(DnD 3.5) Making the single-foe encounter viable

[Proven_Paradox]

It's the kind of thing that should be an epic scene. The PCs have climbed the mad wizard BBEG's 20 story tower, battered, drained, wounded, and running out of spells. They stand before the great double-doors to the madman's chambers, which open to admit them on their own. Their target stands before them, alone but unafraid, ready to unleash arcane death upon them.

He loses initiative, and the PCs then destroy him with their 4/1 action ratio. (Just an example. Yes he should have had celerity and such up. No I don't care; it's an example: roll with it.)

The party vs. one enemy fight is something that comes up pretty much everywhere. The PCs win against an overwhelmingly powerful foe through teamwork (and if we're being cheesy possibly the power of friendship/love/what have you) but just barely. In standard DnD, this just doesn't happen; either the PCs overwhelm the target with their actions or the target completely flattens them due to being just too hard for them to damage/dealing more damage than the party can handle.


So, what are some ways to turn this around? I've thought of a few myself, but I'd like to hear some more suggestions. Note that these will all be explicitly told to the players before-hand--many of these can easily be interpreted as the DM feeling like screwing the players if they don't know about this beforehand.

Alternatively, how would you react to these as a player?

1) Gestalt boss vs. non-gestalt party. This in part allows him to make up for being alone and also gives access to some potentially nifty images. A wizard//incarnate for example--yes, he's a wizard, but he's also decked out in soulmelds. Awesome image I think. There are plenty of other options of course.

2) Arbitrarily high HP. In video games, this is typically what makes the single boss viable--the party's working with HP in the hundreds while the boss is looking at 10,000+. Of course this would need to be translated to DnD HP, but the idea is still there. The boss is dangerous because he can take an absurd amount of punishment.

3) Multiple initiatives. The boss rolls initiative twice, and acts on both initiatives. Perhaps there's some procedure involved that gives the boss this ability in character--something that the PCs would not want to happen to them to avoid abuse, naturally. Perhaps the boss is just -that good-.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Attacks on my masculinity? Go on.

[Eldariel]

Optimizing for extra actions is a handy way, if hard to do pre-epic. Things like Dragons, Beholders and company come with built-in extra abilities, like Dragons' Auras, Beholder's numerous Eye Rays, etc. Characters with class levels should only be encountered when in their own territory and thus should have countless traps, built contingencies, servants and so on at their disposal to even up the odds. I find that just about any BBEG worth his salt should have some thralls in his presence. The Wizard's servants should've been called to defend the sanctum once the presence of the adventurers (which was few days before they actually entered) became known.

Another thing to remember is that with some work, things like Familiars and Animal Companions can become perfectly efficient secondary characters. Look for such options for your BBEGs. Finally, splitting up the players (through the BBEG's abilities, obviously) tends to be fairly efficient and standard means of evening up the odds - the PCs' actions only matter if they somehow impact the scenario at hands. Blocking Line of Effect is a fine way to make them rather trivial.


In short:
-Auras
-Racial special abilities
-Environment
-Servants
-Things tied to him through class features

all give him "extra actions". Battlefield control and disabling spells, on the other hand, deny the PCs actions. Oh yeah, and attacks of opportunity/overall free actions are an awesome means to gain extra actions against the PCs.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

The BBEG is generally smart. That means he should be expected to start with the party already split into groups, surrounded by traps, and having to fight through mooks to reach him. If you give him a few extra levels, especially Gestalt ones, he becomes very hard to kill due to multiple good saves and high HP.

[Break]

I like the multiple initiatives idea best, as it directly addresses the problem of single-foe encounters. The other solutions just seem to dance around it.

[lord_khaine]

if you want this to work then i belive the solution is to both give the BBEG some decent allround defensive boosts, maybe though gestalt levels, and also giving him some decent AOE attack, so he can actualy put pressure on the entire party.

and thinking about it, then it just strikes me that a gestalt psion could do a lot of these things.

the power Vigor would give him a decent defensive boost, while still at least giving the party something to attack that is not invisible and flying, and the power schism would allow him a additinal action every turn, though it would be 6 manifester levels down, so its not going to totaly nuke the party.

[Saph]

Solution 3), multiple initiatives, is a bad idea IMO. It's not a good plan to change the fundamental laws of a game system unless you really know what you're doing - the first thing the PCs are going to ask is "why can't we get multiple turns too?". Solution 1) is possible, but a lot of work.

I've run lots of boss-fights where the PCs have outnumbered the BBEG 5 or 6 to one, and the way I've generally done it is by number 2) - make the BBEG so tough that the PCs simply can't take him down easily. This isn't just a matter of HP, he also needs very high saves and immunity/resistance to all the standard tricks.

Defence is a good start, but you also need to boost up his attack. It's my personal experience that to be a really serious threat to a 5-member party, a BBEG has to be able to take out an average of one PC per round. Whether this is by hugely damaging melee attacks, hard-to-avoid auras with crippling effects, or wide-burst AoEs with a high save DC is up to you, but it needs to be deadly. These kinds of battles tend to be extremely tense, as every PC is praying that someone else is going to get whacked on the BBEG's turn instead of them. They're often very exciting, but you can't do them too often due to the high risk of player death.

If you want to go easier on your PCs, a more lenient approach is to give the BBEG bodyguards - not mooks, either, big tough things that won't go down easily and are a significant threat to the PCs in their own right. I prefer the single uber-boss for really climactic battles, however, as a single outrageously tough enemy is much more fun.

- Saph

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Also, surprisingly, a Monk makes a good recurring Dragon a lot of the time. High saves, moderate HP, skills like Tumble, good speed, and poor offenses mean he's really hard to take down but not likely to kill a party member.

[Kizara]

Dragons.

Abuse/optimize their spellcasting, optimize their feats, use power attack liberally.

Equip them with magic items, permenant effects, etc.

A well-made dragon shouldn't be defeatable without alot of good tactics or serious cheese.

[afroakuma]

The occasional vicious template works too. I did an adventure featuring an advanced half-fiend krenshar; the thing nearly took off the barbarian's head and required almost every magic item I had strewn through the adventure to take down safely.

[Triaxx]

Extra-heads. That'll give you one Initative for each head.

Connect traps to living rats. Then use Magic Missile to kill the rats, and set off up to five traps at one time.

[AslanCross]

Dragons.

Abuse/optimize their spellcasting, optimize their feats, use power attack liberally.

Equip them with magic items, permenant effects, etc.

A well-made dragon shouldn't be defeatable without alot of good tactics or serious cheese.

Don't forget to actually make them fly.


Anyway, dragons are generally the epitome of a good solo encounter, IMO. They have a lot of attack options, can survive being flanked by the entire party, and have mobility to spare.

Solo encounters is most difficult with medium humanoid opponents. Once they get flanked, they're completely trapped and can rarely move around the PCs to split them or break their flanking.

My suggestions:

1. Terrain advantage. The BBEG should have prepared the terrain to his advantage. He's not about to get caught between a rock and an adventurer's sword.

2. Mobility advantage. Flight definitely helps. While the PC Wizard may be able to neutralize this by casting his own flight spells, that's still a wasted turn.

3. Mass damage. Preferably of the Cone variety. Very difficult for melee players to do without Tome of Battle.

4. Tactical Control. Feats like Awesome Blow and Knockback allow a melee character to toss away PCs. Having a long reach and Combat Reflexes is also good.

5. Size matters. It's much easier for a larger opponent to overrun PCs to prevent getting surrounded. Larger usually means higher strength, therefore better chances of Bull-Rushing.

6. Defenses. This should actually be number 1, but you should've thought of it by now. High saves across the board, high HP, DR---these all help. (And I don't mean DR/Magic, which is useless.)
I think the most difficult-to-handle DR I've seen so far is DR/Chaotic. Just how often do you carry anarchic weapons?

[Eldariel]

Anyway, dragons are generally the epitome of a good solo encounter, IMO. They have a lot of attack options, can survive being flanked by the entire party, and have mobility to spare.

Solo encounters is most difficult with medium humanoid opponents. Once they get flanked, they're completely trapped and can rarely move around the PCs to split them or break their flanking.

This really only applies to non-spellcasters. You can make any battle with a spellcaster (although especially one levels above the party) a fight to remember. A caster cannot really be surrounded, and can often easily elude a number of the party through a variety of defensive spells (ones that limit space, like Walls, ones that limit vision, like Invisibility, and ones that limit player actions, like any debuff). As long as the spellcaster packs means to avoid ending up in an Anti-Magic Field, he can dance for a long, long while.

That said, a higher-level caster is still going to fall to action economy if the PCs are all optimized and have means to act at range and to deal with the debuffs. So I'd still pack tons of mooks, environmental factors and such on the BBEG's side.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

A boss should be able to split up/hinder/disable the attackers, summon reinforcements, and/or turn the PCs against each other. Effects like Web, Glitterdust, Pyrotechnics (smoke cloud), Stinking Cloud, Confusion, Evard's Black Tentacles, Dominate Person, Wall of Force, etc. should be his first course of action. Damage or status effects that they'd need to spend actions to deal with instead of engaging him, such as a Maximized Clinging Breath set to cling for around 4-6 rounds, Fear effects, AoE Silence, etc. Furthermore, created/controlled/commanded undead minions, Summon Monster/Nature's Ally, Simulacrums, Constructs, Animate Breath, or weak lackeys on balconies with bows probably won't be much of a threat to the PCs, but they'll inevitably divide their actions between all the foes present rather than everyone focusing on the boss. Finally, if the boss is a spellcaster capable of casting or using a scroll of Project Image, he should do exactly that so there's a fake encounter in which he can bring his full array of abilities to bear from a safe location before he'd actually need to reveal himself, such as if they dispel the image; he could be behind an illusionary wall, with this projected image telling them to pay no attention to that man behind the curtain so to speak.

If the boss knows they're coming, that's the encounter distance and he gets initiative and delays until they show up and roll in, and then he automatically goes first because he'd been delaying. Any buffs he'd have up that could have been cast yesterday before he rested and prepared spells for today should be, so he still has the spell slots available today. Spells like (Extended) Energy Immunity, Superior Resistance, and Mind Blank are good for doing that. That way he's got buffs up from his highest level spell slots, but he's still got just as many of his highest level spells to use in the encounter.

I'd even consider giving bosses bonus feats for defensive purposes. If the PCs are allowed to use two flaws, I'll give a boss two extra feats and not even worry about what his flaws would be. Good feats for bosses to have would include Elusive Target (CW), Psionic Dodge and rule it that both dodge targets are affected by Negate Power attack and Diverting Defense, and Combat Defense (PH2) from the Combat Form feats to switch dodge targets as an Immediate Action. That way if there are 4 people flanking him, he picks the first two on initiative as his dodge targets, they each hit each other with their first attacks, then he takes an immediate action to switch his dodge targets to the other two before they act so their first attacks will hit each other as well, then on his action he switches Dodge back to the first two again. If I was going to make a boss Gestalt vs non-Gestalt PCs, I'd just put Fighter levels on one side to get feats like these, with Improved Toughness and Blind-Fight and such, without making him overpowered offensively.

A boss should only be a single creature encounter if the boss is capable of posing a significant threat by himself. He should always focus on splitting up, disabling, or otherwise hindering multiple foes rather than just trying to damage them down. He should give them distractions to spend their actions on so they're not focusing on him every round. He would surely know they're coming, so he could set the encounter distance before they show up and delay until they arrive, guaranteeing that he gets to act first regardless of their initiative.

[Darrin]

He loses initiative, and the PCs then destroy him with their 4/1 action ratio.

I've had a few bosses get wiped out like this before... something else you could try, although do it too much and your PCs will get annoyed.

The boss that got ganked in 1 round? That was an illusion... no one noticed because you *cough cough* rolled beforehand and nobody made the save *cough cough*. Or it was a weaker minion/underling in disguise. Or hey what's this simulacrum spell do... or how about a clone?

That usually buys me enough time to rebuild the BBEG a little stronger, with a few more counters to whatever the party hosed him with the first time.

[Raum]

So, what are some ways to turn this around? I've thought of a few myself, but I'd like to hear some more suggestions. Note that these will all be explicitly told to the players before-hand--many of these can easily be interpreted as the DM feeling like screwing the players if they don't know about this beforehand.

Well the PCs are attacking him - he should have had time to prepare. Set the scene so the PCs' first actions are either misdirected or directed at overcoming / dealing with some terrain obstacle. Here's a few examples:

• Misdirection
  • That's an image of the BBEG not the BBEG himself. The PCs will spend time / actions realizing it's an image and searching for the real opponent.
  • Mirrors in the room (think Bruce Lee).
  • Darkness / fog / other sight restricting obstacles.
• Obstacles
  • Flying opponents.
  • Trapped room.
  • Opponent raining fire down from above (top of tower / hill / cliff / whatever) the PCs have to climb or overcome any ranged protections.

There are a lot of possibilities...

Alternatively, how would you react to these as a player?

1) Gestalt boss vs. non-gestalt party. This in part allows him to make up for being alone and also gives access to some potentially nifty images. A wizard//incarnate for example--yes, he's a wizard, but he's also decked out in soulmelds. Awesome image I think. There are plenty of other options of course.

Not sure this helps. He may have a few more hit points and protections but he doesn't have any more actions. If it is effective it could be cool.

2) Arbitrarily high HP. In video games, this is typically what makes the single boss viable--the party's working with HP in the hundreds while the boss is looking at 10,000+. Of course this would need to be translated to DnD HP, but the idea is still there. The boss is dangerous because he can take an absurd amount of punishment.

Boring. Also not effective if the PCs are doing stat damage or using 'win or lose' tactics.

3) Multiple initiatives. The boss rolls initiative twice, and acts on both initiatives. Perhaps there's some procedure involved that gives the boss this ability in character--something that the PCs would not want to happen to them to avoid abuse, naturally. Perhaps the boss is just -that good-

This could be good or bad. If you're simply going to arbitrarily give him more actions, I hope you know your players well enough to be sure they won't mind. However there are ways to do this within (or mostly within) the rules. An intelligent item or familiar acting on it's own initiative comes to mind. Perhaps multiple personalities (potentially iffy - know your players!). Maybe some form of clone spell / ability.

[Starbuck_II]

Boss can't be killed directly? Only reduced to 0.

Scattered in the room are items significant to the Wizard (holding his life force).

If these are destroyed than he dies.

I got the idea from Buldar's Gate 2 on Playstation 2.

But the idea is sound.

[FMArthur]

This isn't a solution by itself, but it helps: prepare your bosses to have immediate actions availible to them. ToB has a whole wealth of them, and the whole maneuver category of 'Counters' are immediate actions.

Also, is there a way to reflect partial damage back to the players whenever they hit the BBEG? You don't necessarily need an existing rule for it, anyway. That kind of thing can add a lot of urgency to the need for healing, and forces the players to strategically pace their attacks. Just don't go overboard or your players will get wrecked or feel like they can't win; it gives him an advantage proportionate to any player advantage, and that's pretty unfair without some kind of limitation, so make it half power or less. It's also good to cap it; sometimes a player can do something that they simply could not take in return if reflected, and they're likely to start the battle with that.

[Eldariel]

The boss that got ganked in 1 round? That was an illusion... no one noticed because you *cough cough* rolled beforehand and nobody made the save *cough cough*. Or it was a weaker minion/underling in disguise. Or hey what's this simulacrum spell do... or how about a clone?

There's no save to Major Image unless you're able to interact with the image, so it's perfectly within your rights to do it. You may want to leave the *cough* *cough*s away though and pretend that the opponents are intelligent for real. Illusion-magic helps a lot - Simulacrums, Major Images and company cause:
1) PCs to save their big guns until they can confirm they're fighting the real thing.
2) Allow the BBEG to gauge their ability and to make them waste some of their offense.

Another really handy thing is to bring a few illusionary doubles following, with maybe even a Simulacrum that can actually do something while the BBEG moves in - Extraordinary Concentration and such keep the images around while operating normally. This again serves as very efficient misdirection as they simply don't know which target to concentrate their efforts on. It should be a standard tactic. It always serves to make the fights last longer, and forces the PCs to conserve their biggest abilities.

[DigoDragon]

Thoughts? Suggestions? Attacks on my masculinity?

Er, you have a pink Megaman icon.

Anyway, I assume the idea here is to make a BBEG encounter challenging without relying on other NPCs (be it mooks, bodyguards, etc.) thrown into the fight. Now, would summoning be legit? A powerful BBEG wizard might have a Quickened summon spell or two that would bring in some meat shields for him.

But if you really want to go solo on this fight and have a medium sized bad guy, I always had some decent success with using illusion spells. Naturally the BBEG should already have some buff spells set up just before the PCs burst into his throne room so you can throw up a couple illusionary mooks to get some of those high initative players to waste their opening actions.

Create some duplicates of the BBEG and spread them out. Now you have the party trying to pick out the real one from the fakes. Works great with a few magical traps in the room to make the party spread out and divide their attention. You can always throw up some shadow illusions if you want to add realism to the images too.

I also recommend Improved Invisibility. Can't kill a BBEG you can't see (Well, maybe with an Area of Effect spell you could).

[TheCountAlucard]

The occasional vicious template works too.

Quite so. For the BBEG Lich, I recommend tossing on the Evolved Undead template, multiple times if possible.

"What do you mean he has Fast Healing 20?!?"

[Proven_Paradox]

Mmm, I should have been a bit clearer about this. Some conditions I would like to give:

--The BBEG is a medium humanoid. Much advise has been given about using monsters--I know how to use a dragon or beholder, and they do help a lot for this kind of situation, but I'd prefer a humanoid.
--No servants, familiars, or animal companions. I do use them most of the time, but at that point it's no longer a single-foe encounter, no? This is PCs vs. BBEG, no other interference.
--The party has not been separated. If they DID get separated, they reunite in time for this fight.

Part of what I'm trying to replicate here is the end consol-RPG fight. You didn't fight Bigbad Evilguy and his familiar and three bodyguards at the end of the game, you just fought Bigbad Evilguy. You probably took out the familiar and bodyguards in earlier fights. Yes he also had at least three transformations, and that will be part of this conclusive battle--but I'd like the humanoid portion to still be challenging.

There're a lot of good idea here, and I'm taking notes when I see one I like, so keep 'em coming.


One direct response--

Er, you have a pink Megaman icon.

Yes. And it is manly. You can tell by the caption.

[TheCountAlucard]

Not manly enough, though - there's no beef jerky, Chuck Norris, pirates, lumberjacks, zombies, hot sauce, or violence in sight!

As for the issue of the single-foe encounter, how about some arbitrary DR and/or regeneration? Blur, Blink, and Mirror Image are useful as well.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Use protections like Displacement, (Greater) Ironguard, Greater/Superior Invisibility, +1 Reflecting Mithril Buckler, and a few arbitrary immunities from spells he's researched and buffed himself with (and prepares via Spell Mastery so the PCs can't learn them from his spellbook). But again, he should focus on knocking one or more PCs out of the fight immediately rather than simply trying to damage them down. Maze, Forcecage, and Prismatic Wall are some higher level spells which would accomplish this. If he has 9th level spells, have him stand in a Prismatic Sphere while a Projected Image serves as the source of his spells. The PCs will know he's there, but they'd have to take down all the layers of the sphere to even be able to reach him. Maybe give him a different spell (that he's researched and knows via spell mastery) that serves a similar purpose but it has only 3-4 layers, and each layer has a set number of HP to burn through, and each layer has some arbitrary immunity/weakness. That way they don't have a chance of damaging down his HP until they've destroyed his protective barrier.

[TengYt]

Make it so the actual battle is a decoy/clone/twin/look alike, but still make it tough. Familiars, NPC goons, high saves and damage potential, the works. Make it so by the time the party has beaten him they're basically down on the grit, HP ,spell and resource wise. Then make the ACTUAL BBEG step out from behind a curtain, clapping sarcasticly and smirking smugly. Have him say a few mock words of praise, before pressing a hidden button that opens a trapdoor, sending the party crashing down into a prison cell. Full of hungry Monsterous Spiders

[FMArthur]

...Suddenly, Count Darkskull begins to undergo a hideous trasformation. His sides begin to split open and extra appendages tear out of them; his existing limbs wither and die; his torso expands, exploding through his shirt and revealing what is now a hard carapace; his arrogant smile transforms into an insane grin before his jaw splits open, changing the shape of his mouth entirely. Watching his eyes, you can see the last of his humanity vanish and be replaced by carnivorous hunger. The Monstrous Crab formerly known as Count Darkskull lets out a deafening roar and throws up its claws in preparation for mortal combat. Roll for initiative...

[TengYt]

Oh yeah, the classic Resident Evil boss. The seemingly normal looking guy turns into a hideous, San-check inducing undead monstrosity, complete with more tentacles, claws and fangs than you can shake a shotgun at.

[Saph]

Part of what I'm trying to replicate here is the end consol-RPG fight. You didn't fight Bigbad Evilguy and his familiar and three bodyguards at the end of the game, you just fought Bigbad Evilguy. You probably took out the familiar and bodyguards in earlier fights. Yes he also had at least three transformations, and that will be part of this conclusive battle--but I'd like the humanoid portion to still be challenging.

--The BBEG is a medium humanoid.

Ahh, pity. I have a pre-made BBEG Console-RPG boss that I could have sent you the stats for, but it's most definitely non-humanoid. The campaign was based off the old Genesis RPG, Phantasy Star 4, and the final boss was The Profound Darkness. It had three stages, and the fight took literally the entire session. As in, 4 hours of combat. It was the climax of a 16-session game, so I wanted to make it suitably epic.

The PCs were tenth level and loaded down with magical gear. Six of them went in; only two walked out, but they won.

- Saph

[Starsinger]

Go to the Library (Read: Barnes and Nobles and/or Borders) and find a 4e DMG, PHB, and MM and look up some Solo Monsters. Also, just give the BBEG blanket boss type immunity to save-or-dies/loses/sucks.

[potatocubed]

In the case of a spellcaster, make liberal use of divination spells in conjunction with 'test monsters'. By the time the party actually show up in his lair he should a) know all their tricks off by heart, b) know all their weaknesses and c) have been casting self-protection spells for at least six rounds before they open the door. Hell, you can achieve the latter by simply making every door in the BBEG's lair take 2-3 rounds to open. (As in 'push the button and the door slides open... slowly'.) This should help keep him alive through the first round. Alternatively, when he detects the PCs approach, have him cast the oft-overlooked spell project image and hide while the PCs unload all their best stuff on the illusion.

Another good alternative for a spellcaster is to have him take the battle to the PCs rather than the other way around. Scry the party fighter and then teleport in to attack him while he's on the can. At the very least, it'll be an encounter to remember.

[Mushroom Ninja]

Lots and lots of illusions of the BBEG coupled with a contingency and celerity or two should keep him semi-safe for a couple rounds.