Yesterday I finished DMing an adventure involving a young black dragon (level 3), and man are they brutal! The players fought the showdown battle with a cleric, a fighter, a paladin and a rogue. To be fair they were only 2nd level and 4th edition does assume a party size of five PCs, but they had had no previous fights that day so they had all their dailies, action points and healing surges. If I had run the dragon as written, it would have been a decisive TPK. Mainly I think it was the dragon's zone of darkness that it can maintain indefinitely and which low level PCs have no means to counter, that I know of.
Anyone have similar experiences with 4e monsters?
TS
The number of people in the party makes a huge difference. A whole extra slew of actions.
Yesterday I finished DMing an adventure involving a young black dragon (level 3), and man are they brutal! The players fought the showdown battle with a cleric, a fighter, a paladin and a rogue. To be fair they were only 2nd level and 4th edition does assume a party size of five PCs, but they had had no previous fights that day so they had all their dailies, action points and healing surges. If I had run the dragon as written, it would have been a decisive TPK. Mainly I think it was the dragon's zone of darkness that it can maintain indefinitely and which low level PCs have no means to counter, that I know of.
Anyone have similar experiences with 4e monsters?
TS
I had a very similar experience. 1st level party versus a White Dragon. Now there were 5 of us, but we had all our dailies and action points going in and we hit that Dragon fast and hard. It still ended up going 9 rounds with a photo finish with the party tapped on healing for that encounter, every daily, action point and encounter power long ago used. In fact the only reason we were still in the fight with two party members down is that the 'bloodied' effect in 4E pretty much tells you how many hps a creature has. So we new we were within a few hits of taking the Dragon down.
A really exciting combat.
My dragon fight was a little too exciting; maybe a fifth PC would have turned the tide in their favor, but with the dragon's continual 27 AC due to Cloud of Darkness...I have my doubts. Now if Dispel Magic was lower level and there was a wizard PC to use it...maybe things would be very different. Eh whatever, it was a learning experience. Next time I know to be careful with solos and recharge powers.
TS
My dragon fight was a little too exciting; maybe a fifth PC would have turned the tide in their favor, but with the dragon's continual 27 AC due to Cloud of Darkness...I have my doubts. Now if Dispel Magic was lower level and there was a wizard PC to use it...maybe things would be very different. Eh whatever, it was a learning experience. Next time I know to be careful with solos and recharge powers.
TS
Thats unfortunate. I think that the specifically designed Solo's like the Dragons and the Eye Tyrant are especially nasty. I'll also note that a Young Black is a Level 4 Solo, not a Level 3 Solo.
I;d not be shocked to find that Solo's are a little more powerful for their level against low level characters as well. Higher level ones can use nerfs on the Dragon and even with its great saving bonus its still a big blow to be suffering from the nerf until the Dragon gets to its round and can make a save. Low level parties don't have much in the way of nerfs, furthermore they have a somewhat limited power selection, so they have a harder time tailoring their attacks to target the monsters weakest defence type. I do however think a 5th player would have probably been a fair bit of help. Thats one more player to soak up the attacks and to make its own attacks.
My group has been alternating between 4 and 5 players in the last few sessions and, despite the DM changing the toughness of the encounters to reflect our party numbers we have been really noticing it when we are down to 4 players compared to when we are up at 5.
My dragon fight was a little too exciting; maybe a fifth PC would have turned the tide in their favor, but...
It may be my imagination, but I think 4e is a little more sensitive to the addition (or subtraction) of only a player or two.
My dragon fight was a little too exciting; maybe a fifth PC would have turned the tide in their favor, but...It may be my imagination, but I think 4e is a little more sensitive to the addition (or subtraction) of only a player or two.
Really?
I'd generally think the opposite because 3.x characters are generally more powerful and the loss if any of them can have a dramatic impact on what the whole party can do. In 4E we run a little loose on having players present. I don't do that in my 3.5 game. If the Sorceress and her Gold Dragon Cohort is not around then the whole party is far far weaker. In the 3.5 game I'm tossing save or die magic around like candy these days - I can't fathom the party thinking that they could move without one of the members. It'd just not fly.
I think one is likely to get into more trouble in 4E in this regard because its not so clear cut that the party can't go on without one of the characters. A mistake I don't think a party would make in 3.5 - they'd no right off that continuing without one of the vital members of the team was going to mean everyone dies and fast.
It is definitely a tough encounter, though, and I'm not trying to say otherwise. Can you give us more info on the strategy the party used and what did/didn't work?
There wasn't much strategy going on, to be frank. The rogue flanked, but other than that everyone just kinda surrounded it and hacked/blasted away. You're right that cloud of darkness doesn't move once used, so that would have helped the PCs if they had tried retreating. Maybe they assumed it would move with the dragon or maybe they just didn't think of it; I don't know. Even so, CoD has a 50% chance to recharge each round so even with that strategy it would have been somewhat like trying to photograph a frolicking dolphin through a deck floor window.
I didn't use much strategy either. I had the dragon land at the door of a merchant shop and batter its way in while it ignored the first round of PC attacks. Once inside I had it lazily and arrogantly attack nearby PCs. At one point I had it use an action point just to retrieve a mundane bracelet from a shop counter that it had earlier used to fool one of the PCs.
TS