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SilverLeaf167
2017-10-11, 02:17 PM
Hopefully I can articulate this clearly.

I'm wondering if there are any fantasy (or other, really) RPGs where being able to effectively fight monsters comes down to knowing/finding and exploiting their weaknesses, or it's at least a big advantage. However, it'd still be nice to have a robust combat system so that fighting monsters isn't just figuring out the solution to the puzzle so to speak; you still have to act on that knowledge and can still fail. The point is that fighting unfamiliar monsters becomes easier as you figure them out, but the danger of combat never quite disappears, and often it might be better to use your knowledge of a monster to bypass it, or at least formulate a plan. Presumably this would mean a system where combat is otherwise relatively dangerous.


What I don't want: D&D, where monsters might have the occasional elemental weakness, or Knowledge Devotion might give you a little bonus to hit, but apart from those, a monster's weak spot probably only works as a retroactive fluff explanation for a crit, and killing anything just comes down to stabbing it enough times.

What I don't know: How this would actually work. That's what I'm here to find out. This is more of a thought experiment for now. It might be something as simple as well-integrated rules for called shots and such, as long as it's built as a central part of the system and not some bonus option. I'm looking for a design philosophy and not a specific mechanic.


"This works fine in D&D/[System X] with the following tweaks" is a legitimate answer, I suppose, if not quite what I came looking for.

Actana
2017-10-11, 02:25 PM
Monster of the Week, being focused around monsters (of the week) and hunting them, has some elements of this in it. Monsters are assumed to have some weakness and without it you can't kill it permanently, it'll either not die or come back later. A fair bit of the game is focused around investigating the monster before confronting it finally and acquiring the necessary tools to get what you need.

I've yet to play the game though, but it reads quite solid.

Frozen_Feet
2017-10-11, 02:49 PM
The basic rules of Lamentations of the Flame Princess don't give you much in this regard, but the various modules and setting books are full of opponents like this.

I would recommend Fire on the Velvet Horizon. It is a monster book which shows how to write rules without crunch, basically. You can use LotFP or other simple combat system to serve as framework and then focus on the puzzle-solving.

SilverLeaf167
2017-10-11, 04:09 PM
Huh, that's actually the second time I run into Flame Princess within a couple of weeks, having never heard of it before that. Guess I'll have to take a look. MotW sounds promising too.

Any system with a lot of examples is especially welcome, since a puzzle-element game is only as good as you make it, and many ideas can work across systems too. I'm also interested if anyone happens to have constructive hints/experience of having played or run this sort of game, and how to avoid the usual pitfall of players simply missing a solution entirely, which could be especially bad when the puzzle is itself a combat situation.

JeenLeen
2017-10-11, 04:21 PM
This isn't any game I've played, though it's something I could see manifest in some games.

The monster can, in theory, be killed without its weakness. But the power gap is such that you'll almost certainly die (or maybe the monster will respawn even if killed--that's another valid option.)

But to be really able to defeat it, you have to weaken its power base. Not a weakness of itself, per se, but perhaps it draws power from cultists, or a certain geological/geomantric formation. Destroy its base, and it is weak enough to beat.

Maybe this is how some Monster of the Week monsters work, but it seems a neat distinction.

Possible Examples
You need to defeat the small god that is terrorizing an area, but you must first get those it terrifies into worshipping it to stop worship to be able to fight it, and you need to destroy its sanctum lest it just regenerate.
You need to defeat a ghost, but to do so you first need to remove the reasons it is clinging to life.
You need to defeat a demon, but it has too much power as long as its cultists have active faith.

But you still gotta fight to beat it at the end.
I could see porting this into several systems by designing custom enemies. World of Darkness sounds like a good fit to me.

Thrawn4
2017-10-12, 10:45 AM
But to be really able to defeat it, you have to weaken its power base. Not a weakness of itself, per se, but perhaps it draws power from cultists, or a certain geological/geomantric formation. Destroy its base, and it is weak enough to beat.

+1
More examples:
A Ghost is vulnerable to things that were important to him when he was alive
A certain alloy affects the monster in the same way silver does werewolves
Find the failsafe the monster's creator created
Perform the Sacred Dance of Shar'za to open the passage to its lear and get it by surprise

Psikerlord
2017-10-12, 07:58 PM
This approach of an important weakness sounds like something best tailored to an individual adventure, as opposed to a generic approach to all monsters. Otherwise arent you going to basically get a formulaic beginning to all adventures- players will want to find out what the likely enemies are, research their particular weakness, equip themselves appropriately, then off they go?

And if these kinds of special vulnerability monsters are dropped on PCs without foreshadowing, and teh PCs cant figure out the weakness - or simply dont have the required gear - arent you just going to get TPKs?

edit - sorry just noticed in title talks about "boss" monsters. oops!

awa
2017-10-12, 08:40 PM
I ran a game where the ghosts were vulnerable to what ever killed them the first time. For instance one was a wizard while alive but got killed after getting grappled so even though it was an intangible ghost it could still be grappled, in a simpler example another was burnt to death and could be hurt by fire. So finding how they died was the real the trick to winning. Another vulnerability was they could be weakened if you had a piece of their body and did a ritual, finally if you know their name you could force them to approach you.

Since the ghost were cursing a village worse and worse each night but were inactive during the day in their dungeon the pcs had to research and search the dungeon during the day and then try and destroy them or defend the village at night, with the village attacks putting a time limit on how long they could spend researching.

The pcs also had a few powers that could affect the ghosts directly and a cursed ax so they had an option to try and brute force it but doing it that way was a bad option because they would never have enough hp and spells to tackle to ghosts multiple ghosts in a night doing it the hard way.

An important factor for that chapter was that the village was the thing really in danger, i could kill npcs to punish failure so the pcs could fail without the game ending.

edit
there actually are a lot of puzzle monsters in d&d things like a lich that need special things to kill, monsters with DR or regeneration, monsters like mimics and piercers who are just tricks, and monsters like say the orcwort from mm2 3.0. since the orcwort is a bit more obscure let me describe.
The orc wort is a killer tree with a small swarm of built in minions the thing is its super slow so if you can keep off its faster minions it basically cant touch you.

The minions mean that a low level party could get a good solid level appropriate fight in, before shooting the thing to death with a balista in a cart or luring it into an avalanche or whatever.
I

SilverLeaf167
2017-10-13, 04:56 AM
This approach of an important weakness sounds like something best tailored to an individual adventure, as opposed to a generic approach to all monsters. Otherwise arent you going to basically get a formulaic beginning to all adventures- players will want to find out what the likely enemies are, research their particular weakness, equip themselves appropriately, then off they go?

And if these kinds of special vulnerability monsters are dropped on PCs without foreshadowing, and teh PCs cant figure out the weakness - or simply dont have the required gear - arent you just going to get TPKs?

edit - sorry just noticed in title talks about "boss" monsters. oops!

Nah, the title is just a reference to the trope (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PuzzleBoss) (Warning: TvTropes) of the same name. It doesn't have to be bosses specifically.

You do raise a good point, though. Boss monsters are the only ones the PCs should need extensive set-up and research for. Normal monsters should be beatable without knowing their weaknesses, but easier when you do, and most of their weaknesses should be things like vulnerable spots you can theoretically spot and exploit on the fly (but not so easily that every monster just becomes a simple Perception check). Though I kinda spoke against Knowledge checks in the first post, I'd be fine with using them to find certain weaknesses, as long as they still need to be exploited somehow.

Generally speaking, I'm fine with experienced adventurers researching their opposition and gearing up accordingly. It's completely in-character, actually a big part of what I'm looking for, and will just make it even more fun to throw curveballs at them.

Hmm... for most monsters, the classic "gap in their scales" sort of weakness isn't much more than a called shot, but even those get a bit more interesting when the monsters get bigger and that gap harder to reach. Picture a massive dragon with an unprotected spot at the base of its skull or something. In a low-magic sort of game where you can't just fly, even getting there should be an interesting challenge in itself.

Aneurin
2017-10-13, 06:33 AM
FATE, perhaps? And its derivatives, of course.

The Aspect system gives players a real leg-up for figuring out those Aspects ahead of time (or even on the fly, but that's a little harder), and using them against their opponent. Plus, the more often they encounter something the more they'll figure out how to take advantages of a weakness since they'll have more opportunities to figure out said weakness.

Altair_the_Vexed
2017-10-13, 06:47 AM
I'm working something like this into my fantasy superheroes game mechanics, I suppose, but it's more open ended than puzzle bosses.

It's a d20-like system (derived from d20 SRD, but so far removed now).

What I've got is a mechanic where you can - if you want - just keep hitting the bad guy till it drops... :smallsigh: - or instead you can manoeuvre it into weak positions, tire it out, trick it into exposing its vulnerable underbelly, etc, etc.

It's an abstract action system, rather than mini-based, so re-positioning your target isn't so much of a crunchy proposition. You can apply your various skills and ability scores to a combat check (instead of your base combat bonuses) - success applies penalties to the opponent, failure provokes a riposte. Everyone can do this more or less - so the warrior can fight dirty, the mage can be clever, and the skill monkey can kite the bad guy round the battlefield.

I'm still writing it all up, so it'll be a while before I post anything concrete on the Homebrew section. While this delivers the clever fighting / action scenes I'm looking for, it may not meet the "puzzle boss" request - but if it's of interest, I could be persuaded to post / private-message some of my development work..?

JeenLeen
2017-10-13, 10:12 AM
You may enjoy reading the first part of the Pathfinder's Carrion Crown modules, called the Haunting of Harrowstone. It involves a lot of undead that, although beatable without a weakness, are way easier to beat if you understand their backstory and exploit it. It also has the concept of Haunts, which are... sort of half-trap, half-ghosts. Some of them are utilized fairly stupidly, but some others are really cool.

I reckon the rest of the campaign may follow similarly, but I only played the first part so I don't know.

If you use a less combat-focused game than D&D, I could see there being few real monsters. Maybe minor things the monsters make, like a vampire making spawn, or a dark god having cultists, that can be displaced fairly easily. Those could have a weakness you can exploit but don't need to. Such could even provide clues. For example, if all the cultists wear drab colors, and investigating their homes reveals everything there is gray or black, perhaps hint that color could hurt their idol (especially if the cultists seems to be more hesitant around brightly-colored things.) ...okay, that example seems kinda foolish and too easy to miss, but I hope it gets a concept across.

Mastikator
2017-10-14, 08:14 AM
Anything that involves a sphinx literally telling the PCs puzzles and riddles shound count right?