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Message: <blockquote data-quote="coyote6" data-source="post: 4815921" data-attributes="member: 1225">Ouch, that'll be harsh. On the Atomic Think Tank, Elric has posted some ideas for rough sort-of "encounter level" mechanism that might give you some idea. Unfortunately, I can't get to ATT at the moment, and don't remember the thread(s). I will try to look later this weekend, or maybe Elric will pop by.Some things to keep in mind, in the meantime: If you set the villain's PL high enough that it can survive a couple of rounds against PCs working together, you run the risk of the bad guy being too frustratingly powerful on offense ("uh, he hits you -- roll a 20 or be Staggered"). OTOH, having to possibly make up to seven saves a round means there's a very good chance of a bad die roll, so you do want his defensive capabilities to be at least a bit buffed.I like to have the big bad solo villains Toughness-shifted -- that way PCs can hit (and avoid the "whiff factor" frustration), and maybe wear down his Toughness, while he can better take a couple of combined attacks. Of course, if the players pick up on the possibilities from combining attacks & aid another, they may be capable of surprising levels of beatdown, especially with seven of 'em (that's +12 damage if they were all able to hit on a combined attack!). So you don't want to shift too much, and you do want his defensive PL fairly high. Say, if he's PL11, maybe Def +9, Tough +13.You may also want the villain's offensive capabilities to not be maxed out, PL-wise, in order to avoid one-shotting people too easily. At the same time, the fact that he only gets one action per round vs. the PCs' 7 will make it hard on him. D&D4e's solo monsters, IIRC, tend to have special ways to attack more times than normal monsters, for much the same reasons. You might want to consider ways to do similar things -- e.g,. selective targeted area attacks, colored as appropriate (maybe using two weapons [or more, with a Dr. Octopus-style villain], punching-and-kicking a la Spider-Man, autofire weapons, whatever), so he can whack a few people. Or even do the evil, not-recommended-by-the-rules thing, and give him some kind of attack that uses a move or free action; that way he can pummel a couple-three folks every round. You probably don't want to have him hit everybody every round; you run the risk him stunning the whole group every round, which wouldn't be terribly fun. So, I might go PL11-12 defensively, leaning towards Toughness, and PL9 or so offensively, with some mix of selective targeted area attacks (if they make sense), regular attacks, and maybe a couple of smaller (say, rank 7) attacks as free or move actions. Another option -- go full-PL on offense, but make sure he has Split Attack on every attack, and has Power Attack, and use the combination on every attack. So, Attack +11, Damage +11, power attack for 4, and split the damage amongst two or three targets. That's a little less evil than move or free action attacks.</blockquote>

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