Help rewriting a Solo

[Epinephrine]

Hi all,

Been a while since I wrote here, have been running some stuff and just hit a solo that is really badly written - Virizan, Exarch of Tiamat.

It's a great idea, a shape changing enemy who uses different forms as needed, but the execution is horrible. I'm trying to figure out how to best rewrite him.

The basic idea they had was that this solo has had one of his 5 forms killed, and now alternates between them. One form is insubstantial and flies (skirmisher?), one is a swarm, for melee combat (brute?), one is a snaketongue caster (controller) and one is a naga (artillery).

Problems the current version has:
* weak offense, since each form is essentially a separate standard creature. Fighting 4 standards in a row is very weak.
* no real synergy; you can't set up with one form to take advantage of them with another.
* They have form changes as a minor action, but this means that daze locks him in form (or that he doesn't attack).
* No way to shed conditions easily (though I suppose changing forms may shed them in a sense - if a form has ongoing damage, does that continue to tick away when not in that form?)

What I'd like to do is come up with a way that the enemy feels like a solo, and that the shape changes fit well. As a solo it does have a couple of action points, so ideally it can get off some nice combos by using a power in one form to set up for an attack in another.

I think it needs:
*free action form changes (even if only 1/round)
*standard actions that are equivalent to several standard foe's attacks. (3 targets, possibly mutli-attacking on enemies). Preferably hard to completely invalidate, though each form should have a weakness (controller form may not have a strong attack that doesn't provoke, etc.).
*an off-turn action per form (encounter?)
*an attack shared among all forms (minor action gaze attack?) to ensure that daze does affect him, and to obviously connect the forms.

Questions:
1) Should conditions carry from one form to another, and if so, what method should Virizan have to shed conditions (avoiding complete lockdown - the original version could be daze/proned to uselessness)
2) How much focus fire capacity should a solo have? How much damage output?
3) What are some good ways to combo between forms? An attack that pulls or repositions, followed by changing into swarm form and attacking everything in the area (and leaving them in your aura) seems like a nice way to show off that ability, but I'd like to come up with others.

[Boci]

Have you considered making him an elite instead, so he can have some functioning minnions? Maybe one a couple of levels higher than the party.

[Daracaex]

Ah, running the Scales of War, I see. Funny. I am too. My party's just about to finally take on Sarshan. :smallsmile:

But I digress. Are you running the encounter straight from the module? If so, you could have some combos by forcing the party into unfortunate positions with the Treant or the Eladrin Gladiators.

Apart from that, I can think of a couple cool abilities. One might be giving one form a grabbing power, then have an immediate interrupt when someone other than the grabbed character attacks to instantly turn into the swarm form and force the target of the attack to change to the grabbed character.

That's just one thing. I may think of others, but for now, I need to get to class. I'll be back for more later!

[Surrealistik]

The per round damage output of solos should roughly equal 5 standards of the same type and level via multiattacks, high damage attacks, aoe attacks, minor/free action attacks, off-turn attacks, and/or multiple turns.

All solos need a reliable way to ignore, nullify, mitigate or otherwise marginalize the impact of strong controlling effects like stun, dominate and daze. This either pre-empts the condition, gives additional opportunities to save against it (including multiple turns), or replaces it with a less serious one, or ends it at some kind of cost (self-damage, power expenditure, effects ending, etc). Flat out immunity also works but that's pretty lame and lazy design. This is crucially important.

As for the shapechanging, I'd consider giving him the ability to change forms at the start of his turn as a free action, then the ability to change to another form as a minor action.

A couple of solos I've authored recently might serve as a good example:

Shar (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cf42AC4Keredxiz8dpmm1RjOIe16LB_DDNJBtzmFovo/edit#)

Vecna (MM3 style) (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1FpdzNBgMAd4iiEPBN9VTJ57tILIwol4odMJLJ1Y74tA/edit)

[Daracaex]

I just took a look at my module for Throne of the Stone-Skinned King and it looks like you misread Virizan's block a bit.

For one thing, Virizan only has four forms, not five. the main stat block exists all the time, and each of the four separate blocks for forms exist in addition to what is in the main block of the monster. This leads to another of your issues with it…

Virizan has the Mindspike power as a minor action 1/round at-will. It can be used in any of his forms, as can Overwhelm Mind and its action points. This is some resistance to dazed as action points can be used for additional actions even while dazed.

Though really, that comes down to your party. Is there a ton of dazing done by your players? Proning? Either way, you may look to customize status resistances according to your players. For example, if they like to make things prone a lot, perhaps say that Virizan has a trait that allows him to stand from prone as a free action when it transforms, for example. Or if you really think dazing is a problem, give it something like the Warden's start-of-turn save? These things can be done in different ways. Up to you and your knowledge of your party how resistant you want a monster to be against what the party does.



If you really wanted to modify this thing for maximum between-form psynergy, I'd be tempted to rewrite some key parts of the monster. If it were me (and it may well might be some day, if and when I run this adventure), I would do away with the separate HP values for each form and say that Virizan has access to all of its forms for the duration of the fight. I would also assign different defense values to each of the four forms instead of having universal defenses. Then I would give him an immediate interrupt in his main stat block that triggers when he is hit by an attack. The interrupt would allow him to change forms instantly, meaning he would be able to potentially dodge an attack once per round by switching to a form with a higher targeted defense, or reduce the damage from an attack by switching to the swarm form.

This would basically mean the fight becomes way more tactical as the party finds each form's weakness and tries to get their attacks to hit in such a way as to target the right defenses at the right times. It would also open up possibilities for additional attacks and effects of different forms like what I suggested above. Maybe the naga form has an attack that grabs a target, and can then use the interrupt to switch to the swarm form and re-target the incoming attack to the grabbed party member. Or switching into the venom wisp form allows it to immediately shift some squares. Things like that.

The thing to watch out for would be making the fight too hard by doing this, as there may well be a greater-than-average number of missed attacks on Virizan, drawing the fight out longer and making him more dangerous by giving him more time on the battlefield. However, I think the feel of him being a slippery, hard-to-pin-down shapeshifter would be really cool. You'll have to get someone else to help with damage values if those need to be changed, though. I'm so very confused about different monster damage outputs that I may well start a thread of my own about it.

Finally, did you notice that "Virizan" is remarkably similar to a certain legendary Pokémon's name?

[Epinephrine]

it looks like you misread Virizan's block a bit.
For one thing, Virizan only has four forms, not five.

Actually, he had five forms, the plot is that the characters kill one form in the previous encounter (Sovocles, his human form)

I'm making some modifications, one character is a Drow who betrayed her clan, so I've decided to make Sangwyr one of the Drow she crossed, and swapping a bunch of his forces for Drow, but otherwise pretty similar. The party has very strong control (slides/pushes/prones/dazes), so I can pretty much count on them having the advantage that way. As well, two characters have at-will teleportation (an assassin, who can teleport any time she is beside a creature to another creature, and a warlock-adin who can teleport at will), making it difficult to keep them in grabs (plus the slides/etc. that can get them out).

All:
Wow, thanks for the ideas! I love the suggestion of an interrupt form change. I might make it a recharge 4-6 or something instead of at-will to ensure that he doesn't always do it. Then again, the two best forms for defense will go down fast if used for defense (insubstantial wisp, and swarm form both have substantial damage reduction). Even a 3 or 4 point spread in defenses would make an interrupt very handy to change forms and deflect an attack.

Auto shifting a square when going into the mist form would be nice (or make it an action that shifts a square, but not on the immediate version - I don't want to negate attacks that way).

Agreed, I don't want to drag the fight out too long, limiting forms by not having a shared pool of HP might be good, making him less flexible and less able to shrug off attacks as his forms are eliminated. the last form standing loses its immediate action defense, as there is no form left to switch to.

Yes, I can build to oppose the party's strengths (they have at least 4 dazing attacks across the party, as well as a warlock-adin with a flail who prones with every MBA), but I don't want to eliminate their advantages that they've carefully built toward. I could make the swarm un-prone-able (it's already hard to move), and the wisp form could have an additional move action every round (allowing it to stand up more easily). That way, if you prone the naga form and daze it, it can swap to wisp form as a free action, gaining a move, and use that to stand up. Once Wisp form is gone, that's not an option anymore.

Adding a grab option to the naga form is nice; I will likely change its attack from an area burst 10 with in 20 (absurdly big) to a close blast that also creates a non-overlapping area burst (the Icetouched Behir in a previous chapter could do this, it's a nifty way to punish both adjacent and distant foes.) It could deal additional damage to immobilised foes, with the attack from the controller form handing out slide-immobilises (useful for sliding foes over to the treant, grouping them for a swarm or blast, etc.)

Great ideas, I think I'm ready to tackle this :)