At any rate, The Boss Fight was originally intended to fix dragons and, as I’ve said, I lost control and devoted more time to the system than the actual monsters. The first example of what I was trying to do was not even a dragon.
But I am here to make up for it with my entry into Colmarr’s Monster Mayhem Blog Carnival and, in so doing, codify the final Boss Fight system.
The Core Boss Fight System
A Boss is a special type of Solo monster. Mechanically, it has the same hit points, defenses, attacks, damage, and save bonuses as any other Solo Monster, there are a few key differences. The biggest difference is that the Boss Monster consists of three separate stat blocks, called Stages, that it proceeds through as the fight progresses. All three Stages must be defeated or overcome as part of a single encounter and the total encounter is worth as much XP as a normal Solo Monster.
Each stage of the Boss Monster has exactly one third of the hit points of a normal Solo Monster and has no bloodied state. Each stage also includes a triggered action that is triggered when that Stage is reduced to 0 or fewer HP. That action causes the Boss Monster to perform some final action that usually results in it disengaging with the party and ultimately causes the Stage to be removed from the battle completely and replaced with the next Stage as if a new monster had entered the fight. The new Stage rolls initiative and acts normally. This action is called a Stage Transition.
The Stage Transition never requires an action (it’s ‘no action’) and it always includes language that indicates that it is usable regardless of what is happening. It will also specifically note that the old creature is removed from the battle and replaced by an entirely new creature so that nothing carries over from one Stage to the next. This is done to trump and/or prevent any odd rules interactions that might come. Nothing carries over from one Stage to the next; each Stage is completely modular.
The third Stage of a Boss Monster is always its Bloodied Stage. This allows the party to use abilities that key off of a bloodied monster. Thus, each Boss Monster in Stage 3 has a trait that indicates that is always considered bloodied.
Each Stage of the Boss Monster has one action point.
These are pretty much the core rules of the Boss Monster. In order to qualify as a Boss Monster under my system, those are the core rules. Everything else is really just window dressing.
Very good idea. I will test this and worldbreaker rules in my games and will be able to tell more. Right now I think maybe creatures in defferent stages should be more different?
Right now I frequently use one trick for standart monsters – when melee monster is bloodied it retreats and starts to fight at range. Of course it works not with any monster, but with solo it could be more pronounced. Like at first stage a self-confident solo brute fights face to face with plenty of close bursts. On second stage it feels the danger and changer to perhaps a skirmisher, summoning some reinforcment. And on third stage we’ll see kinda artillery, hiding behind his henchmen backs.
Of course there could be other ways.
I love what you are coming up with here ADM, I like the idea that the boss changes or even evolves as he realises this is the fight of his life. So he should, the concept is a good one, and its why this keeps appearing in computer games. I think the jury is out on if this or the Worldbreaker system will work better, or be easier to stat out for DM’s (specially new ones like me) but its still a creative stab in the right direction.
I’ve got two questions if you’ll indulge me, firstly the power mentioned above says, that between its two seperate rounds, it can use an immediate action, no where is it listed on the sheet what an immediate action is? Is this a standard, a minor or a move action or is it any action? But one only, as opposed to the three normal actions one gets within one round?
Secondly this whole discussion about solos has got people mentioned rules tweaks specifically in DMG2 MM2 and MM3, I only own the three core books. If I am looking at challenging my heroic tiered group and changing the old monster in MM1 – where and with what books might I start?
Thanks again
Ab
@Arbanax Thanks! I’m glad you like it.
An immediate action is a type of action. In D&D, 4E, the types of actions are standard, move, minor, free, immediate, and opportunity. Immediate actions include both immediate reactions and immediate interrupts. The young red dragon has one immediate reaction (Wing Snap or Spitfire depending on the stage).
The trouble with an immediate action (reaction or interrupt) is that a creature is generally allowed only one immediate reaction per round. In order to give the dragon two full sets of actions, I needed to explicitly state that the dragon doesn’t just get one immediate action per round, it gets one for each of its turns. That way, it can use its Wing Snap or Spitfire once between each of its turns, not once every two turns. PHB 267-268 describes the action types including immediate actions.
First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the game published in the first three core rule books. If those are all you have, the game works. But, as for what changed:
The solos and elites in MM2 were built using slight tweaks to the rules for creating them (specifically defenses and HP). If you don’t want to take the time to create your own elites and solos, MM2 has a lot of good monsters.
DMG2 explained the changes in MM2 and gave DMs better advice for building elites and solos, gave rules for creating minions, and also provided some new options for making custom monsters (such as Monster Themes). If you like making new monsters of your own, you need the DMG2. But DMG2 also did a lot great work on skill challenges, adventure design, and gave instructions for building custom traps. DMG2 is actually more useful to me than DMG1.
MM3 changed just about everything to do with monster design. Apart from the new statblock, all of the numbers got tweaked (specifically damage and attack rolls) and the philosophy of monster design changed as well. Basically, monsters now do more things automatically or on a miss so that the monster can fill its role even if it misses on attack rolls (soldiers mark a target even when they miss, for example). MM3 contains a lot of improvements, subtle and overt, and its worth having. But, it doesn’t provide a good range of heroic tier monsters (it focusses more on paragon and epic).
Finally, in order to allow DMs to use the MM3 changes, WotC published an update in July to the custom monster tables in the DMG. Again, if you like to create your own monsters, get the update. Its a free pdf download from http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/updates (and the archive contains all of the older rules updates for free as well).
Finally, my advice is this: get the DMG2 and the Rules Update. DMG2 has so many useful things that I can’t imagine not having it.
If you have a DDI subscription and can access the compendium, you can already see the MM3 and MM2 monsters, but if you don’t, you should consider picking those up in the future if you’d prefer not to make too many of your own monsters. But, in the heroic tier especially, you can live without both and I’d suggest grabbing MM2. The update/MM3 didn’t change much about the heroic tier and you can live without it.
If you are still allowing the PCs to spend one healing surge and regain 1 encounter during the stage changes, you may want to change to “spend 1 healing surge, and regain either 1 encounter power or 2 power points” to account for psionic players.
HI ADM thanks for the comprehensive advice, I shall take that to heart and take a look at the errata again, before making some decisions about what comes next.
Out of interest can you give me some examples of monosters as I have a subscription to DDI and I can compare old with new through that, if I know what I am looking at.
Thanks again.
Hi there, does anyone have a retooled level 1 white dragon (from the Kobold Hall adventure)based on this concept? I could take the time to create my own, but I’m still learning and wouldn’t mind using something already made as a guide if anyone has it.
I’ve used the Boss Fight template a couple times now, and I’ve found a great basis for ideas are World of Warcraft bosses. I’ve noticed that they have used a template like this several times(think Onyxia or the Black Knight from ToC), and modeling after these have worked quite well.
I’m really glad I came across these articles. I have been working on something very similar for “staged” boss fights for a very long time now. I’ve experimented with different ideas that were completely contained in one monster stat block. These were moderate successes, but did not completely fill my need for more epic battles.
Then MM3 came out with the two-stage version of Lolth (so there is official precedent for this sort of thing). She was really well designed and I longed to see her in action, but my players were currently in Heroic tier.
I have a feeling this style of boss design may be catching on in more than the wonderful world of homebrew.
Just finished a session when my players faced their first “boss fight” – a kraken attacking their ship. First it grappled at them from the water, then it dove below the ship and tried to sink it with tentacles (a bunch of individual minion tentacles), and finally it heaved its dying bulk onto the deck, snapping the mainmast and thrashing about in all directions in its death throes. The stat blocks weren’t perfect (I’m still a bit rusty as a 4E GM), but the general concept flowed nicely and was well received. Kudos!