Built a 3-Stage Boss

[DragonBaneDM]

I'm sure a couple of you guys have read the Angry DM Blog where he critiques solos and tries coming up with a three-stage process. In case you haven't, go ahead and read it here (http://angrydm.com/2010/04/the-dd-boss-fight-part-1/), it's a cool concept that I've done in Heroic Tier before, but this time I'm taking it to epic.

General ideas for the progression of the fight is Daughter of Kord -> Divine Storm where she ascends to godhood -> Humanoid version of the Tarrasque after something goes terribly wrong during her ascension. Sorry if the phrasing is a bit awkward, I'm not exactly a Wizards designer. My general goal was to have her dealing around 143 damage a round (180 in her brute form) while applying at least one effect. Each stage has 1/3rd the HP of a normal solo of its type, and the PCs get a "mini-rest" between each stage. Let me know if this seems plausible, and if not what sort of problems I should watch out for.

It's a heckuva lot of text, but even if someone could critique one stage of the fight before I run this thing it would be cool having an outside opinion! Right now I'm throwing this fight at a Level 26 party.

Kalla Bloodbringer, Master of Combat Level 30 Boss Soldier
Large immortal humanoid
Initiative: +26 Perception: +31
HP: 352 Bloodied: 176
AC: 46 Fortitude: 44 Reflex: 42 Will: 40
Speed: 7, teleport 7
Action Points: 2 Saving Throws: +5
Instinctive Assault: At Kalla’s initiative + 10, Kalla uses Widowmaker, Breaker, or Skyrender as a free action. If she is dazed, dominated, or stunned, she instead ends that effect.
Standard Actions:
Widowmaker: Reach 2 (melee basic attack) +35 vs AC: 3d10 + 10 (crit 3d10 + 40) damage and the target takes ongoing 15 damage and is weakened (save ends both)
Blood Storm: Kalla makes two Widowmaker attacks against two different targets.
The Breaker: Reach 2 (melee basic attack): +33 vs Fort: 5d12 + 14 thunder damage and the target is stunned until the end of Kalla’s next turn. Aftereffect: The target is immobilized until the end of Kalla’s next turn.
Skyrender: Close burst 2: +35 vs AC: 4d10 + 15 damage and the target is pushed 2 squares and knocked prone.
Thousand Needles: (Recharge 5, 6) Close blast 6: +33 vs Reflex: 3d8 + 15 damage and the target is immobilized (save ends) Miss: Half damage and the target is immobilized until the end of Kalla’s next turn.
Minor Actions:
Stormbringer’s Stance: Lasts until Kalla uses another stance power. In this stance, Kalla’s weapon attacks deal an extra 10 lightning and thunder damage.
Bladebreaker Stance: Lasts until Kalla uses another stance power. In this stance Kalla gains resist 10 to all damage.
Kalla’s Challenge: (Recharge 4, 5, 6) Close burst 10, one enemy: +33 vs Will: If the target does not deal 50 damage, heal themselves or an ally for 50 hp, or inflict two status conditions (page 277 of PHB) on Kalla, then they take 3d6 + 15 psychic damage and are slowed (save ends) at the end of their turn.
Immediate and Opportunity Actions:
Boltcatcher: (Opportunity Action, triggers when an enemy provokes within 3 squares of Kalla): +33 vs Fortitude: 2d10 + 15 lightning damage and the target falls prone and is dazed until the end of Kalla’s next turn.
Bastion: (Immediate Interrupt, Recharge 4, 5 6): Triggers when Kalla is hit by an attack that targets her AC or Reflex. Kalla gains a +3 shield bonus to AC and Reflex against the triggering attack and pushes one target adjacent to her 1 square.
Worldbreaker:
Ascent: (No action) Triggers when Kalla Bloodbringer, Master of Combat, has 0 hit points or fewer: +33 vs Reflex: 6d12 + 9 radiant damage and the target is pushed 10 squares. Miss: Half damage The encounter immediately ends. Each PC may spend up to 2 surges and regain up to 1 encounter attack power.
Skills: Athletics (+33), Perception (+31), Religion (+27), Intimidate (+30)
Str 33 (+28) Dex 28 (+26) Wis 28 (+26) Con 30 (+27) Int 20 (+22) Cha 27 (+25)

Kalla Ascendant Level 30 Boss Controller
Large immortal humanoid
Initiative: +24 Perception: +31
HP: 352 Bloodied: 176
AC: 44 Fortitude: 42 Reflex: 40 Will: 43
Speed: immobile (See Essence of Eternity)
Action Points: 2 Saving Throws: +5
Essence of Eternity: Kalla does not move throughout this stage of the fight, she hovers 2 squares in the air. She is also immune to any type of forced movement and teleportation.
Searing Radiance: Aura 10: At 10 + Kalla’s initiative, she deals each enemy within the aura 20 radiant damage as a free action and each enemy to take damage this way takes a -2 penalty to attack rolls. If Kalla is stunned, dazed, or dominated she instead ends that effect.
Standard Actions:
Dazzling Rays: Ranged Basic Attack. Targets up to 3 creatures, one attack each: +33 vs Reflex: 2d6 + 11 radiant damage and the target is slowed (save ends). If the target is already slowed then it is instead dazed (save ends). If the target is already dazed then it is stunned (save ends).
Corona of Blinding Lightning: Close burst 5: +33 vs Fortitude: 4d10 + 8 radiant and lightning damage and the target is blinded (save ends).
Astral Storm: (Recharge 5, 6) Area burst 3 within 10: +33 vs Reflex: The target takes 4d12 + 14 lightning, thunder, and radiant damage. Miss: Half damage. Effect: The attack creates a zone that lasts until the end of the encounter or until Kalla uses this attack again. While within the zone, targets are slowed and if they start their turn there they take 2d12 + 7 lightning, thunder, and radiant damage.
Imbue with Awe: Close burst 10 (Recharge 5, 6) One enemy. +33 vs Will: The target is stunned (save ends) Whenever this target is no longer stunned by this power, each enemy within 2 squares of the primary target takes 3d10 + 10 radiant and thunder damage, is pushed 5 squares, and knocked prone.
Revoke Existence: (Recharge 4, 5, 6) Close burst 1: Kalla ends a zone within the burst.
Minor Actions:
Summon Motes: (Recharges when there are no motes left alive) Close burst 10: Kalla summons 6 Storm Motes in a circle around her. They act directly after Kalla in initiative.
Sacrifice: Targets one Storm Mote within 10 squares: The Mote drops to 0 hp and uses Detonate.
Worldbreaker:
Annihilation: No action. Triggers when Kalla Ascendant reaches 0 HP or fewer. +33 vs Fortitude: 6d12 + 9 damage and the target is pushed 10 squares. Miss: Half damage, 5 square push. Effect: The encounter immediately ends. Each PC can spend up to 2 healing surges and regain one encounter attack power.

Storm Mote Level 30 Minion Artillery
Small immortal construct
Initiative: +22 Perception: +31
HP: 1 A missed attack never damages a minion
Immune: radiant, lightning
AC: 42 Fortitude: 40 Reflex: 43 Will: 42
Speed: Fly 6 (hover)
Astral Bolt: +33 vs Reflex: 15 radiant damage
Detonate: Triggers when the Storm Mote drops to 0 hp. Close burst 2: +33 vs Fortitude: 10 thunder damage and the target is dazed until the end of Kalla Ascendant’s next turn.

Kalla Bloodbringer, Reborn Abomination Level 30 Boss Brute
Huge elemental humanoid
Initiative +23 Senses Perception +19; blindsight 20
Earthbinding aura 40; any flying creature in the aura has its fly speed reduced to 1 and maximum altitude reduced to 20 feet (putting it within Kalla’s reach). Any creature above this altitude at the end of its turn falls to an altitude of 20 feet automatically.
HP 435 This stage always counts as bloodied Regeneration 10
AC 43; Fortitude 49, Refl ex 38, Will 32
Immune charm, fear;
Saving Throws +5
Speed 7, burrow 7, climb 7
Action Points 2
Elder of Annihilation Kalla’s attacks ignore all resistances.
Instinctive Annihilation: At 10 + Kalla’s initiative, she uses Trample as a free action. If Kalla is dazed, stunned, or dominated, she instead ends that effect.
Standard Actions:
Bite (standard; at-will) Reach 3; +34 vs. AC; 2d12 + 20 damage, and ongoing 15 damage (save ends).
Fury of the Bloodbringer (recharge 5, 6) Kalla makes a bite attack and one of the following attacks:
* Rending Bite: reach 3; +34 vs. AC; 3d12 + 10 damage, plus the target takes a –5 penalty to AC until the end of Kalla’s next turn.
* Tail Slap: reach 3; cannot use against the same target it attacked with its bite; +32 vs. Fortitude; 3d12 + 10 damage, plus the target is pushed 4 squares and knocked prone.
Trample (standard; at-will)
Kalla can move up to her speed and enter enemies’ spaces. This movement provokes opportunity attacks, and Kalla must end its move in an unoccupied space. When it enters an enemy’s space, Kalla makes a trample attack:
+33 vs. Reflex; 2d12 + 10 damage, and the target is knocked prone.
Frenzy: (Only useable if Fury of the Bloodbringer is not recharged) Close burst 3; Kalla makes a bite attack against each creature within the burst.
Alignment Unaligned Languages —
Str 42 (+31) Dex 26 (+23) Wis 18 (+19) Con 36 (+28) Int 7 (+13) Cha 7 (+13)

[MrUberGr]

Wow... This sesms to be very interesting. I'd love to be able to offer some advice but I've never played at such levels. But, it seems to me that this angry chick is dealing tons of damage. As I said though, I don't know wuat goes on at the endgame.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

In any edition of D&D I make sure to throw at least 1 multiataged boss at the party (more if they prefer that) and also a few other items from video games.

I had a construct that had glowing crystals, depending on the color of them that is what the construct (not a golem) was vulnerable to at the time, healed by opposite, and immune to other elements.

The party killed the NPC before ad he was about to warn the PCs about the monster... They thought he was done talking and he was under a support beam dying... Mercy death and all. Took the Final Fantasy player to figure out what was going on haha.

Keep up the good work, I love the Humanoid terrasque/screwed up ascension!

[Epinephrine]

Looks like she needs a way to shed conditions on her turn as well. Otherwise players will opt to act between 10+ initiative and her actual initiative, dazing/stunning her to make her miss her big round. My players would do this, and she'd essentially never act.

Damage output for stage one seems fine, possibly a bit low depending on how well they shed save effects. Weakness is an effect I hate using as a DM, as the players find it very dull to have a combat drag on forever as a result of dealing half damage, perhaps your players are different. I would instead give her more damage or a way to deflect attacks more readily.

The non-moving middle stage is a nice twist; immune to forced movement should get immune to prone as well (in my opinion).

The 3rd stage's aura is neat, but I'd make it more restrictive; make it deal damage and prone anyone who goes above that altitude. As written players can get out of reach by flying above not on their turn. Unlikely to be abused, but it might be cleaner to just eliminate the option (otherwise a bard can slide players up out of reach, for example)

[Inevitability]

Some of the powers, like the 2nd form's RBA, are missing their range.

Also, nothing big, but it just seems weird for the boss' mental ability scores to drop during the fight. Intelligence I get, and charisma is understandable, but how do her own instincts weaken from turning into an uberstrong abomination that is as old as the planet itself?

[DragonBaneDM]

Looks like she needs a way to shed conditions on her turn as well. Otherwise players will opt to act between 10+ initiative and her actual initiative, dazing/stunning her to make her miss her big round. My players would do this, and she'd essentially never act.


Okay! Good catch. I don't want this fight to be solved just by people delaying.


Weakness is an effect I hate using as a DM, as the players find it very dull to have a combat drag on forever as a result of dealing half damage, perhaps your players are different. I would instead give her more damage or a way to deflect attacks more readily.

Mmkay, I'll swap it out for another effect. Maybe just more ongoing damage and some sort of effect shaker immediate interrupt.


The non-moving middle stage is a nice twist; immune to forced movement should get immune to prone as well (in my opinion).

Facepalm. Don't believe I didn't catch that. Totally makes sense.


The 3rd stage's aura is neat, but I'd make it more restrictive; make it deal damage and prone anyone who goes above that altitude. As written players can get out of reach by flying above not on their turn. Unlikely to be abused, but it might be cleaner to just eliminate the option (otherwise a bard can slide players up out of reach, for example)


Eh, none of my party actually flies. It's kinda just there to pay tribute to the original Tarrasque.



Also, nothing big, but it just seems weird for the boss' mental ability scores to drop during the fight. Intelligence I get, and charisma is understandable, but how do her own instincts weaken from turning into an uberstrong abomination that is as old as the planet itself?

Okay, good kinda catch there, I see your point. Honestly that's just the original Tarrasque's Wisdom score. I guess I can change it, but they don't really have any stealthy folks and Bluffomancy is just straight up not going to work here. Honestly monster/villain ability scores don't come up too often, I just recently began to include them when I build custom monsters.

Oh, what do you guys think of her Challenge ability in the first phase? Is it too awkwardly phrased? I wanted to give each role something to do against it.

[Kimera757]

Traits
Divine Stability

When an effect forces the Daughter of Kord to move, she moves 3 less squares than the effect specifies. When an attack should knock the Daughter of Kord prone, she can roll a saving throw to avoid falling prone.

IME, being knocked prone is incredibly crippling for a solo. Note that now the solo can avoid being knocked prone 80% of the time.

Condition shedding, stolen from the death knight:

Trigger: The Daughter of Kord becomes marked, slowed, immobilized, dazed, or stunned by an effect or takes a penalty to attack rolls.

Effect (No Action): The Daughter of Kord makes a saving throw to end the triggering effect, even if the effect would not normally end on a save.

To ensure that the big guns don't launch too early, you could inflict a -5 penalty to this saving throw in the third stage. Last session that I ran, the PCs fought a solo. The first round it was taking a -4 penalty to hit, so I didn't spend its action point. The second round, it was bloodied, and also taking -3 to hit. I spent the AP... and killed a PC. (Specifically a PC who was prone; the solo was amazing at charging so got another +1 to hit, which meant the penalties exactly canceled out. Non-skirmishers generally don't get that much out of charging.)

Also the players were a bit upset because it had the above condition and they couldn't inflict control on it (except attack penalties, which I hadn't thought to include), and that's why I suggest weakening the ability while the monster is bloodied. The monster didn't make it to round three, but it was an at-level encounter, so I wasn't expecting it to be that deadly...

Basically I wanted to copy a little bit of 13th Age. In 13A, there's an escalation die that increases PC attack rolls by 1 on round 2 and beyond up to round 7. PCs also have weaker attack rolls compared to 4e PCs, but that penalty goes away. The end result is PCs don't try to alpha strike. I'd rather keep running 4e, but I'm not above stealing a good paradigm. IME, 13th Age combat lasts more rounds but doesn't take longer.

A non-13th Age solution I've stolen comes from Mike Shea's website. In short, add magical "bonuses" to a boss fight. The bonuses are usually defensive in nature, and give defense bonuses, regeneration, or resistance to damage. IME the defense bonus is most important, because that's how PCs land crippling effects. The PCs can use an in-combat skill challenge to take down these bonuses (or just ignore them). In the first case, the monster is free for a round or two to seriously kick some butt, in the second case the fight at least lasts a bit longer. I've tried this twice. The first time it worked well, the second time the bonus generators were too hard for the PCs to get too so they just pounded the boss.

I also tried a variant with a really hard encounter to close out my last campaign. The boss was a solo, but she was supported by a soldier and four artillery orb pieces. Each artillery piece healed her 5 hit points per round, so effectively 20 regeneration. Also the artillery did really high damage (the boss was a controller, so not much damage) so the PCs were really motivated to shatter the orbs, which meant the boss had about three rounds to kick butt before they turned on her. The orbs actually killed a PC before the halfway mark. Afterward the boss just couldn't deal enough damage. She was taking maybe 200 damage a round, and even with her five attacks per round just couldn't slaughter the PCs fast enough. (Her damage aura probably almost evened the fight though. Auras are murder on PCs who have fallen unconscious and therefore can't move out of it!)

More advice: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?350797-The-4e-Solo-Thread

I especially like the Red Knight's anti-control ability, and here's my own advice:

-Actions: this is things like Action Recovery, and other things that prevent a solo from losing actions.

+Actions: To ensure the solo is getting its four or five attacks per turn.

Attack/damage penalty: Solos are very vulnerable to this. I nearly always give a solo this sort of ability. An easy one is +5 damage per tier to all attacks when the monster is bloodied.

Conditions: There's numerous ways of fixing this, but see the death knight-inspired one. Also cool, you can only give resistance to things that matter. A controller probably isn't going to care if it's weakened, especially if it's dishing out ongoing damage.

Flanked/surrounded: There's just one solo per fight (usually, I've slaughtered PCs with a solo riding a dragon!) and so it's too easy to flank-and-gank them. Monsters might teleport, shift a lot, shift when hit, shift when missed, shift when attacked, etc. All-round vision takes away at least some of the flanking advantage.

Move: Forced movement tends to work kind of too well on solos. See abilities like "Stability" above.

Prone: As forced movement.