Dungeon of the Colossus

[Jack_McSnatch]

I like giant monsters. And I mean GIANT monsters. I love the idea of these tiny people taking on a cataclysmically large monster... But not by poking at its toes, as giant monster fights in d&d often go. I recently replayed Shadow of the Colossus, and it gave me an idea. I'm sure you can figure out where this is going. A boss that's also a dungeon... Kind of.

Now, I don't want to outright copy shadow. I'd like to put a small spin on it, otherwise it'd be far too easy with our ranger and cleric. So far, I'm thinking of a colossal ++ creature, with a temple on its back or something. Protected from teleport effects, maybe even having the creature itself have an anti-teleportation effect. This is in no way set in stone, and I'm not running this anytime soon. I'd like this encounter to be the climax of my campaign, which won't be til around 18th level. (We just hit 14 last session)

How would you run an encounter like this? What would stop the players from just outright murdering this creature by pelting it with spells an arrows? And how would you even calculate XP for something of this scale?

[Selion]

The problem is that you want a creature large enough to fight on it (or inside it), but you want it still to be active in the fight. The closest thing I can think of is that two runes have to be touched simultaneously inside and outside the creature (for example to shut down its regeneration) . This way the party needs to split, with half players in the dungeon and half players fighting the beast outside. You can introduce other intermediate steps which link the fight outside and inside, for example damaging the monster in some specific points could make a wall collapse inside the temple. The temple itself could be infested by medium sized parasites (or guardian constructs, depending on the concept on which you build the creature)

[Edenbeast]

I like giant monsters. And I mean GIANT monsters. I love the idea of these tiny people taking on a cataclysmically large monster... But not by poking at its toes, as giant monster fights in d&d often go. I recently replayed Shadow of the Colossus, and it gave me an idea. I'm sure you can figure out where this is going. A boss that's also a dungeon... Kind of.

Now, I don't want to outright copy shadow. I'd like to put a small spin on it, otherwise it'd be far too easy with our ranger and cleric. So far, I'm thinking of a colossal ++ creature, with a temple on its back or something. Protected from teleport effects, maybe even having the creature itself have an anti-teleportation effect. This is in no way set in stone, and I'm not running this anytime soon. I'd like this encounter to be the climax of my campaign, which won't be til around 18th level. (We just hit 14 last session)

How would you run an encounter like this? What would stop the players from just outright murdering this creature by pelting it with spells an arrows? And how would you even calculate XP for something of this scale?

It's a great idea :) I love Shadow of the Colossus. I played the original game on the PS2 some ten years ago. I've played with the idea several times, but never got to implement it partly due to lack of time, and having no consistent gaming group. I'd be curious see what this thread will come up with.

So my ideas were a bit of mix from Shadow of the Colossus, the eighties movie of Transformers where the only way to stop Unicron, is to get inside him and then use the Matrix of Leadership. Add to that a bit of Dungeon Keeper where you build up a dungeon, recruit monsters, and place doors and traps. At some point a band of heroes breaks through your walls with the goal to destroy the heart of the dungeon, and thereby defeat you.

I would not use hitpoints for the colossus itself. It's made of stone or iron, basically treat it as an animated temple complex without stats of his own. It is unstoppable, unless you manage to get inside and get to it's heart. Take inspiration from dungeon delves. The party earns XP by defeating the monsters that reside inside the colossus and overcoming traps and other challenges. Treat the entire dungeon as difficult terrain since it's moving most of the time.

That's how far I've come. I never made a map, unfortunately. But I might come up with one at some point.

[Fizban]

If you want it to count as a "fight," it will still need to incorporate normal fight mechanics. Things you attack with normal monster type AC and defenses which are affected by spells the same way a monster is, rather than an object. Effects that hit you back don't neccesarily need to use attacks since AoEs are already a standard method of monster attack, so clouds and energy fields and rooms shaking and smashing are all normal dungeon "attacks."

For an example, one of the bosses in Elder Evils is basically something like this (more of a Lavos/bio-horror/borg thing instead of a colossus though). When you look at it on paper from the DM's side it's actually quite boring, a bunch of fixed points with big round numbers of hp that a PC can walk up to and attack or blast until the hp are gone, with most of the mechanics being a fairly simple set of rules on moving around or creating some of those bits, some of which launch AoEs. And a big dose of glowing weak points that are impossible to miss.

Making this sort of thing feel like a boss is like 90% atmosphere: if you've sold them on this giant organism they're trying to kill and they're on-board, it'll work even though the mechanics are simple. But if they're treating it like a machine with a few parts they need to trash, not so much. Getting that atmosphere set up is the kinda thing that needs to be done far in advance, so the seeds ought to be sown immediately.

[ShurikVch]

Note: Dragon #336 has SotC-themed article, with Primordial Colossus (54 HD Colossal Construct)

For another examples:

Kadtanach from the "Beast of Burden" (Dungeon #100):https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sfery/images/d/d3/KadtanachDungeonMagazine100.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140706143541

Colossus from the "Heart of the Iron God" (Dungeon #97):https://image.ibb.co/mGrqcA/Colossus.jpg

It's unclear whether goristros have a maximum size; the largest goristro ever spotted was a 200-foot-tall, 95 HD monstrosity named Bjornganal that walked around with a small village of fiendish araneas living on its back and shoulders.Aranea (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/aranea.htm)s are Medium-sized creatures; to have the whole village of them "on its back and shoulders"...

Also, check the Elder Evils book (especially Ragnorra, Leviathan, and Atropus)

[unseenmage]

There IS a Dragon Magazine article that stats out the Shadow of the Colossus creature.

I just do not remember where. Am sure it was for 3.x though.

[flappeercraft]

I recall there being a living demiplane that had stats in either MotP or PH. Maybe that could work as a bade on the concept. Although I think you could only kill it by segments rather than as a whole or something like that.

[MesiDoomstalker]

The question you want to ask yourself is "Is the Titan an active participant in the fight, or the McGuffin the players are stopping." Personally, I'd go with the second. The Titan is on collision course with [city/sacred realm/heart of the world/etc] and traditional means won't stop it. Chopping at its ankles won't slow it down and it pays no attention to anything but its goal.

So then the encounter will be a dungeon crawl through the temple/titan itself. I'd draw up some 'effects' of the adventure location being on a mobile, humanoid-shaped platform. Random checks/saves to keep footing, random instances of immune defenses as well as disembodied Supernatural or Spell effects. I'd suggest taking a look at the Paizo Adventure Path, Iron Gods, specifically the last book The Divinity Drive.

The jist of the final part of the AP is that an AI that has been housed in a massive starship for thousands of years is nearing ascendancy into the divine and intends to build it's worship via a virus. The PC's must stop it to keep the planet from being infected with the virus and turning the whole planet into mindless worshipers of the cruel Iron God. The PC's must enter the spaceship and deal with the AI and the book lays it out in a few ways.

First the AI is given a statbock that is frankly incredibly OP and way beyond the PC's capabilities. High 20s CR (I forget off hand). It also has a huge list of SLA's it can use and it describes that the SLA's can be fired from a large number of turrets within the ships interior. It also mentions that it has complete control over the security systems of the starship and thus can directly control about 90% of the encounters in the final dungeon as well as constantly monitoring the PC's to study their tactics, weaknesses, etc. It lists a set of conditions that if the PC's meet, will reduce the AI's capacities in such-and-such ways, leading to a tough but fair fight if all conditions are met. These conditions are all fairly straight forward and things the PC's should have already been aware of or would become apparent as they explore the ship.

There is actually 2 final fights in the AP. The first is an Overseer Robot, an incredibly powerful robot that is the AI's physical body outside the computer system of the starship. Ontop of it's normal actions the AI can fire the aforementioned SLA's through the Overseer as well. Defeating the Overseer is a tough fight (CR 22, IIRC for level 18 PCs) and defeating it is one of the conditions that reduce the true final fight's difficulty. The true final fight is when the PC's enter the virtual space that is the AI's Divine Realm, within the starship's computer systems. If all the conditions are met, this fight is tough but still doable.

After defeating both the Overseer and the AI within its Divine Realm, the PC's are successful (so long as they don't accidentally corrupt an allied AI with the virus).

The point I'm making here is that the dungeon and the Boss of the dungeon were integrated but separate. They could approach the AI early, but will be thoroughly trounced without first weakening it. But while they go about weakening it, the AI has a constant presence that the PC's can feel, see and hear. It is honestly a amazingly creative final chapter and I personally love it (even if it is too much Sci-Fi in my Heroic Fantasy).

[Edenbeast]

There IS a Dragon Magazine article that stats out the Shadow of the Colossus creature.

I just do not remember where. Am sure it was for 3.x though.

Very observant. It was mentioned in the post above you.


Note: Dragon #336 has SotC-themed article, with Primordial Colossus (54 HD Colossal Construct)

I wasn't familiar with this and it sounded interesting, so I looked it up. I found it kind of useless to be honest. It's more of an article that praises the game. It gives a stat block for Colossi, and then it's up to the players to deal with it. It gives nothing in terms of a "Shadow of the Colossus"-like play style beyond a rather difficult climb check, but what do you do once you made that check? I mean, what's different from that compared to confronting the players with an Ancient red dragon or the Tarrasque? I want the Colossus to be a huge moving structure the players cannot hurt in any way unless they climb up and explore it. However, if this is what the OP is looking for, then that's great :smallsmile: I copied the pages and made them into a 3-page pdf. Let me know if you're interested in having it.

Actually the other suggestion "Heart of the Iron God" from Dungeon #97 is more promising. I could not find the written adventure so far, but I found a reviewer's summary:


Heart of the Iron God
By Campbell Penney
3e
Level 13

The party comes across a GIANT iron statue attacking a village and the dungeon are the levels inside the statue. This one has some bits of potential in it. The destruction of the village, and the chaos of the villagers, is glossed over where it should be a highlight of the start of the adventure. The gome engineers and hanggliding attackers are a bit of a style turnoff for me, but the adventure does many good things. A decent variety of the rooms are interesting, with things to play with, even though the combats in the rooms tend to be a little boring. More grinding gears and steam pipes and open access ports would have done wonders for otherwise boring old combats. The construct has a number of entrances, which is a very good thing, although there is more than a little gimping going on in the statue being immune to almost every useful spell. I really don’t like that in my adventures: the party should be able to use the powers they’ve earned. If it ****s up the adventure then you didn’t write a very good adventure. There’s a nice order of battle, for alarms going off inside and how the guards react, as well as a nice section on follow-ups after the adventure is over … which mainly focuses on rewarding the players and the feuding factions who want the statue body. That’s a nice touch, putting the party in respected positions and then swirling the chaos around them. The adventure text for complex rooms is quite long in places and badly needs pruned back, and the adventure does spend a fair amount of time on describing mundane rooms and items. On the plus side there is at least one area where you can NOT fight and talk. This is a decent effort for an Dungeon Magazine adventure

You can get both issues (#97 and #100) at the Paizo store, actually.

[unseenmage]

Very observant. It was mentioned in the post above you.



...

Is what I get for posting at work I suppose.

[Mike Miller]

Dungeon mag 100 has Beast of Burden, which is pretty neat. There is an enormous beast carrying a marauding group of villains.

[ShurikVch]

I recall there being a living demiplane that had stats in either MotP or PH.That would be Neth, the Plane that Lives (Manual of the Planes); it's body is membrane crumpled into 25-miles-radius ball; unfolded membrane should be 500 miles in diameter, and 30' thickness

Similarly, there is Araumycos (https://forgottenrealms.fandom.com/wiki/Araumycos) in Underdark

Also, Ulgurshek - 92nd layer of the Abyss - is, actually, a Draeden (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draeden):
Ulgurshek is not a part of the Abyss but is in fact an immense living creature from the dawn of time called a draeden. The godlike being had already fallen into torpor when the Outer Planes themselves took form. Ulgurshek wasn’t captured by the Abyss - it grew around him as his dormant form drifted through the raw creative matter of the multiverse. Confined by reality, Ulgurshek has no hope of escape.https://image.ibb.co/e3PqvV/Cogent1.jpgThere is the 3.5 conversion (http://www.pandius.com/draeden.html) for 3.X-compatible Spelljammer

[Zaq]

I've worked with some encounters like this, and they're amazingly memorable when done well. You basically can't have it simultaneously be a normal creature and also be the environment. You have to make it an environment that has some creature-like aspects. Always think of environment first and maybe, maybe semi-creature-ish second.

The colossus can't have normal HP/AC/saves/etc. You can't just attack it. You can't meaningfully target it with a spell. That doesn't work and it needs to just not be considered. The only way that this kind of encounter can work is if you don't think of it as really being a target.

Now, it can--and should--HAVE targets. There's the classic SotC runes that serve as weak points, or some various refluff thereof. That's honestly a pretty good way to start. I've played in encounters that use that sort of mechanic to good effect. And it's fun to include all kinds of other baddies in the same environment once you make up a reason for them to be there and for them to be opposing the PCs.

And of course, the colossus can and should be interacting with the players, trying to swat them or shake them off or otherwise interfere. But think of it as environmental interaction, not as "this is a creature who does all the things that creatures do." Very intense environmental action, but still environmental action. You can give it a spot (or several) in the initiative order just to keep things sane, but don't think of it as having a "turn" or a "set of actions" so much as just stuff that can or will happen at a certain point. Possibly triggered.

The fight needs to be big and dynamic and take place over several stages! This should be several encounters strung together, to be honest. And there should be different "battlegrounds" as the players get to, say, its waist versus its shoulders versus its tail versus whatever. Make it feel like a chase, or a climb, or something! Maybe it's big enough that it can cover a meaningful amount of ground over the period of time that the PCs are engaging in this endeavor, and after so many rounds the whole fight ends up in more hostile territory where it's got air support or "natural" environmental hazards (it's retreating into the volcano!) or something, and the longer it takes, the farther away from home base the PCs will end up. But don't just have it be one "room." Whether you want the PCs to be able to creatively find ways to quickly move from one battleground to another is up to you.

But yeah. More than anything, just lean hard into "environment, not creature," and go from there. It's not something with a statblock. It's an area with a set of objectives and a lot of obstacles between the PCs and those objectives, but it's not a character.