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Aotrs Commander
2009-08-11, 10:55 AM
While I'll be the first to admit I'm not fond of 4E, I will happily concede that it does have some good ideas worth nicking. Solos and minions are a good solution to a problem I've had for some time.

Namely that the groups I play with invariably decimate a lone monster (unless it's very much higher CR than them. And that brings about problems of it's own, notably HD related insta-kills like Blasphemy that I have to take care to avoid).
Most often of course, the Save-or-dies or the combination of heavy ranged attacks. My solution to this has in the past been adding flunkies to divide the fire and try and migitate the worst of the status effects with spellcaster support.

As a corollary to this problem, I've found my usual level of cannon fodder (usually half the level of the PCs) gets harder and harder to maintain at higher levels - and sometimes gives out insane amounts of XP at lower levels. As an example, my 3.5 conversion of Dragon Mountain (for a 14-20+ level party) required me to gear up the (level 8) Kobolds to extreme levels and optimise the crap out of them and they still proved largely ineffective. (They may as well have had one hit point and they couldn't hit for toffee...)

Enter 4E and the Solo and Minions. They certainly would have made Dragon Mountain much easier, had they existed at the time. For example, instead of having, say, 80 archers (which in some places there are), I could have had the EL (and XP) of 20, slightly higher level archers with the same number and a lot less hassle in record keeping!

So, what follows in my attempt to convert the templates for use in 3.5.



Minion Monster Template

The Minion Template can be applied to any creature, hereafter referred to as the Base Creature.

All statistics are as the base creature except:

HD: A minion’s HD do not change. However, anytime a minion takes hit point damage it is killed immeditately. It’s hp are thus denoted as (*)hp. For the purposes of effects that are conditional on hit points (e.g Power Word spells) the minion is considered to have minimum hit points for it’s HD and Con (and any other factors).

Abilities: A minion’s ability scores do not change. However, anytime it suffers a penalty, damage or drain to an ability score, the score is reduced to the minimum caused by the effect; i.e. 0 or in some cases e.g. Ray of Enfeeblement, 1.

Special Qualities: Minions gain Evasion as a special ability, meaning that they take no damage on a sucessful Reflex save. (This balances out the fact if they fail the save, they immediately die.)

CR: Four minions have the same CR as the base creature.

Minions are mainly there for the PCs to slaughter, but while maintaining some degree of threat. 4E's solution of making them the same level as the PCs, but ridiculously glass cannons seemed like a grand solution. One of the other main points is to be able to up the bit-count while reducing the record-keeping (ability damage/penalties) while not making them too easy to wipe out with area effect attacks. (As mentioned, often cannon fodder may as well have one hit point, as at higher levels they still tend to go down in one shot!)



Solo Monster Template

The Solo Template can be applied to any creature, hereafter referred to as the Base Creature.

All statistics are as the base creature except:

HD: A Solo creature always has maximum hit points. At the start of any encounter, it also gains a number of temporary hit points equal to it’s current hit points. These additional hit points last until the end of the encounter.

Armour Class: The Solo gains a +2 insight bonus to AC.

Saves: The Solo gains a +2 insight bonus to saves.

Special Qualities: As the base creature plus the following special ability.
Resiliance (Ex): For every opponent (not including summoned creatures) the Solo faces it gains one special luck reroll (to a maximum of twelve). For every allied creature whose CR (or ECL) is 7 or less lower than it’s own CR (or ECL), this number is reduced by 1. These rerolls are refreshes every encounter.

Any time the Solo fails a saving throw that would kill it outright or leave it otherwise Confused, Cowering, Dazed, Helpless, Nauseated, Paralysed, Petrified (or similar), Polymorphed or Stunned, the Solo can expend a reroll to reroll it’s save as a free action.

At the end of it’s turn, as a Swift action, the Solo can expend one of it’s rerolls to negate any one negative condition, power, spell or other negative effect currently affecting it. This effect ends immeditatly.

Each time the Solo expends one of it’s rerolls, it suffers a Negative Energy level. This cannot be removed or negated by any means (including this ability). These negative energy levels disappear at the end of the encounter.

CR: +2(? 4?)

The trick with the solos was to make them more durable, while not negating the SoDs totally. Thus I choose to make them more resistance to status effects, but at the price of reducing their effectiveness via negative energy levels. So even if your SoD doesn't work, it'll still debuff them. As SoD resistance is mainly a function of player number, I choose to make the number of rerolls dependant on the number of enemies.

I went for temporary hit points as it fits more 'in-game' as to where the solo get's it's ridiculous boost from - sort of a last-stand morale bonus, if you were (ditto for insight bonus to AC and Saves; and I choose insight rather than morale (as that negates too many buffs) and untyped seemed too powerful. both of those are perhaps a bit pendantic, though, and are a result of me trying not mesh at least some 'in-world' reasoning to an inherently gamist structure!



So, please folks, have a look over and make any comments, especially in regard to the Solo's CR or any other glaringly obvious exploits! (Or just to tell me I'm somehow Doing It Wrong...!)

Saph
2009-08-11, 11:17 AM
I dunno - have you actually tried playing 4e much? While there are some things it does well, Solos and Minions are generally regarded as the least well-balanced parts of the combat system. Slaughtering minions becomes trivial somewhere between levels 1 and 10, and Solos have a lot of HP and not much else - it's far too simple to lock them down and peck them to death. As a general rule in 4e, if you want to set up a difficult fight, you don't use solos and minions, you use standard monsters and maybe an Elite.

The same would apply to your minions. They'd go down ridiculously easily to any wide AoE effect, of which any high-level party has a wide selection. And having so many on the field would make for some really wonky balance effects. If they have save-or-X abilities, for instance, the PCs would be in the position of making 20 saves a turn, pretty much guaranteeing a failure. I'm not sure this would improve the game.

For the Solo . . . again, it just seems like a bit too much work. Negative levels are a real pain to track, particularly if the number of them changes every round. If you want to give them rerolls, why not just say they get 3 luck rerolls a day and leave it at that? That uses an established mechanic rather than making up a new template.

Aotrs Commander
2009-08-11, 11:42 AM
I dunno - have you actually tried playing 4e much? While there are some things it does well, Solos and Minions are generally regarded as the least well-balanced parts of the combat system. Slaughtering minions becomes trivial somewhere between levels 1 and 10, and Solos have a lot of HP and not much else - it's far too simple to lock them down and peck them to death. As a general rule in 4e, if you want to set up a difficult fight, you don't use solos and minions, you use standard monsters and maybe an Elite.

I'll grant you, neither template is a replacement for a serious encounter set up of enemies, with spellcaster support, ranged attacks and flankers. Which I also do frequently. The minions might help in that regard, but still...


The same would apply to your minions. They'd go down ridiculously easily to any wide AoE effect, of which any high-level party has a wide selection.

With evasion, the minions at least get a save (which they'd stand a better chance of making) than the current cannon-fodder do now. And cannon-fodder (despite my best efforts) usually are wiped out by area-effect attacks anyway. (And that's kinda the point of having area-effect attacks in the first place...)


And having so many on the field would make for some really wonky balance effects. If they have save-or-X abilities, for instance, the PCs would be in the position of making 20 saves a turn, pretty much guaranteeing a failure. I'm not sure this would improve the game.

If the PCs are in that situation, they'll be in that situation whether they're dealing with minions or regular monsters, so that's not going to make much difference.

Anything with mass spell casters equates to death; long story short, if you come up against a large number of spell casters, it's not going matter if they're all level one wizards with magic missiles, most of the party will still be dead (all of the party if no one's got Shield or Globe of Invulnerability running...) You just can't do that, and I'm pretty sure that's mostly true of any RPG system...

I'm not going to be reducing the number of monsters I'm putting on the field in any case; this'll just make the ones on there actually worth attacking (since they will be able to stand a cat-in-hell's chance of hurting the PCs without me having to stat 'em up and optimise out the wazoo).

It also means I won't have the ever-increasing gear spiral I have with Dragon Mountain wherein everything needed the extra plus from Masterwork (or magic gear) and the PCs are weighed down by the loot, which they then spend on ungrading their gear...) Granted, this is most promient in converted AD&D modules, but...



Remember we're already playing with well above the normal encounter number for a 3.5 game ad with six characters played by expert players well-versed in teamwork and optimisation!

Example of a typical final encouter I ran a while back for a party of seven 8th level PCS (and seven level 5 henchmen):
12th level druid
10th level ranger
12 level 6 spear soldiers
6 level 6 archers


For the Solo . . . again, it just seems like a bit too much work. Negative levels are a real pain to track, particularly if the number of them changes every round. If you want to give them rerolls, why not just say they get 3 luck rerolls a day and leave it at that? That uses an established mechanic rather than making up a new template.

Really? 'Cos they're not even a speed bump to me, especially with only one monster to keep track of. I'm talking Negative Energy Levels (-1 to attacks, saves, skill and ability checks, lose your highest slot, CL drops by 1, 5 hit points), of course not Negative Levels (i.e. level loss).

I'm even considering making it just the penalties, without them being actual negative energy levels, since then they have some bearing even at first level solos.

Tehnar
2009-08-11, 12:06 PM
As Saph said minions and solo's are the best kind of monster to face (for the players).

Adding a template to existing creatures for 3.5 to make a solo is nice idea, I would go at it a different way. The thing I noticed is that the action differential gets to be the death of a solo creature, not the hp or the damage or saves. I hold firm to the belief that almost no monster (including dragons) is meant to be fought alone. If I were adding a template to improve them, something that gives them mettle, extra actions per round, and some rerolls is a nice idea. Also try to remember to use the terrain to the solos advantage (traps!!!).

For minions I have some advice. Cheat. The CR system was meant to be a ballpark anyway. The trick is to figure out good numbers for minions that make them a threat to PCs but are still easy enough to kill. Minions not hitting enough? Increase their attack by 2. So fiddle with numbers a bit until you get what you like.

Another trick I like is to apply a so called positive level. It is the reverse of a negative level so it would bring +1 to hit, +1 saves and 5 hp. Every 2-3 positive levels equal about a 1 CR increase.

The other way you can toughen up monsters is to advance them using the existing rules in MM. However, this combined with applying templates can make overpowered monsters for their CR in a lot of cases.

Aotrs Commander
2009-08-11, 12:21 PM
As Saph said minions and solo's are the best kind of monster to face (for the players).

In 4E, maybe. I've never said that 4E's execution of it's ideas - or anything else - was anything other than...functional. Doesn't mean when the idea's done right it wouldn't be work...


Adding a template to existing creatures for 3.5 to make a solo is nice idea, I would go at it a different way. The thing I noticed is that the action differential gets to be the death of a solo creature, not the hp or the damage or saves. I hold firm to the belief that almost no monster (including dragons) is meant to be fought alone. If I were adding a template to improve them, something that gives them mettle, extra actions per round, and some rerolls is a nice idea. Also try to remember to use the terrain to the solos advantage (traps!!!).

I, on the other hand, personallyfind that solo creatures go down in one round, maybe two, due to the concentration of fire (maybe two). Giving a creature more actions won't necessarily stop that; unless it's going to actually negate a PC whenever it takes an action (a dangerous road to travel down as that snowball the situation) all that means is the combat is over just as quickly, except the PCs have taken slightly more damage.

How many actions do you give it? One? Two? As many as the PCs? That brings you right back to having to be very careful about what abilities you can use for fear of wiping the floor with the PCs by letting it spam it's abilities.

The aim of my solo template is to increase it's longevity in a combat; making it survive a couple of slavoes of fire, not just one. (Then the PCs have more fun, since they get to use their higher levels abilities too.)


For minions I have some advice. Cheat. The CR system was meant to be a ballpark anyway. The trick is to figure out good numbers for minions that make them a threat to PCs but are still easy enough to kill. Minions not hitting enough? Increase their attack by 2. So fiddle with numbers a bit until you get what you like.

I really don't like having to fiddle like that; I avoid it wherever possible.

I've never used the CR system as anything other than a method of calculating XP in any case. I just sling encounters together with whatever I feel like and use their CR to work out how much reward the PCs get for splatting them. EL I don't even look at.


The other way you can toughen up monsters is to advance them using the existing rules in MM. However, this combined with applying templates can make overpowered monsters for their CR in a lot of cases.

When I'm doing a serious encounter, I almost never use monsters, as frankly, they suck compared to NPCs anyway, since they are invariably poorly optimised. Adding templates doesn't usually help much. I've played with templates on occasion, but most of them pass my "that's too stupid" barrier aside from the basic ones.

Right, I'll have to continue this later, gotta dash!

Lord Loss
2009-08-11, 02:26 PM
I love the minion template. The Solo one... meh. It needs something that makes it... stronger. For instance, a Beholder solo would be a strong beholder, not a boss in it's own right... This could be accomplished by putting in higher CR monsters. Your minion idea is great.

Minion Cool Factor :xykon:

Solo Cool Factor :miko:

Saph
2009-08-11, 09:35 PM
With evasion, the minions at least get a save (which they'd stand a better chance of making) than the current cannon-fodder do now. And cannon-fodder (despite my best efforts) usually are wiped out by area-effect attacks anyway. (And that's kinda the point of having area-effect attacks in the first place...)

Remember that evasion only works against Reflex saves. As soon as you implement this rule, players are going to start paging through their books looking for Fort and Will AoEs . . . or better still, autodamage effects, because that's what they've done in 4e. I'm sure they'll find some effect somewhere that does 1d6 damage no-save to a wide area.


If the PCs are in that situation, they'll be in that situation whether they're dealing with minions or regular monsters, so that's not going to make much difference.

Anything with mass spell casters equates to death; long story short, if you come up against a large number of spell casters, it's not going matter if they're all level one wizards with magic missiles, most of the party will still be dead (all of the party if no one's got Shield or Globe of Invulnerability running...) You just can't do that, and I'm pretty sure that's mostly true of any RPG system...

Not true. Here, I'll show you what I mean.

Take the core monster, the dretch. It's a CR 2 demon, so if you're running an encounter against a 8th-level party, you might have four or five of the little things as backup to the main threat. Their claw attacks are weak, but they can each throw up a stinking cloud once per day, DC 13 to save against. That's enough to make them a nuisance.

Under your rules, though, the number of dretches would be multiplied by four. Now the dretch squadron can throw out a total of sixteen to twenty DC 13 save-or-suck effects, each one lasting multiple rounds and able to hit multiple enemies.

So you have the situation that if the dretches go first, they can pretty much automatically incapacitate any PC with a Fort save of +9 or less, and have a good shot at taking down even the tougher ones. On the other hand, if the PCs go first, then the dretches will get annihilated in a few giant blasts. Basically the combat will be decided in Round 1. And the bookkeeping of taking care of that many spells active at once . . . I think this would make the battle more of a headache, not less.

Eldariel
2009-08-11, 09:39 PM
Remember that evasion only works against Reflex saves. As soon as you implement this rule, players are going to start paging through their books looking for Fort and Will AoEs . . . or better still, autodamage effects, because that's what they've done in 4e. I'm sure they'll find some effect somewhere that does 1d6 damage no-save to a wide area.

Like Mass Inflict Light Wounds? Bit of an overkill level-wise, but there you go. Some can even spontaneously convert those.

Also, yeah, I personally like monsters as they are; even worthless weaklings can be great nuisances due to their spell-likes that necessarily don't allow saves, other small no-defense effects and Aid Another (honestly, it's such an awesome way for mooks to make their boss tougher; also great for squadron soldier tactics).

ZeroNumerous
2009-08-11, 10:04 PM
Like Mass Inflict Light Wounds? Bit of an overkill level-wise, but there you go. Some can even spontaneously convert those.

Will Save for Half.

I believe you're looking for Vortex of Teeth. Or Manyjaws.

Eldariel
2009-08-11, 10:14 PM
Will Save for Half.

I believe you're looking for Vortex of Teeth. Or Manyjaws.

Well, I was answering the first part of the query: "As soon as you implement this rule, players are going to start paging through their books looking for Fort and Will AoEs . . ."

'cause it's core. But yeah, those work. Really well. Oh, and Magic Missile works too, for at least 5 guys.

Saph
2009-08-11, 10:25 PM
Actually, you don't even need to go outside Core to find some good no-save spells. Ice Storm would wipe minions out quite effectively. Although it's a bit high-level, you could probably find something cheaper with enough splatbooks. Magic Missile might be the best, all in all.

Quellian-dyrae
2009-08-12, 12:53 AM
Actually, you don't even need to go outside Core to find some good no-save spells. Ice Storm would wipe minions out quite effectively. Although it's a bit high-level, you could probably find something cheaper with enough splatbooks. Magic Missile might be the best, all in all.

Sculpted Hail of Stone.

Myself, I think M&M's system lent itself to minions way better than 4e. What if you used something like that? Maybe...any time a minion takes damage, regardless of damage dealt, it has to roll a Fortitude save (Will save for undead), DC 10 + 1/2 attacker's level + the primary ability modifier for the attack (Str for a melee attack, Int for a wizard's spell, etc). If it fails, it dies. A minion with an ability that might negate the damage can use that ability or roll the Fortitude save (so a drow getting fireballed could check SR, or a rogue try to evade with Reflex, in lieu of the Fort save). For natural hazards, DC is 10 + twice the dice of damage that would be dealt.

I had tried a 3.5 solo thing once, was mixed with a bunch of other house rules, but one thing I used was that it had five "tanks" of hit points. It could expend one tank to remove a debilitating or neutralizing effect, and if it lost more than one tank of hit points in a round, it only lost the one tank, and extra damage was carried over to the next round. That pretty much gives it a guaranteed 4 full rounds.

Aotrs Commander
2009-08-12, 06:59 AM
I knew I should have been more clear with the objective of these templates in the OP...

Right, the point of minions (clarification: the minion template I'm using for 3.5) is that they are part of the BBEG protection program.

There are basically two ways to spin out a BBEG fight so it doesn't get wiped in one round by a highly-skilled crowd of tactically adept optimisers.

One: Increase the BBEG's personal ability to resist damage. This means upping hit points and migitating the effects of SoDs that run the risk of making the battle anti-climatic (as that time the PCs got Baleful Polymorph successfully off on that 20th level cleric...) but without making them succumb to Final Fantasy Death spell syndrome in that they are only any use of targets you'd more easily kill by other means.

At current, however, a single monster lacks the staying power to resist more than a round or two's concentrated fire from a party of six characters. And so this option does not work well in 3.5 without seriously overlevelling the BBEG and/or stacking them full of cheap magic tricks (that the PCs will then swipe and use themselves.) And with BBEG casters, that can be a dodgy proposition, as you have to practically hamstring their spell choices. (I have, on occasion, done this, but not for any serious BBEGs.)

And so, because it is nice to be able to occasionally throw a single enemy at the PCs, the solo template has some use.

A solo template is never going to replace option two, however, merely make option one a more doable possibiliy.



Two:(Which is what I do currently.) Increase the number of viable targets by making the encounter a battle against mixed opposition with a full range of operational support; i.e. spellcaster support (especially Dispel Magic), ranged attackers, melee-magnets and possibly flankers. (I hasten to say 'tanks' because the melee-magnets role is not to absorb damage, it's to absorb actions and then die).

Most of the melee-magnets, ranged attacks and other non-spellcasters are broadly catergorised as cannon-fodder. I.e relatively easily killed enemies that (in theory) present enough of a threat the PCs cannot actually ignore them; while providing (in the case on a non-melee BBEG) a screen against melee attackers that has to be removed first. 'Relatively easily' because you want them in numbers, because they are there to absorb actions, not neccesarily damage. Having higher-level and fewer reduces their effect. (And that it just flat-out feels more dramatic if the PCs can whomp larger numbers. Sometimes, bigger numbers do make it more fun...)

The problem is with this that lower-level cannon-fodder usually becomes too ineffective to the PCs as they get to higher level. They get wiped out anyway at the moment by area-effect attacks (Reflex or otherwise), so the PCs finding non-reflex save spells is not an issue. (Besides, loading those spells mean you're missing out on the generally more damaging Reflex save spells. Great if you're dealing with minions, not so much if you don't run into any...)

But to be fair, if the Wizard/cleric/et al is spending his action fireballing (etc) the minions, he's not using his action to one-shot the BBEG... Which is exactly what the minions are there to do. Die, while drawing the fight out. And giving the PCs a smug feeling about blasting them into chunky ribbons.



Now, the purpose of my minion template is to be able to replace the current cannon-fodder (which, as mentioned, usually die in one spell anyway) with slightly higher level minions (with correspondingly higher damage), keeping the same numbers of bodies as I use now, and them remaining easy to dispatch. Which will make the PCs less inclined to totally ignore their feeble attacks and concentrate on the serious enemy.

You do not, ever, use minions on their own (obviously). The whole purpose of minions (at least as far as these here go, and not what they are used in 4E) is to provide the not-solo, more powerful enemies with some protection to stop the PCs ganging up on them by forcing the PCs to allocate resources to stop the minions.

In summation then, the intended purpose of the minion template will allow me to continue to run at the same bit-count as I normally use while making the cannon-fodder's damage potential higher but maintaining a relative ease of kill.


Take the core monster, the dretch. It's a CR 2 demon, so if you're running an encounter against a 8th-level party, you might have four or five of the little things as backup to the main threat. Their claw attacks are weak, but they can each throw up a stinking cloud once per day, DC 13 to save against. That's enough to make them a nuisance.

Under your rules, though, the number of dretches would be multiplied by four. Now the dretch squadron can throw out a total of sixteen to twenty DC 13 save-or-suck effects, each one lasting multiple rounds and able to hit multiple enemies.

So you have the situation that if the dretches go first, they can pretty much automatically incapacitate any PC with a Fort save of +9 or less, and have a good shot at taking down even the tougher ones. On the other hand, if the PCs go first, then the dretches will get annihilated in a few giant blasts. Basically the combat will be decided in Round 1. And the bookkeeping of taking care of that many spells active at once . . . I think this would make the battle more of a headache, not less.

Not exacty, no. Were I to use dretches in that capacity (and given that I find monsters general pants and prefer to use classed NPCs for opposition that's not hugely likely!) as support for a heavy hitter, I would not quadruple the number. I would probably use about six to eight (for dealing with a 6-character party) in number. If I were to apply the minion template, that number would not change; however, the dretches would not be bog-standard dretches, but advanced at least couple of HD, making them about CR 4(ish...I usually go for regular cannon-fodder at half the PCs level, so maybe up to 5 or 6). But that would be effectively two CR 4/5/6 monster's worth of XP, rather than 8 CR 2s. (Bugger EL and CR as anything other than something to calculate XP; I balance by eye; as you kinda half to if using a non 25-point buy-four-character-core-roles-filled party...)

However, as I say, if using anything with magical abilities capable of causing serious status effects (e.g. nausesa, paralysis, petrification, stun, energy drain, death) or even garenteed damage, you have to be very careful. But as I have to be careful with that now, that aspect makes no difference.

I'll grant you, though, the minion template will be best applied to striaght-up combatants who's build (aside from To Die) is to deal damage or use, at most, minor status effects (e.g shaken, dazzled, sickened); anything that's 'safe' to use enmasse.



Let me make this explicitly clear, too, in terms of numbers of combatants. The way I run D&D, in any serious, non-chaff, encounter with mixed support you are likely to be dealing with at least a dozen enemies of various levels, sometimes twice that; mostly classed humanoids; there will be archers, there will be melee-combatants and there will be spellcasters, perhaps more than one and of different types.

Examples of composition of previous encounters in modules I've run

Level 6 party (seven characters)
10 Orc Fighter 1
Orc Marshal 6
Wight Cleric 5 (homebrew wight template, CR 6)
Hobgoblin Marksman 6
Goblin Tracker 6 (fighter/outdoor/trapguy class)
Dark Elf Soulknife 9

Level 7-8(ish) party (seven characters) (Ambush)
Ranger 15
12 Ranger 4
Druid 8/Wizard 5/Theurge 2 with deinonychus companion

Level 7-8(ish) party (seven characters) (note this was technically random encounter and I used it to school that party to work together, afetr the poor show in the previous fight. After they got nearly whomped, I pointed out that if the PCs had acted like a party, not all charged off in seven different directions, they'd have easily won. And if the enemies had been of a slightly better level, they'd have been wiped out. They got the point...almost too well, actually...!)
12 Fighter 4 (mounted)
12 Ranger 4 (mounted)
6 Anti-Paladin 4 (mounted)
2 Cleric 5
2 Necromancer 5

16th level party (six characters)
Ranger 11/Wizard 8 (extrapolated from a AD&D module; not a good combo, usually!)
Cleric 13
3 Warmage 7
10 Knight 9
plus 8 Troll Fighter 4 as reinforcements

Oh and by-the-by: I also run Rolemaster with most of the books from the recent editions; before 3.x it was my system of choice...So believe me when I say, complexity: not an issue!

bosssmiley
2009-08-12, 07:07 AM
Minion: 1st hit cripples, 2nd hit kills (generally any creature >4CR lower than the PCs is already a minion due to the system mathematics).
Solo: advance the base creature by hit dice or class levels.

"Dis invention called 'wheel'. You no reinvent!"

Kaiyanwang
2009-08-12, 07:21 AM
Solo: advance the base creature by hit dice or class levels.


This, "fudging" with Nonassociated Levels maybe.

Aotrs Commander
2009-08-12, 07:25 AM
Solo: advance the base creature by hit dice or class levels.

If it were but that simple. Until the advent of 4E and the Solo template that's what I already did. Doesn't make a big enough difference. Even with maxed out hit points. And you're still vulnerable, oh so vulnerable, to SoDs.

Heck, I'm already throwing stuff with +50% the party level at 'em, and that gets real dangerous when you're dealing with casters.

Individual monsters require defensive abilities greater than offensive abilities; scaling the level simply scales both at the same rate, which leaves you with either a short whomping thanks to SoD or a TPK; neither of which is the desired outcome.

Kaiyanwang
2009-08-12, 07:40 AM
In my experience, individual monsters best frends are well played, annoying mooks.

Aotrs Commander
2009-08-12, 07:52 AM
Which brings us back to option two, (and the minions) which is the opposite solution to the problem.

The point of the solo template idea is that, on occasion, I want the PCs to fight ONE and only ONE creature and for it to provide a reasonable challenge; rather than a one-round steam-roller or a TPK due to the monster having to be ludicrously higher level to survive more than one round and having commensurately powerful attacks.

As y'know, a slight change of pace to all those high-bit-count mixed-support option two encounters (because nothing is fun done the same way repeatedly).

And as 3.5 stands currently, without new rules, those two extremes (cake-walk ot TPK) are the most likely and unsatisifactory outcomes.




I had tried a 3.5 solo thing once, was mixed with a bunch of other house rules, but one thing I used was that it had five "tanks" of hit points. It could expend one tank to remove a debilitating or neutralizing effect, and if it lost more than one tank of hit points in a round, it only lost the one tank, and extra damage was carried over to the next round. That pretty much gives it a guaranteed 4 full rounds.

I just realised in all the kerfuffle, I never responded to this. That's actually not a bad idea, not at all. Something I can have a mull over, at any rate.

I think that's probably the most helpful thing anyone's suggested so far...not that I'm not enjoying explaining myself at length to everyone...