Hey all, first time poster and first time DMing with my own written content (currently DMing ID: RotFM).
I'm doing just a one-shot battle arena gauntlet with some friends and am having some trouble figuring out how I will balance the boss properly.
Info for the game is as follows: 4 12th level characters (unknown races / classes at this point) go through 6 levels to meet the final boss.
During levels 1 - 5 they will be picking up one of each color of chromatic crystal (if they choose to) to take into the final boss encounter with them. The final boss encounter will be a dragon that, every 1-2 rounds or so will swap from one color to another. While the characters have the crystals on them, they will take additional damage from the dragon. If they manage to get their crystal into some sort of vulnerable slot it will either do lots of damage to the dragon or remove that color from the list of colors it can change to (not sure which yet).
The trouble I'm having is I'm not sure on how to balance the dragon itself: Do I give each individual dragon its own health pool? One massive health pool? Maybe one single larger health pool that's maybe slightly higher than a dragon's? The dragon will be adult or ancient, not quite sure.
If it's one dragon that swaps colour, I would give it one health pool that maybe is a bit larger. Unless the crystals can outright "kill" forms of the dragon. In which case, I might give the dragon a health pool which is a sum of all of the dragons involved and when the form is "killed" then dragon loses its max hp from the pool. 12th level characters can likely take on most dragons, so personally, I would just throw out the largest appropriate dragon, play it to the hilt and have the gimmick change its forms. An adult red dragon or an ancient white dragon might be a good base for the dragon and then just have the resistances and breath weapon change element.
And use the legendary actions like you're running a dark souls boss. Which is to say constantly.
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Hey all, first time poster and first time DMing with my own written content (currently DMing ID: RotFM).
I'm doing just a one-shot battle arena gauntlet with some friends and am having some trouble figuring out how I will balance the boss properly.
Info for the game is as follows: 4 12th level characters (unknown races / classes at this point) go through 6 levels to meet the final boss.
During levels 1 - 5 they will be picking up one of each color of chromatic crystal (if they choose to) to take into the final boss encounter with them. The final boss encounter will be a dragon that, every 1-2 rounds or so will swap from one color to another. While the characters have the crystals on them, they will take additional damage from the dragon. If they manage to get their crystal into some sort of vulnerable slot it will either do lots of damage to the dragon or remove that color from the list of colors it can change to (not sure which yet).
The trouble I'm having is I'm not sure on how to balance the dragon itself: Do I give each individual dragon its own health pool? One massive health pool? Maybe one single larger health pool that's maybe slightly higher than a dragon's? The dragon will be adult or ancient, not quite sure.
Thoughts?
If it's one dragon that swaps colour, I would give it one health pool that maybe is a bit larger. Unless the crystals can outright "kill" forms of the dragon. In which case, I might give the dragon a health pool which is a sum of all of the dragons involved and when the form is "killed" then dragon loses its max hp from the pool. 12th level characters can likely take on most dragons, so personally, I would just throw out the largest appropriate dragon, play it to the hilt and have the gimmick change its forms. An adult red dragon or an ancient white dragon might be a good base for the dragon and then just have the resistances and breath weapon change element.
And use the legendary actions like you're running a dark souls boss. Which is to say constantly.