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[CONTRIBUTE ON] Big Book of Boss Fights [D&D]
Legoman05
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Critical Failures Publishing Presents: The Big Book of Boss Fights.
Have you ever designed a masterful campaign, complete with intricate plot twists and turns... only to have the final boss fight be unexciting and dull? Ever have such a cool backstory and characterization for your villains, but not be able to reflect that in the mechanics? Do you just want to have a memorable set of dice rolls on occasion?
The BBoBF is for you!
Designed by players, for players, this supplement gives ideas for creative boss fights that will leave your players talking for months! Why fight a vampire, when you can fight a vampire upside down, swinging on ropes in a reversed gravity plane? Why fight a mind-flayer, when you could fight a mind-flayer in a magically burning ship on it's way down to Davey Jones' Locker?
What the hell is this, Legoman?
This is an opportunities to give the people on this board who may be crunch-creative, but not fluff-creative, a chance to flex their muscles.
Ok, so what do we do?
I will need Four Playtesters to create characters in the typical Archetypes of a four person party: Frontliner, Sneaky-Sneaky, Arcane Flair Guy, and Bandaid Box. How you do that is up to you! If you want to play the Bandaid Box as a Rejuvinating Druid who loads up on heal spells, do it! Just make sure you fit the archetype, and that your power level is on par with the level being tested at the time. You will need to be willing to level up your character from 1 at the start of the playtest, to however high the villain submission ends up going. PHB, MM, DMG, PHBII, and Magic Item Compendium are all fair game - we're aiming for a power level of core. If we get submissions at, say, 5,8,12,18,19, then you will need characters at levels 3,5,9,15, and 16.
I will also need Many submissions for villains. I'd like to have a range of levels supported, so between 3-24 should be enough to give a villain for every level in the campaign. Don't worry about fluff, let the DMs do that, your job is to come up with 'wow cool' fight scenes. If that involves an indepth environment that affects gameplay, cool!
Ideally, the villain should be an original, creative guy that uses up almost all of the party's resources. You will not know the exact stats of the party members - but you should match your monsters with a total encounter level Three levels higher than the level you want to test. This should create the right 'boss battle effect.' Feel completely free to give your baddies custom magic items and abilities, if that helps with the stated goal.
If there are any items or data that you feel the players should know before hand, include that in your PM to me... such as, for instance, if the boss fight is going to be monumentally hard unless handled in a certain way, you may want to have the players aware of a guiding prophecy before the battle.
Alright, I want to be a Playtester! How should I build my character?
28 point buy, follow wealth by level, 200 starting gold at level 1.
I'll be using 'Active player rolls all the dice' rules - so your saves should all be static values, and any save DCs that you have should be converted into rolls. This is done by adding 10 and subtracting 10, respectively. These save rules go for Villain submissions as well.
So, sketch out your feat and item choices at various levels, but don't actually generate character sheets until all the submissions are in. Turn that 'character sketch' into me, (post it in the thread) and I'll figure out which character best fits the role they applied for, at all power-levels-by-level.
Initiative will be handled on the PBP as a Players who beat monsters, monsters, players who lost to monsters... so you should never have to wait to post. If you're waiting on the result of a spell, for instance, to decide your action, post your action as a conditional: IF Adavar's spell worked, then I full attack. Else, I'm going to spring attack away, and attack the weak guy on the wall.
Who is going to run the combat?
I'll DM the encounter. This will require you to write out all the 'scripted actions' - to simulate a finished product being shipped to a naive consumer. I'll be leaving for Ireland December 8 - 22, so if it goes that long, I'll pass the torch to someone else during that time. Ideally, write your directions so that anyone can follow it, in very simple IF THIS then DO THIS type directions.
What are you going to do with this when it's all done.
I'll collate it, edit it after changes are made to the villains after playtesting, and throw the whole thing up on lulu.com. The PDF will be free, and the paper version will ship for the printing cost. It'll be the first in a successful line of Critical Failures products! It'll even have detachable stat-cards, if that's at all possible.
When should I have my boss submitted?
First of all, PM it to me... I don't want the play testers to know about the surprises that you have already prepared.
I'll be closing submissions November 12th. Tentative deadline, under grace if you want to submit late... but it'll be easier on the testers that late submissions be higher level baddies, before they'll have to de-level their characters.
Have you ever designed a masterful campaign, complete with intricate plot twists and turns... only to have the final boss fight be unexciting and dull? Ever have such a cool backstory and characterization for your villains, but not be able to reflect that in the mechanics? Do you just want to have a memorable set of dice rolls on occasion?
The BBoBF is for you!
Designed by players, for players, this supplement gives ideas for creative boss fights that will leave your players talking for months! Why fight a vampire, when you can fight a vampire upside down, swinging on ropes in a reversed gravity plane? Why fight a mind-flayer, when you could fight a mind-flayer in a magically burning ship on it's way down to Davey Jones' Locker?
What the hell is this, Legoman?
This is an opportunities to give the people on this board who may be crunch-creative, but not fluff-creative, a chance to flex their muscles.
Ok, so what do we do?
I will need Four Playtesters to create characters in the typical Archetypes of a four person party: Frontliner, Sneaky-Sneaky, Arcane Flair Guy, and Bandaid Box. How you do that is up to you! If you want to play the Bandaid Box as a Rejuvinating Druid who loads up on heal spells, do it! Just make sure you fit the archetype, and that your power level is on par with the level being tested at the time. You will need to be willing to level up your character from 1 at the start of the playtest, to however high the villain submission ends up going. PHB, MM, DMG, PHBII, and Magic Item Compendium are all fair game - we're aiming for a power level of core. If we get submissions at, say, 5,8,12,18,19, then you will need characters at levels 3,5,9,15, and 16.
I will also need Many submissions for villains. I'd like to have a range of levels supported, so between 3-24 should be enough to give a villain for every level in the campaign. Don't worry about fluff, let the DMs do that, your job is to come up with 'wow cool' fight scenes. If that involves an indepth environment that affects gameplay, cool!
Ideally, the villain should be an original, creative guy that uses up almost all of the party's resources. You will not know the exact stats of the party members - but you should match your monsters with a total encounter level Three levels higher than the level you want to test. This should create the right 'boss battle effect.' Feel completely free to give your baddies custom magic items and abilities, if that helps with the stated goal.
If there are any items or data that you feel the players should know before hand, include that in your PM to me... such as, for instance, if the boss fight is going to be monumentally hard unless handled in a certain way, you may want to have the players aware of a guiding prophecy before the battle.
Alright, I want to be a Playtester! How should I build my character?
28 point buy, follow wealth by level, 200 starting gold at level 1.
I'll be using 'Active player rolls all the dice' rules - so your saves should all be static values, and any save DCs that you have should be converted into rolls. This is done by adding 10 and subtracting 10, respectively. These save rules go for Villain submissions as well.
So, sketch out your feat and item choices at various levels, but don't actually generate character sheets until all the submissions are in. Turn that 'character sketch' into me, (post it in the thread) and I'll figure out which character best fits the role they applied for, at all power-levels-by-level.
Initiative will be handled on the PBP as a Players who beat monsters, monsters, players who lost to monsters... so you should never have to wait to post. If you're waiting on the result of a spell, for instance, to decide your action, post your action as a conditional: IF Adavar's spell worked, then I full attack. Else, I'm going to spring attack away, and attack the weak guy on the wall.
Who is going to run the combat?
I'll DM the encounter. This will require you to write out all the 'scripted actions' - to simulate a finished product being shipped to a naive consumer. I'll be leaving for Ireland December 8 - 22, so if it goes that long, I'll pass the torch to someone else during that time. Ideally, write your directions so that anyone can follow it, in very simple IF THIS then DO THIS type directions.
What are you going to do with this when it's all done.
I'll collate it, edit it after changes are made to the villains after playtesting, and throw the whole thing up on lulu.com. The PDF will be free, and the paper version will ship for the printing cost. It'll be the first in a successful line of Critical Failures products! It'll even have detachable stat-cards, if that's at all possible.
When should I have my boss submitted?
First of all, PM it to me... I don't want the play testers to know about the surprises that you have already prepared.
I'll be closing submissions November 12th. Tentative deadline, under grace if you want to submit late... but it'll be easier on the testers that late submissions be higher level baddies, before they'll have to de-level their characters.
Legoman05 on
0
Posts
Frontliner: <PLAYERNAME>
* Level X Link
* Level Y Link
* Level Z Link
Sneaky-Sneaky: <PLAYERNAME>
* Level X Link
* Level Y Link
* Level Z Link
Arcane Toolboxc: <PLAYERNAME>
* Level X Link
* Level Y Link
* Level Z Link
First Aid Kit: <PLAYERNAME>
* Level X Link
* Level Y Link
* Level Z Link
Bosses:
<BOSSNAME>, Submitted by <CONTRIBUTER NAME>, a level XX <SUMMARY>
Can the boss fights be groups?
If anyone from the last Eberron campaign i ran remembers
The City Guards in the Cave
V
The Dragon
The Wyverns and the airship.
They might be able to attest to it.
ECL of a boss fight ought to be 4 levels higher than the party. Typically I run end bosses[as opposed to just bosses] 4-6 above depending on how well the party is specialized and how well the villian is specialized.
ECL of the encounter.... could be a mob of 50 kobalds for a 5th level party, if that'd be fun. The idea is to match the level of the party, not necessarily the level of the boss - but it should exhaust all party resources, and leave them with the feeling that it could have gone either way.
If they can be indicative of the power level expected from a 'standard wizard' at that level, then yes. Keep in mind that at higher levels, blasting falls off in terms of effectiveness though.
I've added to the OP about picking playtesters...
Yes - if only that it should be close to OGL - compliant, since it will be published (if electronically) and we should assume that DMs are only going to buy Critical Failures products... since they're so awesome
That doesn't rule out the possibility, however, that you'll have a boss with an ability where any time he or his allies roll max on damage dice, he takes that max and adds another dice. It might very well be a blatant rip off of the Crusader's Aura of Chaos, but that doesn't stop it from being home brew if you change it a bit and call it something else.
Gestalt is OGL. >>
But, y'no. Spare time isn't common. -_-
I've gotten into the habit, for my boss fights, of using excess HP to make the things cinematic. They'll pull a 'final fantasy,' in which they deal kinda nerfed damage (or some other limitation which doesn't allow them to kill the party outright in as few turns as would be warranted by the HP, like only attacking things that close melee with it, etc etc) and bump up its HP through the roof, so the battle takes longer and the players have more of a chance to figure the encounter out and adapt to it, as opposed to high damage and low hit points.
Is this a crutch I have been using, or is it a common tool? Not all of my bossfights are this way, but the most cinematic ones I plan are. We end up having fun with them, but I'd like the input before I submit some of my works, several of which would probably be using this, to the thread.
My campaign needs to come to a head since two of my players (husband and wife) are expecting a child soon. Therefore, the campaign will be going on hiatus for a while, and I'd like to top it off with an intense boss fight which they'll remember.
Setting: The PCs have been travelling all over Faerun in a desperate race to retrieve 12 mystical masks that contain the souls of long-dead liches. The masks also act as anchors which keep a powerful Balor bound to the abyss, keeping him from coming back every 100 years as most Balors are wont to do.
Needless to say, there is an evil cult which is also hunting the masks since they feel that they can summon the Balor and harness his great power for themselves, as well as manipulate the souls of the powerful liches that were bound to the masks in order to trap the Balor.
Now, the PCs are expected to have about 5 of the masks in their possession by the time I'm thinking to end the campaign, and the evil cult is known to have at least 4. The PCs are also vaguely aware (through studying ancient tomes and ruins) of the location of a few of the remaining masks.
I expect the PCs to be about EL 10 by the time we need to wrap things up.
Clearly, I can't put them up against the Balor itself. And I've made the in-game lore clearly indicate that attempting to destroy any of the masks will 1) release the spirit of the lich trapped within and 2) weaken the bonds that keep the Balor trapped.
The evil cult knows this as well, and know that they can't simply destroy the masks or the Balor will simply run rampant and destroy everything. They want to use the masks in a summoning ritual, with the masks being used as a barganing chip of a sort to keep the Balor in check.
SO, I need suggestions for an epic boss fight that can challenge a well-balanced EL 10 group of 5 to the limit (possibly killing 1 or 2 of them) without completely stomping them.
About the masks: The masks are sentient magical items each containing the soul of a powerful Lich. If the mask is worn, the Lich will try and take over the wearer's body.
If the wearer resists the will of the Lich, the mask offers incredible abilities to the wearer. The only mask that the PCs have seen in action so far is the Mask of Necromancy, which allows the wearer to summon buffed up zombies and creatures, and also allows the wearer to possess any of their zombies at will, moving their physical body into the zombie and able to use any of their or the zombie's abilities while possessing.
Anyhoo.
My ideas so far:
One of my PC's original characters was a Chaotic Neutral Warlock-for-hire. My player didn't really care for the Warlock mechanics, and I allowed him to switch to the more standard mage. The Warlock, however, is still very much alive and would make a fitting foe for the party. It would be a simple matter to insinuate that the evil cult had enticed him into betraying the group, and perhaps have even given him one of the masks, which he could wear. He could be lich-possessed or not, and the mask could give him an incredible power which will add challenge to the fight. Suggestions would be appreciated on how to make this kind of fight interesting.
Other ideas include fighting other cult members as well. The party has already run into a female mage who has hounded them in the past, and I could include any number of enemies into that group, including some Yuan-Ti and Orcs.
So, basically: Epic fight vs. former party member with additional powers, or epic fight vs a number of cult members of comparable power to the PCs. What do you guys suggest?
If you havent built to a BBEG as recurring villian yet, then you should use the former party member, otherwise use the BBEG.
A good reveal might be to have the buffed up cultists and have the party cut through them in no time to get to the "head cultist" and then reveal that to be the former party member right before he puts one of the masks on leading to a big fight.
I would suggest that as a warlock, CR+4 to CR+5 is a good challenge rating to shoot for.
Despite the fact that this is dead, we might as well get a collection of good encounters.
Assuming I bring one of the masks into play for this fight, any suggestions for powers the mask might imbue the wearer with. I'm looking for something obviously not game-breaking, based on a theme of some sort, which offeres the bearer a power unheard of (i.e. not like a spell that exists) which could be used to challenge the group without overwhelming them. (see my Necromancy Mask).
Perhaps rather than "dead", RU has provided a different direction in which this might be taken.
Instead of an in-forum "playtest", people can playtest these encounters in their home games.
It will be a chance for people who aren't currently running games to help out and try out odd templates, bloodlines, feats or what-have-you with a boss encounter... or try something they haven't used in a boss encounter before, like using multiple opponents, traps, or environmental hazards.
And it will probably suprise their players, particularly if they've gotten used to the sort of thing their DM will throw up against them.
I'll go first: I need a bossfight for four level three characters. Any creature, class, template or whathaveya may be used so long as it is Core and is no higher than an EL 6. The game is, as you might have surmised, one that takes place in this forum, so send me the encounter by PM. Players in this game are of course not eligible to contribute.
Sweet. Now I'm even pawning encounter design off on other people.
Results will be plainly visible, and can be placed in this thread for re-use and tweaking in home games. And also so people can tell me what I did wrong, which is always fun.
We are so boned.
Horseshoe, I'm PMing you an idea for your game, let me know when you've finished it so I can re-post it here.
Oh, and Undead: An Illusion themed mask could really make a mess of things. Illusionary cultists making fake attacks mixed in with real cultists. Permanent Illusions springing up around the room. All the while the wearer of the masks hides out in a corner Invisible and directs the attacks until the party finds him. And even when they find him, how do they know it's actually him? It would be great.
Thanks man, I like that encounter. I'll work it in and PM you when the encounter is running so you see how the PC's are doing!