Building Custom Flavorful Warforged Bosses?

[Jarmen4u]

Hi Playground, long time no see.

I'm planning the finale of my campaign to include (very) nerfed Warforged Colossi from 5e (or just very large Warforged/Juggernauts) as big bads to fight amongst large armies of mooks. I am planning to base each one off of each of the players' previous characters from a flashback mini-campaign, since those characters went missing at the end.

The goal is that the party will encounter these one at a time, over an extended campaign, so I'd like them to be somewhat independent (though I'm not opposed to pairing, for instance, the cleric and rogue together, since they might be better that way).

I have vague ideas of what to add to a base (nerfed) Colossus, but I'm hoping for ideas/feedback on what kinds of abilities I can add to make the fights fun/exciting. The party will likely be around level 14-15 when they encounter these. They are a druid, rogue multiclass, duskblade, sorcerer, and crusader. The most optimized player at the moment is a duskblade, so there's nothing too wild happening on the player end.

I took the signature abilities from each of the characters and compiled them into a short list below:

1. Sorcerer
Signature Abilities:
Combust (metamagic Max/Ocular) - Eye lasers, sort of obvious. Maybe a flaming fist?
Shivering Touch - Maybe the offhand is a cold fist? Or possibly a chilling aura?
Heavy Crossbow - Shoulder-mounted crossbow/ballista maybe?
Dimension Hop

2. Fighter
Signature Abilities(?)
Two-Weapon Fighting - Cutlass/Boarding Axe - very iconic weapons; wielding larger versions would suffice
Tidewater Cutlass power (Water-based bull rush) - some kind of similar ability, jettisons water to push back encroaching enemies?
Intimidate - not really an ability, but maybe frightful presence?

3. Rogue/Swashbuckler
Signature Abilities:
Hidden Blade (wrist dagger) attacks
Quickdraw (rapier/katana) attacks
Tumble/Mobility
*this entire character stumps me, as the idea of a nimble rogue is sort of at odds with a giant warforged.*

4. Cleric
Signature Abilities:
Spiritual Weapon (rapier) - a permanent floating weapon to accompany this warforged
Alcoholism - not sure what to do with this, but it's a defining characteristic of the PC
Lesser Vigor, Mass - constant regeneration on self, possibly healing allies fighting nearby

Any thoughts you guys might have would be greatly appreciated!

[Malphegor]

I tend to prefer the Warforged Chargers from MM3 because with LA reduction there is no reason not to play a ten tonne robot gorilla if you can. They get all the benefits of warforged but in a 4HD race that is also a massive metal gorilla that practically falls into the Warforged Juggernaut PRC’s requirements by accident.

(these are from my character build notes so there’s references to asking DMs for permission for minor tweaks)

THE ALL WAR WAR WAR WAR ROBOT

Levels: Warforged Charger 4/Fighter 3/Warforged Juggernaut 10/War Hulk 3

ACFS: Warforged Fighter: Lose bonus feats get +3 to initiative checks and saves vs fear, and also get a bonus Warforged feat at 2nd level in. This means that your build can be called War4/War3/War10/War3
Slap on the Tauric Belt to be even bigger. Ask your DM if you can be motorbike bodied rather than lion because robot, lose the claw attacks if needed.
Slap on monkey grip because you’re a gorilla and want to wield bigger weapons.
Now that you can wield a 240lb goliath greathammer, go ape.



THE IRON APIARIST: GRODD THE HIVE QUEEN

First off take a Warforged Charger. It’s a large Living Construct.

Assuming the Hivenest template works on living constructs (it doesn’t but it can do with dm permission) your ten tonne Warforged Gorilla is now the host for a swarm. Personally, I’m inclined towards Hellwasps so that the Charger can choose to posess dead bodies on the battlefield.

[Fouredged Sword]

The most fun to be had with a warforged sorcerer is to make him into a rockem sockem robot.

And by this I mean use battlefist shenanigans to create the punch wizard.

The build works with only some sorcerer casting, so you have plenty of room for RHD. The idea is to have a warforged equipped with a battlefist that they target with greater mighty wallop, then use beaststrike to stack the slam and unarmed strike damage that both get boosted by the battlefist and greater mighty wallop.

The "core" build is something like

Warforged Monk 2 / Battle Sorcerer 8 / Enlightened Fist 10

Stats balance is Str>Dex=Wis>Con>Cha at least 12 (so a +6 item can get you to 18 for 8th level spells)

But feel free to move stuff around to balance the encounter to your players.

The core elements are as follows

First, you have a warforged monk with decisive strike. It's a solid low level character capable of dealing double damage hits at 1st level. A battle fist should be the first purchase, as it ups the character's damage by one size, allowing them to compete with more martial characters. - Damage per hit on decisive strike 2d8 + 2x str

At 3rd level the first major enhancement comes on line with mighty wallop. This boosts the slam damage and unarmed strike damage by a size. This is a big deal because it stacks with the battle fist increase and this in turn stacks with the decisive strike doubling. - Damage per hit on decisive strike - 4d6+str

At 6th level we get our next big damage boost. The warforged has +4 bab at 6th level, so picks up improved natural attack as his 6th level feat. This means that between mighty wallop, a battle fist, and improved natural attack the warforged has +3 size to his unarmed strike, and this is all then doubled by decisive strike when a full action is used to make a single attack. - Damage per hit on decisive strike - 6d6+str.

8th level provides a major boost in the way of access to the spell Greater Mighty Wallop. This does two things. First it ups the size boost by one because the warforged took practiced spellcaster at 3rd level, so has a CL of 8. Second, it increases the duration of the size buff from minutes per level to hours per level, allowing the warforged to have the size increase basically at all times. This means between spell/battle fist/feat you are rocking +4 size, so with decisive strike the damage is 8d6+str

But it's 9th level that this build hits the turbo. See, at 9th level you get a feat and have +6 bab due to having 3/4th's bab. This means that at 9th level you take the beast strike feat. This is a lovely feat that simply adds your slam damage to your unarmed strike damage. Normally this would be a mere 1d4, but remember we have a bunch of things that boost not only our unarmed strike, but also our slam. This means that Greater Mighty Wallop and the battle fist essentially provide double their normal bonus, as they increase the size of the slam as well. Your slam damage is 2d6 at this point, and your unarmed strike damage is 4d6, so added together you have 6d6, and all of this is doubled with decisive strike to 12d6 + str damage.

Now you have all the elements of this build and it's all about stacking incremental bonuses to your unarmed strike and slam damage. Enlightened Fist is a good choice for PRC as it boosts your unarmed strike base damage to a d10 base over it's 10 levels. Improved natural weapon can also be applied to the slam at any point, giving it +1 size bonus. Greater mighty wallop caps out at +5 size bonus in of itself at CL 20.

In the end the character can take a full round action to swing a single attack that deals
1d10+str unarmed damage base x7 size increases + 1d4 slam x 7 size increases, all doubled.

The weapon damage chart caps out at 8d6. +7 size increases takes both the 1d4 and 1d10 base to 8d6.

32d6+str damage, average 112+str (+misc bonuses like enhancement and collision being applied to the battlefist).

But here is the fun part of the boss.

It's a puzzle boss. See, it can only do that damage when it stands still and has something it can take a swing at. If you can force it to move it's damage is halved to 56+1/2 str. It's still a chonky hit, but it's not AS bad. The party should be pressed into a running battle where the boss tries to run them down and tap them with a stunning fist so it can smash them flat the following round. The party gets to play keep away with the scary punch robot trying to crush them.

And don't forget that the boss still has 16 levels of (admittedly battle) CL20 sorcerer casting at 20th level even if he only really bothered for one 3rd level buff spell. Don't forget to fill in the rest of his spells known with really useful self buffs and mobility spells. He should be rocking shield and greater mage armor for AC, as well as buffing his own strength (for to hit and damage), dex (for AC) and wisdom (for AC) as high as he can. If he can have a few turns to buff he's a way scarier enemy. At high levels he should not hesitate to apply "Bite of the Werebear" for +16 Str, +4 dex, +8 con, and +7 natural armor on the first round of combat. And finally he's not suicidal. He's hard to land a hit on due to high AC+Evasion, and if he IS seriously damaged, he's gonna respond by casting teleport to simply leave.

The party must keep the boss moving, strip him of his buffs, and deal lots of high accuracy damage. They must do so quickly enough that the boss doesn't decide to simply nope out with a teleport spell. Stripping the charisma buff from a built in cloak of charisma is the biggest single thing, as this denies the boss the ability to cast spells over 2nd level.

[Beni-Kujaku]

For the sorcerer, the chilling touch might be a stream of liquid nitrogen coming from a hose in its palm, and I second the idea of having rocket boots instead of dimension door (you are still fast, but I don't see any way to make dimension door into a gadget).

For the fighter, maybe add sort sort of pincher and Improved Grab. I think having a grappler could really make the fight more interesting and make the payers have to make choices (do I attack the tank first to free my friend or do I try to destroy the others while undernumbered?).

The rogue is indeed weird, but you could make it a bit like Xurkitree, a mass of flexible wires that can change shape and/or color to mimic most anything (then of course, it would be able to "Quick Draw" by extending one of its wires rapidly, and sneak attack by delivering a shock at strategic places). You could improve it by making it redirect any electric attack to the ground, creating a kind of specialized Evasion, and making it detach some of its wires to create traps around it.

For the cleric, you don't have to be magic, the rapier could be controlled by magnets on the warforged or just an independantly acting tentacle. And the alcoholism is obvious. They are forged for war. And what weapon is more characteristic of inhumane war than chemical weapons. It might have a poisonous breath that make people deezy (whatever condition floats your boat). Or, hear me out, a cloud of nanomachines controlled by the warforged. They could assemble into one huge rapier acting on its own, act as a poisonous cloud by either entering the player's lungs, or just trying to bite them from the outside as a swarm with a poisonous attack, and finally, they act as engineers that repair the warforged and its allies.

[Gruftzwerg]

Why not use the warforged as combat armor/mount and use possessed/undead/simulacrum/Ice assassin versions of the former characters to wear/mount em?

With Alter Self a Warforged can turn into Animated Objects. Alter Self is limited to one size step increase. Combine with either a Ring of Growth or a Behemoth Belt (? something like that, a special warforged component) to get to huge size if desired. With huge size the entire party can fit in.

For an optimized build have a look at my Iron Chef entry G.R.8 (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24938996&postcount=113)to pick up some ideas maybe.

And to extend this idea:

First let just possessed/simulacrum/Ice Assassin version of the characters appear alone with a large sized combat armor.

Once they defeated all of em one by one, they reappear together (undead/simulacrum/Ice Assassin/or just the real ones) in a huge sized combat suit (for a 4 man party) for the final showdown.

How does this sound? Do you like anime/Power Rangers/Saber Rider like flavor in your games?^^

[Jarmen4u]

Hi all, I really appreciate the information. I already had a base model statted out, but I really like some of the builds in those first couple posts.

Beni definitely gave me the most of what I was looking for, so I thank you for your ideas! I didn't really think much about the alcoholism, but I love the chem weapon idea. Do you think it should come with a fort save to mitigate the effects of the intoxication, or reflex to avoid the spray? I feel like having both make it too easy to succeed. I also love the idea you have for the rogue.

Gruftz, I do like power rangers/voltron, though I actually pulled inspiration from Final Fantasy 14 for this one. In the story, you encounter Metal Gear-esque monsters which have the combat data from legendary warriors stored in them, which comes out as you fight. So I was trying to make each Warforged be an individual boss, and have them be encountered one at a time over a semi-extended campaign. I also want this to slowly hint to the current group what might have happened to the previous party.

[Beni-Kujaku]

I didn't really think much about the alcoholism, but I love the chem weapon idea. Do you think it should come with a fort save to mitigate the effects of the intoxication, or reflex to avoid the spray? I feel like having both make it too easy to succeed. I also love the idea you have for the rogue.

I'd say Fortitude. Reflex is more generally used for destructive energy or 1/2 ability damage, while poison, hence alcohol (yes, it is listed as a poison) is almost always fortitude (even poisonous dragonbreaths use Fort more than Ref). Even more so if you go the nanomachine way, since you can't dodge AI-guided nanorobots.

[ShurikVch]

Some already published creatures which you may found useful (either "as-is", or as inspiration for homebrew):
Dragon #306 has Hellforged: check the Spiked Devil (CR 6) and Lead Devil (CR 13)
Dungeon #115 has Copper Juggernaught (CR 9) - "like Flesh Golem, but made of Warforged parts"
Half-Iron-Golem/Half-Warforged (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eo/20060407a): Jendrik is CR 8
Merchurion (Monster Manual V) CR 17
Warforged Titan (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/eb/20040511a) CR 8
Anaxim (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/epic/monsters/abomination.htm#anaxim) CR 22
Obligatum VII (Elder Evils) CR 20 (Kolyarut (https://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/inevitable.htm#kolyarut) Hexblade 3/Occult Slayer 5)