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Message: <blockquote data-quote="eamon" data-source="post: 5292247" data-attributes="member: 51942">To those that don't understand my objections to solo's:You're focusing on the fact that it is possible to balance solo's mechanically.  As I said, this is not the issue and indeed clearly possible.  Also, the boss monster concept looks well executed from a mechanical point of view - enough variety, combats that don't take forever, etc.My complaint rests with the fact not that its impossible to make up mechanics that are balanced - it is that for many creatures any such mechanics inevitable become largely dissociated from the flavor and thereby unfortunately turn the game largely into rollplay rather than roleplay.  Not necessarily all solo's suffer from this schism, but most currently printed solos do - and newer style solo's such as MM3 or this boss monster can make that schism even wider.If I see two monsters of similar fluff-fighting-style and power, I expect similar mechanics.  If mechanics are similar, I expect the fluff-fighting-style to be similar.  Doing otherwise renders the fluff irrelevant; at the table people will speak of it less and when writing up characters they will focus less on it.  I see this in happening my 4e games to some extent already.The problem isn't that the solo mechanics are bad - its that the fluff to back it up is usually nonexistant.  The mechanics of solo's are so similar, that means the creatures in-game descriptions of their capabilities are necessarily going to be more similar that a solo ogre would be to a standard ogre - yet that's odd, because there's usually no in-game reason for that distinction.  Finally it's instinctively obvious to anyone playing the game that the reasons are purely metagame.Having purely meta-game reasons pushed in your face like that degrades from the drama of the situation.If you place a single, confident looking hobgoblin in front of the PC's, do you expect your players to use ongoing damage powers as eagerly as usual?  It's going to be utterly obvious to everyone if not immediately then very quickly that this is a solo and then in the minds of the player's they will not be fighting a hobgoblin - but a solo; and that means they'll expect the save bonus even if they've no means of knowing of it.  They'll expect more attacks a round without in-game motivation.  They'll expect more hitpoints that usual for a creature of its defenses.  Once things like boss-monsters and new-style solos become standard, they'll expect things like stun's and dazes to end earlier than they should or work only incompletely.Solos teach players to ignore in-game logic and consistency and focus on the meta-game.  They're not good for the game if overused, and the current focus of the solo discussions here and the solo developments by wizards and TheAngryDM are risky because they focus solely on fixing mechanics without regard for in-game consistency and logic - and thus may lead DM's to do the same.So, I'm not saying that better mechanics are necessarily a problem, I'm saying that we shouldn't lose sight of the forest for the trees.  The game I'm playing should deserve the name D&D rather than d20.  Most solo mechanics don't make sense in-game, and it's a problem to me at the very least.So</blockquote>

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