[4E] Boring Solos?

[LoopyZebra]

So, I've run two solo encounters with the same group now, a soloized version of the standard skeleton and a young black dragon. Both times have been boring, for me and the players. The fights have taken way too long (more than two hours) partially because they have so much HP and have so high defenses. The solos, in return, don't seem to particularly hurt the players. The dragon had admittedly bad rolls, and the skeleton was custom-made, so this last part might just be coincidence. All in all, the encounters have been thoroughly boring, to the point where I really don't want to run another solo encounter, despite the fact I like ending things with a boss encounter. I ended up shaving a hundred hp off the dragon just to make the fight end. This is in stark contrast to minions, standards, and elites which were great fun.

I admit that how I DM'd them (I tried to make the encounters more interesting, but it still seemed to degenerate to a slugfest), player skill (most are new to RPGs in general, and all to 4th Ed.), and party composition (mostly ranged, meaning the fighter didn't have a flanking buddy and ended up using a bow most of the time) might have all played a role in the fun factor.

So, I'm curious, what have others peoples experience been with solos? Anything you did to make the encounters more interesting?

[Gralamin]

So, I've run two solo encounters with the same group now, a soloized version of the standard skeleton and a young black dragon. Both times have been boring, for me and the players. The fights have taken way too long (more than two hours) partially because they have so much HP and have so high defenses. The solos, in return, don't seem to particularly hurt the players. The dragon had admittedly bad rolls, and the skeleton was custom-made, so this last part might just be coincidence. All in all, the encounters have been thoroughly boring, to the point where I really don't want to run another solo encounter, despite the fact I like ending things with a boss encounter. I ended up shaving a hundred hp off the dragon just to make the fight end. This is in stark contrast to minions, standards, and elites which were great fun.

I admit that how I DM'd them (I tried to make the encounters more interesting, but it still seemed to degenerate to a slugfest), player skill (most are new to RPGs in general, and all to 4th Ed.), and party composition (mostly ranged, meaning the fighter didn't have a flanking buddy and ended up using a bow most of the time) might have all played a role in the fun factor.

So, I'm curious, what have others peoples experience been with solos? Anything you did to make the encounters more interesting?

Add in interesting terrain, dangerous obstacles, and give them a few extra tricks. For example perhaps the players fight a white dragon in a cave made of ice. On the roof there are icicles that the dragon can either try and grab and hurl at the players or can attempt to shake them off by allowing itself to crash to the ground. Perhaps there are also pillars of ice which will allow the players to hit it while it is flying, but the dragon can swoop down and knock them over.
In short, make the terrain Dynamic and the boss fight will be more dynamic.

[JaxGaret]

I have a houserule that attempts to fix the problem of combats with Solos and Elites taking too long, and not being dangerous enough.

{Scrubbed.}
Please do not carry arguments over across threads. Doing so is against the forum rules.

[Crow]

Add in interesting terrain, dangerous obstacles, and give them a few extra tricks. For example perhaps the players fight a white dragon in a cave made of ice. On the roof there are icicles that the dragon can either try and grab and hurl at the players or can attempt to shake them off by allowing itself to crash to the ground. Perhaps there are also pillars of ice which will allow the players to hit it while it is flying, but the dragon can swoop down and knock them over.
In short, make the terrain Dynamic and the boss fight will be more dynamic.

Terrain can only accomplish so much. In my experience with solos, the terrain does get used if you include it, but there are only so many terrain features you can put in and maintain believability. Terrain will give you 2 or 3 more tricks max, which is better than nothing. But doesn't justify poor monster design.

[Goober4473]

I've been trying to fix this issue by creating interesting and unique boss fights that take full advantage of the environment they're encountered in, and change tactics and abilities, or even become another monsters entire, mid-way through the fight to keep things fresh and fun.

Full discussion on my Boss Compendium here: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84281

[Antacid]

I ended up shaving a hundred hp off the dragon just to make the fight end. This is in stark contrast to minions, standards, and elites which were great fun.

You just happened to pick a bad match for the party. Not your fault nor the system's.

You need to take into account the character's attack bonus when choosing encounters, because in 4e with everything requiring a hit-roll, AB is the most important stat. Young Black Dragons have AC 22, so they're going to be, as you found out, hit only 25% of the time even by the players with relatively maxed-out +6 AB. In contrast, a White Dragon is only 1 level lower and has AC 18; a Young Green Dragon is 1 level higher and has AC... 21. If the party doesn't have a way to buff their AB, only having 25% to hit something with 200 HP was always going to take forever.

Just to give an example of how much the party's exact powers affect their balance v.s. different monster roles: if they'd had a Warlord hit with Lead the Attack they'd have all got something like +4 to hit for the entire encounter and the fight would have lasted an hour at the most, or substantially less, because doubling the chance to hit means that more of the party's debuffs would have worked. The two Solo fights I've played in rapidly devolved to every melee player pounding the monster from all directions while the Wizard and Ranger did around 20 damage per round. One turn fighting the Kobold Hall White Dragon we did a combined total of 96 HP damage (first level party).

I think you've got a fine stopgap right there, though. Make boss fights using an elite with a few interesting cronies and terrain (like the KotSF ending) until the group wants to try a Solo fight again. They probably won't even miss the 250 HP dragons for a while.

[Crow]

AFB;

What does Lead the Attack do?

[Goober4473]

Lead the Attack is a level 1 Warord daily that deals lots of damage and you and everyone close to you gets a bonus equal to 1 + your Int modifier to attacks against the target until the end of the encounter. If you miss, everyone still gets +1 to hit it.

[Crow]

Thank you.

[Antacid]

Lead the Attack: 3[W] + Strength, every player within 5 squares gets a power bonus to attack rolls equal to your Intelligence modifier + 1.

Within 5 squares usually = the entire party. The Warlord, BTW, spent the whole rest of the combat either healing or using Commander's Strike so the Strength 20 maul Fighter could attack again for 2d6 + 9 damage. Warlords + TW Fighters ftw.

EDIT: Gargh, ninja'd.

[Solo]

To keep Solos from bieng boring, you should spice things up with witty banter that deals sonic damage.

After all, you know the rules, and so do I.

[OneFamiliarFace]

To keep Solos from bieng boring, you should spice things up with witty banter that deals sonic damage.

After all, you know the rules, and so do I.

I'm with Solo on this one. The only thing more interesting than an orc in a 10x10 room, is an incredibly sharp, swashbuckling, solo orc in a 10x10 room. Heck, you could even throw a pillar of ice in there to really get the party started.

[Jarlax]

So, I'm curious, what have others peoples experience been with solos? Anything you did to make the encounters more interesting?

i ran my first solo yesterday in fact. a Kobold Wrympriest who i adjusted slightly (just juggled his stats to give him a decent int score) to accommodate the application of the wizard and devastator templates. the fight took only a few rounds, first round the PCs dominated initiative but the priest put up his sheild spell putting all his defenses above 20 pretty much negating their initial volley.

on his turn he used the remaining time on his shield to cast sleep in combat provoking opportunity attacks (which were all deflected) on the adjacent players and slowing them in the process. with all the players wasting their opportunity attacks on his spell he used shifty and then made a full move away from the now slowed fighters.

on their turn the fighters both failed their save putting them to sleep. removing 1/4 of the party from combat. the rest of the party moved into melee and the kobold followed up with his breath weapon(acid damage).

next round was more damage form the party, forcing him into bloodied. they had him cornered so he couldn't move away to cast any more spells. so proccing Endless power he repeated his breath weapon.

at this point the kobold was out of tricks, but it didn't matter the party downed him in the next round anyway.

[Frost]

i ran my first solo yesterday in fact. a Kobold Wrympriest who i adjusted slightly (just juggled his stats to give him a decent int score) to accommodate the application of the wizard and devastator templates. the fight took only a few rounds, first round the PCs dominated initiative but the priest put up his sheild spell putting all his defenses above 20 pretty much negating their initial volley.

on his turn he used the remaining time on his shield to cast sleep in combat provoking opportunity attacks (which were all deflected) on the adjacent players and slowing them in the process. with all the players wasting their opportunity attacks on his spell he used shifty and then made a full move away from the now slowed fighters.

on their turn the fighters both failed their save putting them to sleep. removing 1/4 of the party from combat. the rest of the party moved into melee and the kobold followed up with his breath weapon(acid damage).

next round was more damage form the party, forcing him into bloodied. they had him cornered so he couldn't move away to cast any more spells. so proccing Endless power he repeated his breath weapon.

at this point the kobold was out of tricks, but it didn't matter the party downed him in the next round anyway.

I don't think that's a Solo. Solo's have like 5 times the HP of a normal mob, so I don't think it's even possible to kill them in 4 rounds, much less with half the party out of the fight.

[Skyserpent]

I'll have you know I find Solo FASCINATING, and the V mask on the Black Mage sprite is adorable...


Oh right...

(BAD JOKE IS BAD!)

At any rate: I personally prefer large scale battles with multiple enemies to boss fights anyway... But yeah, I've encountered this problem too...

[MammonAzrael]

I ran my first solo last night, and we all had a blast. The only thing that disappointed me was that I had to fudge quite a few rolls to avoid killing my players.

We just finished running the basic mod in the back of the DMG, and the solo was, obviously, a Young White Dragon vs a party of 5. I suspect a large part of why they had such difficulty was the lack of a Leader class (2 Fighters, 1 Rogue, 1 TWF Ranger, and 1 Wizard). In fact the entire module was pretty hard on them.

While I did roll pretty well for the dragon, they went down very quickly. I stopped rolling to recharge it's breath weapon after it's second use (not bloodied, just second), because it was simply demolishing them. Even with me going after the Fighters instead of the squishies, and fudging nearly all my rolls, two of my players wound up having to roll new characters (which they were ok with since we're still getting used to the system).

Part of this might also be because they haven't mastered tactical movement yet (thankfully the rogue is best at this), but they started to get the hang of it near the end of the fight.

Overall we had a great time, and I'm looking forward to more solo encounters, I just worry that I'll have to fudge a lot more rolls so I don't TPK them.

[Joran]

The DM made the mistake of making it pretty obvious that there was only one more encounter; so we saved all of our dailies for what turned out to be that session's big bad.

So... Yea, he got nuked pretty much into oblivion. Also, sad for him, one of the AOE immediate reactions that he triggered when he got blooded was completely negated because the 16 INT warlock triggered it with witchfire (-5 to attack rolls until the warlock's next turn).

Our DM did a pretty good job with the solo monsters. We were fighting elementals, so both of the ones we fought had pull-in effects, which added a whole lot of excitement to our ranged people. Following the pull-in, the monster had a close burst. I'm not sure what'll happen if we fought something similar to Irontooth instead.

P.S. Still, despite the good solos, the best encounter was a caster who had a ranged burst storm that dazed people and was sustained, followed by air elementals that knocked people prone... Lots of rounds were spent just standing and then getting knocked down next round. I had to blow an action point just to get a healing word on someone =P

[CockroachTeaParty]

We had our second 4E game a few days ago, and the final boss was a large White Dragon. I thought the fight went very well. It was fun, and it didn't seem to drag on. There was definitely a sense of danger: our warlock was dropped, and my poor rogue was knocked out only moments before the paladin brought the beast down.

Everyone contributed to the fight adequately, except perhaps the cleric, who was doing less healing and more... failing. But we still managed to kill the creature. We were all level 1, and I believe our DM was using the sample dungeon from the back of the DMG.

One important thing we realized is that we had all had an extended rest before the fight. If we were not at full health and had all our powers available, the fight might have gone on longer, or perhaps even ended in one or more characters dying.

So, it was my first experience with a solo monster, but I thought it was a lot of fun. My halfling rogue did well over 40 something damage to the dragon over the course of the fight, and managed to avoid getting hit by the breath weapon. Really, though, it was our paladin that did most of the damage, as she sat there and hacked away with her halberd. It was good times.

[SamTheCleric]

I don't think that's a Solo. Solo's have like 5 times the HP of a normal mob, so I don't think it's even possible to kill them in 4 rounds, much less with half the party out of the fight.

Any monster with two templates is autmatically a "solo" level, regardless of HP.

[Reinboom]

I'm with Solo on this one. The only thing more interesting than an orc in a 10x10 room, is an incredibly sharp, swashbuckling, solo orc in a 10x10 room. Heck, you could even throw a pillar of ice in there to really get the party started.

If it is guarding a pie and the party is hungry, the adventure is complete.


I also have noticed a distinct boring factor to drawn out fights in 4e. HP should definitely be cut a bit, and further, the availability of options need to be increased.

I'm currently working on 2 houserule additions to try to alleviate this a bit as well, I think it's a rather common issue.

[Jarlax]

I don't think that's a Solo. Solo's have like 5 times the HP of a normal mob, so I don't think it's even possible to kill them in 4 rounds, much less with half the party out of the fight.

the DMs toolbox in the DMG explains that you can create what it considers a "quick and dirty" Solo by applying two templates to a monster(page 185 under the "creating new solos" section). solos created in this manner have approximately 3-4 times the hit points of the base monster, which considering the consensus that most solos have too many hit points is perhaps better.

i run a party of 6 players so taking 2 out of action is really only 1/3 of the party out of action. both were fighters the remaining players were 3 strikers (ranger, warlock, rouge) and a leader (warlord) we currently have no controller. all i achieved was to take out their tanks. the full array of damage classes were still up and due to the solo being a leader/controller there was no need for tanking, all his attacks were area of effect.

its base form has around 30hp, in its templated form it was over 100. so considering that this controller/leader was stacked against 3 strikers and forced into close combat from the word go, inhibiting the use of any additional spells once its shield wore off, i think it held out quite well.

[YPU]

Any monster with two templates is autmatically a "solo" level, regardless of HP.

but the dmg also says you should take care with that becouse it might turn out a lot weaker then other solo's.

[SamTheCleric]

but the dmg also says you should take care with that becouse it might turn out a lot weaker then other solo's.

*nods*

They recommend adding more powers to boost its capability... but its still technically a "solo" monster.

EDIT: As for making the encounters more interesting... I like to think of Solos as "boss fights"... monologue, taunt the players... make it less about the dice rolls and more about the experience... and the reward. The solo should be significant for the level, not just "another fight". The suggestion of interesting terrain is a good one... hostages that you need to rescue maybe... or even a trapped floor while dealing with a flying creature.

If all you do is roll dice and subtract numbers it will get endlessly monotonous.

Also, obligitory Final Fantasy "boss fight" music is always appropriate.

[BlackRabite]

The fights have taken way too long (more than two hours) partially because they have so much HP and have so high defenses.

That doesn't seem right, were the Solo's the appropriate level for the party? I ran two different Solo's in my campaign yesterday and they were both a lot of fun. Granted I had made both of them myself but if you follow the rules for making solo monsters in the DM's guide its really easy and they were a perfect matchup for the party as far as difficulty went. The fights didn't really take that long either, about the same amount of time as a normal encounter. If I remember correctly the defenses aren't any higher than an Elite would have and they should still have one weak defense.

Our group has a lot of fun with solo monsters and only one of my players seemed bored during the BBEG fight yesterday but that was because he died mid-fight. (BBEG used an action point when he hit bloodied and I rolled two 20's on his double-attack)

[Starbuck_II]

EDIT: As for making the encounters more interesting... I like to think of Solos as "boss fights"... monologue, taunt the players... make it less about the dice rolls and more about the experience... and the reward. The solo should be significant for the level, not just "another fight". The suggestion of interesting terrain is a good one... hostages that you need to rescue maybe... or even a trapped floor while dealing with a flying creature.

If all you do is roll dice and subtract numbers it will get endlessly monotonous.

Also, obligitory Final Fantasy "boss fight" music is always appropriate.

I did that idea with taunting + monologue, but he wasn't a solo: just a Elite.
Grass the Snake (Slayer fans may remember Naga the Serpent rip off):
He had his whole laugh at them (I used her laugh for him with hand oer mouth thingy) and than teleported them to his lab (beakers and table between the party and him).

He wanted them to be his new guinea pigs. He was squeezing gnomes to make invisiblity potion (dead humans for stabilizers). You could see a couple dead one in background.
After goons defeated he ran after turning invisible with potion (while he might be able to win; I didn't want to risk killing them all or him yet).

He was just a mid-boss for my cultist plot.

He scared the party bad though so they stopped doing that quest and decided to do Kobold one. Guess, I made him seem too scary. He did use Dragon Slave...

Cultist can't complete ritual till get back the scroll party stole. So the cultist will get back eventually.

[LoopyZebra]

Thanks for the responses. JaxGaret, I may use your houserule, I'll let you know how it goes if I use it. If I do use a solo again (may try another in a few sessions), I'll definitely use some of the thoughts in this thread. Probably will use an elite and friends for next session though.

That doesn't seem right, were the Solo's the appropriate level for the party?

Well, that may have had an impact, cause the party was level 1 when fighting the skeleton and level 2 against the dragon. I made the monsters higher level cause many of the examples I have seen so far (Kobold Hall and the DnD XP adventure, for starters), had the final solo encounter a couple levels above the party.

Also, like Antacid pointed out, the particular monsters may have been an issue. The party primarily targets AC and Reflex, the two solos in question had high AC and Reflex.

[JaxGaret]

Please read the rules before posting misinformation, people.

To convert a Standard monster to an Elite monster, you add a single template. To convert an Elite monster you add a single template, then double its HP, raise its save bonus to +5, and give it another AP.

[SamTheCleric]

Please read the rules before posting misinformation, people.

To convert a Standard monster to an Elite monster, you add a single template. To convert an Elite monster you add a single template, then double its HP, raise its save bonus to +5, and give it another AP.

Correct, however, as the DMG points out, this could still result in a solo significantly weaker than the "out-of-the-box" solos. Still a ton of HP... but maybe not nearly as much as one of the Solo Brutes presented in the MM.

[Frost]

That doesn't seem right, were the Solo's the appropriate level for the party?

To be fair, "taking two hours" might seem long to you, but who knows, it could have been normal time in rounds, just that different groups get different numbers of rounds per hour.

[hamishspence]

since it says "monster" rather than "Standard monster" in the rules for adding elite templates, I saw this as a good opportunity to make Solos more interesting.

Treat "1 action point" as 1 Extra Action Point
Treat "Counts as 2 monsters for XP and encounter building purposes as:
Counts as 1 extra monster for XP and building purposes

Go wild with templates. Consider removing humanoid prerequisites for some. Dragon wizards enable the play of an old-style dragon. Dragon liches enable a dracolich that actually fights like the dragon it originally was. Dragon vampire lords enable you to replicate Lashonna.