, the group is no longer together. That little incident really split up the group...they were pretty darn...well probably some words which I shouldn't say on the boards...but saying they were upset is an understatement.

PS: Now that I think about it, I don't recall seeing one of the players. I'll have to look him up and see why he hasn't shown at either of the playing groups. Perhaps with mine it could be that he simply didn't know that I had started up another game, should call him. We don't meet half or even a fourth as often. I'm only able to meet up occasionally, so it is going a LOT slower then the Dark Sun campaign in encounters, levelling (no levelling yet) and otherwise.

 

[FireLance]

Second, there are no official stats for Drizzt. You read something bad, maybe a fanboy's "re-creation". (Even a Drizzt fan could simply throw Drizzt at a lower-level "evil" party; the PCs couldn't hit him, he couldn't miss, it'd be just like reading a Salvatore novel!)

Third, the only way Drizzt gets 700 hit points is if he's a solo. There's no way a standard skirmisher of any level gets that many hit points.

Actually, Dungeon #171 "officially" statted out Drizzt as a level 21 solo skirmisher with 764 hit points.

I sympathize with the OP's point somewhat. While I understand the gameplay need for the minion/standard/elite/solo monster categories, they still feel kind of artificial to me. I work around the problem by simply avoiding using elite and solo "monsters" of the humanoid races in my games (barring exceptional circumstances such as being "powered up" through the use of an artifact or a ritual).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Actually, Dungeon #171 "officially" statted out Drizzt as a level 21 solo skirmisher with 764 hit points.

Mark of Mary Sue = Solo? I wonder if the statted Chosen of Mystra are also all solos?

 

[Aegeri]

Mark of Mary Sue = Solo? I wonder if the statted Chosen of Mystra are also all solos?

The only one who has been statted is Elminster, who is a level 19 (IIRC) solo controller. He's actually pound for pound one of the strongest solos for his level in the game as well.

A level 19 solo is considerably less Mary Sue than the novels would lead you to believe though.