D&D 5E Problem Choosing Solos to Challenge The Party

[Pickles JG]

I understand where you are coming from precisely and while not familiar with other versions can state my beliefs on why this occurs.

First. I too have a group of 5 and a group of 6.

Past the first few levels, attack rating caps out, as well as armor class. The only difference then is HP. This allows creatures of lower level to still have a good chance to hit higher level creatures. The down side is this doesn't make higher level creatures directly more challenging. This is due to killing an individual creature takes longer but not harder (unless they have resists/immunity).

I personally have 2 solutions for you.

1 - have additional low level creatures along with the solo creature. I know this is a "cop out" response, but it works.

2 - customize the HP of the creature to be even greater. - This will most likely achieve what you are looking for. This in D&D Next will allow you to make fights more challenging due to making the fights longer, but still possible. This is due to exactly what you say, if you throw a cloudkill Lich at the party, if they fail they pretty much die. They just don't have the HP yet.

3 - A combination of 1 and 2. This is how I have designed my high level content for the future. To have an insanely high HP level 20 boss, with a lot of low level support creatures.

So use the 4e solution?

Fights against solo monsters have always been pretty dull in any edition often resolving into with a bunch of players standing around the single monster bashing it. 4e did not help this in the early days with huge bags of HP & little threat & also great vulnerability to control effects.
This is the risk inherent in solution 2 & I find solution 1 well 3 probably works better.

Another solution is dynamic environments rather than dynamic enemy rosters. One of the good encounters in the H series had the PC spread-out in a trapped environment to perform a ritual. The ritual opened a portal for them to escape through (IIRC) & also released a Dragon. The dragon was too fat to die at all quickly to the PCs & had movement tricks to keep them spread out & push them into traps etc (I think it was green dragon mind control).
Other things like this damaging environments that can be avoided but the solo can make use of or summoning portals or whatever, lots of HP & some other threat or reason the fight does not just resolve into everyone standing around hacking.

Going to the original scenario - PCs ambushing a monster is often hugely beneficial - try it with the wyvern ambushing the PCs - fly in grab a PC & fly off with them at a slow pace as he's weighed down. The other PCs have to rush to keep up & will waste actions trying to do so. (or just fly a few hundred feet up drop repeat - probably not the most fun).

The attritional style of combats that seems to be favoured in this edition means that they are often anticlimactic - the par result is lose a few HP & the variance is often lose no HP or lose slightly more than a few.
If this encounter was some just a throw away encounter then that's an acceptable risk, don't sweat it - it is frustrating if it was supposed to be some end level boss battle climax though.

 

[Blackwarder]

First of all, I just want to point out that if your players have managed to ambush the Wyvren than it's absolutely great that they managed to kill it in the surprise round, it reward forward thinking and preparation and I for one really appreciate this.

As for the matter at hand, bearing in mind that the monster stats in the play test documents aren't polished, My rule of thumb is twofold:

1. When trying to use a monster as a solo monster use one that it outside the threat levels of the party.
2. Unless the players are really smart the monster is never surprised by the PCs.

I haven't built or DMed a lot of home made 5e stuff so this is more "armchair game designing" solution than something that was deskilled from actual play experience.

Warder

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Right now higher level monsters are a bit on the easier side. Montrous monsters that are encountered solo need a little more hp. higher constitution seems a good idea in general, as constitution and mass should be related (the same dose of poison should be easier to resist if you are bigger).

I also don´t like the current suprise round rule. In 3.0 there was an optional rule, that limited surprise actions to partial actions, i.e. only a single attack, no matter how many could be made otherwise. I guess, that would be a good rule in 5e too.

I am waiting for the monster manual to see if balance is better. We are already told, that hp are adjusted upwards in general.

 

[Blackwarder]

This might be a good question for today Q&A session, would be nice to hear about the developers experience with that.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Dragons-Q-amp-A-Friday-June-6-Question-Thread

Warder

 

[tomBitonti]

I've seen lopsided results plenty of times in 3E. I'm not surprised that it happens in 5E. In 3E it's due to a combination of surprise and numbers and possibly iterative attacks. Being able to dog pile a single opponent with all of the advantages of surprise and with full attack sequences is a massacre.

Thx!

TOmB

 

[howandwhy99]

I don't know how best to run solos in 5e, but here's my thinking.

Lone creatures wandering for food, safety, mates, maybe supplies or under orders for more intelligent ones, they all are far less safe than creatures traveling in packs. It doesn't matter if they are kobolds or beholders, they are weaker alone then with allies. That's a pretty big part of the game.

Some creatures have capabilities that lend specific strategies to them for how they engage in combat. So some of these, like the beholder above, are more adept at attacking groups of creatures than single ones. Beholders actually cannot bring all their numerous attacks around onto one creature. OTOH they are very difficult to sneak up on, flank, gang tackle, attack from encircling, attack via flight, attack with magic, pit traps, and many other strategies. A lone kobold is a jittery creature indeed. (They're 2' tall next to your human) They not only work in packs, but also by ambushing.

Covert attacks, like assassinations, backstabs, ambushes, shadowing through the dungeon, attacking only when a group has let it's guard down (no watches, running injured, weakened from other effects, falling in a pre-set trap, made foolish choices, etc.) are how most lone creatures behave. Loners by Alignment are Neutrals, go your own way. And attacking a group of PCs (who used to have quite a few retainers on hand) isn't smart when Throg the barbarian doesn't have a clan of his own to help him. So even an ambush on a creature that leaves the group for a moment must be done quickly and quietly or the others will come and kill Throg. Another reason for the attack than Throg is even better ("he fell off a cliff", "drank all those potions at once, but why?", etc.)

Big bad solo creatures like Dragons tend to be loners who can take all comers.
Sneaky types tend to have abilities to support their best tactics (even Throg's tracking ability and fast movement count)
Magic-types solo badly, but really should be avoiding combats at all cost for the sake of the magic they seek.

A lone 1st level evil Magic-User in a dungeon is hiding somewhere. Almost guaranteed. How they operate is via magic. They explore, defend themselves, and even attack using magical spells, items, and the magic of the dungeon around them. Think: boss creatures, as they have the ability to control their environment (including other monsters) more than anyone else. Not boss creature because they must be some BBEG (big bad end guy) so much tougher than anyone else. They use environments with A LOT of forethought (just like selecting spells) to attain their goals. So a necromancer's lair is as dangerous as a mindflayers and both are ambushing you as a last result with the big cannons before fleeing (like teleporting) better than anyone else.

Lone Fighters and Clerics are going to be acting with the above strategies too at times depending. Except some combat will be easier and also some communicating respectively.

 

[sidonunspa]

in my experience the best way to do one monster vs. a party depends on the type of encounter you want.

if it's just a monster/random encounter.. let the heroes have their way.

for a special story hook/epic fight, give the solo creature more actions, each action has it's own initiative, maybe give them a reaction like action once per round.

for example, if the heroes are fighting a wizard, have the wizard use some unique spell which "summons" phantasmal beholder eyes which attack on their own, or have him use some one shot magic item to summon an earth elemental, or have some cast a spell which allows his sword to "dance"

fighter types become more problematic because of their limited resources; but you can have him use the area around him, use columns for defense, or fight in an area where he can split up the party with a gate or something, maybe giving him a "haste like" effect,

Maybe, add an event to the combat? Maybe the heroes need to save someone AS they fight the big bad? maybe they need to shatter some gems? the wizard needs to cast a counter ritual to free the guy they are fighting from demonic position?

 

[Rhenny]

Lots of good ideas in this thread.

Another strategy that works well in 5e is having the boss/solo guy hide behind other forces and pop out on his turn to zap the party...then hide behind something again.

When I ran a 3rd or 4th level playtest earlier in the playtest, I had an evil cleric hide behind a pillar and step out to cause wounds while the party was fighting with an orc warrior and his 3 buddies. The party could not get to the cleric until they dealt with the orc warrior and his 3 buddies so the evil cleric lasted longer and did some damage to the PCs. Adding hp to the orc warrior and the cleric also helped..hehehe.

Also, in today's Q&A Rodney Thompson mentioned that the monsters in the final release were made stronger, especially ones that were intended to fight 5th level and above (when some PCs get multiple attacks). I think the new batch will play much more deadly than the ones we've used in the playtest.

 

[Rhenny]

So use the 4e solution? Going to the original scenario - PCs ambushing a monster is often hugely beneficial - try it with the wyvern ambushing the PCs - fly in grab a PC & fly off with them at a slow pace as he's weighed down. The other PCs have to rush to keep up & will waste actions trying to do so. (or just fly a few hundred feet up drop repeat - probably not the most fun).

Ohh...this reminds me of an encounter I ran in one of my games where one PC was grabbed by an albino crocodile while they were exploring the underdark. The croc grabbed the PC and dragged him into a pool of water. The others were going crazy trying to grab for their companion and trying to harm the croc before it dove too far under water. The grabbed PC was trying to break free and also hold his breath. He realized that if the others could not kill the croc in a few rounds, he'd be deep in the pool beginning to drown (if the auto bit from the croc didn't kill him first). They did manage to save their comrade in a few rounds, but the outcome was not assured.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Well, sometimes a well-planned party attack goes that way and it should be allowed to play out.

I do find, though, that solo monsters are a bit of a challenge regardless of edition, in part because of actions available -- the party just gets a lot more actions in for every action the monster can take.

There's some good advice earlier in the thread (add low levels, increase defenses, etc); here's a suggestion to improve action options:

1. Allow the monster to act on multiple initiative counts. Either roll initiative twice, or select spots early and late in the round, bracketed by PC actions.
2. For a really dangerous fight, allow the monster's full range of attacks on each initiative, so that the monster is effectively acting twice per round.
3. For challenging, but more on par, fights, split the monster's attack routine into the two initiative counts. So for example if the normal attack routine is a claw/claw/bite, the two claw attacks go on initiative #1 in the round, and the bite goes on initiative #2. Never have the monster use the same attacks or abilities twice in the same round this way (obviously this works best for a solo that has multiple ways to attack).
4. For a less challenging fight, do attacks on one initiative and movement on the second initiative (or vice versa). This way the monster is at least less pinned down.