Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 4750640" data-attributes="member: 82106">Solos really aren't something that should be thrown around all that much. The whole concept is that they are only the really top dog boss type monsters. The example the OP used is precisely where a Solo should NOT be used. I'm sure the logic in the module writer's head was something like "the pawnshop is an encounter in an 8th level module. I have to make it a balanced encounter. There is one opponent, so he must be an 8th level solo." It is just crappy module design, unless his being tough has some specific story purpose. OTOH the DM doesn't have to worry about it, the NPC can act like a cowardly wimp. Nobody needs to know on paper he has a large HP total. Solo and Elite design, and related NPC design IS an art form. Unfortunately, while the DMG did manage to provide a decent monster design framework, they muddied the waters by then also providing a confusion of ways to design NPCs, and on top of it failing to really adequately clarify what those different mechanisms were meant for.Normal people type NPCs basically shouldn't be designed according to any rules except DM convenience and story requirements. If they aren't intended to be anything but personalities then they shouldn't even have stat blocks, just relevant net adjusted skill check modifiers and RP info. They don't even have levels per-se. If the DM wants to make it hard to put one over on the pawnshop owner, all he has to do is give him a Perception check mod of +18 (or whatever it needs to be).For NPCs that are the opposite, purely the enemy and will be fought in combat, they are just monsters. If needed they can be elites or solos, but they do not have to be. Just find or make up an appropriate stat block and call it a whatever. Thats the beauty of 4e. If you make it up from whole cloth then its a Level N monster and Chapter 10 DMG tells you what stats to give it, approximately. IF you want it to be an important NPC, then you may want to use a class template, which specifies that the monster will be elite.The THIRD way to do it is to use the NPC generation system, also in chapter 10. THAT system is only intended for constructing NPCs that are allies of the party. Ones that might fight along side them. It has the advantage over the monster system in that it lets the NPC play by the same rules as the PCs pretty much, so they won't ask questions like "why doesn't that guy retrain his power to blabbity blah" or other awkward questions like that. It puts his hit points etc on the same scale as the players so he works well inside their team. It really should not, in general, be used for NPCs that are not actively going to operate on the side of the PCs.Remember, 4e's rules mechanics for PCs and monsters are really RADICALLY different. The basics of how combat works are the same of course, but nothing else is. PCs have low hit points, high damage, lots of healing, and complicated powers that reward close teamwork. Monsters have high hit points, low damage, no healing, and simple powers that a DM can manage easily. Try an experiment. Have a few people take some humanoid monsters (orcs would work pretty well, or hobgoblins) and run through a dungeon with them. You will soon see why things are the way they are.As for the skeleton encounter. I don't see how that could be a balanced encounter really. A regular skeleton is a level 3 soldier. 9 of them ALONE is a level 6 encounter, not counting anything else. Also soldier role monsters are supposed to be the tough defensive type monsters. Anyone that designed an encounter that was basically almost all soldiers didn't read the encounter design guidelines very closely. I would never make an encounter like that and so you really shouldn't blame the rules system for it. Try finding some well designed encounters to use, or make some yourself <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" /></blockquote>

Verification