Giving a boss more turns in a round

[LentilNinja]

As much as I enjoy running solo fights, its painful to watch the boss take one action and the party then have a combined total of 5-6 before his next one. I feel it would make a solo boss more epic if he could take more than one turn in a whole round, but I'm not sure how I'd balance it.

Any ideas?

[Segev]

The most straight-forward method would be to go with something like a hydra. Of course, that only gives him a lot of attacks on his one action.

There's Synchronicity-Linked Synchronicity abuse you could try, burning power points to set up a lot of readied actions every round.

Since you're the DM, however, if you wish to do it by fiat, the best way to balance it would be to just give him a number of full sets of actions each round that you want him to have, and then treat the encounter as being of a CR such that it's actually got as many enemies of the boss's CR as the boss has actions.

In a sense, you could treat him like a Final Fantasy Boss: give him multiple "parts" which have their own builds and actions, but which are conceptually all part of the same entity. Maybe he's a freaky-good fighter-mage who actually has one action per round wherein he can cast spells and other wherin he can attack with his weapons. Literally treat the two actions as coming from different builds, with different feats and BABs and everything. Roll separate initiatives for each.

[torrasque666]

Hell our DM kinda applied this in our last fight. Granted, it was against a Divine Being(Vol Herself) and he gave her multiple immediate/swifts a turn to deal with our group. Also to deal with the large power that one player was throwing off. Any time they'd try to complain or cite rules the rest of us would just say "Its a god. They play by different rules than us."

[lytokk]

Give the boss an animated weapon and perhaps an animated tower shield. That way the boss gets at least two actions per round. Have the shield have some ability to cast heal (or harm if the boss is undead) on its owner a few times per day when the owner drops below a certain hp. That way eliminating the shield is a priority and if they beat the boss without destroying the shield either nice treasure or something completely dangerous to have depending on your dm style. The animated weapon has the ability to have wide sweeping attacks via some type of whirlwind attack and at least 10 ft reach. Anyone in melee may prioritize taking out the weapon though not likely. That is unless the sword has a vampiric enchantment. All of this is designed to keep your bbeg standing longer in order to sling spells out at the back lines. I may have to do this now at some point.

[BRC]

I did this once with a boss fight.

Basically, I took a monster and treated it like two monsters who happened to by occupying the same space and Hit point total.

I took an Efrit, Doubled it's Hit Points, doubled the number of times it could use it's per-day abilities, and gave it two initiative passes.

It's slightly harder than a normal two-monster fight because you can't eliminate one monster by focus firing. On the other hand it's easier because you don't have to worry about hitting two monsters with debuffs and battlefield control stuff. So in the end it evened out pretty well.

[Bloodgruve]

Gestalt the boss with Factotum levels ;)

[Bronk]

You could:

Have a creature with more than one set of attacks in a round, like the chronotyryn.

Use a Belt of Battle from MIC which grants extra actions.

Be a wizard, sorcerer or druid and have animal companions or familiars.

Have animated, obedient, dancing, or otherwise magical weaponry.

Have all the feats that increase your actions, or allow movement between full attack actions, and extra attacks of opportunity.

Summon extra help with magic.

Or... all of the above.

[AMFV]

Thrall of Demogorgon is always appropriate.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

The angry DM had an article about this on 4e solos, if I can find it I'll post it.

The edition may be different but the message is the same.

Don't let the basic rules keep you from making a dramatic and thematic solo fight.

Some options include...

Rolling twice for initiative and going on both turns.

Having parts of the scenery or setting get actions, like if you are in a old decrepit building, a beam may fall on a PC or they may fall partially through the floor (which slows them)

Have boss segments like in videogames. Maybe it takes 2 or 3 segments to kill the boss because the boss transforms into a new form when it hits 0 HP... Perhaps once transformed the boss flies to the roof of said building and the PCs give chase and have a dramatic (and dangerous) roof fight scene?

For as customizable as D&D is, it can be quite limiting when it comes to boss fights.

[(Un)Inspired]

Just make your BBEG a class that can take as many actions on any turn as they want like a wizard. The game contains rules-legal ways to make a boss that comes back to life immediately after you kill him and changes to a new form.

Why come up with new rules for something that already exists?

[Red Fel]

As much as I enjoy running solo fights, its painful to watch the boss take one action and the party then have a combined total of 5-6 before his next one. I feel it would make a solo boss more epic if he could take more than one turn in a whole round, but I'm not sure how I'd balance it.

Any ideas?

Adding actions is balancing it. Or, more accurately, adding actions is one of four common methods of making a "boss" encounter feel more "boss"-like when the party has 4+ actions to the BBEG's every 1. The classic list includes: Damage spikes. The BBEG deals substantially more damage than it would. This makes the fight much more lethal, forcing the PCs to act in a more tactical fashion to avoid nukes. Pros: Boss is more dangerous. Fight is more lethal. Tactics are involved. Feels suitably terrifying and desperate. Cons: Lethal combat is lethal. You can all too easily wipe the party. They may not be happy about that. Further, even if he deals more damage, there are ways of evading - and if he can't hit, his sole advantage is neutralized. Finally, even if he deals more damage, if the party kills him in one round, his damage spikes are irrelevant. Damage soaks. The BBEG has various means to reduce or negate incoming damage, which makes the fight last longer. Pros: Fight lasts longer, making it feel more epic. PCs may have to expend more encounter resources (e.g. spells, maneuvers, scrolls, potions, etc.) to defeat the boss. Cons: Boss isn't actually more effective at fighting the PCs, he just survives better. Fight can become too long and turn into a slog. Mooks. The boss is accompanied by minions. Pros: More creatures means the bad guys get more actions in a round, more tactical combat. Cons: Too many characters in combat means it slows down to a crawl. You're not actually making the boss stronger, you're just adding more critters. Extra actions. What you proposed. Pros: The action economy is the biggest advantage the PCs have. Neutralize it and the combat is less about who can do more in a round, and more about making what you do count. Cons: Keeping track of initiative may be a nuisance.
The key point is that, when it comes to a "boss," you don't have to balance these abilities - these abilities are the balance, specifically against the party's huge action economy advantage.

One method I've heard work is simply to let the boss roll initiative twice. (Or three times, even, depending on the size of the party.) He then acts twice during the round, getting a full turn (with full actions) each time.

If the players demand a mechanical explanation for how he does this, summon Orcus just smile and promise them that it will be explained. Then come up with some convoluted explanation revealing that each of the bosses they faced with this ability was in some way empowered by the final boss, an absolute beast who takes one turn for every turn a PC takes, and maybe next time they won't ask for an explanation or justification for you trying to make encounters more memorable.

[AMFV]

If the players demand a mechanical explanation for how he does this, summon Orcus just smile and promise them that it will be explained. Then come up with some convoluted explanation revealing that each of the bosses they faced with this ability was in some way empowered by the final boss, an absolute beast who takes one turn for every turn a PC takes, and maybe next time they won't ask for an explanation or justification for you trying to make encounters more memorable.

Out of all the folks on this form, I should have known it'd be you that can summon Orcus in real life.

[ddude987]

We can all summon Orcus in real life. Just take the first level spell Summon Orcus I and cast away.

[Andreaz]

Use two bosses.

[Pluto!]

I don't think this is a bad idea. The way I'd be tempted to implement it would be by giving the BBEG multiple initiative rolls, and by forbidding him from using the same action more times per round than would normally be possible. I would also glut the BBEG with do-nothing NPC class levels or racial HD.

The reasons I would impose those changes are:
Multiple Init counts would decrease the likelihood that the BBEG goes off with a bunch of different effects, and just kills the party before any individual players can act.
Limiting action spam would cut down on some of the possible unfun abuses. Full attacking one character 3 times in a round isn't interesting and would dramatically reward a one-trick pony.
Glutting the BBEG with HD would allow him to take a beating and to dodge many save-or-X spells in such a way that the 1-v.-party encounter doesn't just splatter the villain, and that the useless selection of HD would keep him from abusing D&D's offense-heavy development patterns.

[BloodyMartian]

Pathfinder Mythic rules had something for this. Creatures could be given a second initiative at -20.

[Renen]

DM fiat the following:
There are 1 or more "clones" of the boss, all sharing same HP pool, and maybe all being afflicted by same effects if one is.

[pwykersotz]

I believe the Dragon of Tyr acts on initiative counts 40, 30, and 20 every round, never rolling initiative.

[Vogonjeltz]

As much as I enjoy running solo fights, its painful to watch the boss take one action and the party then have a combined total of 5-6 before his next one. I feel it would make a solo boss more epic if he could take more than one turn in a whole round, but I'm not sure how I'd balance it.

Any ideas?

Reduce the boss's CR in return for some mooks to occupy the enemy (depends heavily on who this boss is, if he's a caster, summons can fulfill a similar role by taking up PC attention).

Examples:
Boss is a Melee type: Give him some lackeys, including someone to heal him.
Boss is a caster type: Have him use spells that incapacitate one or more members of the group. (Dominate; Hold Person, Charm Person). This can level the playing field in terms of PC actions vs Boss actions per round. Give him a few hired hands to do blocking.

You could also give the Boss some feat/features that use different action types (immediate/swift) so they can do more than one thing per round even when completely alone.

Ultimately the goal is to ensure the party has fun, so don't go overboard.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

DM fiat the following:
There are 1 or more "clones" of the boss, all sharing same HP pool, and maybe all being afflicted by same effects if one is.

Fiat?

Sirmilacrum (or however you spell it) does that just fine, just work it into the plot.

[AMFV]

Reduce the boss's CR in return for some mooks to occupy the enemy (depends heavily on who this boss is, if he's a caster, summons can fulfill a similar role by taking up PC attention).

Examples:
Boss is a Melee type: Give him some lackeys, including someone to heal him.
Boss is a caster type: Have him use spells that incapacitate one or more members of the group. (Dominate; Hold Person, Charm Person). This can level the playing field in terms of PC actions vs Boss actions per round. Give him a few hired hands to do blocking.

You could also give the Boss some feat/features that use different action types (immediate/swift) so they can do more than one thing per round even when completely alone.

Ultimately the goal is to ensure the party has fun, so don't go overboard.

That's a good method, but you don't necessarily want to use it every Boss fight. Variety is the spice of life, particularly in fights with Bosses.

[Vhaidara]

Have him use spells that incapacitate one or more members of the group. (Dominate; Hold Person, Charm Person).

Do not do this. I know it would be the smart thing for a boss to do, but you will never, ever make the boss fight memorable for everyone if someone gets removed from the combat in round one. At least, it won't be a good kind of memorable.

Dominate, used in a boss fight, is extremely likely to turn into either a wasted action from the Boss, or a team wipe for the party, since it is actually a +2 (kill an enemy, get an ally). And the player might feel bad that his character was responsible for it.

One of my GMs did this, when we had a boss fight. The boss was a Thri-Kreen with a katana and 2 wakizashi (we were fighting the Japanese inspired country and he was the champion). He jumped over our frontline, and, in the first turn, KOed (merciful weapons) both our archer and my bard. Now, the archer won initiative, so he was able to fire off his volley of Explosive Runes inscribed arrows. My bard, however, who literally needed one turn to do his job for the combat (activate his song and give buffs to everyone) was last in order. My contribution to the fight was to sit down, roll initiative, then go and sit on the couch for two hours. It was one o the worst sessions I'd ever had, made worse by the fact that I'd been getting psyched up for it for a week.

[Renen]

Fiat?

Sirmilacrum (or however you spell it) does that just fine, just work it into the plot.

While sharing HP pool?

[Vaz]

Allies. And by allies, I don't mean summons, necessarily. But by making the party allies with you. A fighter dominated by you, and told to attack the wizard is going to cause severe consternation. It takes attention awwy from you, and makes a wizard think about non lethal kill spells. Dispel magic against boss monster buffs just shouldn't work outside of a dedicated debuff style build.

As a DM and Player, my players and party members have never found IC reasons for it to be a problem. That BSF getting tired of the wizard intellectually belittling him, and calling him names like 'meatbag'? In character, fighter now has an even better reason.

Ensuring the party is all on board with it beforehand, and ensuring a way out of such difficulties such as the wizard having prepared only disintegrate etc, with things like a scroll of raise dead nearby etc is important however.

Also, limiting the opponents actions - slow, grapples, solid fog, wall of X, up to force cage, time hop, are all functionally the same. If your party has that guy who just outright refuses, just hold him with some black tentacles, or wink him out of the time frame. The difference is that he still gets to act, just in a way that everyone has deep down.

Essentially preventing the party from using their full combo is the sign of boss monsters, your 'named guys' You have elites, who are tougher mooks, who take more damage, deal more damage, and then you have your mooks.

An example could be a group of City Guard Warrior 1's led by a Fighter 3 Sergeant who are providing prison guard for Ozamandius the Necromancer.

The City Guard are who you use your basic abilities against, while the Sergeant requires your best tactics before he causes too much damage while Ozzy raises zombies of the dead, and uses spells like Darkness etc to stop you using your more powerful abilities, no Sneak Attack for example against him or his minions, 50% miss chance for target spells, etc, meaning you need to think outside of button mashing square square triangle lime some Dynasty Warriors game.

[Vogonjeltz]

That's a good method, but you don't necessarily want to use it every Boss fight. Variety is the spice of life, particularly in fights with Bosses.

Well yeah, agreed.

Re: keledrath, I'd expect any party to have access to dispel magic, and if so as DM would probably just target the people who don't have it (so their allies can free them).

[Vhaidara]

Re: keledrath, I'd expect any party to have access to dispel magic, and if so as DM would probably just target the people who don't have it (so their allies can free them).

Not always a safe assumption. Of my 3 IRL groups, one has my warlock for dispelling, and the other two have sorcerers who aren't planning on taking dispel. And that's it for people with dispel.

No, none of my campaigns actually include a divine caster.

[Thurbane]

If it's a caster or SLA using enemy, you can give it the Vestigial Twin trait from DMG2, which allows it to use an extra spell or SLA (and a few other actions, like activating certain magic items) per round.

Nagahydra from Serpent Kingdoms gets to cast a buttload of spells per round, which could make it a really overwhelming BBEG for a party.

[deuxhero]

It's important to know the level range you'll be in for this kind of thing.

In general, psionics is pretty suited for shattering the action economy.

[Vogonjeltz]

Not always a safe assumption. Of my 3 IRL groups, one has my warlock for dispelling, and the other two have sorcerers who aren't planning on taking dispel. And that's it for people with dispel.

No, none of my campaigns actually include a divine caster.

Well that sounds like a TPK waiting to happen...

[Raven777]

Just flat out make your BBEG have two initiative turns (each on a different roll) and call it a day. Make up an non-mechanic plot reason for things to be that way.

In a campaign I was in, a boss we fought was imbued with time powers which allowed him to do that. There were no game features behind the abilities, purely "make sense in story" DM fiat. And it worked for what it needed to accomplish. The fight handled mostly just like fighting two monsters instead of just the one.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I do this more or less constantly, in D&D and M&M. Heck, I don't even justify it at this point-- my players see me roll initiative twice and go "uh-oh, boss monster time" and move on. Just be careful if the baddie already has action economy type tricks up his sleeve.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

The climax of my most recent campaign kinda went both ways on this, in a two part fight.

First I went with an almost-completely-homebrewed thing that bended time and space and disrupted teleportation as part of its nature (no action), had a bunch of appendages, the mage slayer line, and free action eye beams which counted as maximized orbs of searing fire, along with a truckload of HP, DR, fast healing, crazy homebrewed movement modes, etc. It died before it got to act. Then they left the plane it was on, and discovered they had to immediately go deal with someone else...

For the final fight, I built a character with the same char-gen rules the players got (minus some plot bennies they got, plus some cheese I allowed), which was basically an Incantatrix gish with sky-high stats, various layers of defense, swift action casting via Arcane Spellsurge, many detection modes, immediate actions and contingencies. Importantly as well, he had Robilar's Gambit, Colossal size/reach, and Knockback. This basically meant that the meleers who were doing ridiculous damage (see above) couldn't full attack trivially until they started coordinating and thinking tactically with each other. Additionally it meant that he was getting off approximately the same level of attacks as the (quite durable) party, making it a grueling, tense throwdown where they eked out a victory.

To be fair that character would have been a lot of work if I hadn't already built a lower level version for another purpose, but for some groups a challenge that comes from within the rules can be more satisfying.

[IAmTehDave]

Multiple initiatives, Fiat up a bunch of HP and empty HD, fudge a few numbers to give the saves a small boost, make sure the boss can reliably (at least 45% of the time) hit the (buffed) average HP or just enough spells to put the PCs on the defensive. Make sure that even if the "smart" and "Tactical" thing for the boss to do would be to make sure both of their turns are wailing on the caster, have them split up their attacks or change tack from time to time.

Throw mooks in, but not for the whole fight. Give it two rounds, then a small wave enters from all sides. The boss might hang back a bit while the mooks fight, enjoying the show.

Use the environment. A boss sitting in an empty room waiting for the PCs seems boring to me. A boss who, after a couple rounds of fighting, hops up to the rafters to pelt the PCs with some spells or arrows, then up to the roof, then over to the next building, etc... that sounds like a memorable fight. If you do something like this, then limit the boss's total movement in the round so they don't automatically win a foot chase because they can take 4 move actions per round.

Just some examples of things I'd do for a single-boss fight.

Caveat: I generally play in Lowish-op games so yeah, the sorcerer does blasting, the cleric runs in with his mace without massive persisted buffs, the archer is a soulbow/Illumine Soul with no non-soulknife classes, etc.


Well that sounds like a TPK waiting to happen...

Not every group plays the same way? I'm firm in my belief that D&D "requiring" all of the Basic Monster Food Groups as a default assumption is far more limiting to the game than the idea that a campaign or adventure can be created or altered to suit a party that doesn't fit the "standard" mold.

And as far as monsters/NPCs doing Charm and Dominate shenanigans on PCs, my opinion boils down to this:
It's not fun. It's not fun for a player to have their character's actions taken out of their hands. It's not fun for a player to watch an entire scene play out where they never got a chance to act or respond because, as in Keledrath's example, they were taken out before they got their first turn. Player frustration is a Very Bad Thing. Especially when it feels like something targeted at them by the GM, not the NPC.

If I recall correctly, D&D is what is commonly known as a "Game". And one of the purposes of a "game" is to have fun. Perhaps it might be fun for some people to watch as their character, under DM control, #$^!s up their friends. That is not the player I want to have sitting across from me, as that might be the same kind of player who thinks Frenzied Berserker is a good idea.

Not having a Divine Caster in your party, if the DM decides to punish you for it, might sound like a TPK waiting to happen. What it sounds like to me, however, is just a different sort of adventuring party.

[Runestar]

Tome of battle is quite useful for granting extra actions, or at least, making more efficient use of your existing ones. It can be quite anticlimactic for your fighter to move and make only a single attack. Not so with a war blade, who can move and still follow up with a manoeuvre dealing over 100 damage.

You can also look at AoE type effects which affect the whole party, so everyone feels engaged, rather than just that 1 player being targeted. For example, MM5 has quite a few monsters with special attacks that can potential involve the entire party. For example, Dalmosh has an attack which lets him move up to his speed and make a bite attack against everyone within reach. The Garngrath can prismatic spray every turn as a free action, has an AoE sonic attack, and potentially swallow the entire party. All involve saves and damage (primarily), so your players don't feel unfairly victimised when he is the target of a no-save-and-die ability.

3e is not very good at this, so you may need to be prepared to revise existing material to get what you want, but generally, I feel ToB and MM5 are good places to start.

[Dr. Cliché]

As an intermediary between acting normally and acting twice per round, there's the ability Quickness.

It lets a creature take an additional move or standard action each round.

I may or may not have a planned boss fight where the boss has this ability and uses maneuvers...

[AMFV]

You could also do something like giving it a percentage of health where it enrages and gets multiple actions or produces special abilities or summons minions (or whatnot), that way you could gauge how the fight is going and determine the scale of the special abilities you should give the boss.

[Dalebert]

One element that I really liked from the Champions system was speed. It was literally how many actions each character got in a turn. It was the most expensive stat and for good reason but the idea that everyone gets the same number of moves spoils any action movie where one guy is taking on a lot of "little" guys and kicking ass. D&D has something like it with melee attacks and maybe occasionally with ranged attacks but (almost always) the moment you do anything else, you're done. I understand that when you consider that spells and SLAs are so powerful, but it would be nice if there were some reasonable exceptions.

[Dimers]

The classic list includes: Damage spikes. Damage soaks. Mooks. Extra actions.

Extra actions are also achievable through contingencies and reactive effects, which might be keyed to a health state, some form of movement, seeing spellcasting happen or much more.

And one addition to the list: SoD/SoL resistance through effect removal. One of the more important boss-building lessons from 4e is that if the players layer status effects deeply enough, the boss never even gets to act (and 3.X has stronger and earlier lockdown than 4e!), so the solo monsters designed later generally had ways to flat-out remove effects reactively or some number of times per round. If you need a rule-driven way to make this happen, let the BBEG use Iron Heart Surge or have contingent or timed panacea spells go off on him.