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SSGoW
2009-08-03, 02:48 PM
would a level 15 fighter (or another class like ranger?) be a good match for a party of

level 6
sorcerer (wild)
wizard (illusionist)
bard
swordmage

level4
cleric

or should the fighter have someone to help him/her out (not just a few minions)?

Arbitrarity
2009-08-03, 02:52 PM
What.
This is 4e.
There is no way you can plausibly pit a 15'th level fighter against 6'th level characters, because the 6'th level characters CAN'T HIT HIM. The fighter ALWAYS HITS.

Use solos, or Elites, to represent higher level characters. For example, representing a 15'th level fighter with a 7'th level solo, with much lower defenses and attack, and higher health/more attacks, would make a challenging, but possible fight.

SSGoW
2009-08-03, 02:59 PM
actually... the sorcerer has a +10 to attack ref and so far the fighters ref is only 23 along with his will... the fort is up a lot more (but it is a fighter)

thats with magic items boosting stats... so yes i know they can hit the fighter i'm just not sure if the fight will be to easy to hard or just plain unfair

valadil
2009-08-03, 03:03 PM
4e doesn't handle PC vs PC fighting very well. There's a reason they have separate rules for NPCs.

Combat NPCs in general have to be built differently from PCs. Why? Because they survive for exactly one fight. Knowing this, they can play very differently from PCs. They don't have to hold back at all. A party of level 1 NPCs would blow all their dailies in the first round of combat and easily mess up a group of higher level PCs.

AgentPaper
2009-08-03, 03:03 PM
A level 15 fighter is far too high level. Not to mention, that if it's a NPC using PC rules, it's effectively an elite monster of it's level. A party of 4 level 6s and a level 4 should be handling encounters worth about 1175-1400 XP for a "normal" fight, and about 1900-2350 XP for a "hard" fight. As a level 15 elite, the fighter would be worth 2400 XP, but no monster should be more than 5 levels above the players. (brutes can be a level or two higher than that, and soldiers should be a level or two below that) Beyond that, they're just too hard to hit, and will always hit your players, which makes them much harder than their XP value would lead you to believe.

If you want to have a single, tough fighter NPC, I'd recommend making him a solo monster a level or two above the party, or an elite monster 3-4 levels above, and accompany him with a few lower level standard monsters to fill up the XP budget to taste.

Alteran
2009-08-03, 03:06 PM
No, that would be a very bad idea. The Fighter is a full 9 levels above most of the party, and 11 above the Cleric. He would be far too powerful for them, especially if you built him like a full PC. The fact that he's not a solo doesn't matter, he's just too far above them. The DMG recommends not using enemies more than 5 levels above your PCs.

Think of it this way: would the PCs even be able to hurt the Fighter? He could easily have an AC of 32 if you go sword and board, and an attack bonus of +20. The Swordmage might have an AC of 24 and an attack bonus of +12. The fighter would almost never be missing even the toughest character, and would also almost never get hit.

The fighter could pretty easily get d10 + 13 for damage. That's an average of 18 damage on a basic attack. Using Dragon's Fangs, a level 15 daily power, the Fighter could get two attacks that each deal 3d10 + 13 damage. That's 29 damage each, on average. The swordmage might have around 60 HP. The Fighter could take down the defender in a single activation. It would be almost guaranteed if he spent an action point to make another attack. As he picked off characters one-by-one, the party's attacks would just be bouncing off of him.

If you want your party to face a solo encounter, then use a level 8 solo or something. If you want it to be a fighter-type, you could add a template onto an elite (I don't think a solo like that exists), or just homebrew it.

Although in general, it's a good idea to give solos some company. If the party can just focus their fire completely, solos become a lot less dangerous.

Edit: As I expected, I was completely ninja'd. Three times.

Gralamin
2009-08-03, 03:06 PM
actually... the sorcerer has a +10 to attack ref and so far the fighters ref is only 23 along with his will... the fort is up a lot more (but it is a fighter)

thats with magic items boosting stats... so yes i know they can hit the fighter i'm just not sure if the fight will be to easy to hard or just plain unfair

A level 15 fighter NPC has at least 10 + 7 (1/2 level) + 2 (Dex of 14, likely) + 5 (Level Bonus, see DMG 187) = 24. Some items would boost that up.

In general, never send characters up against a creature whose level exceeds theres by 5 or more. Use solos or Elites instead. Taking the Fighter NPC and applying the Battle Champion template is an easy way to make him elite, as is taking a monster from the Monster manual and adding the Fighter template. If you need a solo version, the easiest way is taking a monster from the monster manual that is elite already and giving it the fighter template, or taking a normal monster and giving it the Fighter and Battle Champion templates.

There are, of course, other ways, but templates are good ways of easily changing monsters.

Alteran
2009-08-03, 03:09 PM
A level 15 fighter NPC has at least 10 + 7 (1/2 level) + 2 (Dex of 14, likely) + 5 (Level Bonus, see DMG 187) = 24. Some items would boost that up.


He may not be using the NPC rules. I thought he was just building it as a PC, but I suppose he didn't specify either way.



In general, never send characters up against a creature whose level exceeds theres by 5 or more. Use solos or Elites instead. Taking the Fighter NPC and applying the Battle Champion template is an easy way to make him elite, as is taking a monster from the Monster manual and adding the Fighter template. If you need a solo version, the easiest way is taking a monster from the monster manual that is elite already and giving it the fighter template, or taking a normal monster and giving it the Fighter and Battle Champion templates.

There are, of course, other ways, but templates are good ways of easily changing monsters.

Yep, I agree. If you don't want to make it from scratch, templates are an easy and usually effective way of making elites or solos.

SSGoW
2009-08-03, 03:17 PM
i've dm'ed a game where the players (3 of them..not optimized) fought a dragon that was three levels higher than them ... they toltally slaughtered it (made me sad that the dragon died :( ) and it wasn't the rolls that did it either (i dont roll bad :p as my friends know) and they were not critting like at all... so having 4-5 players fight something two-three levels higher seems like a bad idea since they will get board with the fight or start thinking i wont ever shove a challange at them. in that campy i also threw other type f monsters at the party of three (all three were and are newbs to 4e)

AgentPaper
2009-08-03, 03:27 PM
Is there any chance you could show us the character sheets of these players? And what was the dragon you used, and how did the players beat it? I don't mean to be rude, but since you mention that you're new to 4E, (or at least your players are, I assumed you were as well) I can't help but think there's a chance that you're mis-interpreting some of the rules.

holywhippet
2009-08-03, 03:39 PM
When in doubt, make a trial run by yourself. Assuming you have the character sheets (or copies) run a combat by yourself controlling both sides. If need be, run it a few times using different tactics. You should quickly get a feel for how difficult it will be.

Artanis
2009-08-03, 03:44 PM
And it's not just the to-hit and defenses. A level 15 PC will have as many daily, encounter, and utility powers as any two of the level sixes combined. It gets even worse when you realize that the fighter will also have a PP.

He's also going to have three or four times as much HP as any of them. So even if the party can hit the fighter, they'll be plinking away at a gigantic HP pool while the fighter absolutely OBLITERATES them with his big attacks.

Mando Knight
2009-08-03, 03:51 PM
Is there any chance you could show us the character sheets of these players? And what was the dragon you used, and how did the players beat it?

The type of dragon is especially important. Blacks are nasty when they lurk, Greens skirmish well, Whites and Reds are tanks, and Blues fire lightning-y death from afar. Using a Black the same way you would a Red is a bad idea, but having it shift about in its dark clouds to avoid detection makes it almost unbeatable without unloading bursts and blasts.

Yoren
2009-08-03, 03:59 PM
http://www.myth-weavers.com/sheetview.php?sheetid=144237

I haven't played a lot of 4e above lvl 10 and I just whipped this up on the fly based off my lvl 8 fighter. So there's prolly a few things wrong with the character, but I think he's a pretty standard lvl 15 fighter

Also idk what items you were gonna give so i just did the standard lvl+1, lvl, lvl-1 allotment with the armbands thrown in cause they're cheap.


Having drawn this guy up i'm not sure a lvl 6 party would stand a chance. But again I haven't played a lot of 4e.

eepop
2009-08-03, 04:35 PM
Has anyone considered the possibility of the "monster" not having magic gear. That would be a ~ -3 to the expected attacks, AC, and NADs.

That might be a little closer to an acceptable challenge level.

Artanis
2009-08-03, 05:01 PM
And would completely negate the point of putting them up against something built as a PC.

kc0bbq
2009-08-03, 05:31 PM
Has anyone considered the possibility of the "monster" not having magic gear. That would be a ~ -3 to the expected attacks, AC, and NADs.

That might be a little closer to an acceptable challenge level.Enemies don't work that way. They have a magic threshold, which is a built in bonus that applies unless they have items *above* their normal level's worth. An opponent using gear they would normally be expected to have get no benefit from it, really.

Starsinger
2009-08-03, 05:40 PM
Why is the cleric level 4?

FoE
2009-08-03, 06:15 PM
The OP's question was really weird. I wonder if he meant to type "Level 5" but accidentally added a 1 in there.

Artanis
2009-08-03, 06:40 PM
I doubt it, considering that he was going to send it up against four level 6 PCs and a level 4.

Yakk
2009-08-03, 08:04 PM
Instead of a level 15 NPC fighter, it would be better to build a level 11 elite fighter template on top of an existing level 11 monster.

Instead of a level 11 elite fighter via template, it would be better to build a level 5-6 solo fighter opponent.

If you put level 15 opponents against a party, what happens is that you overly reward getting higher to-hit bonuses, and the ability to select which defense to attack (and having the lucky defense that the target is low), and auto-damage powers. You nullify any investment the players have put into their own defenses. In general, the fighting monsters 9 levels above a party is a very brittle situation -- if the fight both works and is interesting, it is because you got lucky.

Gralamin
2009-08-03, 08:12 PM
Instead of a level 15 NPC fighter, it would be better to build a level 11 elite fighter template on top of an existing level 11 monster.

Instead of a level 11 elite fighter via template, it would be better to build a level 5-6 solo fighter opponent.

If you put level 15 opponents against a party, what happens is that you overly reward getting higher to-hit bonuses, and the ability to select which defense to attack (and having the lucky defense that the target is low), and auto-damage powers. You nullify any investment the players have put into their own defenses. In general, the fighting monsters 9 levels above a party is a very brittle situation -- if the fight both works and is interesting, it is because you got lucky.

Though, there is certain times when it works, and those times are usually Homebrewed Puzzle Bosses, which is likely not the case for this situation.

RTGoodman
2009-08-03, 08:33 PM
Yeah, you should pretty much just use a Solo monster and maybe a handful (4-6) minions. I whipped the following Solo up pretty quick in the Monster Builder; if you don't want to use it, just use the Builder yourself if you're an Insider, find something similar and just refluff and rename it, or homebrew something yourself using the guidelines in the DMG.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/dd40/rtg0922/FighterDudeStats.png


(If that's blurry to anyone else, sorry - I don't know why it's saving like that.)

Decoy Lockbox
2009-08-03, 10:05 PM
Lets not forget that the NPC in question is of the fighter class, which means that he is a total badass. I mean, high AC, high HP, lots of surges, self-healing, high damage, nasty mark that triggers on attacks AND shifting, cancelling aoos. What a class....

These days I just make my 4e monsters by ear, only rarely consulting the various tables and such. For example, I whipped up an entire "enemy adventuring party" for my evil campaign in about an hour (lvl 6 sword 'n' board "paladin", lvl 6 greataxe "paladin, lvl 6 "avenger", lvl 6 "Invoker", lvl 6 "Cleric"). I statted them all out as normal monsters (soldier, soldier/brute hybrid, skirmisher, controller/artillery hybrid, controller(leader) respectively), and it worked out pretty well; the party really loved the feel of fighting enemy characters, even though they weren't real enemy pc's (and certainly didn't take as long to make as 6 real pcs would).

What I'm trying to say here is to just throw something together that seems reasonable, paying close attention to defenses, to hit, and damage, and if it seems appropriate, call it a day. If it doesn't, shave a few numbers off here and add a few there until it works. I use this rule of thumb: if the players generally need less than a 10 to hit, the fight might be too easy. If they need more than a 12, it might be too hard. Of course, if hitting is easy for them you can always give the monster more hp.