Villainous Actions

[Vogie]

Villainous Actions are described in this Matt Colville video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_zl8WWaSyI)from a couple days ago. It's 26 minutes long, if interested, including 2 example monsters where he adds Villainous Actions to make fights, especially with boss monsters, more dynamic.

There are three main categories of expanding actions in the video:

The addition of (a) bonus action(s)
The addition of (a) predetermined Reaction(s)
Creating 2-3 Villainous actions for your Boss Monster, specifically.

Villainous Actions is a mechanic similar to Legendary or Lair actions, but are available to lower-level characters in their 'boss' fights. Also, they follow a bit of a script, similar to the MtG Saga mechanic (https://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=443011), in that they are tied to certain turns - First turn this happens, second turn this happens, third turn this happens.


My question is - has anyone used this style of play before? It may not have been called this, or follow this specifically, but act in the same vein of adding more actions to the monsters you use/create.

I'm also looking for very general Villainous actions that could be used on a wide variety of creatures, such as a Kick (melee attack, save vs knock prone).

[Ghirahim]

My question is - has anyone used this style of play before? It may not have been called this, or follow this specifically, but act in the same vein of adding more actions to the monsters you use/create.



I've used similar ideas. I use a system for legendary actions called Legendary Action Points, sometimes, which has a more number crunch to it, but offers a lot of options for a boss, making them more versatile than most vanilla enemies. Several abilities and actions require turns, or when triggered last a specific number of turns. The limitation with this is that you basically only want to put TPK actions towards the end of the fight -- as in, don't ever put a cool, welldesigned ability more than five turns in, unless you are certain your party is too slow to defeat it before then.

[Kane0]

For my pseudo-legendary creatures I give them a limited number of legendary actions, typically used during the opener or when 'bloodied'. I try not to have these provide means of escape, it usually leads to my players feeling cheated of a victory.