So I've been running a solo campaign for my wife for 3 years now, and it's been very fun as we both like the role play experiences a lot, and I've got a DM Player Character (DMPC) that is there as a bounceboard and Druid healer. The druid part is actually important to this thread, because normally when I design an encounter, I can get over the action economy issues of a solo campaign by using Conjure animals and letting my player control them. In a similar vein, I gave my player a Bag of Tricks such that she could summon creatures herself. Basically, I gave her a way to increase the number of "party members" on the board, and so even though they're all simple creatures, it means there are more moving pieces for her to control, and so more complexity/minions can be added to combat without ruining the action economy balance. :)
But boss fights have always been a challenge. Bosses are meant to be big and strong, and I want that 'reward' feeling for overcoming a huge challenge. But this makes the action economy balance tough, and single player campaign boss fights can go anti-climactically easy, or real real bad, on an errant dice roll.
So my question for this thread: any advice to spice up the complexity of a boss encounter? Environment details are a good start. But imagining the environment poses a challenge, I think that might translate to lair actions? So what are good ways to add lair action-type stuff to make a boss fight interesting? I'm curious what sort of general principles people have. What's the spirit behind having say... "the earth quake on initiative order 10, beat a DC12 DEX save or fall prone"? Like... that kinda thing adds randomness, and maybe you could 'solve' it such that you find a way to prep for the earth quaking, but especially in a one-player campaign something like a simple DEX save falls flat (pun intended).
To kick off a conversation, here's a plan I've got for an upcoming boss: I've got perhaps my biggest most important boss fight coming up, and for story reasons it's taking place in a nearly-empty circular sandpit chamber. The chamber has a concave floor with a stalagmite platform in the middle and a spherical ceiling. The "Boss" is two lieutenants of the big bad that are being introduced for the first time - they're both 5 levels higher than my player (yikes). But!!! Canonically they're exhausted from having just fought monsters such that I can introduce them in a vulnerable state, high level spells spent, and so they'll be likely to retreat (who knows, one might even croak). But the action economy on this is really dicey since it willbe "2v2," and I'll be 3 of those 4 characters (such is a 1-player game...). So my "puzzle" I've come up with is that a lair effect will be in place here: one of the NPC bosses will be stuck in an environmental Blink spell. They'll be disappearing and reappearing, and I plan to pull my DMPC into the Blink effect with them such that effectively two 1v1 situations are going on, with one "off-screen" (easier for me too!). My intended solution to this puzzle is that if the player joins in on the Blink, or rescues my DMPC from the Blink, then she'll find herself in a 2v1 situation against the boss team every other round, and so win the action economy. And then maybe I'll throw in little environment bits like unstable ground (sand pit) etc...
So that's what I've got so far. What are some of your tricks you've used to make an encounter more interesting? Any advice for a single-player campaign especially appreciated!
If your player is comfortable enough to be able to run her character as well as Conjure Animals/Bag of Tricks, then why not convert your DMPC to a Sidekick? There are specific rules in place how how sidekicks advance and can be used (in combat) by players. You can still control them in social or exploration scenarios for the most part, but it seems like you're more worried that you're playing most of the characters in the scene. Honestly, I know that doesn't help this scenario, but I think it will help in the future if you implement it.
As for this scenario - I actually disagree with y1adde. Not having a boss hitpoint value can make the attacks feel arbitrary. I suppose it goes on behind the scenes so it shouldn't matter, but if the player knew you were just "keeping the boss alive" until something cool happened, that could feel like they're being coddled which isn't a cool feeling.
I think a good addition will be to make that unstable ground (and therefore the Saving Throw to fall prone) something that the player can do as a bonus action. Give them some kind of indicator they they can mess with the terrain to give them the edge in the fight - either have the Boss do it once before blinking away and show that the player can too, or maybe just describe to them, "you think you might be able to do X with the sand/whatever".
Don't give the boss HP. If you need specific things to happen as a DM, don't let it not happen. Track damage they do, but boss fights should go untill it's been a boss fight.
Think about it, has not knowing the amount of HP left made a sneak attack or smite bonus feel like it wasn't a huge hit?
You don't rob your players of anything by limiting yourself to a game mechanic that's meant to be adjustable. The DM guide will tell you to increase stats for using monsters out of CR range. Adding HP is commonly accepted. So... Just .... Cut the middle man. Balance the fight DURING the fight. If you want this to be a real "the DM is trying to kill the party" type boss, you need to be fair and keep HP balanced. But if you need to get to a phase 2, or have the boss escape for later, don't give him an HP number to die at.
I have to admit with the kids club I run I do this a lot. They're totally unpredictable as players, the barbarian who reliably does 50 points of damage each turn will suddenly decide he wants to cast a cantrip and do 4 points of damage "because I fancied a change" or the wizard will remember he took fireball 6 sessions ago and never used it, and we have very set time limits because parents want to pick their children up on time so while I use HP for smaller combats with big boss fights I'll do their HP on a sliding scale and increase or decrease in 25 or 50 point jumps depending on the flow of battle. None of them ever realised until I did a DM workshop and literally told them and even after that they still get just as excited when they see a big monster go down
Since we don't know anything about your wife's character or character level, we can't give you any sound advice. I would actually suggest you don't homebrew because it doesn't sound like you are able to judge the appropriate opposition. I think you should use adventure modules and use their instructions on how to modify monster encounters based on level and size of characters.
Thanks all. Yeah I definitely have a sliding scale of HP, but as VanZoeren notes this has to be right for the player (i.e. they're fine with it, like kids are), or you've gotta keep it both believable and secret.
Re: advice and such: not really sure level matters at all here. I'm not too concerned about being too many characters (long past this, and this is how all 1-player games go in the end). It's more that I'm not great at environment details, or adding those sorts of "side goals" to boss fights that make it so the fight isn't just about dealing lots of damage and taking less in return. Like... do people just throw MacGuffins into boss fights sometimes so there's a "win" condition (boss defeated) and a "flawless victory" condition where you not only beat the boss, but you prevent them from accomplishing X, Y, or Z? If anyone were willing to share stories about their own sorts of encounter complexity examples and the logic behind it, I'd love to hear them! :)
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Hi all!
So I've been running a solo campaign for my wife for 3 years now, and it's been very fun as we both like the role play experiences a lot, and I've got a DM Player Character (DMPC) that is there as a bounceboard and Druid healer. The druid part is actually important to this thread, because normally when I design an encounter, I can get over the action economy issues of a solo campaign by using Conjure animals and letting my player control them. In a similar vein, I gave my player a Bag of Tricks such that she could summon creatures herself. Basically, I gave her a way to increase the number of "party members" on the board, and so even though they're all simple creatures, it means there are more moving pieces for her to control, and so more complexity/minions can be added to combat without ruining the action economy balance. :)
But boss fights have always been a challenge. Bosses are meant to be big and strong, and I want that 'reward' feeling for overcoming a huge challenge. But this makes the action economy balance tough, and single player campaign boss fights can go anti-climactically easy, or real real bad, on an errant dice roll.
So my question for this thread: any advice to spice up the complexity of a boss encounter? Environment details are a good start. But imagining the environment poses a challenge, I think that might translate to lair actions? So what are good ways to add lair action-type stuff to make a boss fight interesting? I'm curious what sort of general principles people have. What's the spirit behind having say... "the earth quake on initiative order 10, beat a DC12 DEX save or fall prone"? Like... that kinda thing adds randomness, and maybe you could 'solve' it such that you find a way to prep for the earth quaking, but especially in a one-player campaign something like a simple DEX save falls flat (pun intended).
To kick off a conversation, here's a plan I've got for an upcoming boss: I've got perhaps my biggest most important boss fight coming up, and for story reasons it's taking place in a nearly-empty circular sandpit chamber. The chamber has a concave floor with a stalagmite platform in the middle and a spherical ceiling. The "Boss" is two lieutenants of the big bad that are being introduced for the first time - they're both 5 levels higher than my player (yikes). But!!! Canonically they're exhausted from having just fought monsters such that I can introduce them in a vulnerable state, high level spells spent, and so they'll be likely to retreat (who knows, one might even croak). But the action economy on this is really dicey since it willbe "2v2," and I'll be 3 of those 4 characters (such is a 1-player game...). So my "puzzle" I've come up with is that a lair effect will be in place here: one of the NPC bosses will be stuck in an environmental Blink spell. They'll be disappearing and reappearing, and I plan to pull my DMPC into the Blink effect with them such that effectively two 1v1 situations are going on, with one "off-screen" (easier for me too!). My intended solution to this puzzle is that if the player joins in on the Blink, or rescues my DMPC from the Blink, then she'll find herself in a 2v1 situation against the boss team every other round, and so win the action economy. And then maybe I'll throw in little environment bits like unstable ground (sand pit) etc...
So that's what I've got so far. What are some of your tricks you've used to make an encounter more interesting? Any advice for a single-player campaign especially appreciated!
If your player is comfortable enough to be able to run her character as well as Conjure Animals/Bag of Tricks, then why not convert your DMPC to a Sidekick? There are specific rules in place how how sidekicks advance and can be used (in combat) by players. You can still control them in social or exploration scenarios for the most part, but it seems like you're more worried that you're playing most of the characters in the scene. Honestly, I know that doesn't help this scenario, but I think it will help in the future if you implement it.
As for this scenario - I actually disagree with y1adde. Not having a boss hitpoint value can make the attacks feel arbitrary. I suppose it goes on behind the scenes so it shouldn't matter, but if the player knew you were just "keeping the boss alive" until something cool happened, that could feel like they're being coddled which isn't a cool feeling.
I think a good addition will be to make that unstable ground (and therefore the Saving Throw to fall prone) something that the player can do as a bonus action. Give them some kind of indicator they they can mess with the terrain to give them the edge in the fight - either have the Boss do it once before blinking away and show that the player can too, or maybe just describe to them, "you think you might be able to do X with the sand/whatever".
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
I have to admit with the kids club I run I do this a lot. They're totally unpredictable as players, the barbarian who reliably does 50 points of damage each turn will suddenly decide he wants to cast a cantrip and do 4 points of damage "because I fancied a change" or the wizard will remember he took fireball 6 sessions ago and never used it, and we have very set time limits because parents want to pick their children up on time so while I use HP for smaller combats with big boss fights I'll do their HP on a sliding scale and increase or decrease in 25 or 50 point jumps depending on the flow of battle. None of them ever realised until I did a DM workshop and literally told them and even after that they still get just as excited when they see a big monster go down
Since we don't know anything about your wife's character or character level, we can't give you any sound advice. I would actually suggest you don't homebrew because it doesn't sound like you are able to judge the appropriate opposition. I think you should use adventure modules and use their instructions on how to modify monster encounters based on level and size of characters.
Thanks all. Yeah I definitely have a sliding scale of HP, but as VanZoeren notes this has to be right for the player (i.e. they're fine with it, like kids are), or you've gotta keep it both believable and secret.
Re: advice and such: not really sure level matters at all here. I'm not too concerned about being too many characters (long past this, and this is how all 1-player games go in the end). It's more that I'm not great at environment details, or adding those sorts of "side goals" to boss fights that make it so the fight isn't just about dealing lots of damage and taking less in return. Like... do people just throw MacGuffins into boss fights sometimes so there's a "win" condition (boss defeated) and a "flawless victory" condition where you not only beat the boss, but you prevent them from accomplishing X, Y, or Z? If anyone were willing to share stories about their own sorts of encounter complexity examples and the logic behind it, I'd love to hear them! :)