D&D 4E The grindyness of 4e combat: anyone tried a solo monster yet?

[gribble]

Each player has some choice in which at will attacks it will use

Actually, in my experience with 4e this is a complete fallacy. In almost every situation I've run/played a PC usually only has one at will that is worth using (if that - I sometimes find that in practice the at-wills are no better than a basic attack).

Take the fight above with the Galeb Duhr and Bulette - which at-will powers would you expect to see the PCs using?
I'd expect the warlock to be spamming eldritch blast, the ranger to be spamming twin strike, the fighter would probably be using tide of iron (little better than a basic attack unless there was somewhere useful to push one of the creatures), the wizard probably magic missile (if he had it) or else scorching burst (and only hitting one of the creatures), etc...

 

[the Jester]

I ran a 1st-level solo against my party. It was this guy:

ORCISH MURDERER--- Level 1 Solo Skirmisher
Medium natural humanoid--- XP 500
---
Initiative +2; Senses Perception +2, low-light vision
HP 124; Bloodied 62
AC 17 (19 vs. the first attack of the encounter); Fortitude 15; Reflex 16; Will 15
Saving Throws +5
Speed 8
Action Points 2
---
[Melee basic] Greataxe (standard; at will) Weapon: +6 vs. AC; 1d12+3 damage (crit 1d12+15) plus target is pushed 1 square.

[Ranged basic] Throwing Axe (standard; at will) Weapon: Range 5/10; +6 vs. AC; 1d6+3 damage.

[Melee] Murderous Blow (standard; recharges when first bloodied) Weapon: +6 vs. AC; 2d10+3 damage plus ongoing 5 damage (save ends) and target is pushed 2 squares.

[Melee] Warrior’s Surge (standard; usable only while bloodied; encounter) Healing, Weapon: The orcish murderer makes a melee basic attack and regains 31 hp.

[Ranged] Mark Victim (minor; at will): Range 6; the target is marked. Any time the orcish murderer hits the marked victim, it deals an extra 5 points of damage to it. The orcish murderer can only have one victim marked at a time.

Murderous Flurry (standard; at will) Weapon: The orcish murderer makes two basic attacks. If both hit the same target, it also takes ongoing 5 damage (save ends).
---
Alignment chaotic evil; Languages Common, Giant
Skills Endurance, Intimidate
Str 17; Dex 15; Wis 14
Con 15; Int 8; Cha 9
---
Equipment leather darkleaf armor (level 4; +2 AC against first attack each encounter), greataxe, 4 throwing axes

He took six rounds to kill. The party had seven pcs in that fight, so he had two guard drakes with him.

 

[Montague68]

So far, my group's had a lot of trouble getting one more combat in a five-hour session. Everything other than a minion takes a metric ton of damage to bring down, and things get much worse if an elite comes into the fray.

My last encounter was three 10th-level characters pitted against a galeb duhr and a bulette. It was only a 1400 XP encounter (not quite even 10th level) but the party still wound up giving up on the bulette and leaving. They weren't too badly hurt, they were just bored with trying to deal 204 points of damage after having exhausted the galeb duhr's 111. Once they ran out of encounter powers, they were blowing dailies just to have an alternative to the monotony of mashing at-will hotkeys. It reminded me much of the podcast with the party trying to take down the mind flayer, rakshasas, and minotaur.

So, I'm looking in the monster manual and reviewing solo monsters. Man, those things look like they'd take forever just to bloody. Has anybody tried one yet?

255 points of damage. Bulettes get a second wind.

My speculation: You threw a high AC, high HP Skirmisher paired with a Controller, both of which generate large amounts of difficult terrain, against a 3 person party with 2 meleers. Hilarity ensues.

With a small party you have to adjust the monsters accordingly, that concept hasn't changed since AD&D.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Assassin's Point (Rogue 29 Daily, Standard)
7W & x2 Sneak Attack & Critical damage.

Open with knockout, then action point to make the attack with a vicious katar as a coup-de-grace.

That means you're hitting for the same amount with your weapon, but your bonuses are 6d12 * 2 (vicious), plus 3d6 * 2, average 88.5 instead of the 39.4 of a frost dagger with lasting frost.

Um, anyway.

An average of 10 points per round sounds quite low for a striker. The two foes listed have pretty bad reflex saves (18 and 21 respectively). Rogues or warlocks can target those saves with at-will attacks. At 10th, you'd expect a rogue to have a +15 to hit, while the warlock is at +11, before even touching magic weapons. The rogue will usually be able to get CA each round too.

That means the rogue hits on a 2+ for 1d4+5+2d8, or 16.5 per round. The warlock hits on a 7+ for 1d10 + 5 + 1d6, or 9.45 per round.

 

[mattdm]

Forked from: The grindyness of 4e combat: anyone tried a solo monster yet?

I specifically didn't mention my party make-up for a couple of reasons. First, because we're still trying out different class combos, and second, I didn't want to offer bait for the "you need more strikers" line. That has become a bit of a cop-out in this forum. Someone says monsters hit too much or too hard, someone else says get more defenders. Someone says encounters with lots of opponenents is a nightmare to run, someone else says that's what controllers are for. Someone says heroes don't have enough HP, someone else touts the criticality of stocking up on leaders. The response has become the kneejerk easy answer.

In actuality, if you have more of A, you have less of B, C, and D, and suffer in that area. Zero sum game, folks. Currently, I got three players, and there are four roles. This advice is not the solution to the grinding issue.

So, flip the above on its head. If you don't have defenders, keep the monsters that hit hard to below the normal expectation. If you don't have controllers, keep the minions to a minimum. And if you don't have strikers, keep the solo brutes away.

 

[Vaslov]

My group had it's first encounter with a solo this past week. We had two leaders, a defender and a controller. It did take a bit over an hour to run the encounter. I cannot say we had the same experience of it getting boring.

It did feel like an endurance test, but one we enjoyed quite a bit. We had to pull out all of the stops to keep ourselves up. There were several tense moments we thought it might be over when some well timed healing saved the day. With two leaders our group excels at healing and endurance.

I have to say in general with this game I've found I need to reset my comfort level with where our power level really is at. Going into the solo's lair we were already through 2 combats for the day and our poor mage was whimpering about only having 1 surge left. Across the party we had almost all of our dailies actions points and about half of our surges. By the end of it all but one of us were down to 1 or 0 surges and multiple dailies and action points were used.

We allowed ourselves to get caught up in the thrill of pushing the team to the edge. Of course coming out on top at the end also helped. It was also well timed by the DM as it was our last fight as 1st level characters. Now we have "earned our stripes" and reached 2nd level.

Would I want to fight a lot of solo's? No. That would probably be less interesting. I did find it a great change from the tactical game of minions and movement.

I can't wait to try higher level combat!

 

[AllisterH]

There _WAS_ something interesting I noted among the Solos in the MM.

The Solos aren't expected to fight alone and their level is LOWER than the level of the encounter.

EX: A level 15 dragon encounter could be a single Red Dragon, but in the actual MM, such an encounter is listed under the Blue Dragon entry (1 blue dragon and 3 dragonborn raiders)

 

[ForbidenMaster]

There _WAS_ something interesting I noted among the Solos in the MM.

The Solos aren't expected to fight alone and their level is LOWER than the level of the encounter.

EX: A level 15 dragon encounter could be a single Red Dragon, but in the actual MM, such an encounter is listed under the Blue Dragon entry (1 blue dragon and 3 dragonborn raiders)

Thats because those are encounter groups. They arent going to put encounter groups with just one monster in the MM when they already state in the DMG that Solos are meant to be pitted against a whole party by themselves.

 

[Dausuul]

So far, my group's had a lot of trouble getting one more combat in a five-hour session. Everything other than a minion takes a metric ton of damage to bring down, and things get much worse if an elite comes into the fray.

My last encounter was three 10th-level characters pitted against a galeb duhr and a bulette. It was only a 1400 XP encounter (not quite even 10th level) but the party still wound up giving up on the bulette and leaving. They weren't too badly hurt, they were just bored with trying to deal 204 points of damage after having exhausted the galeb duhr's 111. Once they ran out of encounter powers, they were blowing dailies just to have an alternative to the monotony of mashing at-will hotkeys. It reminded me much of the podcast with the party trying to take down the mind flayer, rakshasas, and minotaur.

So, I'm looking in the monster manual and reviewing solo monsters. Man, those things look like they'd take forever just to bloody. Has anybody tried one yet?

Last session I put my party of four 4th-level characters up against a black dragon (4th-level solo), and it was not at all tedious.

Terrain was a key part of that, as was the dragon using all of its special abilities aggressively. The battle took place in an ancient dwarf ruin where the dragon's acids had eaten away a lot of the stonework; as a result, the eight pillars holding up the ceiling were just about ready to collapse, and there were pits in the floor that hampered the PCs' movement. The exits included a fifteen-foot-wide "grand stairway," a twenty-foot-wide unstable corridor, and a five-foot-wide door into a room where bodiless life-sucking demons were trapped.

The PCs started out by moving to surround the dragon, as you'd expect - basic smart tactics. The dragon then blasted acid over two PCs and four pillars. The PCs saw the acid eating into the pillars and realized that there was a real danger this fight could bring the mountain down on their heads. So they dodged back around the dragon and ran for the stairs, hoping to draw its fire in a direction that wouldn't lead to "rocks fall, everyone dies."

Of course, by this point the dragon had busted out its cloud of darkness, so they also had to draw it out of the darkness to where they could see it... and being on the stairs meant they were bunched up and vulnerable to the dragon's breath weapon. The party was teetering on the edge of collapse by the time they finally slew the beast.

If the fight had taken place on a flat plain with no interesting terrain features going on, it probably would have been a lot less fun. (It also helped that the PCs had been through the wringer in several previous encounters and were low on healing surges - the fighter started with only one surge left and the rogue was flat out.)

It did feel like an endurance test, but one we enjoyed quite a bit. We had to pull out all of the stops to keep ourselves up. There were several tense moments we thought it might be over when some well timed healing saved the day.

This sums it up pretty well, I think. If the group is confident in its ability to survive, or if the monster doesn't make aggressive use of its bag of nasty tricks (like the dragon's darkness ability), then yes, solo fights will get tedious. The excitement in a solo battle comes from the PCs trying to keep themselves alive against a monster which is lashing out at all of them with horrendous damage, round after round, and just will not freakin' die.

And smart use of encounter and daily abilities is also key, as is cooperation among the PCs. 4E combat is very much a team sport. The fight above would have been a TPK if not for some well-timed dailies and everybody working together.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

The warlock did crit with flames of phlegethos + hunters quarry + curse + 2d6 from his rod(53 damage).

Our halfling rogue was averaging 20-22 damage with Sly Flourish and CA at level 3... it's more now.

Also, when it only lasts 3 rounds:
Round 1: Daily, AP, Encounter.
Round 2: Encounter.
Round 3: At-wills.

First round at least double average damage, second round more than average due to encounters, third round averae damage.

Here's what would have happened in my group:

Round 1: Natural 2, AP, Natural 1.
Round 2: Miss.
Round 3: At-will crit, followed by normal rolling.

In the last 9 sessions, that happened more often than it didn't, it was actually getting really old. You can't blame the system for awful rolling, though.