The http://www.enworld.org/forum/d-d-4th-edition-rules/253587-d-d-solos-just-not-threatening.html thread in the Rules Forum had me thinking about a major design problems with solos: debuff effects (Stun, Daze, Weaken, attack penalties etc.) effect a solo very similarly to non-solos, but their impact is far greater because a solo is meant to count as five regular monsters.
Here’s a house rule meant to fix that, and then I’ll launch into a long explanation of the problem and how I arrived at this solution: solos get +2 to saves, not +5, but make saves at the start of their turn, after taking ongoing damage, rather than the end of their turn. Solos can also make saves against “until end of next turn” effects (either “your next turn” or “the monster’s next turn” type effects).
Update: note that I've got a lot of suggestions different from this one at other points in the thread. See this post, for example.
Though I call this a house rule, you don't have to think of it as such. It could also be creating a specific ability, called, say, Tough as Nails, that gives solos additional defenses against these type of effects, and adding that same ability to every solo.
Solos get a +5 bonus to saves in the rules as written, but this helps only a little bit, for two reasons. First, no matter what a creature's bonus to saves are, it still will be effected for at least a round (compared to a normal monster which still averages under two rounds being affected by a save-ends effect). Second, there are plenty of "until the end of your next turn" effects that do not interact with the save mechanic. At higher levels, a party can have many such powers.
The basic math, in the game as written:
A normal monster hit by a save ends effect is affected for 1 round, and then has a 55% chance of being no longer effected, and a 45% chance to have the effect continue. In the later case, you’re back where you started. So letting E be the expected (average) number of rounds on its own turn that the save-ends effect lasts for, E= 1+ 0.45*E + 0.55*0. So E= 1.82.
Similarly, an elite monster has expected rounds=1.54. However, since an elite monster counts as two monsters, weighting by two gives a “monster-equivalent rounds affected” of 3.08.
A solo has expected rounds=1.25. Since a solo monster counts as 5 monsters, weighting by 5 gives a “monster-equivalent rounds affected” of 6.25.
I’ll assume for the purposes of this thread that save-ends and until end of next turn type effects don’t cause major gameplay issues when applied to elites, meaning that elites don’t need a house rule fix and also that if solos had a “normal monster equivalent rounds” of around 3, where elites are, that this would be manageable.
Edit: I should note that a solo's offense shouldn't be 5x that of a normal monster's offense by default. See the posts later in this thread, here or here. Since status conditions primarily affect monster offense, treating a solo as 5 monster equivalents seems too high here. However, note that in MM2 WotC has shifted solo design towards more offense and less defense than before; MM2 solos seem to be about 4 normal monster equivalents both offensively and defensively.
WotC had the right idea with the rules for deities (very high level solos like Tiamat and Vecna), giving deities an immediate save to end conditions. This makes it so a deity is affected for less than one round on average, by a save-ends effect. However, this is too strong of a fix for normal solos. Two reasons: first, it prevents characters from taking any advantage from an ability most of the time (a grant combat advantage effect, for example, isn’t unbalancing to have last until the solo’s turn), and second, it decreases the “normal monster equivalent rounds” to 1.25, since 80% of the time the effect ends immediately and 20% of the time you proceed as normal for a solo. That means that “monster equivalent rounds affected” are lower for solos than they are for normal monsters, and much lower than for elites. If you had solos save at the start of their rounds, and kept the +5 bonus to saves, you'd avoid the first part of this but still end up with the second part.
With my proposed fix, a solo has a 65% chance to be affected for 0 rounds by a save-ends effect, and a 35% chance to be affected for one round, and be back to where it started. So the average number of rounds affected is E=0.35(1+E), or E=0.54, which gives “monster equivalent rounds affected” of 2.69. That seems much more reasonable than the 6.25 figure in the core rules, and is a bit less than the 3.08 figure for elites above.
For an “until end of next turn” effect, a solo now has a 0.35 chance to be affected, and is worth 5 monsters, giving a 1.75 “monster equivalent rounds affected.” Compared to an elite in the RAW, which is affected for 1 round and counts as 2 monsters, for 2 “monster equivalent rounds”, this is again comparable.
Some issues that could arise: A solo's save ability should work like the Warden's Font of Life: if they shake off a stun, they can take actions normally, with the exception as given above for ongoing damage.
There are many until end of next turn effects out there, and some may be unnecessarily weakened by this change. For example, a fighter’s mark and a warden’s mark are until end of next turn effects, while a Paladin’s mark and a Swordmage’s mark are not. So this would change the relative efficacy of defender marks used on solos.
You could create an exception to shaking off marks in one direction or another (either giving the solo a chance to shake off all marks, regardless of duration, with a save, or making it so that solos couldn’t shake off any marks in this fashion), but that would add complication.
Players might feel that their abilities have been overly nerfed. However, it’s hard to see a fix smaller than this one that leaves solos appropriately threatening. You could implement this change and give solos no bonuses to saves. That would leave them at 4.09 “monster equivalent rounds affected”, and might make debuffs on solos still too strong. It also has the slightly strange property that solos have a smaller bonus to saves than elites. Fixes that rely on altering a subset of conditions affecting solos (e.g., Stunned and Dominated become Dazed; solos ignore Dazed) seem generally unworkable, since they require too many specific rules and will be too hard to use in practice.
This change makes ongoing damage more potent against solos than it used to be. I see this one as a positive. It seemed to me like ongoing damage was overly nerfed by a solo’s saving throw bonus, as damage isn’t more effective against solos but the duration was decreased by a solo’s saving throw bonus. This will increase the value of certain dailies accordingly.
Without the +5 bonus to saves, static save penalties like the Orb of Imposition become even stronger. This would definitely be a problem, except that these abilities should get house-ruled anyway, because they're way too strong. My fix for the Orb seems like a common one: Orb of imposition’s save penalty power is a free action you can use only once per encounter, but you can choose to apply it after the relevant saving throw roll has already been made. The AV items that grant save penalties also need to be changed in general.
Lastly, solos might become too strong under this house rule. As people have reported some grind when using solos, a solution here could be to decrease solo hit points by a set percentage, say, 10-20%, so that solos become less of a threat than they would otherwise be under this change, and combats run faster.
Thoughts?
Here’s a house rule meant to fix that, and then I’ll launch into a long explanation of the problem and how I arrived at this solution: solos get +2 to saves, not +5, but make saves at the start of their turn, after taking ongoing damage, rather than the end of their turn. Solos can also make saves against “until end of next turn” effects (either “your next turn” or “the monster’s next turn” type effects).
Update: note that I've got a lot of suggestions different from this one at other points in the thread. See this post, for example.
Though I call this a house rule, you don't have to think of it as such. It could also be creating a specific ability, called, say, Tough as Nails, that gives solos additional defenses against these type of effects, and adding that same ability to every solo.
Solos get a +5 bonus to saves in the rules as written, but this helps only a little bit, for two reasons. First, no matter what a creature's bonus to saves are, it still will be effected for at least a round (compared to a normal monster which still averages under two rounds being affected by a save-ends effect). Second, there are plenty of "until the end of your next turn" effects that do not interact with the save mechanic. At higher levels, a party can have many such powers.
The basic math, in the game as written:
A normal monster hit by a save ends effect is affected for 1 round, and then has a 55% chance of being no longer effected, and a 45% chance to have the effect continue. In the later case, you’re back where you started. So letting E be the expected (average) number of rounds on its own turn that the save-ends effect lasts for, E= 1+ 0.45*E + 0.55*0. So E= 1.82.
Similarly, an elite monster has expected rounds=1.54. However, since an elite monster counts as two monsters, weighting by two gives a “monster-equivalent rounds affected” of 3.08.
A solo has expected rounds=1.25. Since a solo monster counts as 5 monsters, weighting by 5 gives a “monster-equivalent rounds affected” of 6.25.
I’ll assume for the purposes of this thread that save-ends and until end of next turn type effects don’t cause major gameplay issues when applied to elites, meaning that elites don’t need a house rule fix and also that if solos had a “normal monster equivalent rounds” of around 3, where elites are, that this would be manageable.
Edit: I should note that a solo's offense shouldn't be 5x that of a normal monster's offense by default. See the posts later in this thread, here or here. Since status conditions primarily affect monster offense, treating a solo as 5 monster equivalents seems too high here. However, note that in MM2 WotC has shifted solo design towards more offense and less defense than before; MM2 solos seem to be about 4 normal monster equivalents both offensively and defensively.
WotC had the right idea with the rules for deities (very high level solos like Tiamat and Vecna), giving deities an immediate save to end conditions. This makes it so a deity is affected for less than one round on average, by a save-ends effect. However, this is too strong of a fix for normal solos. Two reasons: first, it prevents characters from taking any advantage from an ability most of the time (a grant combat advantage effect, for example, isn’t unbalancing to have last until the solo’s turn), and second, it decreases the “normal monster equivalent rounds” to 1.25, since 80% of the time the effect ends immediately and 20% of the time you proceed as normal for a solo. That means that “monster equivalent rounds affected” are lower for solos than they are for normal monsters, and much lower than for elites. If you had solos save at the start of their rounds, and kept the +5 bonus to saves, you'd avoid the first part of this but still end up with the second part.
With my proposed fix, a solo has a 65% chance to be affected for 0 rounds by a save-ends effect, and a 35% chance to be affected for one round, and be back to where it started. So the average number of rounds affected is E=0.35(1+E), or E=0.54, which gives “monster equivalent rounds affected” of 2.69. That seems much more reasonable than the 6.25 figure in the core rules, and is a bit less than the 3.08 figure for elites above.
For an “until end of next turn” effect, a solo now has a 0.35 chance to be affected, and is worth 5 monsters, giving a 1.75 “monster equivalent rounds affected.” Compared to an elite in the RAW, which is affected for 1 round and counts as 2 monsters, for 2 “monster equivalent rounds”, this is again comparable.
Some issues that could arise: A solo's save ability should work like the Warden's Font of Life: if they shake off a stun, they can take actions normally, with the exception as given above for ongoing damage.
There are many until end of next turn effects out there, and some may be unnecessarily weakened by this change. For example, a fighter’s mark and a warden’s mark are until end of next turn effects, while a Paladin’s mark and a Swordmage’s mark are not. So this would change the relative efficacy of defender marks used on solos.
You could create an exception to shaking off marks in one direction or another (either giving the solo a chance to shake off all marks, regardless of duration, with a save, or making it so that solos couldn’t shake off any marks in this fashion), but that would add complication.
Players might feel that their abilities have been overly nerfed. However, it’s hard to see a fix smaller than this one that leaves solos appropriately threatening. You could implement this change and give solos no bonuses to saves. That would leave them at 4.09 “monster equivalent rounds affected”, and might make debuffs on solos still too strong. It also has the slightly strange property that solos have a smaller bonus to saves than elites. Fixes that rely on altering a subset of conditions affecting solos (e.g., Stunned and Dominated become Dazed; solos ignore Dazed) seem generally unworkable, since they require too many specific rules and will be too hard to use in practice.
This change makes ongoing damage more potent against solos than it used to be. I see this one as a positive. It seemed to me like ongoing damage was overly nerfed by a solo’s saving throw bonus, as damage isn’t more effective against solos but the duration was decreased by a solo’s saving throw bonus. This will increase the value of certain dailies accordingly.
Without the +5 bonus to saves, static save penalties like the Orb of Imposition become even stronger. This would definitely be a problem, except that these abilities should get house-ruled anyway, because they're way too strong. My fix for the Orb seems like a common one: Orb of imposition’s save penalty power is a free action you can use only once per encounter, but you can choose to apply it after the relevant saving throw roll has already been made. The AV items that grant save penalties also need to be changed in general.
Lastly, solos might become too strong under this house rule. As people have reported some grind when using solos, a solution here could be to decrease solo hit points by a set percentage, say, 10-20%, so that solos become less of a threat than they would otherwise be under this change, and combats run faster.
Thoughts?
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