Upper level limit solo encounter for this party...?

[pemerton]

[sblock]

Is there some resource you use with hard-and-fast 4e damage values defined?

Damage should be level +8. So 22 for your dragon.

For brutes add 25%, otherwise I tend to play it by ear or follow the lead of the designers.

A solo needs to be dealing 3 to 4 attacks worth of damage to be viable, so your solo, with two turns, needs to be able to deal 40 or so damage per turn. (Remember that half damage on a miss equates to about a +1/3 damage boost.)

The auto-blind is actually from Solo Acts: The Worldbreaker blog http://at-will.omnivangelist.net/2010/04/1511/. Let me clarify that it only comes into play 2 rounds in what will likely be a 8 or 9-round fight.

But Stage 1 won't last for that many rounds, will it? With 7 PCs I'd expect 4 or more hits per round, for presumably somewhere around 20 damage per hit, so taking 4 to 5 rounds to get through this stage.

Anyway, I'd be inclined to structure the sulfur as a Fort attacking-blinding hazard, and make the skill check thing a countermeasure of some sort (probably a free action). But that's just because otherwise it looks a bit fiddly to me. Of course YMMV![/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION]

[SBLOCK]Ok, I'll edit the Sulfurous Wrath and change up how the Blinded condition might get applied. Not sure if it'll be an attack roll per se, but I'm considering not making it an automatic condition.

Yeah, for the Breath Weapon I'm shooting for 3d12+12 in stage 1 and 3 (with 1/2 damage on a miss, and a critical effect of stripping away fire resistance). During stage 2, the Breath Weapon gets really scary: 3d12+12 and 10 ongoing (with 1/2 damage on miss, and a critical effect of +2d12 and stripping away fire resistance). The other main difference is that during stage 1 and 3 the breath weapon can be used as either a close blast or area burst, while in stage 2 it can only be used as a close blast. The idea is 1- she is charging up the heat of breath weapon, 2- breath weapon is at maximum potency but least control, 3- power of breath weapon begins to fade but returns a bit of control.

For the Planeshift Focus Skill Challenge, I'm using an obvious art object (a golden dragon statue) as the ritual focus which will be readily obvious to the party's ritual caster. The idea is that the focus opens up a gate to the Elemental Chaos (or Elemental Plane of Fire), but that is just the "setting" Infyrana has it default to when attacked, so the PCs will be interacting with the art object/ritual focus which has some kind of a wheel codex with symbols of various planes. PCs trained in Arcana (and maybe lesser extend Religion) will know about correspondences of each plane and that changing the current "setting" to another plane will momentarily weaken Infyrana in a unique way according to the plane (i.e. vulnerability with a certain keyword). So there will be some meta-gaming in that case.
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[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

[SBLOCK]
Hmm, 40 damage per turn seems low...are you assuming a 50% miss chance or something? When I multiply 22 by 3 or 4 I get 66 or 88 damage per turn.

About the Sulfurous Wrath, sounds like I should to redesign it. The purpose is to put a hazard on the field and to give Infyrana a chance to escape melee. How about this...

Sulfurous Wrath (worldbreaker) • Encounter
Trigger: When reduced to 200 HP and again at 0 HP.
Effect (Free): Sulfur vents erupt, a *burning vapor* hazard pours forth from the chasm, and enemies cannot make opportunity attacks or immediate action attacks for one round.

And then I can have the follow-up The Poison Burns, Mortals! powers do a slide and blind. Or possible move the blind to the *burning vapor* hazard...

The Poison Burns, Mortals! • At-Will (sulfurous wrath)
Requirements: Can only be used during Sulfurous Wrath.
Effect: Infyrana magically draws noxious sulfur fumes around the PCs. Each PC rolls a DC 28 Endurance/Arcana check. Any PC who succeeds shakes off a condition of choice. Any PC who fails takes 14 poison damage, is blinded until end of their next turn, and Infyrana slides them 3 squares.
[/SBLOCK]

 

[Quickleaf]

I'm still revising the first two stages, but since our game has moved up to this Friday, I figured I'd get stage 3 up here for some feedback sooner than later! I think stage 3, in particular, needs more work, so I've called out problem areas in advance. Thanks for your feedback


[SBLOCK=Infyrana, Stage 3]
Infyrana, Red Dragon Mage (stage 3)
Level 14 Solo Controller
Huge natural magical beast (fire) XP 5,000
HP 400; Bloodied 200
AC 28; Fortitude 26; Reflex 26; Will 28
Speed 8, fly 10
Resist 20 fire
Saving Throws +5; Action Points 1
Initiative +15
Perception +16, Darkvision

Traits
Draconic Alacrity: Infyrana gets a second turn at her initiative count -15.

Draconic Recovery: At the end of each of her turns, Infyrana removes a dazed, dominated, stunned, immobilized, or restrained condition.

Roiling Flames • Aura 1
Any creature beginning its turn in the aura takes 10 fire damage. Creatures with fire resistance take no damage but lose their resistance while in the aura.

Infyrana's Protection from Good: Lawful Good and Good creatures attacking Infyrana in melee take 15 fire damage. No creature can take this damage more than once per turn. I'd like to provide LG/G PCs with an interesting boon/kickback to make this not overtly punitive...?

Standard Actions
Claw • At-Will
Attack: Reach 2; +19 vs. AC
Hit: 2d8 + 12 damage and pushed 1 square.

Breath Weapon (fire) • Recharge when bloodied
Attack: Area burst 1 within 20 / Close blast 5; +18 vs. Reflex
Hit: 3d12 + 12 fire damage. Critical remove fire resistance. I upped the damage to avg. 31 as suggested
Miss: Half damage.

A Visions of Avarice (arcane, illusion, zone) • Daily
Attack: Area burst 5 within 10 (enemies); +18 vs. Will
Hit: Pull target 4 squares toward origin square of zone, and if target ends in or adjacent to that square they're immobilized (save ends).
Sustain Minor: The zone persists and Infyrana makes secondary attack in close burst 5 centered on zone square.

Activate a Magic Item • At-Will
Effect: Infyrana grabs an item from her hoard, possibly with mage hand, and uses it (see sidebar).

I'd like to include a daily/Worldbreaker power that targets vs. Will & fits the arcane deception/shapeshifting/soul gem theme of Faces of the Dragon. At first I was thinking Mass Charm but didn't like how it auto-hit (that works vs. monsters but not vs. PCs IMO). I'm not sure...?

Move Actions
Now, My Children! • At-Will (faces of the dragon)
Requirements: Can only be used during Faces of the Dragon.
Effect: Infyrana awakens 3 red dragon wyrmlings which fly from the chasm. Only 3 wyrmlings may be in play at a time.

Minor Actions
Arcane Devouring Gaze (gaze) • At-Will
Attack: Ranged 10 (a magic item's owner); +18 vs. Fortitude
Hit: The magic item falls inert until the start of the owner's next turn, expending any powers it contains. Infyrana recharges an encounter power.
I'm not wholly convinced this makes sense from either a narrative perspective (are anti-magic laser beams coming out of her eyes?) or a mechanical one (the PCs will probably have used most of their magic item powers by stage 3 right?)...

Triggered Actions
Tail Strike• At-Will Kept it as an opportunity, and just renamed it
Trigger: When an enemy moves adjacent.
Attack (Opportunity): +19 vs. Fortitude
Hit: 2d8 + 8 damage, pushed 2 squares and knocked prone.

Faces of the Dragon (worldbreaker) • Encounter
Trigger: When reduced to 200 HP and again at 0 HP.
Effect (Free): Infyrana weaves a spell of High Magic, trapping several innocent NPCs in gemstones as well as herself as one of her alter-egos (see sidebar). End all conditions on Infyrana. While in the gem she can only perform actions keyed to "Faces of the Dragon". Until the gem in which Infyrana hides is broken, an *Arcane Devouring* hazard targets everyone in the lair.

Skills Arcana +17, Bluff +16, History +17, Insight +16, Intimidate +16
Str 20 (+12) Dex 20 (+12) Wis 18 (+11)
Con 20 (+12) Int 20 (+12) Cha 18 (+11)
Alignment evil Languages Common, Draconic
[/SBLOCK]

[SBLOCK=Other Encounter Notes]
In this stage, Infyrana realizes she cannot beat the adventurers in a purely physical contest, and erects a special Protection from Good spell while focusing on deceiving the PCs and using them against each other. She also begins utilizing the magic items in her hoard to keep herself alive. As a last resort - her "Worldbreaker" in this stage - she weaves a spell of High Magic which initiates a role-playing puzzle the PCs must solve while calling down a terrible magic-devouring hazard. Once Infyrana is truly defeated, "environmental diffusion" begins, creating a final hazard for the PCs to overcome before claiming victory.

The Puzzle: I need to develop this...

Magic Items: There are six magic items that Infyrana will call on during this fight, a Queen's Staff (which allows her to recast lightning bolt from stage 1), a Wand of Mesmeric Hold (casting that wizard spell), the Cinder of Gazra (which enlarges her aura to 3, and 15 fire damage), Braziers of Arcane Flame (consuming these to recharge and use her breath weapon), and two spell scrolls with utility spells of some kind.

Arcane Devouring Hazard: I need a really nasty hazard that the PCs want to stop here. I'm thinking a moveable/multiplying zone like a pillar of blue fire which devours magic from magic items and arcane casters. Not sure how this will work exactly yet, but I'm drawing inspiration from the 2e Planescape Incantifier, which had magic resistance %, and if successful absorbed the spell, healing 1 hp/spell level and enabling them to cast spells without removing them from memory, like a rod of absorption.

Environmental Diffusion: If Infyrana dies in her lair, fissures open in the rock and vents emit a sulfrous acrid smoke. Each round a burning vapor hazard pours into the lair and creatures must make a DC 20 Endurance check or lose a healing surge. After a minute, all creatures in the lair take 100 fire damage and Infyrana’s corpse is vaporized. An arcane caster can absorb the dragon’s elemental energy, ending the environmental diffusion and perhaps gaining a boon (e.g. 14th level blessing of blazing fangs). The PC makes a DC 30 Arcana check; if they fail a fiery burst is unleashed which deals d6 fire damage (in a close burst 2 centered on them) per point the check was failed by.
[/SBLOCK]

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]:

[sblock]With my reference to 40 hp I wasn't meaning "to the PCs in total" - I was meaning "to a single PC". How one should factor in damage to multiple PCs via AoEs etc I've never tried to get scientific about, although Manbearcat had some ideas upthread.

Particularly in a solo fight a lot of this somewhat more collateral damage can be disregarded, because - while it will ultimately cost the players some surges - unless there is going to be enough of it to put a PC in danger of unconsciousness/death than it won't factor much into the dynamics of the situation.

I hope that makes some sense. I'm not sure that it gives you much useful advice for buidling your encounter, though.[/sblock]

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Protection from Good: One option would be to restructure it as "If the Good PCs do certain things, they take damage." This would be a lot like the MM3 elementals and catastrophic dragons. So perhaps using radiant attacks results in some sort of nasty backlash or something like that. Perhaps it results in some sort of aura or whatnot, or maybe good PCs attacks 'charge up' an aura and then it unleashes on the 3rd/4th attack and does something nasty. Something the PCs can with some cleverness try to avoid. Of course there's already a LOT going on here, not sure you want more to track...

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]
[SBLOCK]How did you arrive at 40 hp / PC per round being the target damage output for a solo? Or am I entirely misunderstanding you?[/SBLOCK]

[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]
[SBLOCK]I did look extensively at the Volcano Dragon when designing Infyrana. The Protection from Good effect is supposed to be an analog of the 4e spell Fire Shield or Flame's Protection, which seems appropriate for a red dragon mage. I'm pretty content with it just doing damage when she's hit in melee. However, what I think would improve it is some sort of boon/bonus/kickback/workaround that good-aligned PCs can exploit, otherwise the trait seems overly punitive.

Then again, a visiting DM friend did just call be a "big softy" for not killing the PCs outright when they collapsed the kobold mine.
[/SBLOCK]

How would you handle the following? A medium-sized portal which shifts around the lair each stage, that leads to the Kobold Proving Grounds. In addition, I'm tweaking one of Infyrana's stage 2 powers to allow her to banish/forcibly teleport a PC there (really what's happening is the PC is being teleported to the portal, but the effect is the same). The idea is there is an uber-trapped section of Dragon Mountain that is sort of a parody of overdone kobold trapping, which is where kobolds are trained to fight like, well, kobolds. Obviously, any PC ending up there would want to get back to the dragon fight ASAP.

How should I handle this? Abstract it with ongoing damage and a series of opposed skill checks to return to the lair through another portal? Actually lay down a smaller secondary battlemap of the Kobold Proving Grounds and let the PC run around looking for the exit? Seems like something in between would be best...any recommendations?

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION][SBLOCK]

How did you arrive at 40 hp / PC per round being the target damage output for a solo? Or am I entirely misunderstanding you?

You may have misunderstood me but I think I've been confusing.

Base damage for a monster is level +8 (post-mm3; pre-mm3 it was half of level+7). So for a 14th level solo that's 22. Now make it have 3 to 4 attacks per round (so it has the proper heft for a solo), and that takes us to 80-odd damage per round. If it has two turns, that means 40-odd damage per turn.

Now if that damage is in an AoE, you might drop it a bit (a rule of thumb is -25% for a serious AoE). Some of that damage can be made up by damage-on-a-miss, too (again, a rule of thumb there is -25% because half-on-a-miss is about +1/3 damage assuming standard to-hit chances)

But the bottom line is if your solo has no way of threatening about 40 damage, per turn, to at least one single PC; or perhaps a bit less than that, 30-odd, to multiple PCs; than it probably won't apply enough pressure damage-wise.

Does that make any more sense?[/SBLOCK]

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

[sblock]OK, now I'm following you. So I did the damage revisions that you and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] were suggesting, and ran some numbers...

For example, Stage 1 Infyrana: On her first turn she casts Lightning Bolt, potentially hitting three targets for 33 damage each. In between turns she gets a Tail Strike for 17 damage. On her second turn, she unleashes a Breath Weapon on several PCs for 31 damage each. So, what would the DPR be, 81? Pretty much on target.

For example, Stage 2 Infyrana: On her first turn she makes a claw/claw/bite/tail attack, each claw does 21, the bite does 23, and the tail 14, potentially dealing 79 damage total - wow! In between turns she gets a Tail Strike for 17 damage. On her second turn, she unleashes her Breath Weapon on several PCs for 31 damage each. So, her DPR is higher (but requires more rolls) this stage at 137+. The damage in this stage will be mitigated by the party's Mass Fire Resistance (11), but still it's very high.

For example, Stage 3 Infyrana: On her first turn, she conjures a Wall of Ghosts which deals 10 damage to several PCs. In between turns, a PCs charges thru the Wall for 20 damage (and healing surge loss), and Infyrana makes a Tail Strike for 17 damage. On her second turn she uses her Breath Weapon as above for 31 damage each. Her DPR is about 78, which is pretty close.[/sblock]

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]

[sblock]Those numbers look pretty good - the Stage 2 perhaps a little too good! (I've only looked at your Stage 1 statblock so far.)

Also, you didn't close your sblock.[/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] Hey, tried XPing you but apparently I did too recently.

[sblock]Yeah, I'm revising Stage 2 to deal less damage, reducing her first turn to claw/bite/tail (only one claw) for 58 damage. In between turns she gets a Tail Strike for 17 damage. On her second turn, she unleashes her Breath Weapon on several PCs for 31 damage each. So, her DPR in this stage ends up at 116 (which is close to the damage equivalent of five 14th level monsters: 22 * 5 = 110), which seems more fair.
[/sblock]