First, if you haven’t seen TheAngryDM’s four-part series on
how to redesign 4e solo monsters to make for better climax fights, read these
first. They’re terrific.
Note that part 3 is several pages long, but it’s the best
part. AngryDM takes you through the design process, step by step.
The intriguing thing is that the redesign is based on the
very 4e-specific critiques laid out in the first part of the series. But
AngryDM’s solution isn’t just a mechanical fix. It’s a rethinking of the
dramatic pacing of a boss fight.
And thus it makes me wonder…could you apply these design
principles to 3.5/Pathfinder? To 5e?
First, A Caveat
AngryDM’s designed a solution to a problem at his 4e table.
But Pathfinder tables and D&D Next (eyeroll) tables don’t necessarily have
the same issues. You’re always on thin ice when you apply a prior solution to a
new problem.
(This is true of game design and of life in general. “Short
bursts of all-out speed improved my running, so short bursts of all-out speed
should improve breakfast as well. And my morning commute.”)
I wouldn’t even try this, but for the fact that AngryDM’s
boss fights are grounded in principles of dramatic pacing and only touch on the
game mechanics when they need to. In other words, they might represent good
advice in general…not just when you happen to be playing 4e.
So without further ado, here’s how you could adapt AngryDM’s
boss fights for Pathfinder and D&D Next. To keep things simple, let’s talk
about dragons.
3.5/Pathfinder Dragon
Boss Fights
Good news! Most of AngryDM’s critique about 4e solos (not
enough actions, the fun is front-loaded, vulnerable to conditions, no sense of
progress) applies to Pathfinder/3e monsters, too. (I’m going to use Pathfinder
for this, because I’ve got the book handy.)
Some critiques apply a little less. Pathfinder dragons get
more melee attacks than their 4e counterparts, to be sure. Even though they
don’t have action points, the Pathfinder dragons take more fundamental
“actions” over the course of a fight than 4e dragons do.
Some critiques apply even more. Pathfinder dragons have
their actions even more clumped-up (no immediate reactions beyond attacks of
opportunity). With guaranteed-to-last durations on PC spells, the Pathfinder
dragon is much more vulnerable to conditions than the 4e dragon. This is
mitigated a bit by the Pathfinder dragon’s greater defenses: SR, maybe spell
turning or greater dispel magic among the ancient dragons. I’ve seen a lot more
Pathfinder dragons than 4e dragons fall to “one key spell,” though.
Enough already! Let’s take Pathfinder’s ancient red dragon
and see what it would take to boss-monster her up.
Timing the stages: No problems here—in fact it’s even easier
than 4e because you don’t have “until end of encounter” powers gumming up the
works. When the boss does its stage-changing “disengagement,” just give the
players a one-round breather where they can reposition, cast healing spells,
change their buffs, etc. (They’ll probably appreciate the respite.) One round
ticks away on their short-term spells, of course, but that’s life in the big
city.
Rerolling Initiative: Works just fine. As a practical
matter, it’ll be boss, players, boss, players…whether you reroll or not, but I
like the psychological impact of rerolling; it kinda freshens things up.
Durations: This is the tricky part. My advice here is to end
all hostile effects with a duration on both players and the boss at each
stage-change. In other words, you can keep your buffs running, but the debuffs
all go away. This enables the stage-two and stage-three bosses to start fresh and
not already poisoned/slowed/ability drained/etc. And the stage-two and
stage-three bosses don’t need the stage-one debuffs to linger on the
players…because they’ve got newer, scarier whammies to hit ‘em with.
Extra Actions: This is the place where Pathfinder boss
monsters can use some help—whether they’re built for three stages or not. The
good news is that there are lots of ways to give them extra actions. You can do
4e-style “action points that grant standard actions”—my 3e campaign did this
for years. You can build immediate reactions, better-than-usual attacks of
opportunity, and interrupts into the monsters. Anything you can do to get the
boss attacking when it’s not the boss’s turn does good things for battle pacing.
Action Denial: This is less prevalent in the Pathfinder
ruleset, but it’s still there. I think the ability to get rid of debuffs twice
in the fight is enough help for the boss, but I’m honestly not sure. Say you’re
dealing with PCs armed with stun effects. “Cut stun duration in half” is klunky,
“immune to stun” is overkill…maybe something like “a boss can invoke a
disengagement and stage-change early if it wishes” would work. That rule might
have a side benefit: it gives the DM the ability to skip a laborious exercise
in damage-dealing a stunned foe and get on with the fun part—the next stage.
And the PC that stunned the dragon still feels good because that stun was the
equivalent of up to a third of the dragon’s hit points.
What About Spells and Spell-Likes?
I recommend taking only the good ones and splitting them up
among the three stages. Put some in the stage-one stat block, some in stage
two, and some in stage three. You’re taking away some of the boss’s
versatility, but you’re making life much easier on yourself as the DM and
you’re focusing the boss’s tactics nicely. If unholy blight appears only in stage two, it'll stick out in the stat block and be more prominent in your tactics.
Don’t be shy about leaving some spell-likes out. That 3/day
pyrotechnics isn’t worth the space in the stat block; you can always delve into
a book in the unlikely event it comes up. Likewise, don’t be shy about mixing it
up. Use spells and spell-likes that are fun at your table. Don’t sweat about
whether the Pathfinder Bestiary agrees with you.
It’s tempting to put all the high-powered spells and
spell-likes in the third stage, because we all have a natural instinct to build
to a climax. But don’t do this every time! As in AngryDM’s examples, it’s fun
if the third-stage stat block represents the boss when it’s battered and
running on fumes. That stretches out the sensation of victory for the player,
while maintaining some tension until the battle truly ends.
Next up: Same thing, but for D&D Next. And a discussion of who's best-equipped to build a boss monster: the DM, the adventure designer, or the monster designer?
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