Stacking penalties, solos, and . . . *sigh* sadness. :(

[MrBeens]

We have found that solos work better when they are not on their own.
We use solos of about the party level with a bunch of other monsters. Much better fights.

 

[Mesh Hong]

From experience I would say that a true solo (one by itself) should be 3 levels above the party to constitute any real threat. At this level it can take a little debuffing and still maintain a reasonable chance of consistantly hitting.

Once you get to Paragon tier every Solo should be designed with one eye on removing status effects. Care should be taken to make them thematic or reasonable for the creature in question, depending on their power these anti-status effect abilities should also have a draw back.

possible examples:
Minor action: creature deals itself 30 damage to remove any 1 status effect

Free action: creature gains a saving throw against any 1 status effect but takes a -4 penalty to attack rolls until the start of its next turn

Standard action: creature makes an attack vs. Will or Fortitude; on hit it deals [medium expression] damage and transfers any 1 status effect from itself to the target

Immediate interrupt (when targetted by a stun effect): creature makes an attack vs. Reflex or Will against attacker; on hit both creature and attacker takes half damage and full effect of the stun, if either party breaks the stun both are released

 

[Nebulous]

From experience I would say that a true solo (one by itself) should be 3 levels above the party to constitute any real threat. At this level it can take a little debuffing and still maintain a reasonable chance of consistantly hitting.

Once you get to Paragon tier every Solo should be designed with one eye on removing status effects. Care should be taken to make them thematic or reasonable for the creature in question, depending on their power these anti-status effect abilities should also have a draw back.

possible examples:
Minor action: creature deals itself 30 damage to remove any 1 status effect

Free action: creature gains a saving throw against any 1 status effect but takes a -4 penalty to attack rolls until the start of its next turn

Standard action: creature makes an attack vs. Will or Fortitude; on hit it deals [medium expression] damage and transfers any 1 status effect from itself to the target

Immediate interrupt (when targetted by a stun effect): creature makes an attack vs. Reflex or Will against attacker; on hit both creature and attacker takes half damage and full effect of the stun, if either party breaks the stun both are released

Hey, some nice ideas there. Thematically describing how these conditions are transfered back to the hero might be a little tricky, but i'm sure it can be done. Of course "it's magical" is a good catchall for just about anything.

 

[Eric Finley]

If it's either pseudo-Warlock or pseudo-Spellscarred they actually have powers which do exactly this, so it's no stretch at all. I like the interrupt one, though - that's a good idea.

 

[Josep]

In my games, we're working with a rough house rule of typing penalties:
Power: A penalty inflicted by a power (e.g. Illusionary Ambush)
Mark: A mark
Feat: A penalty inflicted by a feat (e.g. Psychic Lock)
Item: Item inflicted penalties

So far, this scheme has worked pretty well to make sure that the Bard (Vicious Mockery), the Wizard (Illusionary Ambush), and the Paladin (Enfeebling Strike) aren't all stacking penalties on the marked creature.

 

[IanB]

I think when it comes to penalties, only the greatest penalty should apply. None of this Vicious Mockery (bard) + Maze of Mirrors + Psychic Lock (illusionist) + Ride the Giant Down + mark (warden/giant slayer).

Yes, I checked with my players, and that actually was all active on the dragon one round. It ended up being -11 to the first attack roll, -9 thereafter, with an extra -2 if I attacked someone who wasn't the warden.

But since my dragon got away, and is supposed to be a powerful necromancer/sorcerer, I intend to have some fun. The party will probably wait at least half an hour so they can sit down and cure disease on the two PCs who have "djinni's leprosy" (mummy rot), which gives me time for the dragon to set up a hallucinatory creature version of himself to draw out at least a few attacks.

If the party withdraws to take an extended rest, well, I'll just have fun. Don't mess with cursed desert necromancers.

Balance-wise I think you have to let mark stack with everything; otherwise it will really impair defenders from doing their job.

There's also enough things that apply attack penalties that not allowing at least some sort of stacking will mean that parties can gimp themselves if they don't coordinate their power choices, something that I would worry about at least a litle. My power/feat/item keyword idea doesn't solve this either, though.

 

[RangerWickett]

In my games, we're working with a rough house rule of typing penalties:
Power: A penalty inflicted by a power (e.g. Illusionary Ambush)
Mark: A mark
Feat: A penalty inflicted by a feat (e.g. Psychic Lock)
Item: Item inflicted penalties

So far, this scheme has worked pretty well to make sure that the Bard (Vicious Mockery), the Wizard (Illusionary Ambush), and the Paladin (Enfeebling Strike) aren't all stacking penalties on the marked creature.

I like this. But what sorts of items inflict penalties? Like Cloak of Displacement providing a penalty to ranged attacks? I guess it makes sense.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

I feel your pain, dude. I hand crafted this monstrosity 8th-level solo for my 5th or 6th level party (been a while, can't remember). It was The Gnoll Queen, she rode a cacklefiend hyena and had 2 of those level 5 or 6-ish gnoll soldiers helping her. Hitting for around 4d6 + 12 or something obscene. 6 PC's. This fight was supposed to be the hardest thing they've ever encountered.

And...it was a total flop. The PCs did everything right, only one person in the entire fight missed with one attack; everyone else hit every single time. It was completely amazing (and unfair). I've never seen such a string of incredible rolls. In the first round, she got blown off of her mount and pushed a few squares where she got locked down and tanked by the pally, and everyone else butchered the mount in that round. At that point I knew what was going to happen.

I had some siege engines on fire as scenery that I wanted her to use to throw PCs into. Turns out, she was the one getting thrown into them and held there while stunned or dazed, marked, immobilized, slowed, etc. It was awful. I was irritated with its ineffectiveness, and all the players said "meh" when it was over, because they were expecting a really hard fight.

I hope these new solo design guidelines help things.

 

[cstyln]

anyone know a specific page # on the rules of stacking -'s

I found page 275 in phb1 but the rules are a bit vauge, any other page info would be helpful.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I feel your pain, dude. I hand crafted this monstrosity 8th-level solo for my 5th or 6th level party (been a while, can't remember). It was The Gnoll Queen, she rode a cacklefiend hyena and had 2 of those level 5 or 6-ish gnoll soldiers helping her. Hitting for around 4d6 + 12 or something obscene. 6 PC's. This fight was supposed to be the hardest thing they've ever encountered.

And...it was a total flop.

Ah that brings back memories of when my party just hit level 11 before what I thought was going to be a tense and increadibly dangerous fight against a Solo Mummy who could dish out brutal damage and had an aura that halved healing effects. I thought the encounter was strong enough to probably see half the group below zero HPs at some point and I was ready to actually see a PC death.

Then Certain Justice makes a surprise appearance and the encounter becomes completely trivial.

I learnt a valuable lesson that day about PC power jumps between tiers of play.

I also discussed Certain Justice with my players and we changed its duration to until the end of next turn from as long as you maintain the challenge.

I had some siege engines on fire as scenery that I wanted her to use to throw PCs into. Turns out, she was the one getting thrown into them and held there while stunned or dazed, marked, immobilized, slowed, etc. It was awful.

Again I have learnt to alway assume that the monsters are going to be equally affected by any special terrain in the encounter. Actually I like it when my PCs push the monsters down their own pits or into their own traps. It helps to build a reasonable dialogue during the fight as the leaders desperately try and concentrate on the most dangerous threats while individual creatures try and get their revenge on their own personal targets.

I hope these new solo design guidelines help things.

I doubt it, my advice would be to construct all monsters yourself as a proper challange to your party. (But then I would say that because that is what I actually do).