Favorite type of boss?

[Renegade93]

What's your favorite type of boss to challenge your players with (or if you are player whats your favorite boss to fight)

I personally enjoy a mix of rolls in the base attributes as well as a harty test of the players OOC knowledge which they can apply should their IC character allow it meaning a character with decent wisdom allows the player to apply their riddle skills to one of my favorite NPC bosses The Riddler who freezes time and says some rhymes with his dramatic approach at which point he gives his challenger a cursed fiddle which slowly forces the player to rhyme all their scentences at which eventually they roll too low a will save which gets higher and higher DC until they fail and they are forced to be the riddlers fiddler at which point the other characters have to find and save him from the riddlers fiddler curse. (The one who correctly answers a riddle followed by telling a riddle which the riddler cannot answer is the challenger who gets the fiddle) [the dm is free to use riddle search engines and books as the riddler is the master of riddles and the dm may not be]

[jcsw]

What's your favorite type of boss to challenge your players with (or if you are player whats your favorite boss to fight)

I personally enjoy a mix of rolls in the base attributes as well as a harty test of the players OOC knowledge which they can apply should their IC character allow it meaning a character with decent wisdom allows the player to apply their riddle skills to one of my favorite NPC bosses The Riddler who freezes time and says some rhymes with his dramatic approach at which point he gives his challenger a cursed fiddle which slowly forces the player to rhyme all their scentences at which eventually they roll too low a will save which gets higher and higher DC until they fail and they are forced to be the riddlers fiddler at which point the other characters have to find and save him from the riddlers fiddler curse. (The one who correctly answers a riddle followed by telling a riddle which the riddler cannot answer is the challenger who gets the fiddle) [the dm is free to use riddle search engines and books as the riddler is the master of riddles and the dm may not be]

Punctuation please.

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Also I like boss encounters - those with more than one opponent; single creatures lose out in the economy of actions and are more succeptable to save or dies.

Usually it's another adventuring party, or similar.

[Tsotha-lanti]

Holy run-on sentence, Batman!

I, too, prefer "bosses" who use minions. Single opponents are just way too fragile in almost any game, and minions implies general cleverness.

[amanamana]

Holly cow! I clicked on this post kind of interested, but couldn't manage to read it till the end!
Some punctuation would do no harm.

[bosssmiley]

Favourite type of boss? Well, if that's not a loaded question (*preen preen* ), I'm partial to the Master of Snake Mountain PrC. Anyone with a class ability called Belittling Tirade is definitely doing something right in the villain stakes.

Also, I bring gifts: ..,,,,,,;:

[Morty]

None. I'm not too fond of an adventure ending with a "boss fight". There should a climax, sure, a moment in which players either accomplish their goals or screw up big time... but it doesn't have to be a Big Bad Monster unless it has to.

[Renegade93]

Right punction. I will. Work. On. THAT! Sorry? for. That.

No but really, I appologize.

I promise to work on it.

[Renegade93]

Well then let me introduce a recent boss I created named Jeranimo.
Jeranimo is an illusionist/puppeteer who uses his abilities to control anything that is half. (meaning half-orc, half-elf, half-lupinal, he doesn't like halves...) He currently controls a large number of wolve-dogs, dog-wolves, and above all half-lupinals. (This is for the purpose of interacting with two of the half-lupinal characters on my server.) They are intended to become angry with Jeranimo at which point he will make one of them into his own 'champion'. He will then force them to fight to entertain himself.

I'd like to bring up something that I don't believe anyone has addressed on this forum. That is that villains don't have to have a 'motive' that is emotional or physical to be evil. They can simply be mentally ill which is the case for this boss. When their purpose is just to satisfy their twisted minds with the pain and suffering of others it presents a -very- difficult challenge to players. Namely this is that they cannot negociate with them and comfort them and maybe turn them into allies. No this means that they -must- beat him in the old fashion sense which most people don't expect as they usually try to find an 'alternate' route. Usually I would hide such a route for the adventurers to find should they be clever enough to do so. However the absence of this advantage makes it interesting to watch wether or not the players will admit their inability to find such, keep trying, or simply figure out there is none and use good old fashion D&D style to beat this villain. Now don't get me wrong here Jeranimo DOES have weaknesses but they are either in his combat style or the way he does his, erm, ... evilness-ness...em...ness.

Understand?


(Please comment on my punctuation [I am still working on it])

[Comet]

I prefer bosses that are big. Big. Big.
If you can't climb on top of the boss and stab him in the neck while balancing on his shoulders and shouting battlecries into the night, the boss ain't a boss at all.

Bonus points if the giant boss is flying. Makes the climb to his weak point that much more exciting.

[Tsotha-lanti]

I prefer bosses that are big. Big. Big.
If you can't climb on top of the boss and stab him in the neck while balancing on his shoulders and shouting battlecries into the night, the boss ain't a boss at all.

Bonus points if the giant boss is flying. Makes the climb to his weak point that much more exciting.

You know, I've never really figured out how to make HUUUUUGE HUUUUGE HUUUUGE bosses work. Even in RuneQuest, where there are canon Gloranthan monsters literally miles in size, there's no real mechanics for dealing with them different from other monsters.

I guess in D&D 4E you could use the trap mechanics. In 3.5, the encounter trap mechanics from Dungeonscape... other games, buh??

[Satyr]

I prefer the enemies of my players to be remarkable and rememberable, so I try to make them as unique as possible. If there is a common theme to them, it is the challenge on the rolepaying level as well as the mechanical one; so I try to create "Big Bads" which include such a challenge for instance because they are morally superior to the player characters, or produce heavy emotional reactions in the players as well as the characters, or are just interesting guys


The only thing that I find abssolutely necessary is that the players can fully relate to the motivations of the enemy, and that those are sound and plausible in themself. Infantile black and white absolute morals are the refuse of the naive and uncreative gamemasters and certainly not up to the minimaal standard I try to keep.

[Toliudar]

I love favoured souls and sorcerers as my "recurring" enemies. Spellcasters, so with some versatility, but spontaneous so that my players have some shot at getting to know their strengths and weaknesses.

I once developed a sorcerer character who hired himself out as a sidekick to the "bosses" in four or five different adventures - always appearing in, but never as the objective in, a number of different situations. The PC's got to know him and his handiwork (Barghest-like, he sucked the life and talents out of others, which was my justification for him rising in levels to keep up with the PC's), and had a few tussles along the way, but he just as paranoid about the PC's always showing up to spoil his work as the players were about him always showing up in their adventures.

[Renegade93]

Infantile black and white absolute morals are the refuse of the naive and uncreative gamemasters and certainly not up to the minimal standard I try to keep.

In responce to this, my bosses aren't 'black and white' it takes time but the players tend to understand why, where, when, who, and what made him how he is. A person who is simply 'ill' would never able to survive and even less, thrive.

My boss systems are very... customized. I tend to keep it to myself but if you ask me I can write you out a step to step on how it works for me.

[BlueWizard]

I actually like humans with PC classes, that use minions.

[Uin]

The Worthy Opponent (would link TV Tropes, but I'm at work).

I always like a genuine battle of equals. Our last campaign ended with a level 12 Cleric (me) v Wizard (betraying party member) fight. Twas epic, but the wizard foolishly allowed me to buff, then I 'Zilla-ed him and his rogue partner.

[KillianHawkeye]

I like the concept of the big, intimidating monster as a boss, but my players have taught me not to use single creatures against them. Ever. Again.

I generally prefer creatures with a good supply of spell-like, supernatural, or extraordinary abilities rather than full spellcasters, because they are simpler to run in combat. (Less choices, more passive or conditional abilities.) Now I try to team them up in interesting and productive ways.

Of course, now that I'm running Star Wars Saga Edition, I guess my favorite type of boss is a Dark Force user. Although the Hutt gangster I'm using right now has a lot of personality and is a lot of fun! Especially since the PCs' mission is forcing them to play nice with him for the time being.

I guess that as long as the villain has a good personality and an understandable motive, I'll be able to figure them out and play them appropriately.

I also like recurring villains.

... ...

Okay, so I guess I didn't list one favorite type of boss. Oh well....