Level 30 Encounter Advice

[Ignatius]

So I am running a level 29 one-shot over the Christmas holidays that ties in with our campaign that we have been in for the last 12 months...

Does anyone have any advice for how to manage a level 29 one-shot?

The characters will be brand new for this event. We will be playing for around 4-5 hours.

Does standard XP budget apply for level 29? Should it be more?

Any advice that the playground can offer will be greatly appreciated.

[Chambers]

I'm running a level 30 delve on the forums here and it's been a learning experience. IC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215838) OOC (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=215832).

A few things stand out. The old style Solo monsters will get completely stomped. In the first fight they completely crippled the Solo. He never hit a single time and was constantly dazed, weakened, slowed, immobilized, etc. Use the newer solo's or have some way to downgrade conditions (i.e. stun instead dazes a monster, immobilize instead slows them, etc).

Ask before you start play if they have any over powerful combos. I nerfed the dragonborns breath weapon in the middle of the second fight as it was too powerful.

[BlckDv]

I ran a level 30 One Shot as a Prophetic Dream for our usual campaign, it was a blast. Lessons Learned:

1. Prep a "cheat sheet" for each PC that points out any specific combos or power chains built into the character and give the players a dedicated block of time before the game to look over the sheet and ask questions. (assuming pre-gen characters)

2. Go crazy with special conditions, one PC lost a Healing Surge on every natural 20 or 1, added a whole extra level of fun to the game, the player was thrilled when he figured out the "why" and was able to use the answer to solve a mystery that had been plaguing the normal PCs. Another PC had a specific goal that was not the same as the party, but did not oppose them. This led to amusement as the player would occasionally refuse to do the "right thing". (Obviously, these sorts of things work best if the players know ahead of time it is a one shot so they can let go of some worry).

3. Don't limit yourselves to monsters. When my players talk about the game now, they vaguely remember that they fought a few squads of elite guard types, but they really remember trying to move down the crumbling corridors with nasty beam traps that had phasing undead guards that harassed anyone trying to disarm them. The Trap and Environment factors made for much more fun at level 30 than a straight up brawl.

4. Do feel free to "ramp up." I started with a level 30 XP budget, but had two encounters at level 35 budget.

5. Give yourself built in flex. I had a dangerous section of dungeon with bottomless pits, life stealing shadows, etc. (A level 32 encounter) which had a room at the end with more guards in it (A level 30 encounter). I had it prepped so that if the PCs were struggling, the monsters would wait "at post" and allow the PCs a short rest before fighting them, but if they were cake walking it, I'd start having the monsters "pace" and join the encounter when they spotted/heard the PCs. This let me build a really tough fight with a safety valve to make it easier if I misjudged the situation.

6. Expect really crazy events and run with it. Level 29-30 PCs bend reality and WILL have crazy combos you never thought of. Don't stomp on your player's chance to shine with amazing powers, just give yourself a few "DM Special" cards/items whatever that you can pull out to give the villains an equally cool response. (for example I gave myself an Im. Int. teleport to any square in close burst 20 and blind (save ends) any enemy that had LoS on the square he left power card I could add to any Elite or Solo mob once during the game.) If the players don't come up with awesome moves, I don't *have* to add the card to any mob, if they do, I don't need to say NO to keep the combat a challenge.

Hope that helps; if it is not clear, my game was built to be dangerous, cinematic and epic, I would use different design ideas for a different goal.

[valadil]

I ran a bit of high level 4e. If you use solos, make sure they have multiple actions. Tiamat was great because daze/stun/etc applied only to her next action.

My personal rule for solos, which is untested but sounds good on paper, is to give an extra action per tier. I never figured out how this applies to those who already have extras though. Tiamat with 8 actions would be sick (and thematically incorrect).

[Fortuna]

I suspect a better rule is minimum of one action per tier, although to be honest I prefer to give a Solo a lot of friends to make the PCs lives more difficult: I use an at-level or level+1 (maybe +2) solo combined with Elites, some minions and sometimes standards to taste.

[Ignatius]

Great advice everyone.

When you do one-shot's, do you provide character sheets?

I have set some 'mission statements' and the players have all chosen which one is driving their character, and then they are building their character around that concept.

I am expecting this to make my life more difficult, but I think the end result will be a better session.

Which monsters count as 'old' or 'new'? I have MM1,2&3 and DDI subscription so I can use any monster that is available.

[Fortuna]

MM3 and later used the new math, is my understanding.

[Gralamin]

Which monsters count as 'old' or 'new'? I have MM1,2&3 and DDI subscription so I can use any monster that is available.

You are actually missing Tiamat.

[Ignatius]

You are actually missing Tiamat.

What is Tiamat in?

[Gralamin]

What is Tiamat in?

Draconomicon: Chromatic Dragons, but she is not in the compendium.

[Ignatius]

Interesting - found her in a Dungeon magazine... why is she not in the compendium?

[Ignatius]

Is Tiamat a Pre MM3 monster, or a Post MM3 monster?

Is there a post on here that describes the differences and the maths?

[Yakk]

The biggest question is the amount of CharOp.

A lazily optimized level 30 character will be between 2 and 5 times weaker than a reasonable CharOp build (and this ignores serious cheese, like ridiculous damage magic missile "basic attack that neither hits nor misses" abuse).

The problem is that at level 1, player choices are restricted (2 at-wills, 1 encounter, 1 daily, 1 feat, a handful of stat choices). By level 30, you have 18 feats, a paragon path, 8+ pieces of magical gear equipped. If an optimal choice makes your character 5% stronger than a non-optimal choice, at level 1 the choice will be lost in the RNG. At level 30, if you pulled off 5% upgrade from each choice (3 encounter, 3 daily, 2 at-wills, 1 paragon path, 18 feats, 8 items, 1 race, 1 class, 1 stat distribution = 38 choices), that's a 6 fold power ratio over the less optimal build.

And this lines up with my actual experience playing level 30 one-shots.

At level 1, this model gives (1 race, 1 class, 1 stat distribution, 4 powers, 1 feat) = 1.5 power ratio, which also matches my experience.