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

[Quickleaf]

So we got thru Phase 1 tonight and began Phase 2.

What worked? The cursed items went to great effect when the bard donned the ring of fire vulnerability (thinking it was a ring of fire resistance) and the gold-cursed crown (thinking it was a crown of charisma). One thing I did spur of the moment with her "Hypnotic Gaze" was inform players they could end the "cannot attack Infyrana (save ends)" effect by interacting with some item of treasure. Of course, after seeing what the bard went thru none of them tried that. The globe of invulnerability was very effective, and the wizard creatively helped bring it down by using his rod of beguiling's daily power (I narrated the glob as being fueled by Infyrana's malevolence and egoism).

What did not work so well? Not having melee attacks, though I ended up borrowing her claw/bite/tail from Stage 2 so that she could effectively attack the only PC visible at one point (the rest were protected by mass invisibility). Reducing the HP of each stage by 30%, as my party's damage is just insane; on the other hand having lower than normal HP (all my dragons are 3-stage bosses) makes sense for a mage, and 1200 HP is already approaching Ancient Red Dragon HP according to RAW. Relying on Draconic Recovery as her main condition-shaker; Infyrana was so laden with conditions and the damage came so fast when her 'Worldbreaker' came into play, that she never had a chance to use "The Poison Burns, Mortals!" When we ended for the night, Infyrana was blinded, slowed, immobilized and at -4 attack, -2 attack, had vulnerability 5 cold, and was marked by the paladin!!

What I can say is that it's been a very evocative fight so far, dynamic, good roleplaying, and looking forward to next game

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@pemerton
[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]

@AbdulAlhazred
[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?

Yeah, good question. I don't know. You could do a few things. One would be to have the PC always removed for just one round, and then have them play out some sort of mini-game over in the KPG. They will inevitably return, but how much it hurts them will be determined by making skill checks and/or playing out dealing with some sort of nasty trick or trap. They can spend as much time as they care to doing that, time runs differently in the KPG. Infyrna could drop various PCs into the KPG and they'd each have to deal with something, presumably something they have some way to get out of if they're clever enough without significant damage.

OTOH you could make time a factor, then each situation in the KPG could be "bull on through, take some damage, and escape quickly, or burn several rounds getting back unscathed." Possibly a lucky/clever player might get out quickly AND without damage. It might depend on how many other resources they're willing to trade (IE a daily power use might be pretty effective, but you wasted the power).

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=82106]AbdulAlhazred[/MENTION]
[sblock]I actually did my rough design of the Kobold Proving Grounds over here: http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/29831437/(4e)_A_trap_that_breaks_all_the_rules It hasn't come into play yet, though it's been hinted at in dialogue with a kobold NPC and the ominous quick portal conjured by Infyrana when the fight began.[/sblock]

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

When is the next battle?

"The Poison Burns, Mortals!" When we ended for the night, Infyrana was blinded, slowed, immobilized and at -4 attack, -2 attack, had vulnerability 5 cold, and was marked by the paladin!!

[sblock]Were most of these save ends effects? I would take a look at the Monster Vault death knight's Implacable ability and give that to her as well. I'm using such an ability for some of my solos, including the ability to negate penalties to hit (one of my PCs is a psion and can AoE blast multiple opponents to force them to take a -4 penalty to hit).

Calastryx from Threats to the Nentir Vale can even negate marks at the start of every turn. Otherwise I've only seen one NPC with that ability, an Eberron evil priest who actually transfers the mark to an "ally".[/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

[MENTION=1165](Psi)SeveredHead[/MENTION] Probably next week, had to take pictures of battle map, initiative order, and record all conditions.

[sblock]A solid mix of save ends and until end of next turn. I even had given her an improved Draconic Recovery which shook off one of each of these conditions at the end of each of her turns: dazed, dominated, stunned, immobilized, and restrained. So she actually shook off the immobilized but not the -4 attack.

I like the Implacable ability. You extended that to trigger on induced attack penalties for one of your solos? I'll consider adding something like that, though really her stat blocks are way too big already and I'm not too keen on changing her stats mid-combat since it feel like a cheap shot against the players.[/sblock]

 

[Quickleaf]

Some thoughts on the 3-stage dragon fight so far...

[SBLOCK]
I made a bunch of mistakes! (3 in favor of the PCs, 1 in favor of the dragon):
First, I counted the party's total concealment from mass invisibility against the dragon's prismatic burst spell (which was an area burst).
Second, multiple conditions of the same type & duration do not stack - at one point I had the dragon double dazed (save ends) - and further that Action Recovery removes all instances of certain conditions, not just one instance.
Third, I forgot that Sulfurous Wrath *should* have prevented the ability to make opportunity/immediate attacks against enemies for one round (originally it was going to be an auto-blind but online feedback was overwhelmingly against that). This was important because as soon as Sulfurous Wrath began, the vampire/cavalier dominated the dragon to fly up and provoke opportunity attacks. Oops!
Fourth, when Planar Firestorm kicked in, it allowed Infyrana to teleport anywhere in the chamber. However, when this happened she was blinded, and teleport is typically a line of sight effect! Oops again!

There is a lot to track in these sorts of staged fights in 4e!

There is a flow to the fight (fine tuning stage changes):
The stage changes have been really evocative so far, even if the PCs managed to nearly stun-lock the dragon for two rounds. I made the decision to have damage/conditions from one stage carry over to the next (the 3-stage boss guidelines from AngryDM suggest they do not), as well as action points. With this fight, I broke the usual 4e rules of "one action point per encounter" and changed it to "one action point per round", which seemed fair considering (a) the dragon has multiple actions points she can use, and (b) it's a really hard fight. As part of the role-playing leading up to the fight, the PCs managed to (possibly) subvert the kobolds against the dragon...kobold minions were supposed to be present in Stage #1 but I decided to instead introduce them later in a more dramatic/ambiguous way.

Player learning curve (dealing with 'game-breaking' elements):
I was reading http://slyflourish.com/building_your_own_lair_assault.html a few weeks ago and I think incorporated some of those principles designing Infyrana's lair. Most of the players had already encountered a 3-stage boss at the beginning of this campaign, but that was like 12+ sessions ago and two players unfamiliar with the model joined in, so I wanted Infyrana's Stage #1 to be the "learning curve" for the players...when they could get a feel for the unusual hazards and triggered effects, understand the map layout, gauge the danger posed by Infyrana, etc. My intention is to increase the threat in Stages #2 and #3 as the players get more comfortable with the setup.
[/SBLOCK]

 

[S'mon]

Solos can use both their APs in 1 encounter per RAW.

 

[Quickleaf]

Solos can use both their APs in 1 encounter per RAW.

Probably in the Monster Manual at the beginning huh?

 

[pemerton]

Probably in the Monster Manual at the beginning huh?

Somewhere convenient like that, yes!

 

[Quickleaf]

Getting ready for finishing up the dragon fight Friday and have a question about teleportation...

[SBLOCK]The dragon has forced teleportation which triggers when PCs fail certain saves against ongoing fire damage. There is lots of dangerous terrain (chasms, acid geysers, portal to hostile area). If the dragon teleports a PC into dangerous terrain would they be eligible for a save to avoid (as with forced movement)? If they succeed the teleport is canceled, but if they fail the bad thing happens?[/SBLOCK]

Thanks!