Boss fight recommendations - The Cursed Tree

[Sirion8288]

Hey all. I am struggling with this upcoming boss fight and I am looking for any recommendations. Every time I create a boss fight it's a total stomp due to the action economy in the party's favor. Though, this is my fault, as the party comprises of 8 players (I know, large group, I messed up): cleric, paladin, barbarian, warlock1/wizard2, bard, sorcerer, druid, and ranger. Though, my few test runs of this battle is usually a complete stomp for the boss (maybe I went too hard in the difficult direction), but more importantly, it is just way too grindy and boring when I do the test runs. I'm trying to figure out how to divide this boss fight into "stages" to make it more entertaining. Creating new obstacles for them to deal with.

Thematically, this is the situation...The final boss is an ancient tree that has been corrupted by an evil shard jammed into its core. Their goal is to either destroy the tree, or successfully remove the shard from the tree's "heart" which will release the curse and end the battle. The party knows that the tree bears "screaming heads" instead of fruit, which attack the mind. They also know that roots will sprout of the ground in large numbers.

This is my tentative plan...I was going to have this boss have 400 health with an AC of 10. Each root that spawns has 10 health and 10 AC (using Twig Blight stats for the roots), and any damage to the roots is also damage to the tree's total health.

Stage 1 (Health of 300 or greater): 2d4 roots spawn at the begging of the tree's turn and each root gets an attack (again, using Twig Blight stats for the roots)
Stage 2 (Health 200-299): In addition to summoning roots, the tree also starts casting confusion on everyone within 60 feet.
Stage 3 (Health 100-199): The tree starts making two branch attacks each turn as well (d20+8 to attack, 1d8+3 damage) to anyone within 10 feet of the tree.
Stage 4 (Health 0-99): Instead of branch attacks, the tree starts making bite attacks (d20+10 to attack, 1d10+5 damage). As the tree's mouth is open, the party will see the shard and have to figure out how to snatch it out...or just kill the tree. Extra bonus reward if they "cure/save" the tree and remove the shard without killing the tree completely.

I thought about one stage of roots with the confusion/psychic attacks. One stage of heads dropping and animating into 8 warriors that resemble the party, but weaker. Last stage involves the tree doing branch and bite attacks. The more I think about this, I am liking it.

I also thought about having the characters realize that they can drunk to mitigate if not prevent the psychic/confusion component of the battle altogether. However, being drunk (i.e., poisoned) imposes disadvantage on attacks. Even with an AC of 10, I was amazed at how significantly disadvantage on attacks impacted the battle. Those roots (Twig Blights) just swarmed them.

Again, my test runs have been total stomps with the boss winning. I may have made this too hard. But also, each test run is a 3 hour grind fest with not enough change and variability. Looking for any advice to make this battle more interesting. This is the 6th session of this dungeon crawl and I want it to be a good battle and their reward to moving up to lv 4.

Any assistance would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

[JNAProductions]

Remind me to post in this thread later. I've got work soon, but I've some amount of practice with boss monsters.

Although, lemme see if I can find a thing...

I made a relatively similar boss fight, though I never ran it. Still, think about nabbing ideas from it! The Maw (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569189-The-Maw)

[Sirion8288]

Remind me to post in this thread later. I've got work soon, but I've some amount of practice with boss monsters.

Although, lemme see if I can find a thing...

I made a relatively similar boss fight, though I never ran it. Still, think about nabbing ideas from it! The Maw (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?569189-The-Maw)

I'm interested! Good luck with work.

[JNAProductions]

I'm interested! Good luck with work.

Thank you very much. :)

[Icewind]

I’d consider lowering the boss’s HP, and changing the timing of each stage to match - 400 HP is a lot at that level, and even with 8 players you’re looking at probably a 5+ round fight.

I’d also consider making anyone who succeeds a save against the Confusion effect immune to it for the next minute - that effect alone makes the fight WAY harder for the party.

[Sirion8288]

I’d consider lowering the boss’s HP, and changing the timing of each stage to match - 400 HP is a lot at that level, and even with 8 players you’re looking at probably a 5+ round fight.

I’d also consider making anyone who succeeds a save against the Confusion effect immune to it for the next minute - that effect alone makes the fight WAY harder for the party.

Ya, I like that. Once you SAV that Confusion/Psychic attack, you're immune for rest of battle (minute). I like that. And ya, with 400 health, the battle is LONG with these test runs.

[clash]

The problem with boss fights in d&d as you've said is action economy. Play any turn based rpg video game and the boss fights can always break this. Legendary actions in my opinion are convoluted and don't handle this well.

Rather than pumping the boss damage or something like rust. I just give the boss more turns in the initiative. Space them say 10 apart or whatever makes sense. It makes then handle a lot of offensive and defensive features better. For example, even spell effects that allow a save each turn to remove might work on the boss initially but they don't give the entire a chance to curb stomp him before he removes it. This same strategy I find works as a replacement for legendary saves as well

[Sirion8288]

The problem with boss fights in d&d as you've said is action economy. Play any turn based rpg video game and the boss fights can always break this. Legendary actions in my opinion are convoluted and don't handle this well.

Rather than pumping the boss damage or something like rust. I just give the boss more turns in the initiative. Space them say 10 apart or whatever makes sense. It makes then handle a lot of offensive and defensive features better. For example, even spell effects that allow a save each turn to remove might work on the boss initially but they don't give the entire a chance to curb stomp him before he removes it. This same strategy I find works as a replacement for legendary saves as well

Ya, action economy is so hard to balance out. And I do acknowledge that the players play their characters far better than I do. My test runs are always underestimations.

Huh, I do like that. Instead of legendary actions (which I ALWAYS forget to use), just add the boss into the turn order a 2nd or 3rd time. I like that a lot.

[Sirion8288]

Currently testing out these stages....

300 health, 10 AC

first stage (200-300 health): summon 2d4 roots and cast Confusion every round (DC 15). Once a character saves Confusion, immune for rest of battle. But roots keep spawning every round.
second stage (100-199 health): heads drop, animating into characters very similar to the players, though weaker.
third stage (<100 health): tree starts making bite and branch attacks

[Unoriginal]

Do you mean they're level 4 for the boss fight, or level 3?

[Sirion8288]

Do you mean they're level 4 for the boss fight, or level 3?

The ranger and druid are lv 4, rest are lv 3. Everyone else will lv up to lv 4 after this major accomplishment, and then the ranger and druid will retire.

[Segev]

First off, don't have the root damage apply to the tree's hp. That's just inviting a curb-stomp from AoEs. Mook minions should be ways to help bring action economy into the boss's favor (or at least not its disfavor), not weaknesses for the boss.

For the idea with the heads dropping to form "copies of the party, but weaker," I would use basic stat NPCs rather than actually copying the PCs' builds.

The cleric-clone can use the acolyte or priest, the paladin-clone can use the guard, veteran, or knight, the barbarian can use the berserker, the warlock1/wizard2 and the sorcerer can use the apprentice wizard from Volo's, the druid can use, well, the druid, and ranger can use either tribal warrior or also druid. Not sure what to suggest for the bard.

I also recommend that it have the ability to make 2 of each, but only one "copy" at a time. Maybe copy the Psychic Blast from the Mind Flayer, and anybody who becomes Stunned has a clone drop. If the clone is one that has two options, use the weak option the first time they're stunned, and a stronger option the second (after they copy is killed the first time).

So it opens the fight with heads swiveling to look at the party and screaming, forcing everyone to make the save vs. the mind blast effect (though I'd go ahead and make the stun only last until the end of their next turn, rather than a minute with a save to end it). For each stunned character, a head drops from the tree and morphs to look like their face as vines-like-veins sprout from the terrible fruit and form into hideous effigies of the characters. They act immediately after the tree's turn.

Put this ability on a recharge 5-6 timer.

Alternatively, make it a Legendary action (also on the recharge timer), and put the clones' initiative at the tick the action was used.

In phase 2, have the tree's lair fill with a fog as per the fog cloud spell, which lingers unless cleared by some clever means (gust of wind, maybe even gust used round-by-round). Twig blights - and therefore the roots - have blindsight 60 ft. You can give this to the fruit-clones, too, or you can leave those blinded.

[Sirion8288]

First off, don't have the root damage apply to the tree's hp. That's just inviting a curb-stomp from AoEs. Mook minions should be ways to help bring action economy into the boss's favor (or at least not its disfavor), not weaknesses for the boss.

For the idea with the heads dropping to form "copies of the party, but weaker," I would use basic stat NPCs rather than actually copying the PCs' builds.

The cleric-clone can use the acolyte or priest, the paladin-clone can use the guard, veteran, or knight, the barbarian can use the berserker, the warlock1/wizard2 and the sorcerer can use the apprentice wizard from Volo's, the druid can use, well, the druid, and ranger can use either tribal warrior or also druid. Not sure what to suggest for the bard.

I also recommend that it have the ability to make 2 of each, but only one "copy" at a time. Maybe copy the Psychic Blast from the Mind Flayer, and anybody who becomes Stunned has a clone drop. If the clone is one that has two options, use the weak option the first time they're stunned, and a stronger option the second (after they copy is killed the first time).

So it opens the fight with heads swiveling to look at the party and screaming, forcing everyone to make the save vs. the mind blast effect (though I'd go ahead and make the stun only last until the end of their next turn, rather than a minute with a save to end it). For each stunned character, a head drops from the tree and morphs to look like their face as vines-like-veins sprout from the terrible fruit and form into hideous effigies of the characters. They act immediately after the tree's turn.

Put this ability on a recharge 5-6 timer.

Alternatively, make it a Legendary action (also on the recharge timer), and put the clones' initiative at the tick the action was used.

In phase 2, have the tree's lair fill with a fog as per the fog cloud spell, which lingers unless cleared by some clever means (gust of wind, maybe even gust used round-by-round). Twig blights - and therefore the roots - have blindsight 60 ft. You can give this to the fruit-clones, too, or you can leave those blinded.

Wasn't going to completely copy the PCs. Like, have the bard/copy only be able to do vicious mockery, nothing else. Sorcerer/copy only do firebolt. Paladin copy only do a basic melee attack. And etc. etc. Also, all states are slightly reduced.

I do like the idea of the mind blast stun, as well as the fog. Good ideas. Thanks

[J-H]

Give it some druid spellcasting, like Entangle or Spike Growth. Note that it can only concentrate on one spell at a time.
Consider having the spellcasting be a lair action that takes place on init count 20.

When I did a druid-casting tree, it had a bunch of snakes swarming around in the tree branches. On the 1st, 3rd, 6th, and 9th time it got hit for 10+ damage, a swarm of snakes would drop out and attack the party.

Note that a 3rd/4th level party is squishy and may miss with a lot of attacks. It's possible to overtune this if you are using minions that take 2-3 adventurer turns to drop.

[Keravath]

There is a reason why most boss monsters have Legendary and Lair actions. It helps balance a single difficult monster against a group of PCs by giving them actions that they take on other creatures turns.

I would suggest adding this sort of feature in your case.

You boss monster could have:

Legendary Resistance: 3 times/day the creature can instead succeed on a saving throw it has failed.

Legendary Actions: 3 times per round after another creature has taken their turn the boss can choose to perform one of the following actions.

Root smash - the monster can smash any grappled creature into a nearby hard surface causing bludgeoning damage

Vegetative locomotion - the monster can mobilize its roots to move the mass of the tree up to 10'

Inject poison - the monster can cause a root grappling any creature to grow thorns injecting the restrained creature with poison. The restrained creature takes poison damage and is poisoned (save for half damage and avoid the poisoned condition) until the end of the monsters next turn.


Lair Actions: 3 times per round after another creature has taken their turn the monster can perform one of the following lair actions.

Attack with a root

Entrap a creature with a root - on a successful attack the target is grappled and restrained until they succeed on a DC16 strength(athletics) or dexterity(acrobatics) check to escape the grapple.

Grow another root - if a root has been destroyed the monster can cause another to erupt from the ground to a maximum of 10 roots at one time.

-----------------

In addition, on the creatures turn it has the following options for actions.

Root attacks - the creature attacks up to three times with its roots - roots leap up and attack creatures - on a successful hit the creature takes damage and is grappled and restrained.

Thorny roots - the monster causes all the roots in the area to grow thorns for 1 round. The entire area within 40' of the tree is treated as under the effect of the spike growth spell. In addition, any creature currently grappled takes 2d4 damage and makes a save vs poison for an additional 2d4 poison damage and the poisoned condition as the roots constrict and extrude damaging thorns.

Confusing gas - the leaves of the tree release a cloud of gas equivalent to the confusion spell within 30' of the tree. (Recharge 6).

Recharge 6 means that after being used the ability recharges after a die roll of 6 on a d6 rolled once each turn at the beginning of the creature's turn.

-----

Between its regular actions, lair actions and legendary actions - you end up with one creature that is constantly in the fight doing a little bit every turn and much more capable of upsetting the well laid plans of the party that may be based on initiative order and other metagaming knowledge.

I did not fill in the blanks in terms of damage done, to hit, AC, hit points or stats because those need to be balanced for the specific party.

-----

P.S. The other (and somewhat easier) way to handle boss fights is with minions. Bosses should rarely fight on their own though the tree in your case might be one of those cases. Having minions balances things out a bit and gives secondary targets. Minions also allow you to dynamically adjust the difficulty of the fight by adding reinforcements later - either additional minions or in rare cases perhaps an ally if the fight is not going well.

P.P.S. You could look at the Roper in the monster manual for some inspiration too.

[Sirion8288]

There is a reason why most boss monsters have Legendary and Lair actions. It helps balance a single difficult monster against a group of PCs by giving them actions that they take on other creatures turns.

I would suggest adding this sort of feature in your case.

You boss monster could have:

Legendary Resistance: 3 times/day the creature can instead succeed on a saving throw it has failed.

Legendary Actions: 3 times per round after another creature has taken their turn the boss can choose to perform one of the following actions.

Root smash - the monster can smash any grappled creature into a nearby hard surface causing bludgeoning damage

Vegetative locomotion - the monster can mobilize its roots to move the mass of the tree up to 10'

Inject poison - the monster can cause a root grappling any creature to grow thorns injecting the restrained creature with poison. The restrained creature takes poison damage and is poisoned (save for half damage and avoid the poisoned condition) until the end of the monsters next turn.


Lair Actions: 3 times per round after another creature has taken their turn the monster can perform one of the following lair actions.

Attack with a root

Entrap a creature with a root - on a successful attack the target is grappled and restrained until they succeed on a DC16 strength(athletics) or dexterity(acrobatics) check to escape the grapple.

Grow another root - if a root has been destroyed the monster can cause another to erupt from the ground to a maximum of 10 roots at one time.

-----------------

In addition, on the creatures turn it has the following options for actions.

Root attacks - the creature attacks up to three times with its roots - roots leap up and attack creatures - on a successful hit the creature takes damage and is grappled and restrained.

Thorny roots - the monster causes all the roots in the area to grow thorns for 1 round. The entire area within 40' of the tree is treated as under the effect of the spike growth spell. In addition, any creature currently grappled takes 2d4 damage and makes a save vs poison for an additional 2d4 poison damage and the poisoned condition as the roots constrict and extrude damaging thorns.

Confusing gas - the leaves of the tree release a cloud of gas equivalent to the confusion spell within 30' of the tree. (Recharge 6).

Recharge 6 means that after being used the ability recharges after a die roll of 6 on a d6 rolled once each turn at the beginning of the creature's turn.

-----

Between its regular actions, lair actions and legendary actions - you end up with one creature that is constantly in the fight doing a little bit every turn and much more capable of upsetting the well laid plans of the party that may be based on initiative order and other metagaming knowledge.

I did not fill in the blanks in terms of damage done, to hit, AC, hit points or stats because those need to be balanced for the specific party.

-----

P.S. The other (and somewhat easier) way to handle boss fights is with minions. Bosses should rarely fight on their own though the tree in your case might be one of those cases. Having minions balances things out a bit and gives secondary targets. Minions also allow you to dynamically adjust the difficulty of the fight by adding reinforcements later - either additional minions or in rare cases perhaps an ally if the fight is not going well.

P.P.S. You could look at the Roper in the monster manual for some inspiration too.


This was very helpful! Thanks.

[Sirion8288]

Thank you very much. :)

Hey there, I am following up. What are your recommendations???

[Death_Lord12]

First off, don't have the root damage apply to the tree's hp. That's just inviting a curb-stomp from AoEs. Mook minions should be ways to help bring action economy into the boss's favor (or at least not its disfavor), not weaknesses for the boss.


Honestly I think the root damage applying to the tree fits pretty well. But I have 3 suggestions. The first one is to make the root HP the normal Twig Blight 4 HP instead of 10. Even if the PCs kill a root, only apply the 4 HP damage to the tree, this will help avoid dealing too much damage via killing the roots. It could also help prevent swarming if they are easier to kill in one hit, considering more are being brought in every round. The second thing is I think it'd be neat to make the root movement a burrow speed, so the roots are digging under ground to the enemies before popping out and striking. With the standard Twig Blight land movement it just doesn't feel like a root since it's walking around above ground and is clearly disconnected from the tree itself. The third thing, to avoid AoEs wiping out all of your roots, have them attack smarter. With 8 PCs they shouldn't be all clumped up anyways, but you can make the roots separate to attack different PCs and flank (if you use flanking rules). If they all come from the tree boss then they should be working together fairly well, since it's the tree that is controlling them. It should be multiple roots working as one.

For the action economy, I strongly suggest using legendary and lair actions, like the ones Keravath suggested, instead of giving the tree more turns in the initiative order. If I was a player in this game, more turns would just seem more off putting than some extra actions. Legendary and lair actions exist for a reason, so I suggest using them. I suggest you also make it so you can only have 8 or so roots active at a time, if you aren't doing so already. Otherwise the action economy will tip massively in favor of the boss without a limit. Although it might be neat if the max amount of roots increased based on the stage the boss is in. If you do that I'd start stage 1 at 4-6 roots max.

[JNAProductions]

Hey there, I am following up. What are your recommendations???

At this point? Listen to the other folk! They're giving great advice. :)

Although one piece of advice that you can apply to this fight and many others-when your creatures inflict status conditions, have them be more like Slow, prone, or restrained, rather than stunned, incapacitated, or paralyzed. This isn't a hard and fast rule, but players don't hvae as much fun when they can't do ANYTHING-better to inflict penalties that make it tougher for them to act, but still able to, rather than just "Sit your turn out."

Do let us know how the fight goes, by the way! We're hoping you and your players have an awesome time.

[da newt]

I think the biggest issue you have is that parties of 8 PCs have a very high potential to do a bunch of damage in a round due to action economy, but they are still only level 3 or 4 so they can be killed pretty easily if your BBEG does decent damage. For example a lvl 3 fighter w/ 14 CON only has ~ 28 hp.

Like others have said, add minions (your twig blights are great) and legendary actions (LA) and resistances. BTW if you decide to keep the traditional fire vulnerability for your BBEG, it will make things much easier for your PCs - maybe take that away.

I also agree that conditions that hamper PCs but don't completely incapacitate them are better for keeping PCs engaged. Slow, grappled, poisoned, afraid, blinded, prone, etc

I'd lean towards something like:

once per round LA = 5 twig blights appear (4 hp each and add DC 10 vs poisoned condition + 1d6 poison damage)
once per round LA = slow
once per round LA = 3 thorn whip
once per round LA = entangle

On it's turn = 2 branch attacks (add reach 30' and DC 14 grappled 10' off ground) and 1 Bite attack (reach 10' and 3d6 + 5 damage)

Decrease BBEG hp to ~250, don't count root blight damage against BBEG total hp. I'd use 4 LA over the traditional 3 because you have a 8 PC party. I'd also keep the tree's total HP # to myself and fudge it as needed to either drag the battle out or end it as appropriate.

With this many players, I'd expect a boss battle to take some time.

[Pex]

During the fight have mood music.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJISG67FjeM

[Segev]

To make the mind blast effect less crippling to the fun of an afflicted player, maybe make it just knock prone. Then give the tree the ability to spawn roots adjacent to creatures. If a creature is prone when a root is spawned next to it, it must make a dexterity save or become restrained. A strength (athletics) check as an action frees them, as dopes anything that makes them not adjacent to any active roots.

Another action the tree can take is to spawn the fruit clones of anyone who is restrained by this effect.

Make legendary actions to either spawn roots, scream, or spawn clones.

[Unoriginal]

Have you considered using the Treant statblock as a basis? That should remove some of the work.

[Segev]

You may also want to consider adding bigger blights to the root sets as the fight enters the later stages.