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8 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 8:25AM
#31
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Date Joined:
Aug 10, 2007
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The group I played this adventure with I'm pretty sure we'd have bypassed the first form entirely by dropping it before its initiative.
If that's how you get your jollies, more power to you.
Heh, that's effectively what happened -- it got swatted by 3 PCs' worth of attacks, which triggered the stage transition into Stage 2.
The dichotomy of these statements is baffling. 
Dan Anderson
@EpicUthrac
Living Forgotten Realms Calimshan Writing Director
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
Meet me at TotalConfusion:
http://www.totalcon.com/RolePlaying.html
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8 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 8:26AM
#32
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- Senior Volunteer Community Lead
Date Joined:
Aug 19, 2007
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Well, what I mean is... 230 hp really isn't a lot at level 18. Especially since all of the PCs have an AP for this fight, cause it's the 3rd fight. (hmm, maybe this adventure gave you one for the puzzles though)
But, sure, if radiant didn't turn off its defense that'd switch things up. The party I played with (randomly, actually - just who happened to show up, the latter two being people who don't normally play) included my invoker/morninglord, a rogue with a radiant rapier, and a bard/ranger with a radiant bow. So, without doing anything crazy, I'd expect initiative to go: "I go and turn off its defense, damaging and controlling it some. The rogue hits its two-three times bloodying it. The bard/ranger hits it two-three times finishing it." Without any particularly special effort, just doing normal stuff.
I mean, the trick is that my preferred jollies is that every PC and monster gets to act (one reason my invoker doesn't actually have any stun powers), so missing out on the first phase is a real downside for me. And since, yeah, I'm pondering this most from the perspective of throwing epic multistage solos, I have to expect that almost every table will be able to nova down a first stage.
Keith Richmond
Living Forgotten Realms Epic Writing Director
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8 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 10:41AM
#33
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There's a tension between giving the monster enough defensive mojo to prevent it from being nova'd in one turn, and so much defensive mojo that it turns into a grind. When we played it, the dragon might have erred on the grindy side, hence our on-the-spot decision to allow radiant damage to shut off its resist. Uthrac, let me address your point about the dichotomy between "get your jollies by muderizing the monster on round 1" and "got swatted by 3 PCs' attacks" by way of giving a more detailed round-by-round breakdown of the battle. This is all from memory, so apologies if the math doesn't exactly work out. Spoiler:
Show
Note: we used average damage for all monsters, which is what the numbers in brackets are in Sapphy's stat-block.
Pre-Battle
We used the map of the red dragon lair that came with the colossal red dragon "mini". (However, we did use the proper blue dragon "mini" for Sapphiraktar). PCs started in a 5x5-ish "PC start area" in one corner of the map.
Sapphiraktar flies in, causes a cave-in so the PCs know they can't escape. Initiative is rolled. The order for the entire fight will be:
* barbarian (supremely optimized charge-build)
* rogue|sorcerer (lightning damage, would-be Riposte Striker) (me)
* Sapphiraktar turn 1
* paladin (Str-based)
* Sapphiraktar turn 2
* wizard (terribly unoptimized)
* warlord (moderately poorly optimized)
Right off the bat I see that the initiative is going to screw the party. If I had been DMing, I probably would have spread Sapphy's turns out so that more than one PC got to act in between them.
Round 1
Sapphy is about 15 squares away from the PCs.
Barbarian charges Sapphy, hits for about 80 damage and prone. DM notes that "not all of the damage gets through". PCs frown.
Rogue|Sorcerer moves up behind some cover, unleashes a 5d8 area burst attack on the dragon. Sapphy retaliates with Spitbreath Reaction (which we decided should also work against Area attacks, not just Ranged).
Sapphy stands up, uses Mesmerizing Glance to force the barbarian to charge rogue|sorc and hit for 50ish damage. Rogue|sorc goes bloodied. Sapphy uses Claws on barbarian, but DM forgets that it's a double attack so only hits once.
Paladin double-moves but cannot reach Sapphy. (Paladin couldn't have known this, but he would have been better off delaying.)
Sapphy uses Mesmerizing Glance to force rogue|sorc to attack barb; that attack misses. Sapphy flies over to warlord and wizard, claws one of them.
Wizard uses Mass Transformation to turn Sapphy into a tiny spider.
Warlord orders barbarian to charge the dragon (Commander's Strike-ish power).
Round 2
Barbarian pounds on Sapphy for about 70 damage.
Rogue|Sorc moves into flank, uses rogue power on dragon (with CA), hits for about 40 damage. This reduced Sapphy to 0 hp which triggers first stage transition.
This is what I mean by "3 PCs got to swat the spider" -- during the time that Sapphy was transformed, 3 PCs got to take swings against it. (Well technically only 2 because the warlord used his turn to order the barbarian to attack.)
Sapphy uses Strafing Black Lightning Breath Weapon (end of Stage 1) to blast everyone in the party. Weirdly this only hits the wizard, who gets immobilized, while everyone else gets slowed (and takes damage and grants CA).
The stage transition happened on the rogue|sorc's turn, so now it is Sapphy's turn.
Sapphy uses Black Lightning Strafe to attack 3 of the PCs. Lands, then Claws the paladin and tries to slide him into the stream (which would have imposed lightning vulnerability). Paladin makes his save to fall prone. (I think he should have allowed himself to be put into the stream instead.)
Paladin stands up, charges Sapphy with MBA. Hits. Sapphy reacts with Wing Backblast to re-prone paladin, rogue|sorc, and wizard.
This was too much proning, which is why I recommend changing it to just push 3 or something.
Sapphy uses Black Lightning Strafe to attack 3 more PCs, continues to Claw people.
Here we see how the init order is screwing the PCs. Because the paladin was (unexpectedly) the least effective PC, and because he kept triggering the dragon's immediates, it was like Sapphy got multiple turns in a row, which wasn't the intent. Poor paladin kept rolling 6s and 7s on his attack rolls in addition to being slowed / prone / etc.
Wizard does something ineffectual. (It was around now that I advised her player to try to Immobilize the dragon so it couldn't keep using Strafe. She declined because that would be "useless". Surprising how easily players get discouraged when their debuffs won't stick for more than 1 turn!)
Warlord heals rogue|sorc, attacks, misses.
Rounds 3-4
Barbarian continues to dole out sickening amounts of damage.
Rogue|Sorc (me) uses a charge from the phylactery to let everyone spend a healing surge.
Paladin continues to struggle with prone, slowed, and only making MBAs.
Wizard can't do enough damage to punch through resist 20 and is too pouty to apply actual CONTROL effects.
Warlord suffers from not taking feat taxes to keep his attack bonus high enough and keeps whiffing.
Around now is when we decide that we need a way to shut off Sapphy's resist 20 all, so DM picks radiant (which makes sense vs. a dracolich). He probably thought the paladin or wizard would be doing most of this (wizard likes radiant powers), but...
Rogue|Sorc (me) realizes the situation is turning grind-y. Activates Crown of the Brilliant Sun on every attack from now on to change all lightning damage (via lightning weapon) into radiant damage.
I decide to nova to force the next stage transition. Hit with standard action, turns off resist. Hit with minor action attack which triggers stage 3...
Sapphy uses Thunderous Dive (end of Stage 2) to prone about half the party. Fortunately he is still adjacent to my PC after this.
Continuing my PC's turn... hit with another minor action attack to turn off resist *again* (because Bloodied Sapphy is a new monster). Action point and hit with another attack. Take aura damage (used up my sorcerer resistance earlier to block an attack).
Sapphy orients towards 3 PCs and blasts them with Black Lightning Breath Weapon. Paladin and barbarian go bloodied. Sapphy Tail Slaps the paladin next to him. Gores the barbarian.
Paladin finally gets a turn of adjacency and I honestly can't remember what he did. The dice hated him so much that he probably rolled a 3 or something.
Sapphy Gores the paladin, Tail Slaps the rogue|sorc (who is starting to wish he hadn't neglected his defenses quite as much).
Wizard, uh, really I have no idea.
Warlord probably orders the barbarian to hit again.
Round 5
Barbarian, good grief, you're the reason we need resist 20 all (remember this reactivated at the start of Sapphy's "turn 2" last round).
Rogue|Sorc uses a shift power to get into flank, attacks, hits, turns off resist again. This flanking attack triggers Sapphy's Wing Snap which I honestly forgot we had given him. Heh.
Sapphy's last turn. DM decides to have him fly away which triggers a table's worth of OAs from everyone. Clearly, the dragon does not survive this. Potentially interesting facts: * PCs were never in serious danger at least judging by hit points. However... * I'm pretty sure the DM never used any of Sapphy's Action Points. * DM also forgot that Claw is a double-attack. That would've made a big difference. * Sapphy never used his Draconic Resilience to shrug off a condition. Every condition that he ended was either because of a stage transition, or was when he started his turn and reactivated resist (which was our on-the-spot ruling).
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8 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 10:49AM
#34
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I have to expect that almost every table will be able to nova down a first stage.
I think that's actually OK. If the PCs nova down the first stage, they still have to deal with the (unexpected?) next two stages.
Also remember that at the end of stage 1 the monster gets to make some sort of massive attack. In EPIC that attack can be really, really over-the-top if you want.
(I probably didn't make Level 18 Sapphiraktar's end-of-stage attacks brutal enough, but I was scared to ramp them up without any playtesting.)
So the PCs have succeeded in nova'ing away Stage 1 at the expense of their APs, some Daily powers, and whatever amount of damage they took from the end-of-stage attack.
Now they've got to face Stages 2 and 3 of an Epic solo without APs, down a few Daily powers, and wounded... seems fair to me.
= = =
The more I think about it, the more I like my flippant idea of giving Stage 1 a huge cushion of temp hit points that go away when the monster starts its first turn. That way the monster can survive whatever damage the PCs throw at it before it gets to act, yet all those temps don't really affect the fight once it gets started.
Of course, you'd need some way for the monster to survive all the non-damaging effects that get piled onto it prior to its first turn. In this 3-stage design, the monster doesn't shrug off effects until the end of its turn, but you could change that to the start of its turn if you want. Just need to be aware that the latter will definitely make it hard for PCs to exert any Control (in the Controller role sense), since the monster will never spend any of its actual turns being debuffed.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 10:52AM
#35
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The temporary hit points shtick is a key component of the worldbreaker design I posted above. It's not only a cushion (not in the way I used it, but it's not a stretch to imagine), but it's a good "countdown timer" for the stages that follow. I'm not exactly sure how you'd work it into this "staged" design though.
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8 months ago ::
Sep 28, 2012 - 1:44PM
#36
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Date Joined:
Jun 14, 2009
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And since, yeah, I'm pondering this most from the perspective of throwing epic multistage solos, I have to expect that almost every table will be able to nova down a first stage.
You could give the Superboss for an epic multistage solo an additional trigger in stage one, reading as follows:
Triggered Action: (No action, triggered when Superboss Phase 1 is reduced to 0 hit points).
Effect: Superboss does not die, and Switch to Superboss Phase 2 is not triggered. At the beginning of Superboss Phase 1's next turn, remove all conditions from Superboss Phase 1, and Superboss Phase 1 can then stand up as a free action. Following this, at the end of the turn, Switch Superboss to Phase 2 is triggered.
Special: Superboss Phase 1 loses this ability at the end of his first turn.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 01, 2012 - 2:13AM
#37
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2010
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You're walking on very thin ice when you start nerfing round 1 novas. Depending on what tier you're writing for, it's possible that players have nothing left but at-will powers and one or two dailies after their round 1 nova. If the monster then goes "LOL, I'll ignore all the damage you just did" and then comes online, it'll either be a boring fight (spamming low damage at-wills) or a very lethal one because the solo utterly destroys them. It's the nature of 4E that the nova is just the most effective tactic. If a solo suddenly deviates from that without any previous warning, like "You notice it has some sort of forcefield protecting it" (temp HP cushion), players will feel like they've been duped and complain the fight is unfair. If you're afraid of nova's, there are other ways to fix that. Examples
Show
- Give the monster a immediate/free/no action insubstantial encounter power that triggers on getting hit and lasts until the end of the monster's next turn. When players see the monster's insubstantial, they'll hold back for a while or change tactics.
- Trigger the second/third stage early, make it last longer, and include a mechanism as part of the trigger that puts the solo temporarily out of reach of the players (like teleportation or flying).
- My favorite: make the stage 3 form super strong. If they're done with their novas but the monster's not dead yet, they now have to deal with a truly powerful creature. If they saved their novas for the third stage, this wouldn't have happened. Hydras that grow extra heads once they lose 1/4 of their HP are my favorite example of this.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 01, 2012 - 2:21AM
#38
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Date Joined:
Apr 14, 2010
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We used the 3-stage dragon in last night's game. See below for the stats we used, plus some comments on how I would modify it.
[report]
Most of the things you report are general monster design. How did you, the other players and the DM experience the multistage thing?
When I ran mine last week, one of my players was very concerned when the stage 2 monster didn't become bloodied even after it was dealt lots of damage, and started thinking about running away or otherwise changing tactics. He wasn't aware that he was facing a multistage monster and that it would only become bloodied when it had lost 2/3 of its HP.
That's when I learned you have to make it very clear to the players when you're deviating from the standard D&D rules.
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8 months ago ::
Oct 01, 2012 - 5:37AM
#39
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We made it clear up front that the monster was different and that it broke the rules in various ways. We didn't specifically say anything about its bloodied value.
I thought it was a good fight. Especially during Stage 2 when the dragon strafed several times.
I would not use a 3-stage boss monster against low-level PCs precisely because they might run out of Encounters / Dailies to use against it. I'd save the 3-stage monsters for levels 7 (when you get your 3rd Encounter attack power) and up.
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