Rule-of-Three: 03-27-12

[Majoru Oakheart]

From what I have seen, it's highly likely that "Solo" won't exist as a monster type. Any monster that outlevels the party by a certain margin will be usable as a solo encounter... and, as the party grows in power, the same monster will become equivalent to a 4E elite, then a standard, and eventually a minion. This makes it hard to implement your solution (unless you create a rule saying "every body is immune to X conditions imposed from enemies N levels lower). On the other hand, having monsters remain playable throughout a much wider level range is very cool feature.

Actually, they've made at least one point insinuating the opposite of this. They said they didn't like using the word "solo" but that certain monsters would always be meant to be used by themselves against a group while others were meant to be used in multiples. They said the game would continue to have monsters meant to be used solo...and that they'd be called out as such...but likely wouldn't be called "solos".

So, basically, there will still be solos...they just won't be called solos.

It would be very difficult if not impossible for a 10th level monster who lasts 3 rounds against 5 PCs at 10th level to only last 3 rounds against one PC at 15th level while still having monsters being used in a larger level range. And to have the damage output of the monster be correct at both levels.

Essentially, you NEED to have solos and elites for the math to work out correctly. Though, as I said above, it's likely they won't call them that, since 5e appears to be the edition of "Let's use 4e ideas, but remove the names from them so people don't get scared off."