My players are in a wee bit of trouble...

[Joshua Randall]

Another way to do it would be to turn the actions of the party to your advantage. Make his "amazing fighting skills" allow him to "counterattack" if he's attacked.

I like this idea a lot.

Exact mechanics don't matter, but I'd envision this as something like an opportunity action or free action triggered every time Reymus is hit or missed by a melee or close attack. The key is that he doesn't ever run out of counterattacks -- it's not an immediate action. (Or, put a very high limit on the number of counterattacks he can make per round, like 10 or 12.)

With this mechanic, the PCs risk killing themselves faster than they kill Reymus -- assuming his counterattacks are more accurate than the PCs' original attacks, he won't miss them as often as they miss him.

I also agree that it would be interesting to play things up like mobility to have him take advantage of the party's weakness. I'm picturing him blowing past the "defenders" and going to the squishy casters in the back

This is also a great idea. Reymus should have big shift movement, or even teleport, to prevent the fight bogging down.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

From personal experience, the counterattack mechanic is a fantastic way to make a 'solo-ish' fight truly scary for PCs who otherwise have nothing to fear from a given encounter.

You could make it a "defensive stance" that he has, while in it, he can counterattack as a free action. You could play it up as him toying with them, like a cat playing with a cornered mouse.

Also, you may want to check out the mechanics for the encounter with Lividius the murderer at the end of Reavers of Harkenwold - he has a neat thing that if stunned or dazed, all attacks do half damage to him and any attackers take half the damage they dealt to him as an effect. Prevents stun- or daze-locking your baddie from making the encounter a cakewalk.

 

[contraserrene]

I would restat Reymus as a Level 22 Solo Soldier, throw in some excellent counterattack powers and so forth. Then I'd stage the scene so the primary goal is to not fight him.

Three skill challenges, I'm thinking...

1. Get the Grey Guards in the tower to safety / Mobilize them against Reymus. Failure leaves them vulnerable and unprepared, so they drop like flies when the actual battle begins. Success gets certain key NPCs out of the way (the weak support ones who will perhaps pick up the pieces later) and positions some of them to fight (man the siege engines, form up a pike square, create a roving search party to find egg sacs, etc). Avoid alerting Reymus to what you're doing or he will interfere; failures mean incapacitated NPCs who can't escape or help when things get really bad.

2. Find and destroy some of the egg sacs. Bonuses/auto-successes come from "organize" track of earlier challenge. Failures mean a certain number of sacs go unfound/undestroyed. Even total success doesn't destroy all of them, just a majority; with a zone map and some planning, PCs might be able to pick their ground for the final phase by forcing Reymus to defend one particular area where the eggs remain undestroyed.

3. Survive and escape Reymus. In a setting with plenty of opportunity (holes in roof, hurricane winds, sacks of supplies, mirrors everywhere, siege engines, etc) each PC makes a skill check every round to avoid getting seriously hurt. Some skills stop working after someone succeeds two or three times- Stealth won't work after the first two successes, because he'll be ready for it, and he smashes the walls Athletics was taking advantage of later. Any PC who rolls a failure takes 3d12+20 damage or so, described in various ways (Reymus casually backslashes you with his sword, kicks a crumbling crenelation onto you, gets a hand on your neck and you barely break free alive) appropriate to the skill used. While this is going on, PCs can use their actions to smash more egg sacs or mirrors or otherwise mess with the plan- but if they're doing that, they're also getting damaged. Reymus seems more like a force of nature than something they can fight- though they are always free to attack him. If they do manage to daze him for a round, etc, only one PC has to make a check for that round to avoid the damage and the others can all make checks to find/destroy more eggs.

I'd be comfortable adding a few specific details and rough maps (so you know which PCs are in which part of the tower, where Reymus is, etc) to the idea and then winging the rest of it on the fly, but that's a question of style.

 

[Aenghus]

On the meta-level, unless carefully prepared this encounter is primed to give the players the wrong message - "Don't jump ahead in the story or you will bite more than you can chew and be punished for it". I've seen players get very conservative and timid after surprise TPKs and close calls.

The PC's can't hope to beat this guy in a straight up fight from the sounds of things, and he can kill them all by himself if he wants to, so this could end up in a lose, lose situation.

So the players need a task that is possible to focus on, to avoid all dying in a futile struggle. Destroying the eggs might be possible, and if they are spread all over the tower, one person won't be able to defend them all. The PCs would need a way to perceive and attack the eggs.

 

[Piratecat]

Brief update: due to scheduling problems, we still haven't played this yet! I'm hoping for next week. I'll keep you posted.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Good luck and tell us what happens, I can't wait to hear what your PCs do

 

[Piratecat]

I'm ready!

- Reymus is statted up: lvl 22 solo, about 800 hp and a 36 AC, basic attack doing about 35 dmg. Bonus attacks when action points are spent. Crits average about 75 dmg, special attack about 45 dmg. Anyone who attacks him takes 10 dmg automatically from a counterattack aura. And he has a rechargeable burst and a bunch of movement powers, and can shake off two effects per round. It's a simplified but accurate version of the character sheet.

I have set up the allies to die as soon as they help (Reymus will cut them down), but by aiding another they can add to PC die rolls or damage. The PCs also get 4 healing surges from NPC clerics. The storm wind will push everyone 3 spaces per round if they are not prone -- moving downwind adds +3 move, moving upwind subtracts -3 move. Ranged attacks are at -10 to hit in the storm wind.

 

[Piratecat]

Bwah ha ha! He was barely down to 7/8th hit points before the rogue critted him with an attack that knocked him unconscious. They then used teamwork and the storm winds to get to him. They picked him up, dropped him over the edge (200' onto rocks) and dropped heavy catapult rocks on him.

Dead, gloriously dead. And he'd only dropped one PC to -38 at that point.

High fives all around!

 

[S'mon]

Bwah ha ha! He was barely down to 7/8th hit points before the rogue critted him with an attack that knocked him unconscious. They then used teamwork and the storm winds to get to him. They picked him up, dropped him over the edge (200' onto rocks) and dropped heavy catapult rocks on him.

Dead, gloriously dead. And he'd only dropped one PC to -38 at that point.

High fives all around!

LOL. I guess this shows how Solo rules never work in 4e?

 

[Arctic Wolf]

Bwah ha ha! He was barely down to 7/8th hit points before the rogue critted him with an attack that knocked him unconscious. They then used teamwork and the storm winds to get to him. They picked him up, dropped him over the edge (200' onto rocks) and dropped heavy catapult rocks on him.

Dead, gloriously dead. And he'd only dropped one PC to -38 at that point.

High fives all around!

Got to say that that is funny as hell lol. I didn't even know a rogue had a move to make someone unconscious lol. Well at least it was interesting hehe