Truly Solo Encounter

[Saagael]

Thanks Amaroq, I appreciate the compliment. As for the blog, I might do it sometime, but I'm not much into blogging on my own. If someone else had a blog and wanted me to write an article, I'd be more than willing.

The thing with the minions is, to me, having lots of little guys distracting the PCs is a bit counter to how I wanted this encounter to feel. I want the players to have one target to focus on. Normally the players can run through a solo like this, but to draw attacks away from the bad guy, I'm adding in the walls and spikes as "make-shift" minions.

That being said, towards the end of the fight the monster will change tactics to be more aggressive, and less controller-y. Since the damage increase isn't too drastic when the monster is bloodied, I'm toying with the idea of making a shardling spawn when the Living Winter takes damage (the PCs are chipping off pieces of the magic ice, which reforms into the shardlings). As a power, I would most likely word it something like "When the Living Winter takes more than 25 damage in a single attack, a Shardling is spawned within an unoccupied space within 3 squares (maximum of 3 shardlings per round)."

Speaking of the minions, I like the idea of making their attack slow (save ends), but with all the restraining going on with the spikes and wall, that might get really annoying for the PCs, having to run back and forth between the ranged characters and the bad guy. What would be fun is making their attacks give vulnerable cold 5 (save ends).

Now, you mention minions dragging off petrified characters. I'll totally use that in the white dragon fight that comes after this one.

 

[Mesh Hong]

What would be fun is making their attacks give vulnerable cold 5 (save ends).

What would be even more fun is making their attacks give a cumulative vulnerable 5 cold (save ends).

 

[keterys]

Or just give them an aura 2 or 3, enemies gain vulnerable 2 cold (cumulative per shardling, to a max of 10) say.

That said, I thought the intent was for it to be more about the solo, rather than his entourage?

 

[Saagael]

Or just give them an aura 2 or 3, enemies gain vulnerable 2 cold (cumulative per shardling, to a max of 10) say.

That said, I thought the intent was for it to be more about the solo, rather than his entourage?

Right, I do want to focus on the solo. Which is why I'm going to stick with my original "vulnerable cold 5 (Save ends)". That should put them at priority when they appear, but will be easily dispatched, and I don't have to throw out too many to get the point across.

I updated the PDFs on the OP with some minor changes.

 

[Mesh Hong]

I like how this creature has evolved, it looks like a really interesting solo.

I would double check you are happy with the recharge on both Wall of Ice and Hail Storm. When a creature acts more than once in a round you have to be careful with uber attacks recharging more than expected.

In this case you have two high damage powers that it could quite possibly have access to every round. With both of them being superior to its standard choices things could get out of hand very quickly.

I would probably have Wall of Ice as a recharge, and Hail Storm as a recharge but also have it automatically recharging as a free action when the creature is first bloodied.

 

[Saagael]

I like how this creature has evolved, it looks like a really interesting solo.

I would double check you are happy with the recharge on both Wall of Ice and Hail Storm. When a creature acts more than once in a round you have to be careful with uber attacks recharging more than expected.

In this case you have two high damage powers that it could quite possibly have access to every round. With both of them being superior to its standard choices things could get out of hand very quickly.

I would probably have Wall of Ice as a recharge, and Hail Storm as a recharge but also have it automatically recharging as a free action when the creature is first bloodied.

You're probably right. I haven't run a monster that has had two turns per round, so this is new territory for me. Fun! I'm thinking I'll change Hail Storm, but I want to keep Wall of Ice the same. I want to spam that attack as much as possible. I even thought of making it at-will, but that didn't seem right. I might then lower the damage of Wall of Ice to compensate for how often it could be used.

 

[Saagael]

Not to resurrect an older thread, but I just ran this encounter last night, and thought I would share the observations of this research.

In the words of GLaDOS: "I'm making a note here, HUGE SUCCESS."

This encounter hit that almost-TPK sweet-spot, and while there were slow rounds, there were also rounds that changed the entire dynamic of the battle, which is precisely what I wanted. The first thing about the battle is that the ice walls had less of an impact than I originally thought they would. They were a good source of damage, and an excellent way for to hit the ranged PCs while still hitting the defender that was up-front and center. The issue I found is that it took too long for the walls to be created and isolate a PC.

However, the ice spikes (were amusing to the players, most of whom know the WoW boss fight with a similar mechanic) were a great addition, and I think a good reason why this battle was challenging. I suggest all Solos have a similar mechanic, that requires the PCs to spend attacks on something other than the solo. Especially in group larger than 5, where the scales are slightly tipped in the players' favor.

The only change I made mid-fight was that the creature itself blocked Line of Effect, and that the Frigid Swarm power (I think that's what it was called) that the monster got when bloodied required a move action, not a standard action. This might have been mean, but the players should know better than to clump up right next to a controller >

The damage was spot-on, and really pushed some of the PCs, especially the ones who are used to hanging out on the back line and staying mostly safe. In fact, the usually tough and hardy infernal warlock went from around 30 HP to -30 HP in one round (it was after the PCs clumped up and then got nova-ed on for lots of damage. Not only that, but the warlock was taking ongoing 20 cold damage, so on his turn he would be put down to 1 hit point from death. Luckily for the players they healed him up before that happened, and he didn't die.

Getting into the more gritty details, there were two rounds that really changed the battle. One was the above turn, where the party clustered together for a close burst healing power, then got smacked by lots of close attacks. The other was when the monster first hit bloodied. The swordmage teleported the solo off its pedestal in the middle of the room, which bloodied it. That triggered one of the warlock's attacks (which did a good amount of damage), and being bloodied triggered the solo's huge explosion attack. A lot of stuff in one turn that shifted the whole battle. Luckily there was not a moment of grind and it was tense the whole fight through.

Afterwards, the players all mentioned that this fight is the closest they'd seen someone coming to death in 4e, and that there was a genuine "Oh s***!" moment.

All in all it was a great fight, and next week they'll get to face an epic tier dragon at level 13, with the help of an NPC (for those who have the Draconomicon 2, the NPC is much like The Old Man with the Canaries, to balance the fight). If anyone would like, I can post a synopsis of that fight as well.

 

[Camelot]

I'm pretty sure when the designers of 4e made solo creatures, they intended them to be used alone. It wasn't until they realized they didn't design them to be challenging enough that they started suggesting that solos of lower levels be used with other monsters for an epic battle. I think that's a little lame, and applaud the effort to make a truly solo monster.

I think MM3 has started going back to that truly solo mindset, only with 2 years of experience to make them better. Solo monsters in there have some really scary powers, like the kraken's ability to crush a ship while grabbing 8 creatures while blinding creatures, and more. I can't wait for level 10.

 

[malcolm_n]

BOOOOOOOONNNNNNNEEEEE STOOOOOORRRMMM!

And by the way, the ice shard has melted. . Cool encounter. Do you mind if I borrow it when I get around to making something that can use it? I've been building up WoW-themed dungeons like Old Kingdom and the Nexus. This would go great for those. Of course, full credit will go to you and the thread will be linked.

 

[Saagael]

And by the way, the ice shard has melted. . Cool encounter. Do you mind if I borrow it when I get around to making something that can use it? I've been building up WoW-themed dungeons like Old Kingdom and the Nexus. This would go great for those. Of course, full credit will go to you and the thread will be linked.

Go for it, just see how you can mess with it and make it better, then share your success with the community.