"I don't think we're in Kansas anymore" - How to build a tornado as a solo monster?

[Angel Bob]

The other day, inspired by a tornado warning that occurred during our D&D session, one of my players asked me if the group could someday fight a tornado. My first thought was "That's ridiculous", but after a bit of consideration, I think it could be done. Make a giant air elemental, give it an aura of forced movement, have it toss the PCs around and smash them with debris -- it could be a very interesting battle.

However, while I have the imagination to picture the fight, I don't know if I have the skill to stat up a monster that gives the effect I'm going for. Playgrounders -- any suggestions?

[Gilphon]

Well, the first question is level, of course. Do you want it to be a boss fight, or just kind of a set piece random encounter?

After that, role. It sounds like a fairly textbook controller to me, so that, combined with level, gives us a skeleton to work off of. So that's the basics of the math; we just need to add the right abilities.

Then... aura of forced movement is obvious- but if you ask me, the aura should also deafen, given how noisy all the high speed wind would be. Go for lots of close burst attacks- a tornado's not going to be targeting anything specific, but being near it should be very dangerous. And add a minor action ranged attack vs. Reflex that prones- representing falling debris. Maybe steal the 'Engulfing Winds' attack from the Great Air Elemental (MM3) as well, that has the right flavour- though of course you'll want to mess with the numbers to make it appropriate for your players.

Oh- and if a PC start his turn inside the tornado's space, it makes an attack vs. Fortitude to toss the PC away and into the air. Not high enough to kill them, but high enough to make the players scramble to avoid letting it happen again. Which will make things difficult for the melee oriented PCs.

[MoutonRustique]

You could use a windstriker MM2 pn103 and a earthwind ravager MM1 pn104 as baseline to work from. Those are the only books within reach of my hands right now...

Perhaps you could have it be in three phases:
1 - SC to "fight" the tornado and get to its heart
2 - "eye of the storm", they're within the tornado and must fend of the different creatures the tornado has sucked up (lost cows for a silly atmosphere) while they also battle the "tornado heart": a form of "something" (construct, "face", convergence, ???)
3 - "classic elemental", they've removed much of the tornado's power: "regular" tornado elemental

[masteraleph]

It might also be interesting to add something like the swarm rules to it- make it vulnerable to bursts and blasts and resist melee and ranged attacks.

[georgie_leech]

Ideal level and Boss/Miniboss/Notboss are definitely important factors for this. Numbers aside, the conditions the party can be expected to deal with and appropriate tactical options the party can handle will change. I wouldn't send a flying monster that imposes hefty ranged penalties at low level PC's, for instance, but would be par for the course late Paragon or Epic.

[Angel Bob]

Ah, yes, I suppose I should give some clarifying details. The party consists of four Level 6 characters: a slayer (melee), a thief (melee or ranged), a war priest (melee), and a sha'ir (close/area). I'm thinking a Level 8 Solo (Controller, obviously) would be a suitable challenge for them.

I like all of the ideas that have been presented so far! Let me compose a list:

deafening winds
aura of forced movement
swarm vulnerabilities
close bursts/blasts; ranged debris attack
inspiration: Great Air Elemental, Windstriker, Earthwind Ravager

[TurboGhast]

An important thing to note is that forced movement means nothing if there isn't stuff that stays still. Perhaps have the terrain include a hill or something that doesn't get pulled into the tornado.

[Inevitability]

Am I the only one who got a flashback to Darths and Droid's 'I attack the sandstorm' scene?

[neonchameleon]

The first question is how you want people to fight the tornado. The second is how you want it to fight.

My approach would be:

To fight the tornado

The Tornado is a form of Air Elemental that wraps protective winds round itself (partly for fun). In order to get at the vulnerable parts of the tornado they need to make it through the whirling winds.

For martial characters (i.e. weapon attacks) the best place to do that is from inside the eye of the tornado (full damage, no counter-attack).

Melee attacks from inside the tornado do full damage - but a character riding inside the tornado is restrained and takes automatic damage - and rises by four squares per round.

Ranged attacks and reach melee attacks from outside the tornado count the tornado as insubstantial.

For spellcaster damage types (i.e. implement attacks):
Force does full damage. No special effects.
Fire does full damage points - and also tier*5 fire damage to anyone actually caught up in the tornado as the fire runs through.
Cold does half damage - but slows the winds, meaning that until the start of the caster's next turn all weapon damage against the tornado is full damage.
Lightning: Haha, no. You want to throw lightning at a tornado? Seriously? It absorbs it and gets to fire back.

Everything else is only half damage.

It also needs solo-resistances to prevent control effects.

Attack debuffs only apply to its next attack and are then drawn away.
Dazed instead does 5*tier extra damage
Dominated or Stunned do 10*tier extra damage.

If this looks difficult, it's meant to. But it's all perfectly logical. The PCs need to get through the exterior of this force of nature that's protected by the whirling winds around it. You'll still need to give them clues in advance (possibly fights with mini-versions). Oh, and the tornado is a brute. And immune to opportunity attacks.

Tornado offence

The tornado is a huge creature that attacks anything it moves over. Anything it hits is picked up, two squares in the air, and restrained -and they rise a further two squares on the tornado's turn. (Move action hard athletics or acrobatics to escape). And the tornado inflicts auto-damage on them at the start of its turn.

Anyone in the eye of the tornado gets +2 to all defences and may as an opportunity action remain in the eye for the rest of the turn if the tornado misses.

Recharge action: Drop something heavy out of the tornado (trees in a serious game, grand pianos, houses, kitchen sinks, sheep in a silly one)
Recharge action: Lightning bolt.
At will action: Attack everyone inside the tornado (not counting the eye).

Bloodied reaction: The tornado halves in height but picks up a duststorm around it (concealment + hurts peope).