Video game-style boss fight

[DwarfFighter]

In a video game there is typically the boss fight at the end of the level. These tend to be against a big solo creature that can take lots of damage and that deals lots of damage. Within a single game this provides a refreshing change from beating up lots of minions and the occasional elites. However, these kind of fights typically break down to a pattern where the player ultimately finds and exploits a weakness in the boss attacks and defenses. Maybe his attacks can't reach if you stand in a certain spot. Maybe you need to attack while he's recovering from the exertion of an attack routine. Sure, it may take skill and patience to exploit the pattern, but once discovered it is usually just a matter of time before the boss goes down.

Some video games address this issue by having the boss change his tactics through-out the battle, typically after taking a certain amount of damage. The pattern changes and the player needs to adjust. A change is pattern is often accompanied with a cut-scene that marks the change to a new "stage" of the fight.

I'm thinking that a similar approach can work in an RPG setting. For example:


The PCs confront the evil overlord, he does his evil overlord speech and they fight. The stage ends when the evil overlord is defeated. Instead of dying (or whatever) the evil overlord teleports out of the location.
A group of elite minions teleport in to fight the PCs for a while. The stage ends when the PCs have defeated the minions.
The evil overlord teleports back in with some more minions. This time his defenses are up, his minions are buffed and he's got a fair grasp of the PCs abilities and tactics. The stage ends when the evil overlord is defeated.


Between each stage the characters have a brief moment to regroup, say three to six rounds.

I don't see anything wrong with this approach, at least in terms of game mechanics and rewards. In essence this is just a series of tightly sequenced encounters, each with a distinct Encounter Level and rewards. Since the PCs need to defeat the evil overlord twice it is appropriate that they are rewarded twice.

But why would I want to do this? Well, if your players are anything like mine you probably know what "boss-crazy" means: When confronted with a group of enemies they immediately attempt to annihilate the boss. When this works (and it tends to do so when the entire party focuses their hardest-hitting powers at the same target at the same time), an "exciting" battle tends to be one round of blatant ass-kicking and n-number of rounds of mopping up the minions.

While my players are smart enough to realize that the fight would have been more exciting if they went a few rounds with the boss, they are too smart not to eliminate the greatest threat as quickly as possible. I need to protect them from their own intelligence, in a manner of speaking. :)

Staging the final boss fight as multiple sequential encounters seems like an valid way to handle this. The only down side, of course, is that I need to sell them on the basic premise that their first "kill" is just a stepping-stone.

Thoughts?

-DF

[Amoren]

The evil overlord would have to find some way to defend against that one lucky crit which takes him down before he can escape (unless you just 'cheat' and have him get away after a certain amount of damage is dealt, regardless of if he would have died from it or not). Or from one player hitting him with Dimensional Anchor so he can't teleport away...

[Engine]

Hope your players don't do like this:

Why my BBEGs never do an Evil Speech. (http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1280)

[Runestar]

The PCs confront the evil overlord, he does his evil overlord speech and they fight. The stage ends when the evil overlord is defeated. Instead of dying (or whatever) the evil overlord teleports out of the location.

The issue I see with this is that the BBEG is going to survive by virtue of DM fiat regardless of what the PCs do. At lower lvs, this isn't much of an issue, but at higher lvs, expect parties to be capable to one-shotting any foe between themselves with proper coordination, or at least shut him down to the point of uselessness, where the party can then chip away at him at their own leisure.

It's just something you are going to have to be prepared for and live with, IMO. Even the fight with Kyuss (age of worms boss) was over in 2 rounds in some games I read at Enworld, and he is supposed to be some fricking demigod with 700hp.

I don't mind giving the foe access to resources such as contingencies, but strictly no to free resurrection passes. :smallconfused:

[Malevolence]

Nothing good can ever come of introducing video game style mechanics advertised as video game style mechanics into a tabletop game. You are not going to get intelligent people to stop being intelligent, no matter how "fun" you think it would be for them to play dumb (and they certainly will not agree once said boss actually gets about two actions and starts killing people).

[big teej]

while I do feel that such a sequence of back to back encounters would be entertaining.

if I found out that the Boss was going to run away that first time no matter what, I'd be majorly frusterated.

just as I am with video games that have you pound on a boss (who despite being advertised as 'just like you' can do many things you cannot, and is immune to many things you are not -throwing/grapples are a usual offender here- ) and as soon as his health is depleted.

bam, you knock him a few feet away, and he teleports/transforms into a car/runs away

and you chase him (sometimes with a time limit) beating off minions.

and proceeding to beat him down AGAIN. followed by running and chasing and screaming in frusteration.

heck, even in my own game I've had something similar crop up.

an adventure we ran awhile back, a cult leader was conducting a ritual that involved walking from point A to point B and making a baby-sacrifice.

the players ganked him at range as soon as he stepped out of his carriage.

I had envisioned him getting MUCH closer to the altar.

so
he dropped* despite my intentions
why? because the party killed him. and their actions matter


*granted, doing so interuppted the ritual in a manner as to summon demons, but hey. the demons were slotted for an encounter :smallwink:

[tyckspoon]

The issue I see with this is that the BBEG is going to survive by virtue of DM fiat regardless of what the PCs do. At lower lvs, this isn't much of an issue, but at higher lvs, expect parties to be capable to one-shotting any foe between themselves with proper coordination, or at least shut him down to the point of uselessness, where the party can then chip away at him at their own leisure.


Higher levels also offer many more ways for the BBEG to survive the alpha-strike without having to resort to a blatant fiat. Could be anything from an Astrally Projected image to a Simulacrum of himself all the way down to his lieutenant or a simple minion wearing an Alter Self or Disguise Self effect to look like him (especially appropriate if the party has done something to announce their presence on the way through the dungeon.) Party comes in, explodes the decoy and some minor mooks, BBEG is watching this through a scrying device or just a physical overlook, encounter proceeds as planned.

[Greymane]

Truth be told, I'm a fan of doing these sorts of things in my games.

For example: While running the Red Hand of Doom, I spiced up the Greenspawn Razorfiend encounter to give the players the idea that these things were terrifying. I let it Jump as a Swift Action, but also when it hit half-health, it retreated into a some water in the marsh. It then reappeared from a different pool of water and proceeded to attack by staying on the move under the party that way.

I intend to have Wyrmlord Kharn power up a la Legend of Dragoon style when he hits half-health. I hope it's fun.

[NichG]

There's an easy way and a hard way to do this.

The easy way to do it is to come up with the set of stats that will not be killed in one round, and without game mechanical justification, thats the stats of the BBEG. He's possessed by some Far Realms creature, he has the shared vitality of his entire army through some strange ritual, he has ablative layers of golems that he's using as armor, whatever, but instead of the 200-300 hp things the party is used to this guy has 2000-3000 or so, and perhaps a few weaknesses based on his fluff that would let that be reduced by large chunks. To keep the battle from becoming a grind, he should keep changing tactics, and rather than winding down, they should become more dangerous as the fight progresses (I tend to put a threshold beyond which they get a second full round action a round, and then a third when they're near death). Death effects just kill part of his aggregate body (deal, say, 20% of his hitpoints in damage), and ability damage and drain are also localized (his arm goes numb so his attack sequence decreases, his legs go numb so he can't move anymore, etc).

The hard way to do this (i.e. a more by the book approach) is to layer defenses on the BBEG like he was a beloved PC built with more than a smidge of TO, specifically geared to keeping him alive for longer.

E.g. give him immunity to hitpoint damage through layered spells that the party will need to strip off. Then give him a Death Pact and Contingent True Resurrection on top of those. And an item familiar with a 1/month True Resurrection. And his chief minion priests are each capable of casting Revivify, so you have to take the minions out first or he'll just keep popping back up. Not to mention he should have Persisted immunity to death effects, petrification, polymorph, mind affecting spells, ability damage and drain, etc. Give him Wings of Cover, Abrubt Jaunt, etc. Contingent Antimagic Field to block the first few Disjunctions. Make the party work to land even one hit. That way if there are minions about, the melee will go after the minions while the party casters start to strip off the BBEG's defenses.

You can then have his tactics change as his defenses are stripped off one by one and he starts taking the fight more seriously. Maybe he was saving the big guns for a rival he feels threatened by, but once the PCs prove they're a credible threat to him, he'll start pulling out things he's held in reserve.

[ffone]

A pair of BBEGs who are twins.

BBEG who gets his/her lieutenants to dress up / disguise/atler self as decoys (like some RL dictators do). See "Joker Bard" threads.

Clone, Simulacrum, Astral Projection, etc.

So many ways that don't require DM cheating.

[Sacrieur]

Mix it up with some crazy homebrew stuff.

See that Sakrier link in my sig? Add that PrC to your big baddy, and watch how your players gape in awe at his awesome destructive power. There's not weakness to it. The only way to kill one is to do it the old fashioned way.

[ffone]

Actually I was recently musing how to do something similar - a 'multi-part' boss as coming old video games - you 'kill it' but then it changes forms and fights you again. In Final Fantasy it's typically a humanoid plot-driving archvillain transforming into a more monstrous form (possessed by an ancient evil force he bargained with), in Mega Man it might be Wily's giant robot falling apart to reveal a smaller but deadlier sub-robot inside, etc.

Two main questions:

What's a non-cheesy and ideally non-houserule/fiat way to justify what, in effect, is one creature being replaced by another one but with the same soul?

How should initiative / turns work? If it's just the one enemy you could simply do a new initiative roll when the 2nd form appears, but if there are other enemies I'm not sure.

[Runestar]

Higher levels also offer many more ways for the BBEG to survive the alpha-strike without having to resort to a blatant fiat.

Which I am not against. But even these methods can be countered, so the DM still has to be mentally prepared for the off-chance that the party chances upon some innovative way of killing the BBEG which somehow bypasses all his safeguards.

What I am opposed to is the "Okay, you have killed me, but I am alive thanks to DM fiat. I will wait for you at the top of the tower. Have fun cutting a path through my minions along the way." scenario which disregards the party's best efforts.

[herrhauptmann]

What's a non-cheesy and ideally non-houserule/fiat way to justify what, in effect, is one creature being replaced by another one but with the same soul?

How should initiative / turns work? If it's just the one enemy you could simply do a new initiative roll when the 2nd form appears, but if there are other enemies I'm not sure.

Contingency shapechange?
You've found his weakness, defeated his mortal body, when suddenly he lets out a roar and transforms into a dragon!
It also has some autohealing for that first change I believe.

[JKTrickster]

The hard way to do this (i.e. a more by the book approach) is to layer defenses on the BBEG like he was a beloved PC built with more than a smidge of TO, specifically geared to keeping him alive for longer.

E.g. give him immunity to hitpoint damage through layered spells that the party will need to strip off. Then give him a Death Pact and Contingent True Resurrection on top of those. And an item familiar with a 1/month True Resurrection. And his chief minion priests are each capable of casting Revivify, so you have to take the minions out first or he'll just keep popping back up. Not to mention he should have Persisted immunity to death effects, petrification, polymorph, mind affecting spells, ability damage and drain, etc. Give him Wings of Cover, Abrubt Jaunt, etc. Contingent Antimagic Field to block the first few Disjunctions. Make the party work to land even one hit. That way if there are minions about, the melee will go after the minions while the party casters start to strip off the BBEG's defenses.

Or they can use that spell from SpC that deals d12 of damage for every spell that's affecting the BBEG. Up to 25d12 at once.

Enough of those should be a pain...

[LansXero]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3MQyH78aqT4

What the OP suggested reminded me a lot of this. It can get intense or it can be a grindfest, it depends on how much investment the players (not the characters) have in the game and in killing this bastard.