Solo or Horde in D&D3

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I've seen mention of this apparently "new" concept in D&D game design: combats are "no longer against just single enemies." I've seen this mentioned by the WotC game designers, I've seen it mentioned here, and I've had a friend recently mention it when we were discussing encounter design concepts.

I find the idea that this is a new concept to be odd. So I'm curious if I'm the only DM who regularly designed D&D encounters with multiple enemies.

The only times I've "regularly" designed D&D encounters with single enemies is when the group of PCs numbers less than 4. (Few PCs suffer more from being outnumbered.)

So, as a DM, when you make a [pre 4th edition] D&D encounter, do you regularly (more than half the time) use one monster?

Bullgrit
Total Bullgrit

In 3.x, I used a few monsters at a time. I wanted to use dragons as solos, but it rarely worked.

Using a large number of monsters just resulted in drawn out combats (too many dice rolls). Minions do the trick nicely.

 

[Obryn]

I normally ran with monster groups, but usually multiples of the same general kind with one "boss" monster.

4e makes it much, much easier to run bigger fights with wider varieties, and gives much more helpful advice for balancing said encounters.

-O

 

[blargney the second]

I learned a long time ago never to run solo monsters in any game.

 

[mmu1]

I'd say I used only one monster in maybe 10% of the D&D 3E/3.5 combats I ran, if that.

Every time I did, it was literally a monster - I don't even remember the last time I ran a combat involving a single humanoid NPC vs. the party.

I'd say at least 50% of the combats I ran would have 5 enemies or more.

 

[StreamOfTheSky]

Most of my BBEG's are actually duos or trios, sometimes with extra helpers as well. I find even just splitting the PCs' attention two ways can be enough to extend an encounter out to a meaningful length. In fact, final battle or not, about the only times I run solo ad guys is when the situation makes it impossible to just gang up on and kill him, like a flying Yrthak, or a displaced, mirror-imaged, fire shielded mage.

 

[pawsplay]

The only solos I used were +4 or +5 CR boss monsters.

 

[garyh]

I normally ran with monster groups, but usually multiples of the same general kind with one "boss" monster.

4e makes it much, much easier to run bigger fights with wider varieties, and gives much more helpful advice for balancing said encounters.

-O

This. I could never figure out how to balance an encounter in 3.x with different enemy types, so typically my players ran into rooms full of lots of the same thing. I love that 4e is such a big help with how to make a balanced encounter using a variety of enemies.

 

[Jhaelen]

I learned a long time ago never to run solo monsters in any game.

Well, in some systems they work.
For example in Earthdawn an encounter with one of the Horrors will always be challenging even with a standard party of 5-8 players. The reason is that Horrors get
- action points (= karma dice)
- multiple actions per turn (both melee and spellcasting)
- access to complete spell lists
- a marking mechanism to affect players from an almost unlimited range (until the Horror in question is slain)

You'll notice that several of these are also true for 4E solo monsters - no coincidence, I'd say.

 

[Phlebas]

almost always multiple's and 50/50 different types (using the double the number = + 2 CR rule to eyeball the right qty)

only lesson i learnt early on was to make sure the mooks were either pretty similar to each other (or from my list of pregenerated rogues / warriors / orcs) and had minimal SA's to worry about

some combats did take a while, but they were always epic battles over several rooms / streets and allowed the party / group to use tactics other than surround and puree...to be honest it took longer to move the counters about than to roll the attacks normally.

mind you our group now reckon we can get through at least 5 different combats in an evening session without feeling rushed or ignoring the RP.

one thing i've only just realised - in our group we tend to leave the mooks to the fighter type while the ranger / rogue / artillery try to pin down the BBEG until the fighter arrives to finish things of. with 4E minions having only 1hp theres no advantage to the fighter mowing through them so i guess they're left to the support cast?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I ended up usually using more then one monster, but I can't speak of hordes, because they are often to weak for the amount of headache they can give me if I want to manage them.

Running KotS last Friday, I noticed that without Minions, horde encounters would be nearly impossible to manage. Or no, they would quite certainly be possible to manage, but the kind of work would probably suck the fun out of running the encounter. Tracking hit points might be one of the easiest things to do in D&D, but if you have to do it for 13 monsters, even that becomes difficult, especially when managing positions.