Grant me your wisdom, ancient neckbeards. What are your favorite boss designs in terms of gameplay functions? What do you use to challenge your players as the climax of the adventure or mission? Solo bosses, bosses with adds, weak bosses for a victory lap? Are there any particular mechanics you think make bosses more fun than just boring?
I'm a fan of when the boss is invulnerable, but some party member(s) can go and do a thing (within the boss room) to disable that power. So all the other party members have to be defending them against the invulnerable boss (or just distracting it) while they do so. Then, after being weakened by the completely unfair first half of the boss, the party can actually start hurting the thing. I think it is good when bosses are more than a powerful enemy, when there's some other mechanic required to defeat them beyond just attacking it a lot. Or at the very least, way to cause it significant harm from a non-attack manner.
5e uses a system that enables a boss to take actions outside of its turn a few times, which really helps keep them dynamic and reduces the disadvantage they have in the economy of action.
It works pretty well.
The thing I've noticed is that a REAL boss battle is an enemy who, if he went all-out, would likely kill the party. But don't tell them that.
Instead, hit them hard. Not REALLY hard, but hard enough to make them squirm. And then, when they hit back, amp it up a bit. Intensify the fight.
Eventually you'll reach a point where the players are sweating bullets because one more good hit will take them down for the count, and they'll start pulling out all those once-a-year supermoves to kill your bad guy. This is usually when the boss is killed. High-fives and relief blankets all around.
PUZZLE bosses, on the other hand, are a bit trickier. Since there's almost always a 'quick n dirty' solution, you need to have the PC's like the character of the boss enough not to simply wreck him out of frustration.
>>43999734
I like bosses that force environment effects to happen. Like barging through a brick wall causes difficult terrain, makes the ceiling weaker, and might cause escorted NPCs to panic. Vines lash out from the walls, alternately grappling and striking PCs that get shoved there by minions. A chain snaps on the massive platform you're fighting on, making the whole battlefield slanted and threatening to send you 80 feet onto the cathedral tiles below if you roll poorly or get tripped.
Shit like that.
The best bosses I've run, as far as player feedback is concerned, are ones where victory relies more on player creativity than raw number crunching and hitting the enemy harder than they hit you. I'm sure there's some variation in the players regarding this, some might prefer to make it a basic slugfest to get to really strut all their power.
Generally solo bosses won't go all that well unless they're effectively invulnerable for some reason since the action economy is almost completely against them when going up against a party. It's best to either supplement them with adds, give them bonus actions to remain competitive, or come up with another mechanic that keeps them from being completely ineffectual.
Another note is that the worst thing that can happen is for a boss to turn into a grind, it's supposed to be the emotional and exciting highpoint of the adventure, so if the players start to lose focus or fun, don't be afraid to smudge the numbers a bit on the HP so that it ends sooner rather than later.
>>43999734
I like the idea of a boss fight actually being several 'bosses', like rivals to the party, or former enemies back for one last hurrah.
>>43999808
I like this idea
>>43999829
I should look into 5e, maybe I can 'borrow' some of its mechanics for my games
>>43999831
Hmmm, I've tried to run bosses like that but my players usually complain that they're too boring because it's just numbers flying back and forth.
>>43999925
This is also a great idea, thank you
>>44000045
I guess you could have the ultimate villain of a DnD campaign go back and resurrect all the major villains the party fought up to that point and enslave them to stop the party again, that'd be pretty interesting
This is a good topic for me, I'm running CthulhuTech (shh, no dreams, only tears now) and the players, a squadron of Engels with numerous powerups, have finally come face to face with Cthulhu himself in the climactic finale of a seven year campaign, and they're going to have it out, does anyone have any ideas for how to make Cthulhu a truly terrifying enemy beyond the obvious Oprah style "YOU get insanity points, and YOU get insanity points, everybody's gettin' insanity points!"
depends:
Side plot little fish boss (i.e mafia boss, rogue troll in a cave, hag coven stumbled upon, ect;)
Regular. I always give them plenty of enviroment to work with like tables to flip and hide behind, cave in areas, maybe some neutral beasts you can lure in. Lots of stuff to help with the fight that isnt just "I weild my trusty d20....and wait for my next turn"
For big fights, important BBEG moments:
I am a firm believer in BBEG's are leaders ands didnt get this far because they are brooding edgelords that have nothing personal, kid. Big bosses usually have forces under their control, and a place to plan from. You dont just waltz in there with a party of 3-5 and epexct to topple a huge player in the world game. You need to storm the stronghold. You need to call in your favors and get the support of others whom this fucker has wronged. Didnt make alot of friends? Murder hoboed a bit too much? Decided to spit on the kings shoes because he wouldnt let you fuck his daughter? Well now that you need their help, your fucked.
I like big battles that sacrifice alot to let players get in. Its the only real concievable way to have the party fight this guy on equal terms. Otherwise, how do you explain
>Your in the evil lords thron room
>He has armies at his disposal
>But....They are on lunch break so no alarms or more then like, 2 guards come.
Also nothing cooler then in the middle of a huge two army fight that the masses split and the commander challenges you head on.
>>44000397
I'm with you on the BBEG have Armies and special units.
I'm currently running a RECON game set in the future and their BBEG is another Special Operations Team. Figured Alpha Group would work as a template. The PC's team can run into them every mission (20% chance) and a firefight starts via being caught in an ambush, avoiding ambush, or running into each other at the same objective. The only problem is when they do get into fire fights, the PCs act like a pack of lone wolves rather than a relatively cohesive unit.
>>43999734
I always liked the whole 'Monster who is climbing out of a chasm' thing. Have the main body and each hand as a seperate creature with different abilities.
I deeply enjoy gimmick fights that play around with interesting mechanics and environmental effects. I actually tend to take inspiration from MMO raid bosses more than anything, though I tend to increase the tactical flexibility of the base idea so that there are multiple ways to 'defeat' a boss. One key thing, though, is to never just have the characters whaling on the boss for ten rounds. That's not fun. If it's a person, have them change the arena through the fight. If it's a monster, have the characters need to hit certain parts of it's body for maximum effectiveness rather than just chipping at it's toes.
You also have to consider the descriptions of the fight. You want things to feel 'big'. Whether you do that through back-and-forth banter with the boss or descriptive passages about the effects of the fight on the world around it, you have to give the players that feeling of finality that really makes a boss fight.
And then there is, of course, the character of the boss itself to consider. This applies to monstrous creatures as well, but less in terms of personality and more in terms of lore. Obviously if the boss is a person, you can just have them speak or show them reacting to things in a way consistant with their character. If it's a monster, you need to demonstrate it's status as a legendary ruiner of shit.
I don't think bosses should just be a sack of numbers, basically. That's boring as fuck, when you can do so much more.
>>44000193
4e is actually better for creative boss fights, but that's just because it's a very game-y system.
>>44001804
tl;dr Shadow of the Collosus
I am a fan of protecting an objective, with enemies coming in waves of increasing difficulty.
>>44001893
That's pretty good, but if you design one wave too many your whole party can get wiped out, right? How do you know how many waves is just enough to pose a challenge without being TPK material?
Every good boss needs at least two "forms". It doesn't have to be a physical transformation but a drastic change of tactics mid-fight is good for keeping players on their toes.
Other than that bosses should always involve something more than just dealing damage to them. Perhaps they can only be hurt by attacking something other than the boss itself, or the boss is protected until they do something or is only exposed temporarily. A classic design that fits anywhere is to just have waves of minions supporting the boss that the players can't ignore.
Hard bosses. As in, genuinely hard bosses. They can be pure bullshit in terms of game design but as long as it is possible to beat them in some way, it's good.
>>44004973
That game looks a lot worse than I remembered.
http://goblinpunch blog spot com/2014/06/boss-mechanics-from-world-of-warcraft.html
Recommended reading
>>44003822
I'm pretty lenient. If I see they're struggling, I'll cut the encounters and skip to the boss (if there's one).
Kinda surprised that no one is being a shitty person ITT.
...
>Bosses
Seriously though, I like bosses that force you to prioritize positioning. A good boss battle map should, in places, pass as a good design for a cover-based shooter, and the boss's moveset forces you to switch from skirmish to shooter as he ebbs and flows.
At most basic level I ignore my own rules, e.g. give the boss a banned class, have him gestalt in 3.5, provide him unreasonable stats. Then I just throw in plenty of special abilities that are more interesting than "blast x for 50 damage". As people mentioned, changing environment is a great thing. Aside from that I like unordinary movement and predictable attacks (e.g. the giant holds the maul above his head and will crash it in front of him next turn).
After all that I like adding bullshit complications, e.g. bosses suddenly pulling their trump cards or calling in backup. Or as once happened in my session, dying and nearly being resurrected by his cleric underling due to players' lack of awareness. They managed to kill the cleric beforehand, but damn, they nearly shat themselves.
Personally, I like dueling bosses, but as a party it gets a little hard.
But as was already said, keep the environment in mind. Make them crash through windows, bring down ceilings, climb towers, tear down the floor. Make the bosses throw everything they have and then a little more.
And then in the end when the tricks and options are done, and both sides are exhausted, bring out the flat arena. When everyone is about to fall, the end is just going to be a good old fashioned struggle. Don't make this part too long, but just enough that the players have to rip victory from the fight with one last big pull.
Tl;dr: Bosses have to use literally every single thing they can throughout the fight.
Of course this is assuming the players don't just find a way to rek the boss before all the cats are out of the bag
>>43999734
Party is on a train that is carrying [plot device], which they are trying to delay or stop from reaching it's destination. There is a boss walking slowly towards them with bloody murder in his eyes.
If he gets near them he'll start fucking them up for more than they could possibly sustain. Behind the party, faceless imperial soldier, mages and rangers start crawling onto the roofs of the other cars and setting up barricades and other obstacles.
Are your party bad enough dudes to make it to the front car and disconnect it without getting gibbed by the bad guy?
>>44006365
I like this, sounds pretty fun
>>44006365
Sounds like the first Galcian encounter in Skies of Arcadia.
Vidya works great as inspiration for boss fights in tactical rpgs. 4e is especially good for it, but most systems work if you get a bit creative.
>>44005206
Excellent article, this is exactly the sort of thing I've been looking for.
One of the best boss experiences I ever had was in a campaign where the main bad guy was a king from "Negative Terra"
Basically anything that exists here, exists there, and their king found a way to break the barrier.
When he got to his throne room we were told the negative king had no combat abilities, so our warrior was about to cleave his entire throne in two. Then the king calls for his chosen 4 heroes. The chosen 4 were us the players, but from the negative earth.
3 of us died, only our Paladin survived when he managed to crit their warrior on his last turn. He then broke the king's power crystal which kept the gates open and the negative earth was separated from the positive.
I usually deconstruct mechanics into bare philosophies. A boss is simply an ending to a campaign or smaller objective, that which no others will be able to resist the PCs any longer. The 'penultimate'. In this way, a boss isn't required to be a single, traditional [or stereotypical] creature, thus can also be another group of adventurers with no super-powered abilities the stereotypes generally have (if it's a real super-power, why aren't you already dead? Let's face it, people only add these things for flash and subtract after the fact to glean fairer fights). Even as some posters mention, the boss fight may be nothing more than a rigorous puzzle.
Beyond half the posters here insisting that "every good boss must/need/are required to have X" in their own absolutes, one thing remains constant in their opinions. Engagement influences fun factor. Are the players engaged? Do they have to actually do something in order to succeed? Do they need to ramp up their own ante instead of successive strikes against an ordinary foe? Do they need to think tactically and with considerable forethought? All these things engage the player and force them to invest in their PCs.
Having played world of warcraft a considerable amount, many mainstream opinions settle into boss fights being too 'samey' in terms of how it usually plays out. You'll do X, then jump on Y for a few seconds, then use the special encounter ability Z at the right moment. And yet, it still works because of the required player engagement, time and time again.
Keep these core points in mind, and you'll do just fine I believe. Though, personally, boss fights are more about a metaphysical mission rather than something to kill. You've descended into the dragon's lair not to simply kill him, but prevent him from terrorizing the farmers in the country side. Remember to keep objectives with higher purpose. If the mission is to murderhobo, you must expect your players to be murderhobos.
Bump for great thread
Have an idea for a large room with a bunch of summoning circles that construct wraiths or maybe just some sort of skeletal/undead mob to pound on, which slowly but ceaselessly approach the party and attempt to kill them.
Premise is that they party has to make choices for avoiding fights and trying to make their way to the summoning circles, and not just fight, fight, fight everything within reach, because there will just be more wraiths to fight every time you down another one.
Suppose you could liken it to the 'waves of enemies' idea previously, the saving grace here is that the party can presumably just run away since the enemies aren't moving at a full sprint towards them, and try again later with improved knowledge and tactical awareness.
As each circle is destroyed, I'd just make it a linearly easier process since there'd be less wraiths in the room to deal with instead of inserting some terrible hijinks that make it progressively harder. Instills a sense of continuous accomplishment IMO.
As a player one of my favourite boss battles was when he stood in town and unleashed a plague before simply running away
We chased him for ages, diving into a lake and the sewers and having to carefully listen and use warlock familiar to track him as he kept running before we could finally corner him. As we finally defeated him we realised it was good fun tracking and hunting him down, fighting the mooks he left behind.
Of course when he died he made sure to die in a dwarven blood seal that unlocked an ancient dragon prison but that's another story.
As a GM I was running a 5 man through a one shot ridiculous fantasy game, where the party was attempting to destroy the final stronghold of the worlds Bards. (They even had a big billboard in their HQ that listed total bard kills,And it was a little nazi-esque) but they pummelled through the bards college and got to the what turned out to be the Bard God, who happened to be an aracockra with an electric guitar
Cont.
>>44010810
Cont.
He had an electric guitar set up to 3 huge pulsating crystals and he just toyed with the party, occasionally hitting them with waves of energy (Strums)
The players finally split up and attacked the crystals, being dragged into alternate dimensions
The first was a thousand year old battle between dwarves and elves, the group started on the dwarves side and the crystal was behind the elven army
Second was a typical arena, with the third round bringing a dragon that had the crystal around his neck
Finally they find themselves in a temple filled with traps and an Indiana Jones esque take the crystal and escape
As they return to the material plane the God is weakened and is pissed, flies up into the air and begins firing lightning bolts from the sky
After a heated battle with the party on its last legs, the fighter manages to suplex him onto the ground (After being thrown by the Barbarians) and below 50% HP
He squaks in pain and flees to his deity plane, through a hidden portal
Party has time to rest and recover and travel through the portal
Cont.
>>44010975
Cont.
Appearing in his realm dissonant music can be heard constantly and lightning strikes randomly everywhere
Party comes to fortress guarded by a literal band of demons, and have to defeat them to progress
Drummer is defeated first, then the guitarist and bassist beefier the singer drops everyone but the rogue who manages to stab him in the throat and his dying scream shatters the field around the fortress allowing them entrance
As the make their way to the throne room they finally come upon the God on his throne, a giant speaker droning the room in intense bass. The party gets a general fight with him and the plane begins to collapse as the music intensifies.
Finally he explodes in a guitar solo that wipes everyone but the sorcerer, who for some Godamn reason picked up a stray guitar and challenged the near dead God to a guitar battle
Que playing duelling banjos on my phone as the fortress is destroyed around them, and the sorcerer casts thunder wave, collapses the walls in on the bard and destroying the guitar that was holding the plane together.
The party has a fun montage of songs thrown at them as they barely escape the dimension and are thrown out into their HQ as they watch the bard college implode and kill the last remaining stronghold of the bards. Party adds another 1 to the billboard and collapses into bed.
For reference I ran this after we'd all attended a convention in cosplay, gotten drunk playing boardgames and someone suggested we play DnD
Thoughts?
Negro Master!
My white ancestors will feast upon your blood!
