Need help with designing bosses

[Matrota]

So I started DM'ing my own 3.5e campaign a while back, and since it's my first experience as a DM, there have been a bunch of hurdles I've had to overcome, but it's been worth it so far. In my campaign, the players are beginning to get to the point where they are nearly strong enough to embark on the main quest, after I've been dropping hints about it for the past few sessions. Now that they might be fighting one of the main bosses within the next few months, I need some help solidifying what exactly the bosses could be.

In the main quest, the main six boss figures are are incredibly powerful beings that excel in one specific category, so much that their strength may rival that of a hero god or demigod. For example, the boss figure that they will encounter first, if all goes according to plan, is Shal'Khoriarr, lord of the hosts. Shal'Khorizarr focuses on summoning other creatures and beings to fight for him. So far, I've developed him as a griffon sorcerer/druid for the usage of the spells "Summon Monster" and "Summon Nature's Ally". After that though, things get kinda shaky.

The following bosses and their specialties are:
Shal'Khorizarr, lord of hosts (Already made, though advise is still welcome)
Shal'Garuk, lord of combat
Shal'Maenum, lord of deception
Shal'Auran, lord of the arcane
Shal'Pagaris, lord of the unholy
Shal'Mortalis, of whom I'm still developing. Shal'Mortalis is essentially the endgame boss.

As characters, all of these lords have been betrayed by their original deities, or at least they believe they have been betrayed, and are vengeful because of this. This triggered an event for each of them involving Shal'Regus, god of the Forgotten (homebrew), who erased their existence from the public memory. After that, Shal'Regus gave them new names, taking them to his domain to train them to become strong enough to claim their revenge against the gods. Some of them turned into opposites, such as Shal'Pagaris who was betrayed by a holy god and turned to the necromatic arts, but some, like Shal'Garuk, want to beat their old god at their own game.

Since there are a lot of knowledgeable people here on the forums, could I potentially get some recommendations on what to make these characters? I'd like to make Shal'Garuk a race and class that would help him to be an incredibly strong martial enemy, Shal'Maenum into a deception prone race and class, etc. As for levels, they all would be able to cast epic level spells, if that is any indicator. Except Shal'Garuk, who is purely physical combat oriented. They also all wield some sort of legendary weapon, crafted by Shal'Regus himself. These blades are known throughout the world as the "Seven Great Blades." Seven because Shal'Regus owns one himself. However, Shal'regus has erased memory of their location and ownership from the world. I got the blades down, just need advise on character builds for these bosses.

[exelsisxax]

Your lord of combat is going to be worthless with anything less than unbeatable SR.

He'll still probably be bad. Single enemies always get trounced by the action economy, martials have very few ways of abusing the action economy, and no way of protecting themselves from enemy abuse. If you want a hardcore martial boss, it probably ends up looking more like "lord of casters can suck it" with a permanent intrinsic AMF and immunity to magic.

How many PCs you got, and what classes? It might be necessary to put the martial boss first to make it work at all, so the party casters can't insta-win the encounter.

[PacMan2247]

Your lord of combat is going to be worthless with anything less than unbeatable SR.

He'll still probably be bad. Single enemies always get trounced by the action economy, martials have very few ways of abusing the action economy, and no way of protecting themselves from enemy abuse. If you want a hardcore martial boss, it probably ends up looking more like "lord of casters can suck it" with a permanent intrinsic AMF and immunity to magic.

How many PCs you got, and what classes? It might be necessary to put the martial boss first to make it work at all, so the party casters can't insta-win the encounter.

A lot of good points here. One of the Sarkrith from the 3.0 Fiend Folio has an AMF ability that might be relevant to your interests for that. Beyond that, I'm sure there's someone on these boards that could suggest something more complicated and effective than I can offer on the fly, like making it a pouncing barbarian with permanency-ed arms of the girallon or something so it can dual-wield large greatswords, and maybe a Belt of Battle to activate before it throws up the AMF.

[LordOfCain]

I would suggest warblade for the class: never a bad choice for melee.

[Ywvbevlin]

What about fighter thats good too

[Ualaa]

If you have access to 4th edition, the monster creation rules there were amongst the simplest and quickest of all the editions of the game.

The default was 'roles' for the monsters, like 'Soldier' or 'Brute' or 'Skirmisher'.
These were essentially, level + x, for a given attack or defense.

Encounters were generally as many equivalent creatures, as players.
But the level range was +/-, based on the challenge of the encounter.

A normal mob, was worth 1 mob.
An Elite (tougher mob) counted as 2 mobs, as far as resources went.
A Solo (boss mob) counted as 4 mobs.
A Minion (weaker mob) counted as 1/4, and came in 4s.
So if you have 5 players in your group, you might go 2x Elite plus 4x Minions for an encounter.



Action Economy is worth more than a lot of things.
It is probably the most important thing.

Even if you're not playing 4th, which is unlikely on this forum...
Their encounter build rules are a quick and easy way to go.
The CR might not balance exactly, since the basic assumption is different.
But the overall challenge for a party is at a higher level, when the assumption is 4 mobs of whatever CR is appropriate rather than 1 mob.

Solos had actions that triggered on the player's turn, and off of their actions.
That idea, would make your boss more challenging, as it has more actions.
Dragons would frequently have a tail attack, triggered by having an enemy (a PC) move into a flank position; this functioned like an Immediate Action, so they'd have a chance to swat the pest away, dealing damage and sending it flying 20 feet to land prone, before it would make an attack.



I liked that minions would have the same AC and Attack (Hit chance & Damage on a hit), as a normal mob of their type... so they were a serious threat.
But they'd die to 1 HP of damage, provided that was an actual hit.
So any Reflex spell, where they make the save doesn't count as damage taken, but if they fail their saving throw to a spell that deals damage, or if there is no save and automatic damage... of if a melee hits them... they're done.

Adapting that idea to your battles...
You can have enough mobs, that it looks nasty.
And they can be tough enough that ignoring them will cost the PCs the fight, or at least indicate that that is what will happen if they continue to ignore these guys.
But they can be structured to have the hit points to only last for a hit or two.
Which again is an action tax on the PCs part; let the twelve guys who are hitting for 10-15% of your hit points beat on you/your allies as an ongoing thing, while you ignore them... or take the time to kill them, while the boss (Solo) or his lieutenants (Elites) do their thing.

[Inevitability]

What about fighter thats good too

It's really not.

Feat-starved low- to mid-optimization characters may benefit from two fighter levels for feats, but should not take more than two levels.

A small number of builds may benefit from Dungeoncrasher, but those should not take more than two levels.

An intimidation character may be able to justify nine levels, but the NPC we're building here doesn't seem to be one.

[The_Iron_Lord]

Are you using the tome of battle? You could have Shal'Garuk be a martial class...
Or...how about, he lives somewhere that has an antimagic arena, so that those who fight him cannot be dishonorable and use magic...
Of course, for his build...what kind of flavor do you want for him? What alignment is he?


On a side note, your campaign sounds really cool.

[Ethelesin]

If you have access to the tome of battle, slapping martial initiator classes onto monsters with racial hitdice is always fun.

[Matrota]

Your lord of combat is going to be worthless with anything less than unbeatable SR.

He'll still probably be bad. Single enemies always get trounced by the action economy, martials have very few ways of abusing the action economy, and no way of protecting themselves from enemy abuse. If you want a hardcore martial boss, it probably ends up looking more like "lord of casters can suck it" with a permanent intrinsic AMF and immunity to magic.

How many PCs you got, and what classes? It might be necessary to put the martial boss first to make it work at all, so the party casters can't insta-win the encounter.

Currently I have quite a bit of PC's, as listed below:
Decon - Nimblewright
Scar - Vampire cleric
Vaun - Werebear fighter
Guinevere - Elf ranger
Molag'bal - Orc barbarian
Zachary - Kobold bard
Oslo - Halfling rogue/cleric
Brooke - Halfling bard
As you can tell the party is quite odd, but there are some odd shenanigans at play as well as a house rule or two.

The ECL of the party is currently level 7, but they have a while before they actually reach these bosses, because each one has an underling they have to defeat first, as well as finding out their specific whereabouts. The first underling is a lich named Morgath'Khal, but I already got him developed. As for SR, that's a very good point. Having him fight in a large antimagic field may be what I'll do, possibly put in place by Shal'Auran, so my PC's don't even get a chance to cast spells.

[Matrota]

If you have access to 4th edition, the monster creation rules there were amongst the simplest and quickest of all the editions of the game.

The default was 'roles' for the monsters, like 'Soldier' or 'Brute' or 'Skirmisher'.
These were essentially, level + x, for a given attack or defense.

Encounters were generally as many equivalent creatures, as players.
But the level range was +/-, based on the challenge of the encounter.

A normal mob, was worth 1 mob.
An Elite (tougher mob) counted as 2 mobs, as far as resources went.
A Solo (boss mob) counted as 4 mobs.
A Minion (weaker mob) counted as 1/4, and came in 4s.
So if you have 5 players in your group, you might go 2x Elite plus 4x Minions for an encounter.



Action Economy is worth more than a lot of things.
It is probably the most important thing.

Even if you're not playing 4th, which is unlikely on this forum...
Their encounter build rules are a quick and easy way to go.
The CR might not balance exactly, since the basic assumption is different.
But the overall challenge for a party is at a higher level, when the assumption is 4 mobs of whatever CR is appropriate rather than 1 mob.

Solos had actions that triggered on the player's turn, and off of their actions.
That idea, would make your boss more challenging, as it has more actions.
Dragons would frequently have a tail attack, triggered by having an enemy (a PC) move into a flank position; this functioned like an Immediate Action, so they'd have a chance to swat the pest away, dealing damage and sending it flying 20 feet to land prone, before it would make an attack.



I liked that minions would have the same AC and Attack (Hit chance & Damage on a hit), as a normal mob of their type... so they were a serious threat.
But they'd die to 1 HP of damage, provided that was an actual hit.
So any Reflex spell, where they make the save doesn't count as damage taken, but if they fail their saving throw to a spell that deals damage, or if there is no save and automatic damage... of if a melee hits them... they're done.

Adapting that idea to your battles...
You can have enough mobs, that it looks nasty.
And they can be tough enough that ignoring them will cost the PCs the fight, or at least indicate that that is what will happen if they continue to ignore these guys.
But they can be structured to have the hit points to only last for a hit or two.
Which again is an action tax on the PCs part; let the twelve guys who are hitting for 10-15% of your hit points beat on you/your allies as an ongoing thing, while you ignore them... or take the time to kill them, while the boss (Solo) or his lieutenants (Elites) do their thing.

Unfortunately my campaign utilizes 3.5e. You make good suggestions though, the issue is just that I visualize Shal'Garuk as a being unafraid of numbers, the kind of spartan gladiator type deal. I want him to be able to put up a good fight versus my PC's but seeing as I have 8 of them, 3 or 4 of which are obscenely strong even at level 7, I would have to make Shal'Garuk much more challenging and higher level, risking the chance of him one-shotting squishies. I don't really want to wipe the party on the second main boss. Idk I guess the best idea is just to buff the crap out of his AC and give him some really high DR/- but keep his strength down.

[Matrota]

Are you using the tome of battle? You could have Shal'Garuk be a martial class...
Or...how about, he lives somewhere that has an antimagic arena, so that those who fight him cannot be dishonorable and use magic...
Of course, for his build...what kind of flavor do you want for him? What alignment is he?


On a side note, your campaign sounds really cool.

I have access to the tome of battle, might take a look at that. As characters, all of these lords have been betrayed by their original deities, or at least they believe they have been betrayed, and are vengeful because of this. This triggered an event for each of them involving my homebrewed deity Shal'Regus, god of the Forgotten, who erased their existence from all who had ever known them with an epic variant on modify memory, cast as a wish so as to bypass immunities that many creatures have because wish is a universal spell, not an enchantment spell. After that, Shal'Regus took them to his domain to train them to become strong enough to claim their revenge against the gods. Some of them turned into opposites, such as Shal'Pagaris who was betrayed by a holy god and turned to the necromatic arts, but some, like Shal'Garuk, want to beat their old god at their own game.

Shal'Garuk's original god was Kord. His alignment now is chaotic evil, though he still respects warrior's honor and such. Hope that helps. I didn't put this in the original post because I thought it'd be too wordy tbh.

[Ualaa]

You could give him a mechanic like Crane Riposte, even if it is not a riposte.

The issue is that he has one set of actions, while a party of eight has eight sets of actions.
If you were to give him 8x as many hit points, that just makes the fight last a long time.
But with 8 sets of actions, the players are essentially going to do more things that he can respond to.

For him to be competitive, you either want more mobs on the board... so they get sets of actions too, or perhaps the party has to go through them first.
Like the typical kung-fu movie, where the heroes at the Dojo have to beat twenty-five students before reaching the master.

Whether the boss thinks it needs others or thinks it is a god and needs no one...
Doesn't mean that it doesn't have a dozen would-be students attempting to learn from it.
Even if these aren't that hard (equivalent to a 4E minion maybe), they're still a complication to be dealt with which makes the encounter that much harder on the players.

Your boss could have a signature move, similar to a Crane Riposte, but instead of triggering when someone misses his armor class, maybe it triggers when they close to melee range.
Similar to the idea of setting a spear against a charge.
So the heroes move from 10 ft away (2 squares) to 5 ft away (an adjacent square), and your boss gets his attack on them... which may be one free action/attack for each melee opponent.
Eventually the party will surround him, and he cannot simply full-attack > shift away... to get his free attacks as they again move to melee range to attack him.
Those free attacks, help to make up the difference in actions.

If this guy is a melee specialist, you could give him say three complete sets of actions.
Roll initiative for him three times, with +20, +10 and +0 bonuses, over and above whatever he normally has.
So your boss may end up going on (I just rolled) 12++, 14+ and 17.
He takes a full set of actions (including a swift) on 32, then at 24 his entire set of actions refreshes and he can take once per round actions (like another swift or have an immediate available again), and again on the third initiative roll.
This effectively gives him three actions against the eight actions of the party.

If he had both effects... a single attack, triggered based on some kind of a PC action... and three actions on his own turn...
That is looking like he's going to be massively more challenging than with one set of actions.
The one set of actions, is enough to either kill a single PC or too weak and between eight sets of actions they're fully healed and he's hurting.
Or they only hit on a natural 17, with all possible bonuses (flank etc) and are playing roulette.

However, having the response attack... might add up to the equivalent of 2 or 3 sets of actions, especially if he maneuvers so that it triggers often and the party has to tactically prevent it.
Then he has three sets of actions, and could target three different guys to show that he can on his own handle three adversaries at once.
That way, he doesn't need to hit for an absolutely massive amount of hit points to be a threat, but with three guys taking fairly significant damage he is an enormous threat.

If you combine that with the dozen would-be students as a complication...
The PCs either waste resources dealing with these minions...
Or accept them as a damage over time effect, affecting the party as it wages a battle against a tough opponent.



4th edition was incredibly balanced...
A given character could be expected to have an attack in a certain range, at a certain level.
They added 1/2 your character level, to most d20 rolls and to most defenses.

A soldier mob would have a high enough AC that it was fairly hard to hit for melee focused guys.
They might need a 15 to hit it.
It would hit very accurately, but not that hard.

A brute would be the opposite.
It would not connect that often, but when it did... wow, did it ever smack you.

Given that a 7th level PC, would have:
- +2/+3 proficiency bonus from their weapon
- +3 for half of their level
- a +1/+2 weapon enhancement bonus
- Likely a starting 18 (after racials) so +4, but not 20 for +5 yet.
- Say a +2 enhancement item to their attack stat.

The system would assume... +12 to +14 (I could be way off, haven't played 4th in forever) to attack.

The 'soldier' mob might have a defense in the 25-30 range, so a striker focused guy would need a 13-16 to connect.
While the 'brute' mob might have 3x the hit points, hit 3x harder, but be 10ac and +10 attack bonus back of the soldier.
An encounter might be 4x Brutes and 2x Artillery... which could be Normal, Elite, Solo, Minions or some mix, and the level range would be +/- 'x' based on how hard you wanted things to be.
Then you could also double the number of things, if they were 'x' levels lower or halve the numbers if they were 'x' levels higher.

You can essentially estimate the values of your group, to achieve the same result as the 4th edition system would give.
If you want the 'average' striker/melee in your party to need a 16 to hit... but that the accuracy focused guy can hit on a 14+... meanwhile the Power Attack guy needs the 18...
Not sure where the sweet spot is, for a boss like this.
But if you look at the attack values of the party, you can decide that the accurate guy needs a 12, an average guy needs a 14 and the hard hitter PC (with attack penalties) needs the 16.
(or whatever values you figure is good).

I believe the Elite has 2x hit points and a Solo had 5x hit points, of a normal mob for their level.
You could go with 5x hit points, since this is supposed to be a boss.
That way, you don't need to give it 18 extra hit dice (and now it cannot miss) for the health you want it to have, nor do you have to give it a CON in the 40s, so it is immune to Fortitude saving spells.

4th was big on... choose a 'role' mob, and at level 'x' it has these numbers because it should be this much higher than the party average level for it's Attacks, Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will.
3.x generally expected me to build the monster, give it class levels, and in effect "justify" whatever it ended up with by adding a template or class or extra hit dice.

The 4E approach, in 10 minutes, resulted in similar challenge level for the players... and as much fun on their part, as if I were to spend 3 hours adding the perfect combination of classes, templates and such for a given monster/boss/whatever.
The mechanics of the adversary are behind the screen...
Your players aren't going to ask, how many Monk levels did it have.
They're not going to care, how you got to AC 32... as long as 32 is a reasonable range for their capabilities.

[ace rooster]

For the lord of combat I would suggest the most hydray hydra ever. The idea is to win the action economy, and it does this by not just regrowing heads, but by regrowing whole bodies that split off!

There is a main body that is where the most powerful abilities come from, but the other bodies are also part of him. He can switch which is the main body as a swift action (automatic if the main body dies), and the bodies are perfectly coordinated. He can split the HP of the main body to spawn another body up to his limit as a standard action (full round for pyro or cryo), and he can release one of his bodies to become a standard (or pyro or cryo) hydra as a free action (friendly to him). If a body goes outside a mile of the main body it is automatically released.

Abilities and stats can be tuned to taste, but that is the jist of it. The main body has at will greater teleport, but using it usually releases it's bodies, so it avoids using it unless cornered, when it doesn't hesitate. Battlefield control, mobility, and stalling are where it's abilities are focused. Resiliant sphere (used as a defensive tool, to allow a body to regen up before being released again), haste, acid fog, spell turning, wall of fire, and wall of ice all make good abilities for the main body. Mirror image, obscuring mist, fire shield, and shout are the sort of things you should be looking at for the child bodies. Maybe limit them to one powerful one per child body, decided when it is created (and requring a full round to create). He probably needs something like fairie fire and short duration true seeing too.

It is intelligent and cunning. It's main problem is flying foes, which is why it's lair is deep underground.


Tough enough?

[Inevitability]

A variation on the 'combat hydra' theme, but what if every new body is immune to the effect that slayed the previous one? It prevents party casters from spamming the same spell over and over and adds a puzzle element to the fight.

Maybe have the acquired immunity wear off over the course of an hour, to avoid having the make the PC's fight an omni-immune foe.

[supersonic29]

As a Dark Souls fanboy, you are working in my favorite realm of boss design right here. From you talking about epic spells and whatnot, sounds like you are dealing with a high level scenario, which means it's going to be a challenge to challenge them with a single fighter-type, but by no means impossible unless you've allowed some high level cheese in your party.

First off, consider letting this guy be Gestalt even if nothing else in the world is, because a 3.5 world is a caster's world. It will let him ride some good saves and grab lots of goodies in the way of feats and initiator stuff.

Going off that last line, martial is undoubtedly the foundation for this guy. Namely, have you heard of builds based around movement restriction and attacks of opportunity? I think that'd be the ideal way to get more attacks out of this guy without cheesing too bad. Spiked chain is always a nice weapon. I'd try and make him a large (monstrous) humanoid in the name of achieving reach, a hair more damage, but still within the realm of a melee soldier that the player will identify and understand. Consider something that nets him four or more arms for more spike chains though, would make full attacks all the more devastating on the chosen target.

So magic, how to shrug it off for the moment is an endless question. Spell immunity is almost a must. If you grab that and some excellent saves (perhaps a steady progression on one half of gestalt with a series of level 1 dips on the other half for insane base saves?) you can hopefully do this without putting the whole fight in an anti-magic field. Simply because that's kind of the easy way out and can keep your casters from doing things like, casting buffs on the party rather than damage on the target to maintain some of their relevance. If you think your players will dance all over him without the anti-magic, then a demiplane within an anti-magic field is the name of the game. Admittedly, the anti-magic is the only way to preserve a build based around movement restriction as it prevents casting freedom of movement.

On the note of a personal demiplane, make sure to refine where they fight him if you can. The state of the battlefield can tilt things greatly, such as if they fight him in some sort of labyrinthian setting with difficult terrain while he has an innate way to bypass it and use the maze-like structure as cover from anyone other than his current target. Maze or not, cover is nice, terrain should be considered.

This last thought may just be bias towards something I like a lot, but you could make a templated Dvati. (Assuming you don't use the gross web supplement errata) This would be a way to fool the party into expecting to have all of them on one target, but to instead find a very well coordinated pair that is technically one being, the one pseudo-deity. I believe martial classes explicitly state one stance at a time, but giving some logical liberty to the character, this could allow a martial class to have two stances up on the two bodies. Perhaps island of blades and thicket of blades? So long as you have taken options to give you additional attacks of opportunity for round, you could benefit a lot by incurring flanking on all that both Dvati twins are adjacent to (with their flanking buff) and attacks of opportunity on anyone trying to escape the situation.

To conclude, I apologize for limited specifics, but I hope this gives you some ideas to toss around.

[Stealth Marmot]

The following bosses and their specialties are Shal'Garuk, lord of combat, Shal'Maenum, lord of deception, Shal'Auran, lord of the arcane, Shal'Pagaris, lord of the unholy, and Shal'Mortalis, of whom I'm still developing. Shal'Mortalis is essentially the endgame boss.

Since there are a lot of knowledgeable people here on the forums, could I potentially get some recommendations on what to make these characters? I'd like to make Shal'Garuk a race and class that would help him to be an incredibly strong martial enemy, Shal'Maenum into a deception prone race and class, etc. As for levels, they all would be able to cast epic level spells, if that is any indicator. Except Shal'Garuk, who is purely physical combat oriented.

Shal'Garuk- Minotaur Fighter/Blackguard.

A Minotaur is large, intimidating, and strong. The Brutal horns and snout are demonic without actually having to add the half-fiend template (Though you can if you want).

The Blackguard is an excellent combatant. It uses poison, has spells that enhance it in combat, and actually even gets sneak attack, which utilizes combat tactics (flanking). Through this combination, you can have a big strong character who can move about the battlefield and use his strength wisely, all the while using his minions tactics to their greatest end.

Hard to miss and intimidating as hell, a Minotaur Blackguard will make combat hell. Have him followed by Rogue/Shadowdancers who can move and flank people with amazing ability.

Shal'Maenum should be a fallen Aasimar Sorcerer. Nothing will make deception easier than the guise of good. The character should LOOK angelic and even potentially befriend the players at different points, but instead work against them and manipulate them. He should have contacts and political allies that make it so attacking him would cause the group to have the ire of the people until they were able to find proof of his treachery.

Shal'Pagaris should be an Elf Favored Soul. Elves are known for being lofty and aloof, and what else could cultivate such an attitude of superiority than a God literally saying "You are my favorite." Given power through nothing else but birthright, he can believe that he is superior to all, and that their subservience is his birthright. He should have every air of smug superiority and entitlement, but do not underestimate his power.

Shal'Mortalis should be a Gnome Bard.

...I'm so not kidding.

Specifically, the gnome gets the prestige class Sublime Chord and eventually uses their magic to research into the cosmos and astrology to understand fate and the power of the universe.

His power is meant to enhance all of his followers, the rest of the group, and he ends up being the first subject, gaining the half fiend template in an attempt to grow his power.

His words speak to all, his music damns all that he wishes it to, and his grace can grant mercy. His obsession with the world and events make him a fount of knowledge of past and potential future events, like a seer.

He should specialize in mainly buffing and enhancing abilities and spells to turn his friends into destroyers.

He would never appear to the Pcs alone unless they had killed everyone else, and if they do he would make every pact with demons and such.

All would underestimate them until they knew what he could do for them.

The one who spins the tale of the world, the one who sings the songs of the universe, the one who serenades the end of this era.

[Flickerdart]

Bosses aren't just dudes; bosses come with an environment. Shal'Garuk should be faced in his throne room - a relatively confined space that he controls fully through the use of reach. He should use Power Attack and Knockback to proc free Bull Rush attempts on attacks of opportunity. Make him a Dungeoncrasher so that every time the PCs try anything, he bashes them into the walls for serious damage. Shock Trooper will also let him ram the PCs into one another, tripping them. If they want to avoid AoOs, they will have to disarm him or force him to move out of his central position in the throne room. Make sure the throne room is difficult terrain, and he has Thicket of Blades.

The confined space of the throne room makes antimagic field practical. Have emitters of widened antimagic field at four corners of the room, so that the PCs can destroy them and release their magic. The pillars of the emitters can also serve as partial cover against Shal'Garuk's attacks. Line the throne room with walls of force (just out of range of the AMFs) to avoid any incorporeal nonsense even if the emitters are taken down.

If you don't want AMFs, at least have a friendly caster cast anticipate teleportation on him, to punish both long-range and short-range teleports. Or forbiddance on his room or something.

For extra fun, make the throne room an area of heightened gravity. For double extra fun, make the gravity in the room point to the center, so that the PCs continuously fall into Shal'Garuk's reach when they are tripped. For quadruple monster megafun, give him Snap Kick, Improved Trip and Knockdown so that he auto-trips on every hit, and then gets a free attack, and then gets another free unarmed attack if they got close enough.

[exelsisxax]

The problem with most of these is that they all assume high magical preparation for a nonmagical dude; such preparations for the bosses that are casters could quickly become nigh-impassable death gauntlets.

[Flickerdart]

The problem with most of these is that they all assume high magical preparation for a nonmagical dude; such preparations for the bosses that are casters could quickly become nigh-impassable death gauntlets.

That's easy enough to explain away, should the DM desire to do so:


The great bosses see it as beneath their dignity to prep traps and defenses, or the caster bosses don't want to be caught with a suboptimal battle loadout ever. All of them have similarly powerful spellcaster servants that furnish these things for them.
The spellcasting bosses do not have spellcaster minions (or do not tolerate ones of rival strength), for fear that one would try to usurp their role. The combat-oriented boss is happy enough to have them, since they lack the necessary martial skill to usurp him.
The combat boss's purview includes fortifications. The others prefer to remain mobile and rely on their magical strength, but Shal'Garuk uses the principle of defense in depth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_in_depth) as well as other military tactics to overcome his enemies despite not being a spellcaster himself.
Shal'Garuk is not only a great fighter himself, but an inspirational commander whose banner gathers mighty heroes from far and wide. His colleagues lead through deception, tyranny, and terror, and so they have very few underlings that they can trust to build up their defenses, and rely mostly on their own power (which they may be loathe to use, see above).
The other bosses are willing to provide magical support to Shal'Garuk to avoid a weak link in their organization. Every boss thus has the same death gauntlets.

[Matrota]

As a Dark Souls fanboy, you are working in my favorite realm of boss design right here. From you talking about epic spells and whatnot, sounds like you are dealing with a high level scenario, which means it's going to be a challenge to challenge them with a single fighter-type, but by no means impossible unless you've allowed some high level cheese in your party.

First off, consider letting this guy be Gestalt even if nothing else in the world is, because a 3.5 world is a caster's world. It will let him ride some good saves and grab lots of goodies in the way of feats and initiator stuff.

Going off that last line, martial is undoubtedly the foundation for this guy. Namely, have you heard of builds based around movement restriction and attacks of opportunity? I think that'd be the ideal way to get more attacks out of this guy without cheesing too bad. Spiked chain is always a nice weapon. I'd try and make him a large (monstrous) humanoid in the name of achieving reach, a hair more damage, but still within the realm of a melee soldier that the player will identify and understand. Consider something that nets him four or more arms for more spike chains though, would make full attacks all the more devastating on the chosen target.

So magic, how to shrug it off for the moment is an endless question. Spell immunity is almost a must. If you grab that and some excellent saves (perhaps a steady progression on one half of gestalt with a series of level 1 dips on the other half for insane base saves?) you can hopefully do this without putting the whole fight in an anti-magic field. Simply because that's kind of the easy way out and can keep your casters from doing things like, casting buffs on the party rather than damage on the target to maintain some of their relevance. If you think your players will dance all over him without the anti-magic, then a demiplane within an anti-magic field is the name of the game. Admittedly, the anti-magic is the only way to preserve a build based around movement restriction as it prevents casting freedom of movement.

On the note of a personal demiplane, make sure to refine where they fight him if you can. The state of the battlefield can tilt things greatly, such as if they fight him in some sort of labyrinthian setting with difficult terrain while he has an innate way to bypass it and use the maze-like structure as cover from anyone other than his current target. Maze or not, cover is nice, terrain should be considered.

This last thought may just be bias towards something I like a lot, but you could make a templated Dvati. (Assuming you don't use the gross web supplement errata) This would be a way to fool the party into expecting to have all of them on one target, but to instead find a very well coordinated pair that is technically one being, the one pseudo-deity. I believe martial classes explicitly state one stance at a time, but giving some logical liberty to the character, this could allow a martial class to have two stances up on the two bodies. Perhaps island of blades and thicket of blades? So long as you have taken options to give you additional attacks of opportunity for round, you could benefit a lot by incurring flanking on all that both Dvati twins are adjacent to (with their flanking buff) and attacks of opportunity on anyone trying to escape the situation.

To conclude, I apologize for limited specifics, but I hope this gives you some ideas to toss around.

I really like the idea of a demiplane. In something like that, it would be designed such that casters have to make a spellcraft check to succeed on casting spells, but not just negate them outright. Stealth Marmot recommended Shal'Garuk be a minotaur, and I like that idea, as well as the idea that his realm could be a labyrinth with him in the center, going full greek myth mode here. Because it's one enemy, I might make the labyrinth full of pupils of Shal'Garuk to wear them down a bit so the final battle isn't too easy by spamming strong spells and abusing action economy. Cover sounds good too. Also, I've allowed gestalting due to the nature of the final bosses and how strong I'd like to make them, though the only one to utilize it right now is my vampire cleric. At this point all that's left is deciding his class/classes!

[Flickerdart]

If you really hate your players, Shal'Garuk could also combine Spellguard of Silverymoon and the Polymorph subschool spells to force the PCs into various monstrous forms that cannot cast spells.

[Matrota]

Shal'Garuk- Minotaur Fighter/Blackguard.

A Minotaur is large, intimidating, and strong. The Brutal horns and snout are demonic without actually having to add the half-fiend template (Though you can if you want).

The Blackguard is an excellent combatant. It uses poison, has spells that enhance it in combat, and actually even gets sneak attack, which utilizes combat tactics (flanking). Through this combination, you can have a big strong character who can move about the battlefield and use his strength wisely, all the while using his minions tactics to their greatest end.

Hard to miss and intimidating as hell, a Minotaur Blackguard will make combat hell. Have him followed by Rogue/Shadowdancers who can move and flank people with amazing ability.

Shal'Maenum should be a fallen Aasimar Sorcerer. Nothing will make deception easier than the guise of good. The character should LOOK angelic and even potentially befriend the players at different points, but instead work against them and manipulate them. He should have contacts and political allies that make it so attacking him would cause the group to have the ire of the people until they were able to find proof of his treachery.

Shal'Pagaris should be an Elf Favored Soul. Elves are known for being lofty and aloof, and what else could cultivate such an attitude of superiority than a God literally saying "You are my favorite." Given power through nothing else but birthright, he can believe that he is superior to all, and that their subservience is his birthright. He should have every air of smug superiority and entitlement, but do not underestimate his power.

Shal'Mortalis should be a Gnome Bard.

...I'm so not kidding.

Specifically, the gnome gets the prestige class Sublime Chord and eventually uses their magic to research into the cosmos and astrology to understand fate and the power of the universe.

His power is meant to enhance all of his followers, the rest of the group, and he ends up being the first subject, gaining the half fiend template in an attempt to grow his power.

His words speak to all, his music damns all that he wishes it to, and his grace can grant mercy. His obsession with the world and events make him a fount of knowledge of past and potential future events, like a seer.

He should specialize in mainly buffing and enhancing abilities and spells to turn his friends into destroyers.

He would never appear to the Pcs alone unless they had killed everyone else, and if they do he would make every pact with demons and such.

All would underestimate them until they knew what he could do for them.

The one who spins the tale of the world, the one who sings the songs of the universe, the one who serenades the end of this era.

Wow, I really like the ideas in here. I think the idea of a minotaur would be perfect, and would also help with confusing my player characters, seeing as the first boss is a griffon, second is a minotaur, and the third, lord of deception, would not be monstrous like the previous two. It shifts out of that theme, throwing them off and assisting in the deception itself.

As to a fallen Aasimar, I think that's a great idea. I already planned on having Shal'Maenum accompany the party on a few excursions as a false ally, and have set of the king of Tasaria, the kingdom they live in, as one of Shal'Maenum's puppets. Perhaps I should make him the king's guardsmen or a high ranking member of the Tasarian army, who the king sends to "help" the party while actually leading them into dangerous situations. Just gotta figure out how to do that without giving it away, and also figure out if I wanna throw on some other classes in addition to Sorcerer since he'll need to be in epic levels by the time the party reaches him.

For Shal'Pagaris, the idea of favored soul seems perfect for him before the fall. I just recently edited the main post so you likely didn't see it, but these characters were supposedly betrayed by their deities and have sworn vengeance, and are training to try and murder their old deities. Shal'Pagaris, after being betrayed by his original god (some god of the light, perhaps Pelor or Pholtus), turned into the opposite and began studying necromancy and magic of the vile darkness. He'd likely be some form of undead now, perhaps a modified demilich or something? I don't know. I don't know if you can continued being a favored soul if you reject your god or they reject you though, which is why I have the issue of deciding his new class.

Shal'Mortalis? Oh yes. Yessss. I already have a heavy theme of music in my campaign, with two bards in the party, and two very important NPC's who are also bards. To end it by dropping a gnome bard on them would be perfect. Perhaps at this point Shal'Mortalis has gained godhood and has resurrected the other 5 to join him in the final battle, where the PC's have to fight against enemies they've already defeated, now stronger. At this point the party would be in an all out battle royale including the NPC allies they've made along the way, as I've incorporated many possible allies to be made in the campaign. I love this idea, thanks for the recommendation. Now I'm getting hyped for the end of the campaign when it's still at least a few months off lmao.

[Matrota]

If you really hate your players, Shal'Garuk could also combine Spellguard of Silverymoon and the Polymorph subschool spells to force the PCs into various monstrous forms that cannot cast spells.

Sounds kinda interesting, but Shal'Garuk isn't a caster. Maybe I'll have different traps set in the labyrinth that do that though.

[Matrota]

Bosses aren't just dudes; bosses come with an environment. Shal'Garuk should be faced in his throne room - a relatively confined space that he controls fully through the use of reach. He should use Power Attack and Knockback to proc free Bull Rush attempts on attacks of opportunity. Make him a Dungeoncrasher so that every time the PCs try anything, he bashes them into the walls for serious damage. Shock Trooper will also let him ram the PCs into one another, tripping them. If they want to avoid AoOs, they will have to disarm him or force him to move out of his central position in the throne room. Make sure the throne room is difficult terrain, and he has Thicket of Blades.

The confined space of the throne room makes antimagic field practical. Have emitters of widened antimagic field at four corners of the room, so that the PCs can destroy them and release their magic. The pillars of the emitters can also serve as partial cover against Shal'Garuk's attacks. Line the throne room with walls of force (just out of range of the AMFs) to avoid any incorporeal nonsense even if the emitters are taken down.

If you don't want AMFs, at least have a friendly caster cast anticipate teleportation on him, to punish both long-range and short-range teleports. Or forbiddance on his room or something.

For extra fun, make the throne room an area of heightened gravity. For double extra fun, make the gravity in the room point to the center, so that the PCs continuously fall into Shal'Garuk's reach when they are tripped. For quadruple monster megafun, give him Snap Kick, Improved Trip and Knockdown so that he auto-trips on every hit, and then gets a free attack, and then gets another free unarmed attack if they got close enough.

As I've decided he'll be a minotaur in a labyrinth demiplane that inhibits spellcasting (Ironic because of both greek myth and the fact that minotaurs are immune to the labyrinth spell), His throne room would be the center of this labyrinth. The emitters seem fun, might incorporate those just to frustrate spellcasters even more. That feat combination sounds nasty as well, I'll be sure to take it on him!

[Ualaa]

This last one that you quoted...

I was thinking, wow -- that's awesome.
If it were my adventure I'd go with something like that.

I like the reach build.
And the improved trip.

The anti-magic, but allowing the PCs to remove that feature.
Not necessarily easily... but still they can modify things in their favor, if they choose to.
But it is heavily in his favor, as that is what he has prepared for -- and why wouldn't he give himself an edge, force his opponents to battle him on his terms, might vs might, or melee prowess vs melee prowess... not the weak trickery of a caster who cannot stand toe to toe.

[neriractor]

Shal'Garuk could be a boss with several forms, you start it out as a swordsage/master of nine, calm and confident in itws skill, once you kill its starting form, it turns into a full crusader (or with prestige classes), upping its defense as it sees itself fought into a corner, after being defeated it can become a warblade/frenzied berserker or another such prestige class with rage focus, as it lets all skill go from its head and its taken by instinct in a mad fight for survival.

You can add extra forms, or modify them as appropiate, it´ll be a fun, if long encounter.

Oslecamo made a boss template found here (http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=qv0rkp4tasp1b1t4qlc8o0mo62&topic=15466.msg273570#msg273570) it could up the challenge of any or all of your bosses.

[Stealth Marmot]

For Shal'Pagaris, the idea of favored soul seems perfect for him before the fall. I just recently edited the main post so you likely didn't see it, but these characters were supposedly betrayed by their deities and have sworn vengeance, and are training to try and murder their old deities. Shal'Pagaris, after being betrayed by his original god (some god of the light, perhaps Pelor or Pholtus), turned into the opposite and began studying necromancy and magic of the vile darkness. He'd likely be some form of undead now, perhaps a modified demilich or something? I don't know. I don't know if you can continued being a favored soul if you reject your god or they reject you though, which is why I have the issue of deciding his new class.

I would vote vampire, and perhaps instead of full favored soul levels, make it an Ur-Priest from Complete Divine. They don't pray for divine magic, they steal it on the basis of hating gods.



Shal'Mortalis? Oh yes. Yessss. I already have a heavy theme of music in my campaign, with two bards in the party, and two very important NPC's who are also bards. To end it by dropping a gnome bard on them would be perfect. Perhaps at this point Shal'Mortalis has gained godhood and has resurrected the other 5 to join him in the final battle, where the PC's have to fight against enemies they've already defeated, now stronger. At this point the party would be in an all out battle royale including the NPC allies they've made along the way, as I've incorporated many possible allies to be made in the campaign. I love this idea, thanks for the recommendation. Now I'm getting hyped for the end of the campaign when it's still at least a few months off lmao.

I suddenly am imagining your bards facing the final boss and challenging them to a rock off challenge like in the Pick of Destiny.

[Inevitability]

How about a Shadow Sun Ninja for Pagaris? It gives you a reason to make him a vampire (perhaps even the original vampire?) and creates a well-rounded, mechanically interesting character. It also lets you make him a monster with a ton of RHD and let him remain a viable threat.

[Matrota]

I would vote vampire, and perhaps instead of full favored soul levels, make it an Ur-Priest from Complete Divine. They don't pray for divine magic, they steal it on the basis of hating gods.



I suddenly am imagining your bards facing the final boss and challenging them to a rock off challenge like in the Pick of Destiny.

Ur-priest sounds perfect for him, yeah. Also my players would actually do that, that's a complete possibility. Then I just have him start singing in blackspeech and they all die (the ones not immune to death effects at least)

[Stealth Marmot]

then i just have him start singing in blackspeech and they all die

melt some faces!

[Matrota]

How about a Shadow Sun Ninja for Pagaris? It gives you a reason to make him a vampire (perhaps even the original vampire?) and creates a well-rounded, mechanically interesting character. It also lets you make him a monster with a ton of RHD and let him remain a viable threat.

Very interesting. I could see this as well being a good option, and it opens up a new window where I could have his original deity be a deity of balance, rather than Pelor. Then again the only deities of balance are Boccob and Khala, and Khala's dead according to lore. So I'd probably end up making my own deity if I wanted that. Lots of good ideas here, I'm liking it.

[danielxcutter]

You said that you got the blades down, but here's my two cents anyways(partly because I spent two hours researching before I saw that. :smallannoyed:)

Shal'Khorizarr, lord of hosts: I can't think of any specific weapon enchantments or stuff that specifically helps with summoning, but he could be defensive, focusing on surviving while his minions whittle the PCs down. Also, I think there are rules that allow you to combine existing magic item abilities into one single item(adding the prices) or making them in a non-standard form, so his "weapon" could have one or more of the abilities of the following items: Ring of Mighty Summons, Ring of the Beast, or Summoner's Totem.

Shal'Garuk, lord of combat: Since this guy's going to be fighting in an AMF, good weapon enchantments might not be useful, plus he might think of them as dishonorable or something. Regardless, I doubt that he'd be using a random halberd lying on the ground. Enchantments that "level the field" or "punish the cheating casters" could work, such as Greater Dispelling, Magebane, Illusion Bane, Revealing, Shattermantle... yeah, that kind of stuff.

Shal'Maenum, lord of deception: If you're going for a Sorcerer deceiver, how about making him an Arcane Trickster or Unseen Seer? Even if you're not, Sorcerers are proficient with simple weapons, which includes daggers. Blurstrike makes the target flat-footed on the first attack each round, and Hidden(50 gold fixed price, Dragon 316, p40) helps conceal it. Sudden Stunning scales with both Cha modifier and level. Impaling makes piercing weapons attack a touch attack 3/day. Spell Storing is nice as he can fuel it with his own spell slots. Probably lots more but probably shouldn't make this any longer than it is. :smallredface:

Shal'Auran, lord of the arcane: How about giving him a Staff of Magi as his legendary weapon? Otherwise I don't have anything else for a (probably) Wizard.

Shal'Pagaris, lord of the unholy: If you're going unarmed, then Necklace of Natural Weapons is required. Either way, there are some nice enchantments. Unholy is a no-brainer, since if you're evil and you're fighting good aligned people you always take this. :smallbiggrin: Enervating is good since it could also be used for a temporary buff. Vampiric is good(if slightly ironic), as is Souldrinking.

Shal'Mortalis: I'm pretty sure that the SRD has some good items for Bards, but they slip my mind right now. Maybe you could take the trumpet from a Trumpet Archon and flip its abilities to evil ones. One way or another, an instrument would fit him best.

Shal'Regus: Depends on what kind of character he is, but you haven't elaborated so I can't help. Sorry. :smallfrown:

[Stealth Marmot]

Shal'Auran: I'm guessing you added him after I made my post cause I don't remember him before...

My suggestion is a relatively vague idea for him: Make him a wizard, but also make him a construct. Some for of golem, or inevitable, or even a one of a kind warforged. Make him logical to the point of lacking compassion, even having flawed logic or simple mistrust in people. He could have the iRobot mentality of enslaving or subjugating humanity for it's own good, or destroying the gods since their nature is too capricious to be positive.

For characteristics, I would look to the Star Wars: The clone wars episode "Innocents of Ryloth, and the Tactical Droid Commander TX-20 character.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TX-20

Arrogance and callousness masked as logic.

[danielxcutter]

Btw, since you said that Shal'Regus and the six bosses have the Seven Blades, maybe you could make some sort artifacts that counter them or mirror them and give one to each player.

As for the bosses,


If Shal'Maenum's going to be a Sorcerer, the False Theurgy skill trick is perfect for both fluff and crunch; you could make them think you're casting a Delayed Blast Fireball, and then flip them a Finger of Death instead.(Bonus points if you guess which finger.) The Fatespinner PrC could also work; since you're a trickster you could fluff it as literally tricking fate. The greatest trick of all, however, could be pretending that he's a squishy caster when he's actually a gish or an Arcane Trickster. For the latter, I recommend that you dip for a level in Assassin if you want to get 9th-level spells before hitting epic levels.


Archmage seems like a good PrC for Shal'Auran. It has flavor and some of the High Arcanas can be okay when used with the right supplements. (Think Shivering Touch was OP enough? Arcane Reach disagrees.) Loremaster manages to at least not suck and gives good Knowledge bonuses, which could work if he's the smart arrogant guy. Not much else I know that fits a "lord of the arcane", though.

Shal'Pagaris is going to be a Vampire(Elf) Shadow Sun Ninja? Hmmmm... Too bad, if he was a non-humanoid, he'd be able to take levels in the Soul Eater prestige class. Monks suddenly become much less pathetic when they can drain levels by punching you in the face, and the Necrotic Focus enchantment allows you to channel that through the weapon so you drain levels by hitting them with your sword as well. Another alternative is to make him a Ruby Knight Vindicator. Say that after he was "betrayed", he converted to a more appropriate god or something.

And since Shal'Mortalis is a bard, adding the Virtuso prestige class would be great. Sublime Chord gives spells, but there's not that many awesome class features, while Virtuso has lots of music-related class features, and advances arcane casting except for the first level, so the two mesh well. If you want both, then you can just advance Bard instead of SC, since he'll be epic anyways. Dirgesinger gives new undead-related songs and stacks with Bard for determining bardic music usages, and must be non-good, but doesn't stack for anything else such as spells. War Chanter has okay buffs and has full BAB, but no casting advancement. If you want him to be a commander, Song of the White Raven let Bard and Warblade or Crusader to stack for Inspire Courage, but yet again no spell advancement.