The Balancing Act
Nevertheless, Elites often have unfair defenses, inappropriate damage, or hit point extremes that often turn them into enemies that just aren’t fun to fight, so let’s take a look at a few examples:
Goblin Underboss
Overview
At first glance, the Goblin Underboss seems reasonable enough, and might likely be a party’s first encounter with a leader-type monster, one tough enough to survive focused fire, and with the abilities that, supposedly, will make it dangerous enough that the party might want to kill it first.
Defensively, the Underboss is fine. The hit points seem freakishly high (more than double any goblin, more than any bugbear, and more than any hobgoblin except the Hand of Bane, which has twice as many levels as the level 4 Elite Underboss), but this is offset a bit by mediocre defenses. Unfortunately, those defenses go from mediocre to pretty good (comparable to the solo Young Black Dragon) once it hits bloodied, thanks to its Survival Instinct ability—and just bloodied it still has more hit points than any goblin.
Its controller power, shifting when missed, seems nice, but is largely irrelevant against a party that has Fighters, as combat challenge simply shreds shifting enemies. Likewise, its attack is mysteriously weak, you have to look to the level one minion Goblin Cutter to find a goblin with a clearly inferior ability to inflict damage.
The end result of these powers and stats is the Goblin Underboss inevitably sees its allies cut down, and its ‘control’ ability made worthless by Combat Superiority. It might have Survival Instinct, but it basically will end up surrounded by the party as they pound it into the dirt eventually.
General Suggestions for Fixes and Encounters
All those hit points don’t really help the Underboss become a major threat to the party, or help it do its job as a Leader. In fact, other than being a big bag of hit points, the Underboss doesn’t really do anything that qualifies as a ‘Leader’. Players are better off just ignoring the creature and saving it for last, making Superior Goblin Tactics pointless. Consider shaving the hit points down to 80, reducing the Survival Instinct bonus to a more manageable +2, and adding in a few more powers:
Goblin Leader
Other goblins in line of sight of the goblin underboss get a +1 to all defenses. If the underboss is defeated, or flees the combat, all other goblins in the encounter get a –1 to all defenses instead of a bonus. This penalty likewise applies while the underboss is dazed or stunned.
Crafty Leader
The underboss, and all goblins within sight of the goblin underboss, gain a +2 bonus to AC and Reflex defense against opportunity or combat challenge attacks. This bonus does not apply if the underboss is dazed or stunned.
The former ability now turns the Underboss into an actual leader, whose presence now makes a difference in the battle, and giving the players a reason to consider targeting him first. The second new ability makes Goblin Tactics, dubious without a leader, more than just a deathtrap for the goblin that uses it, and gives the Underboss more of a chance to escape, useful now that adventurers have some reason to target it.
It’s hard to build an encounter that takes advantage of goblin abilities. The only skill goblins reliably have is Thievery, so consider putting in a great number of very obvious traps (swinging axe traps, jabbing spear traps, etc), especially through choke points, and note that the Thievery skill can be used to keep a trap from triggering. By keeping the DC relatively low (say, DC 12), goblins should have little difficulty maneuvering through such trapped squares, while most player characters would need to find other routes, or take their chances. As the traps are completely obvious, the DM is justified in using them liberally, or by assigning a low experience point value for including them. Difficult terrain, curiously enough, should be avoided, since it greatly hampers the goblins’ ability to shift.
Balancing for Different Party Size
As party size increases, the Underboss becomes more easily surrounded, focused on by the party, and taken down. Adding a few extra goblins helps, and note how the leadership abilities above naturally scale if there are more goblins around. Still, consider making the Underboss a bit more competent, by giving him an additional ability for six players:
Bully Push (standard, recharge 6, +1 for each party member over five)
Close burst 1. +8 vs Reflex, 1d6 + 4 damage, and target is pushed 1 square and knocked prone. This effects both enemies and allies.
While not particularly dangerous (unless there are traps around), this will at least give the Underboss a chance to get some breathing room if he’s swarmed, a natural concern for a goblin wishing to become a leader.
The additional goblins will be more important at 7 or more players, and the Underboss should get an action point just to keep up with the onslaught of the marauding heroes. Also consider adding the following, to make it easier for the leader to actually get an advantage out of having troops to lead:
Combat Advantage
The goblin underboss deals an extra 2d6 damage against any target it has combat advantage against.
Against smaller sized parties, the Underboss becomes less and less useable, and the leadership abilities granted above become naturally weaker as the number of goblins decreases. You could take off 20 hit points for each player under five (starting with the recommended 80, above), but you’re probably better off just substituting in lower level goblins for the Underboss, such as the Goblin Skullcleaver, instead.
While many balance fixes involve making the monsters a bit stronger, some monsters are actually bit too strong for their level. Consider:
Vampire Lord
Overview
Vampires are your classic enemy for heroes that have adventured enough to be confident of their abilities, even if they’re not ready for world-changing events. As the Vampire Lord is the only non-minion vampire presented in the Monster Manual 1, a DM might pick it as a natural choice as a level 11 Elite Lurker, but it has many pitfalls as written.
Defenses are astoundingly good. An AC 29 is very high, comparable to elite monsters two levels higher, and its other defense are likewise stellar (3 or more point higher than the level 10 Elite Lurker Oni Mage), with only the Will of 25 being just ‘very good’ for its level. Hit points are likewise good, made all the worse by regeneration 10. Still not enough defense? Apparently not, as Blood Drain can give it another 46 hit points; targeting Fortitude, it has a good chance of hitting, and recharged when an adjacent creature—not just an enemy!—gets bloodied. Granted, the Lord needs combat advantage to use Blood Drain, but even alone it can get advantage by Dominating an enemy. Apparently this is still not enough defense, however, as it also gets a Second Wind, and Mist Form.
Offensively, the Vampire Lord is also well equipped. Granted, its melee attacks are mediocre, a massive 3d6 from Combat Advantage changes things dramatically if the Lord has useful allies (and those allies can be just about anywhere to be useful, thanks to Deft Strike, which mercifully doesn’t combine with Blood Drain). Dominating Gaze, with a –2 to saving throws no less, makes the vampire a ‘total package’ nearly as dangerous as a solo (compared to the level 11 Adult Black Dragon, it has better defenses and better attacks, albeit with arguably half the hit points).
A level 10 party that hasn’t devoted most every feat and piece of equipment to generating a high to-hit bonus will have a hard time simply hitting a Vampire Lord, and this is made all the worse by regeneration, and worse still by domination (which means one less attack on the Lord), worse still more by Blood Drain, worse yet still more by Second Wind. A few lucky hits by the vampire, or failed saving throws by the party, and the vampire could still be in perfect condition half a dozen rounds into combat.
General Suggestions for Fixes and Encounters
A vampire’s abilities can reasonably be based around whatever it was in life, so there’s considerable justification for moving scores around. The AC defense is a bit high, reducing it to 28 (or even 27) is reasonable. Fortitude is inexplicably high, as most undead have relatively low Fortitude Defense. Whatever you decide on AC, make Fortitude at least two points less. As this vampire was a former rogue, the high Reflex Defense is acceptable, but moving Will to 24 (or even 23, if the party is light on Will attacks), to make it a bit easier for the better radiant attacks to hit, is a good idea.
Unlike many of our unbalanced monsters, the Vampire Lord sure doesn’t need any extra powers. Imperiling Strike doesn’t matter much, and can be easily removed, but consider getting rid of Second Wind, a downright freakish ability for a non-breathing undead creature that already regenerates. For a different flavor of vampire, consider removing Combat Advantage, and replacing it with the Fighter’s Combat Challenge ability, along with higher melee damage (say, 1d10 + 8), especially if the Vampire Lord encounter isn’t going to include (m)any allies for the vampire. In this case, reduce Reflex defense to 25, giving any clerics in the party a much easier time.
For encounters, be sure to set up opportunities for recharging blood drain, by throwing in relatively weak followers (eg, rats) into the encounter. Don’t forget how powerful Mist Form can be: a tiny air tube to a secret room connected to the main encounter via a long hallway, or a ledge on an upper level, can provide a convenient place for the vampire to escape, regenerate, and recharge its powers, possibly even waiting long enough for a new encounter, to restart the process anew. Now, imagine if the party encounters the vampire in the new location, only to have it escape back to where the first battle took place...it’s this combination of powers that puts the Vampire Lord far above a Level 11 monster.
Balancing for Different Party Size
Domination is one of those abilities whose power drops off as the party size gets larger. Taking one member of the party away via domination is less meaningful the more members there are, and more ‘bonus saving throw’ effects also come into play as more classes are in the group, making any domination less likely to last. For groups larger than 5, make Dominating Gaze automatically recharge if nobody in the party is dominated; this fits in better with how the vampire survives as a hunter, as otherwise even a lone peasant, with one semi-lucky save, could simply run away before the vampire’s ability recharges.
Larger parties make shifting combats much more difficult for the monsters, so changing Deft Strike into something more useful, like:
Riposte Strike
The vampire lord makes a basic melee attack. If the target of the attack attacks the vampire lord before the start of its next turn, the vampire lord makes an additional basic melee attack as an immediate interrupt.
For a more appropriate challenge for larger parties, or the more Fighter-themed vampire above, consider changing Deft Strike to:
Cleave
The vampire lord makes a basic melee attack. If this attack hits, another enemy adjacent to the vampire lord takes 13 damage.
A DM should think carefully before using a Vampire Lord on a small party, as Domination and regeneration/high defenses become very powerful in this case. At a minimum, the Domination saving throw penalty should be removed, and regeneration reduced to 5 (better yet, have the combat take place in sunlight, or in a sunlight-equivalent area).
