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Crow
2008-08-26, 08:20 PM
First, the previous threads:

First Session (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=83179)
Second Session (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=85288)
Third Session (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=86718)

This fourth session of 4e we have played, I tried to implement some more skill challenges, with mixed results, and also gave some Dm's Toolbox rules a whirl. Specifically, improving monsters with templates, and the class templates. We also agreed on our first house rule.

The group members were all fourth level, as follows;

Kanan (Human Ranger/Warlord) *DMPC
Val (Eladrin Rogue/Fey Pact Warlock)
Clyde (Halfling Rogue)
Broderick (Human Cleric of Pelor)

This session saw our heroes having crossed the mountains, and strolling into the lands of which one of our players was King in our last campaign. A little nostalgia, to say the least. As they approached the city, they saw that the crops were not looking good, and as they entered, encountered a merchant peddling rainwater collected in barrels. The inner city was locked tight, so the group went to a run-down dump of an inn to find some lodging/food. While doing so, they had some enjoyable conversation with the barkeep, who was something of a storyteller. He offered them some dried bison and related to them the story of the ranch which raised the bison in the nearby countryside. In reality, the bison were the offspring of a buffalo that the players' old characters had caught and brought back to a farm to use as bait for ankhegs. The bison for some reason wasn't needed, so got to live (and presumably breed), so the barkeep got to tell the story of the magnificent god-bison. A half bison-half god, which was the size of ten buffalo, and whose offspring were the most flavorful and juicy to grace the material plane. The ranch that raised them, had since prospered. The barkeep also told the story of one of the players' old characters, the King, whose half-orc offspring (The current lords of the city), were the spawn of the King's escapades with orc maidens of all 9 of the great orc tribes. The players had some good laughs with this. Finally, and most importantly, the barkeep explained that the wells had all started to produce a black "oil", and that the city was going through a water shortage. He said the inner city had been locked up tight and that the lords of the city were doing nothing to help them.

It was kind of nice this session. I didn't need to nudge the players at all to bite on the plot hook. They were determined damnit, and it took me a while to adjust to having a group which was more than eager to jump into the deathtrap I had painstakingly constructed for them.

So our heroes proceed to head to the main gate to the inner city and bribe the guards to let them in. The guards see that the players are rich as hell by their standards, and so set the price high. Val produces a platinum piece, and the guards agree to place the players "under arrest" to get them in to see the lord. Behind the scenes, the guard captain, when told of the visitors manages to convince the lord that these travelers are worth seeing. So they get a meeting wih the lord, and I attempt to implement a skill challenge which fails miserably. you see, my players are the type that will try to convince the npc based upon the merits of their conversational skills. This is a good thing for the most part, especially role-playing wise. Usually, the players won't try to roll diplomacy or anything like that unless I prompt them to, which I had to do countless times to get them to roll some successes. They certainly won't try skills like history or what-have-you unless prompted. FAILURE. Not on the part of the PC's, but on the part of WotC for trying to say that skill challenges are good for social interactions. Just like the other times I have tried to use these in social situations, I ended up scrapping it when it became too difficult to pull more reasons for the NPC to say "no" out of my ass. It really drags on the believability of the game, and the players were on the cusp of becoming frustrated with it. I am officially done trying to use these for social interaction.

So anyhow, the Lord is able to speak with Broderick in private, where he explains that the miners in the local mine had caused some sort of collapse. After that, the water became contaminated with this black oily liquid. Broderick prodded a little and was able to get the lord to admit that there have been kidnappings lately, and miners have disappeared.

The mine was locked up due to the recent problems, so the players were to meet the Lord's men at the mine, where they would be let in and the guards would shut them in. They would open it at dawn in two day's time, and if the PC's weren't there, they would be trapped. So the PC's entered the darkness after picking up some more torches, and we began our next skill challenge, navigating the mine to find the newest shafts, where the collapse had happened. This consisted mostly of dungeoneering checks (took the best roll from each of the three characters who rolled) to find their way through the maze of tunnels, with an athletics check from everyone to get through a partially collapsed tunnel. When Val and Broderick failed their athletics check, I ruled that Val slipped, causing a slide which caught Broderick as well. The slide deposited them into another tunnel, and they had to decide whether to climb back up or explore the new tunnel. The group decided to explore the new tunnel, so Kanan and Clyde went down to join Val and Broderick. The tunnel was fairly even, so it wasn't readily apparent which direction proceeded downwards. Here, Clyde asked if he use his acrobatics to see with his sense of balance if he could determine which way the tunnel sloped. I thought it sounded like an innovative idea, so I ran with it. Clyde successfully determined the right direction, and the group continied.

Finally, everyone arrived at the newest section of the mines. There were a few battles with chokers, who after being slain, appeared to become normal men once again. There were some children, men and goblins (the miners). Little was found except a good amount of iron ore, of which Clyde grabbed 5 lbs. The group also found a storage area full of spare parts and tools. They walked past a section of cavern which had collapsed due to the support beams giving way, so i figured they would be golden for the next encounter, which was overpowering, but featured 3 of the 6 chokers hanging out under an unstable section of cavern, with wooden supports holding it up. Nobody went for the supports. Finally, Clyde shouted something about the supports, and luckily, Val had contained the three chokers that were under the weak ceiling, so they were still there. Kanan, in all his DMPC glory moved to bullrush one of the supports, taking a (missed) attack of opportunity in the process. The support gave way, crushing the 3 chokers. After that, the remaining chokers went down easy. Later in the tunnels, the players encountered a similar situation. This time, they picked up on it immediately, with Val knocking down the supports in the second round. That fight was a cakewalk for everyone but Kanan, who insisted that nobody attack the choker which had him grappled, so he wouldn't be subject to their attacks. I thought Kanan would be able to escape the grab and put some distance between him and the choker, but I was struck with bad roll after bad roll. As my hp dwindled, Kanan finally got loose, allowing Clyde to drop a deadly sneak attack on the choker.

Next, the group comes up to a huge chasm, with what appears to be some sort of pully system that spans the chasm. The other side of the chasm isn't visable. Nearby is a cart basket which appears to have been damaged. Rather than attempt to fix the cart (the tools and parts were found by the players earlier), the players send Broderick across with a makeshift rope harness. I make it a skill challenge on the fly (athletics). He gets to the other side, and uses the pully crank to pull the rest of the party over one-by-one while each wears a similar rope-harness, so they don't have to climb it. No problem, except I had determined beforehand that the old crank system would hold up for 4 trips across, and the group had already used it for three. After getting across, the group continues down the tunnel until they reach a huge verticle shaft with some rigging and piles of rope near the edge. They test it a few times by tossing torches down, and discover that the shaft twists and turns somewhat. Eventually the group goes down the shaft. Many hundreds of feet later, they lower themselves into a worked stone chamber, circular, with a pool of the black "oil" in the center. At the edges of the pool, facing away from it and spaced evenly around it, are kneeling stone statues of men holding out dust-covered orbs as a sacrifice to six giant stone snakes. There is a massive door with a coiled stone snake carved onto it and chains that run from the ceiling beside it. Another passage which appears to be blocked by a huge stone is on the opposite side of the room. Around the outside of the room is a ledge accessable by stairs which has 6 alcoves (one behind each giant snake) blocked shut by a portcullis. Inside each alcove is a chest and a chain which spans from one wall to the other, and appears to run through the walls. Extensive examination followed, and the players managed to figure it out on their own. Removing the orbs from the hands of the statues activated a trigger that caused the snake in front of it to lower as it it was going to strike the statue. Once it was completely lowered, the orb was placed into the mouth of the snake, who's tongue was the tirgger to open the portcullis behind it on the ledge. Entering the alcove behind the snake and pulling on the chain (away from the stone snake door) moved one of the coils of the snake. When all six coils were pulled out of place, the chains that hung at each side of the stone snake door could be used to open the massive door itself. Broderick's player became frustrated in the process of figuring this out, but the rest of the players' reaction ranged from cautious to curious. Still, they ended up figuring it out their own, so that was cool. I think that it was borderline frustrating, but after the players solved it, it seemed extremely simple.

Proceeding through the huge stone snake door, the players came to an octagon-shaped room with a large statue of a robed man with outstretched arms in the center. From the opening in the statue's hood, the black "oil" flowed forth into a pool at the statue's feet, which ran into four channels that flowed into and under the walls. Above, four huge braziers hung from the ceiling. After examining the statue a bit, Broderick decided to push on one of the arms of the statue. To his surprise, the statue rotated when he pushed. Using the "lefty-loosey, righty-tighty" method, he pushed the statue in a full 360-degree rotation, which finally ended after a complete turn. This shut off the "faucet" of black liquid, and each of the braziers that hung from the ceiling lit. In the other room, the group could hear a massive stone moving.

Returning to the room with the snakes, the group was greeted by a central black pool which had drained, revealing stone steps that descended into it, with a burial alter at the bottom. At the top of the steps, a red-robed man dripping in black liquid stretched his arms as if awakening from a long nap. He turned around to face the group, and here entered Siffus, my "solo" choker. He was a regular choker upon which I had slapped the demonic acolyte template, and the wizard class template. Siffus offered to allow the group to live if only they would sacrifice one of them for Siffus to devour. They tried to negotiate with him using some circular logic and Siffus had enough. The combat began with Clyde launching a shuriken at Siffus and hitting, after which Siffus dropped the wizard daily "Sleep". He hit and slowed three of the group, but all three made their saves the very next round. Without some of the group out of the picture, Siffus was doomed. Quickly he was overwhelmed in an anticlimactic battle, which left the players scratching their heads (no doubt expecting something more), and the DM disappointed with the entire concept of solo monsters. Maybe template-created solos aren't on par with standard solos...Whatever the case, Siffus' incompetence led to a disappointing final battle, and made what happened later even more anti-climactic. The players also notice that the passage blocked by the massive stone is no longer blocked.

So the group decides not to risk venturing into the unknown, and instead climbs back the way they came, Broderick using a Tenser's Floating Disc to bring back their loot. Eventually they get back to the huge chasm with the rope-pully. Val gets across, but as Clyde is going across, the crank breaks, and Clyde is forced to climb his way across. I make it a 6/3 skill challenge, with (in hindsight a bad idea that goes directly against what the DMG says) certain death as a penalty for failure! Clyde makes it over easily, as does Kanan. It is Broderick that has difficulty. Floating Disc in tow, Broderick attempts to cross the chasm, and can not roll a success to (quite literally) save his life. After only a two successes, Broderick has racked up three failures. At this point, his constant struggling and exertions have caused his (poorly-made, makeshift) harness to work itself loose. It bought him a second chance though. Metagaming, the other players, including myself, begin to urge him to go back, since it is closer. Broderick heeds the advice, but his athletics roll fails him again. Broderick slips up and plummets into the darkness. The Disc floats in space for a moment before disappearing altogether (Broderick was moving away too fast), and the treasure plummets into the darkness as well. Clyde, ever the rogue, joins in Broderick's panicked screams before a sickening crunch followed by raining coin ends Broderick's life.

So Kanan and Clyde rig some rope to descend into the chasm to recover the treasure- I mean, their friend's body. While Kanan secures a rope so that Val may pull Broderick's body up, Clyde recovers what treasure he can. Much of the coin is lost, and some of the art objects are broken. A short while later, the remaining group continues on their way and leaves the mine when the lord and his men show up to let them out of the mine. The lord presents them with their reward, the equivalent of 110 gold pieces. Broderick had lowered their price to get the lord to allow them into the mine. Luckily, there is just enough treasure for the group to pay a priest to raise Broderick. Luckily, they got some nice items out of the whole ordeal.

So that was it. I have the feeling that my group wants to stay in the city that their characters are in for a little while, but I haven't decided if that will be the case. We did agree to implement the "Magic Threshold" (NPC rule) for the player characters. So when they reach level 6, they will automatically get another +1 to defenses, to-hit, and damage, that doesn't stack with magic item bonuses. It also seems that all of us except for Clyde's player prefer 3.5 over 4e so far. While discussing it, Clyde's player made a point of mentioning that he would like to continue 4e "for a while", before we switch back. We will see how everything goes.

Hyzhenhok
2008-08-27, 02:45 AM
As a DM who has used the Toolbox to create a caster solo (and has had 4 sessions in his campaign so far as well!), I can definitely sympethize with your frustration. I would encourage you not to give up on solos just yet, and instead consider the mistakes you may have made in putting the solo encounter together. I put my own caster solo in a situation where the terrain absolutely did not favor her, and then paid for it dearly in having a plot derail when she failed to escape like she was scripted to.

As the DMG states, double-template solos are "quick and dirty," and definitely tend to be weaker than those in the MM or those created from scratch using the DM's Toolbox. I think the templates are great for elites, and you can "steal" ideas from them for your solos, but as far as stats and powers go, you really need to follow the guidelines set by the "from scratch" section.

The biggest cuplrit is that the solo needs to be able to attack more than once per round, because they are five-in-one monsters. Elite templates don't grant that. He also needs powerful, rechargable abilities so he has a variety of things he can do in the fight. I think of it this way: every solo needs to have its own dragon's breath. You don't want your solo to no longer be a threat just because he missed on his "daily."

For you choker caster, I would have turned sleep into a recharge 5-6 power (as well as letting him make two basic attacks per round as a standard action), and adjusted his HP and defenses according to either MM solos of similar level or what the "from scratch" rules suggest. Even better, I would have made sleep a close blast or burst rather than use its PHB version, because this enemy would inevitably end up tangled with the PCs in close combat.

Even then, it might not have been enough; caster type enemies are ill-suited for dragon's den-style solo encounters. Without the soldier's high defenses and the brute's hard-hitting basic melee attacks, controller, lurker and artillery solos simply have a hard time lasting long enough and threatening the party enough.

Caster solos seem like a great idea at first, but you really have to stack the encounter to make sure it is challenging for the PCs. Give the solo a huge terrain advantage. Give them some awesome at-wills. If they don't have high defenses, make sure they can dish out a lot of damage very quickly. Give them minions to fight with (even though they are technically "solos"). The bottom line is that you can't really be lazy in homebrewing a solo creature in the same way you can be with normal ones or even elite ones.

OneFamiliarFace
2008-08-27, 03:45 AM
I agree with Hyzenhok.

I think an added problem with caster solos is that solos can be solos in one of two ways: more attacks, or greater ability to keep players out of the combat. The latter can be patently unfun for players unless done correctly.

A simple solution is to just give him an extra standard action. This is more easily done mechanic-wise by making some of his less powerful attacks minor actions (see the beholder). Finally, as Hyzenhok said, make some of his powers rechargeable. A lot of solos have powers that recharge and are used immediately when they are bloodied (like a dragon's breath).

Anyway, thanks for putting these up Crow. It's good to be hearing from people are getting in and playing the game before making their decisions.

Starbuck_II
2008-08-27, 07:07 AM
So our heroes proceed to head to the main gate to the inner city and bribe the guards to let them in. The guards see that the players are rich as hell by their standards, and so set the price high. Val produces a platinum piece, and the guards agree to place the players "under arrest" to get them in to see the lord. Behind the scenes, the guard captain, when told of the visitors manages to convince the lord that these travelers are worth seeing. So they get a meeting wih the lord, and I attempt to implement a skill challenge which fails miserably. you see, my players are the type that will try to convince the npc based upon the merits of their conversational skills. This is a good thing for the most part, especially role-playing wise. Usually, the players won't try to roll diplomacy or anything like that unless I prompt them to, which I had to do countless times to get them to roll some successes. They certainly won't try skills like history or what-have-you unless prompted. FAILURE. Not on the part of the PC's, but on the part of WotC for trying to say that skill challenges are good for social interactions. Just like the other times I have tried to use these in social situations, I ended up scrapping it when it became too difficult to pull more reasons for the NPC to say "no" out of my ass. It really drags on the believability of the game, and the players were on the cusp of becoming frustrated with it. I am officially done trying to use these for social interaction.

Well, live and learn. So Social Skill Challenges don't work as well for you.



The mine was locked up due to the recent problems, so the players were to meet the Lord's men at the mine, where they would be let in and the guards would shut them in. They would open it at dawn in two day's time, and if the PC's weren't there, they would be trapped. So the PC's entered the darkness after picking up some more torches, and we began our next skill challenge, navigating the mine to find the newest shafts, where the collapse had happened. This consisted mostly of dungeoneering checks (took the best roll from each of the three characters who rolled) to find their way through the maze of tunnels, with an athletics check from everyone to get through a partially collapsed tunnel. When Val and Broderick failed their athletics check, I ruled that Val slipped, causing a slide which caught Broderick as well. The slide deposited them into another tunnel, and they had to decide whether to climb back up or explore the new tunnel. The group decided to explore the new tunnel, so Kanan and Clyde went down to join Val and Broderick. The tunnel was fairly even, so it wasn't readily apparent which direction proceeded downwards. Here, Clyde asked if he use his acrobatics to see with his sense of balance if he could determine which way the tunnel sloped. I thought it sounded like an innovative idea, so I ran with it. Clyde successfully determined the right direction, and the group continied.

This one worked great at least.


So the group decides not to risk venturing into the unknown, and instead climbs back the way they came, Broderick using a Tenser's Floating Disc to bring back their loot. Eventually they get back to the huge chasm with the rope-pully. Val gets across, but as Clyde is going across, the crank breaks, and Clyde is forced to climb his way across. I make it a 6/3 skill challenge, with (in hindsight a bad idea that goes directly against what the DMG says) certain death as a penalty for failure! Clyde makes it over easily, as does Kanan. It is Broderick that has difficulty. Floating Disc in tow, Broderick attempts to cross the chasm, and can not roll a success to (quite literally) save his life. After only a two successes, Broderick has racked up three failures. At this point, his constant struggling and exertions have caused his (poorly-made, makeshift) harness to work itself loose. It bought him a second chance though. Metagaming, the other players, including myself, begin to urge him to go back, since it is closer. Broderick heeds the advice, but his athletics roll fails him again. Broderick slips up and plummets into the darkness. The Disc floats in space for a moment before disappearing altogether (Broderick was moving away too fast), and the treasure plummets into the darkness as well. Clyde, ever the rogue, joins in Broderick's panicked screams before a sickening crunch followed by raining coin ends Broderick's life.

I think this challenge did what it was supposed to give tension and risk. Sadly, the dice didn't like him.

Yakk
2008-08-27, 10:26 AM
The other side of the chasm isn't visable. Nearby is a cart basket which appears to have been damaged. Rather than attempt to fix the cart (the tools and parts were found by the players earlier), the players send Broderick across with a makeshift rope harness. I make it a skill challenge on the fly (athletics). He gets to the other side, and uses the pully crank to pull the rest of the party over one-by-one while each wears a similar rope-harness, so they don't have to climb it. No problem, except I had determined beforehand that the old crank system would hold up for 4 trips across, and the group had already used it for three.

You mean, a single character on a harness puts as much strain on the pulley system as a cart full of characters?


He hit and slowed three of the group, but all three made their saves the very next round. Without some of the group out of the picture, Siffus was doomed. Quickly he was overwhelmed in an anticlimactic battle, which left the players scratching their heads (no doubt expecting something more), and the DM disappointed with the entire concept of solo monsters. Maybe template-created solos aren't on par with standard solos...Whatever the case, Siffus' incompetence led to a disappointing final battle, and made what happened later even more anti-climactic. The players also notice that the passage blocked by the massive stone is no longer blocked.

Your first template was an Elite Controller (Leader). That means it should be applied to a Controller. Chockers are not controllers.

Second, it is designed to be a leader of creatures. When you turned it into a Solo, you didn't give it any creatures to lead.

I mean, look at the powers:
Shield of Abyssal Majesty aura 5
Allies in the aura gain the demonic acolyte’s resistance(s).
Consume Soul (immediate reaction, when an ally within 5 squares of the acolyte is reduced to 0 hit points)
The demonic acolyte regains hit points equal to one-half its level.

Didn't the lack of allies say "wait a second?"

All your creature got out of being an Acolyte was HP, resists, defenses, and a +2 bonus to damage.

Elites and Solos do have a "too many HP for their damage output" problem.

Try Shadowborn Stalker and Wizard, and then look at the offensive power of the resulting creature. Does it look to be at least 3 times that of a base creature?

You have an invisibility power, a darkness power, 1 wizard at-will, one wizard per-encounter, one wizard utility, one wizard daily power, and Arcane Implement Mastery, and 2 action points.

I'm assuming the base creature is Cavern Choker.

Upgrade Tentacle Claw to be "the target may only attempt to escape while grabbed". Use spider-climb alot. As the wizard controller/artillery doesn't match the standard monster, grant the creature a recharge 56 on it's per-encounter power, and recharge 6 on sleep. The save-penalty on the Orb is still once per day. Finally, give the creature the power to cast a spell or use the Choke action once per round as a free action.

Now your creature is grabbing, and casting a spell or chocking a player each round. That is the damage output level of a Solo that will threaten the players. It has many stealth abilities that let it retreat and regroup. It hits the players with a sleep spell that puts most of them under at the start of the fight, and later on casts lesser sleep spells. If you go with the icy attack (see below), it can grab one player, attempt to immobalize 2 more, then run off with spider climb.

Orb, Staff or Wand ... I'd go with Orb. Grant the creature 18 to 20 wisdom so that the Orb implement mastery power isn't worthless. Now players have a -4 to -5 penalty to their saves. Your sleep effect slows the party, then most of it falls asleep until they make their save. Int also needs boosting to the full 18. This gives it a defense array of:
19 AC 15 F 18 R 21 W and 156 HP

Rather low on HP for a level 4 solo.

The creature can now do a burst 1 darkness, an invisibility, have concealment as long as it wants (so it can keep making stealth roles), can spider climb and grab from the ceiling, can cast wizard spells while having a player chocked, starts out the fight with a sleep spell that will almost certainly take out a number of players, etc etc.

For an at-will, I'd go with thunderblast. Include at least some hindering terrain nearby to be blasted into. For a per-encounter, Color Spray or Icy Rays. Utility, Expeditious Retreat.

Use full-controller standard to-hit of +8 vs non-AC for the spells.

Lastly, include a spray of black rain from the statues. This makes the torches sputter and reduces the light generated to 1 square.

The Choker starts out over-confident. It tossed out a sleep spell, which slows then sends unconscious a number of the party members, and grabs at least one other player. It then clambers off, dragging it's victem behind.

Now the party has a problem -- half of the party is slowing down, one of the members of the party is being dragged off (with spider climb)...

The Lurker keeps on doing retreating attacks, using it's at-will blast power to knock players down into shallow pits, sometimes going invisible and sneaking behind the party, using darkness to generate cover for a stealth roll, and useing chameleon skin to continue to make stealth roles even in plain sight.

Party members are dragged off and chocked.

Knocked out party members are not killed -- the choker wants them alive for sacrifice -- so they continue to be able to make wake-up saves, and can be found by other party members. (This should happen as they chase down the choker).

Does that feel nearly as anti-climactic as the fight you did?

Don't use leader templates on monsters without followers, and expect it to work.

Use terrain to the advantage of the creatures if you want a more interseting fight.

Realize that Elite/Solos tend to not have enough offense if you just follow the DMG rules, and toss them some extra offense.

Only downside is that the players will end up being dragged off and chocked and not doing much. :)

On the other hand, the players should be scared ****less of aforsaid lurker/controller by the end of the fight.


I make it a 6/3 skill challenge, with (in hindsight a bad idea that goes directly against what the DMG says) certain death as a penalty for failure!

*nod* -- having the PC fall into a pool of ik, which costs them lots of their treasure and makes them have to fight something down there, would have been a game-wise better mechanic.

Matthew
2008-08-27, 11:05 AM
Poor Broderick! A tricky situation to adjudicate fairly, but an entertaining story. Sorry to hear that the skill challenges are still not working out for you. My take is that I think they are a neat idea (a formalisation of a time honored methodology), but need to be far looser and open to interpretation.

MammonAzrael
2008-08-27, 11:21 AM
I don't really have anything to add after the great post Yakk made, I just wanted to thank you for posting these. It's great to hear about others games and how you're liking 4th.

Though I'm curious, what was the inspiration for that house rule?

Yakk
2008-08-27, 11:37 AM
Here is the first pass Choker Shadow Wizard:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=4798871#post4798871

Crow
2008-08-27, 03:11 PM
Well the choker wizard had the terrain in his favor, but my players would rather switch to ranged weapons and maneuver around for a shot. The choker made a point of using the statues for cover and using the (now empty) pit in the center of the room to force the players to keep their distance.

As far as the Demonic Acolyte template is concerned, I could have chosen a better one, but when I was making the guy, I had intended him to have some allies around. I am still trying to feel out the system, so I am still not sure exactly what the players can handle challenge-wise so I scratched the allies at the last minute. I had planned on throwing in some standard chokers as well, but having never used a controller solo before, I was worried that it'd be too much for the players. This is also the reason I did not think to make some of his powers into recharge powers. I just had no idea how well this guy was going to do, and didn't want to destroy the group. I think if less of the characters had made their saves against Sleep, and the choker could've gotten off some Coup de Grace attacks, it would have turned out much better.


You mean, a single character on a harness puts as much strain on the pulley system as a cart full of characters?

No, just the crank broke. There was no stress-induced catastrophic failure.


Though I'm curious, what was the inspiration for that house rule?

Our group doesn't like the characters to be dependant on magic items, and we had been talking about it for a while, so we just made it official. If a monster still requires a magic item to hit though, they'll still need a magic weapon.

Yakk
2008-08-27, 03:41 PM
Well the choker wizard had the terrain in his favor, but my players would rather switch to ranged weapons and maneuver around for a shot. The choker made a point of using the statues for cover and using the (now empty) pit in the center of the room to force the players to keep their distance.

Did you use the superior cover to make a stealth check, then the concealment minor action to be able to move between sources of cover without losing stealth?


As far as the Demonic Acolyte template is concerned, I could have chosen a better one, but when I was making the guy, I had intended him to have some allies around. I am still trying to feel out the system, so I am still not sure exactly what the players can handle challenge-wise so I scratched the allies at the last minute. I had planned on throwing in some standard chokers as well, but having never used a controller solo before, I was worried that it'd be too much for the players. This is also the reason I did not think to make some of his powers into recharge powers. I just had no idea how well this guy was going to do, and didn't want to destroy the group. I think if less of the characters had made their saves against Sleep, and the choker could've gotten off some Coup de Grace attacks, it would have turned out much better.

Use the XP budget as a guildline. A hard encounter, where the party is expected to burn dailies, uses twice the party's XP budget. (And doesn't contain leader templates who have no followers!)

Given that an elite/solo gets nothing more than a +defense and +save and HP from their template, an Elite should be about 1.7 times as damaging as a standard creature, and a Solo should be about 3.0 times as damaging as a standard creature.[1] The more defense the creature has from it's templates, the less offense you should grant it.

If you don't do this, you end up with enemies that, well, are punching bags that don't endanger the party. As you may have noticed.

As an aside, Solos and Elites should bias towards powers that damage multiple opponents, rather than massive damage on one -- otherwise, you can end up with the "instant dead character" problem.

Did you use the Arcane Implement Mastery class feature that the Wizard template tells you to add to the monster at all, and boost the base stats of the monster (so it isn't a wizard with an int of 10)?

The Templates in the DMG are more seeds to start the manual upgrade process, sadly. And you do even have to be careful about MM monsters -- a number of them (fire beatles, for example) don't seem to be built quite right (too much accuracy and damage for an area effect power on a level 1 brute), especially if you spam lots of them at players.

Oh, and remember: this is a base lurker. It is supposed to disengage and jump out of shadows at players, not play artillery. And a Lurker/Controller/Artillery(Leader) produced via templates is a lot like giving an Ogre Wizard class levels. :-)


No, just the crank broke. There was no stress-induced catastrophic failure.
Huh? I don't get it. :-) Things that break under a certain number of repeated uses usually break from stress?

This is just an aside. Personally, I'd be tempted to have the broken crank as an event that is expected to happen, and when it does have a skill test to cross without a bad thing (tm) happening. The "after 4 uses" seemed strange, when it didn't matter how heavy the things you where cranking!

Footnote(s):
[1] 5 normal monsters attack. You do 1 normal monster in damage every X rounds. You take 5*X + 4+X + 3*X + 2*X + 1*X = 15*X rounds of damage.

In the same 5*X rounds, the solo monster is killed.

15*X/5*X = solo monsters should do, on average, about 3 times as much damage as a normal monster per round.

6 normal monsters attack. You take 21*X damage, where X is the number of rounds it takes to kill a normal monster.

3 elite monsters attack. It takes you 2*X rounds to kill each elite, and you take 3*(2*X) + 2*(2*X) + 1*(2*X) = 12*X damage.

21*X/12*X = 1.75, so each Elite should do about 1.75 as much damage as a normal monster does on a per-round basis.

All else being equal, this results in the party taking the same amount of damage defeating a bunch of Normals, half as many Elites, or a single Solo.

Crow
2008-08-27, 05:21 PM
Did you use the superior cover to make a stealth check, then the concealment minor action to be able to move between sources of cover without losing stealth?

Tried to, but the encounter didn't last quite long enough for it to make a difference. Besides, the errata has made that more difficult...not that it mattered. Any time he showed his face he got wailed on.




Use the XP budget as a guildline. A hard encounter, where the party is expected to burn dailies, uses twice the party's XP budget. (And doesn't contain leader templates who have no followers!)

As I said, followers were planned, but I took them out at the last minute. The group was on their 5th encounter of the day at this point and I didn't want to utterly destroy them...I am not as in tune with the mathematics of the system as you are, and sometimes just don't have the time needed to plan.


Given that an elite/solo gets nothing more than a +defense and +save and HP from their template, an Elite should be about 1.7 times as damaging as a standard creature, and a Solo should be about 3.0 times as damaging as a standard creature.[1] The more defense the creature has from it's templates, the less offense you should grant it.

If I had more time to put into planning, maybe I would have done that. Instead I chose to trust the DMG.


If you don't do this, you end up with enemies that, well, are punching bags that don't endanger the party. As you may have noticed.

I would have thought the developers would have noticed this before I did.


As an aside, Solos and Elites should bias towards powers that damage multiple opponents, rather than massive damage on one -- otherwise, you can end up with the "instant dead character" problem.

Yeah, no problem there, he was able to get multiple party members at once. The battle just didn't last long enough to significantly harm any of them.


Did you use the Arcane Implement Mastery class feature that the Wizard template tells you to add to the monster at all, and boost the base stats of the monster (so it isn't a wizard with an int of 10)?

Yes on both counts.


The Templates in the DMG are more seeds to start the manual upgrade process, sadly. And you do even have to be careful about MM monsters -- a number of them (fire beatles, for example) don't seem to be built quite right (too much accuracy and damage for an area effect power on a level 1 brute), especially if you spam lots of them at players.

Oh, and remember: this is a base lurker. It is supposed to disengage and jump out of shadows at players, not play artillery. And a Lurker/Controller/Artillery(Leader) produced via templates is a lot like giving an Ogre Wizard class levels. :-)

Well I was hoping the supposed versatility of the roles would produce a well-rounded bad guy. Apparently the ability to play two different roles doesn't work very well for monsters.



Huh? I don't get it. :-) Things that break under a certain number of repeated uses usually break from stress?

This is just an aside. Personally, I'd be tempted to have the broken crank as an event that is expected to happen, and when it does have a skill test to cross without a bad thing (tm) happening. The "after 4 uses" seemed strange, when it didn't matter how heavy the things you where cranking!

The crank was old, corroded, and had been in use many times before. It's not like it broke after 4 total uses. Either way, I made the choice when I put the crank in there, and as there are no crank-breaking rules, I just picked a reasonable number and went with it. It gave the players a chance to think, and a challenge they would not have otherwise needed to face in a boring tunnel shaft.

Have you had a bicycle chain break on you? Sure, you've ridden it a hundred miles before that, and you weren't riding any different that you normally do, but it had some wear and tear on it, and it decided to break right when you were about as far from your house as you could be. These things happen. "Random" complications make things interesting.


Footnote(s):
[1] 5 normal monsters attack. You do 1 normal monster in damage every X rounds. You take 5*X + 4+X + 3*X + 2*X + 1*X = 15*X rounds of damage.

In the same 5*X rounds, the solo monster is killed.

15*X/5*X = solo monsters should do, on average, about 3 times as much damage as a normal monster per round.

6 normal monsters attack. You take 21*X damage, where X is the number of rounds it takes to kill a normal monster.

3 elite monsters attack. It takes you 2*X rounds to kill each elite, and you take 3*(2*X) + 2*(2*X) + 1*(2*X) = 12*X damage.

21*X/12*X = 1.75, so each Elite should do about 1.75 as much damage as a normal monster does on a per-round basis.

All else being equal, this results in the party taking the same amount of damage defeating a bunch of Normals, half as many Elites, or a single Solo.

Dude, get a job with Wizards for 4.x. They could use somebody like you.