I'm running a game where one of my pc's somehow got transported 100 years into the future and who is now trying to figure out why and how he can get back. As a part the story around this I have a scientist/wizard who has invented a timepiece that allows him to enter, navigate and exit the temporal plane safely. (he has also gone mad from the temporal energy and is just all around evil).
My idea was that this scientist will encounter my pc's multiple times as a recurring boss, but becuase he is a time traveler the encounters will be in a different order for him than for the party. I thought it would be a cool idea if the parties first encounter is where they actually kill him(because his time-piece is broken) and in successive battles when he dies he will be transported to the temporal plane to regenerate.
My main concern is that might start feeling pointless/annoying for the pc's once they figure out they can't fully get rid of him(cause obviously they allready have). Do you guys have any ideas or advice on recurring bosses in this regard? Or on how to give the players more agency? (maybe they have to figure out how to damage the time piece?)
Reverse flash is another one. Id also suggest having your overall plot well thought out, so That during fights, he can drop some hints about what they'll face next, since he’ll know and they won’t. Even a bit taunting. “It’s a shame about what happened to [beloved NPC]. No one should die like that.” And the party had seen that very NPC a week ago. It can be a good way to throw out adventure hooks. And if you do it right, the hook will actually be part of the boss’s plan. If the PCs didn’t help beloved NPC, then the boss wouldn’t have been able to steal his necklace kind of thing.
The party could also find some divine allies. I bet the god of death would be upset at this guy for cheating his, and maybe send a cleric or a celestial to give the party advice on how to beat him. Could be damaging the device. Old editions used to have a spell called dimensional anchor that stopped teleportation. Make the party find a homebrew version of that spell and cast it on him before he can zip away.
I said happened because for him it’s in the past. In my version he’s sometimes confused about where exactly he is in the timeline. But yours probably works better for the scheming.
He should also mention actual things, to earn some credibility. “That earthquake next month is a doozy.” Then once they believe him, he can throw out some red herrings. Beloved NPC was never in trouble, villain just wanted the party far away from what he was doing. Or NPC is in trouble and he is doing something far away and now they have to choose which one they’ll do.
Thanks for the replies, I'll put soms additional thought in it, using your suggestions. I think "what happened" might help with the mad part, as my scientists has indeed become quite confused about the chronology of events.
Okay, so they've already killed him, so the question is, how to maintain dramatic tension, knowing that he'll survive all subsequent fights and escape and that ultimately, he'll get his?
I think the way you'd have to do this is avoid physical confrontations with the villain in later encounters. Have him go after things the players care about, or send henchmen to fight them.
Don't forget that the players aren't just going to be silent pawns pushed around a board. One of them is going to say to the guy, "Look, we already killed you. It doesn't matter if you kill us now, because you're killing a later version of us. Your death is already assured." Now the time-traveller is going to start looking for ways to avoid his fate. He decides not to time-travel anymore so he can't end up in the past. But that's going to cause a paradox. Dinosaurs and WWII soldiers are going start appearing on the streets and fighting the PCs. They go talk to the King or a wizard or whatever, who introduces them to the greatest living expert on time-magic, the inventor, who is now meeting the players for the first time, from his perspective?
So the players have to find him and persuade him to go back in time and get himself killed fighting them? Maybe they have to become HIS bad guys. In order to stave off the paradox, they have to start going after HIS life until they get him desperate and angry enough that he makes that last fateful journey to try to kill them?
I dunno. This is why I avoid time-travel stories. They're 100% plot and players are chaos agents who eat plot for breakfast.
I dunno. This is why I avoid time-travel stories. They're 100% plot and players are chaos agents who eat plot for breakfast.
Yeah. “Plot” based stories are often seen as railroads by the players. And as Vedexent so wisely pointed out once, sooner or later your players are gonna smash it into a sandbox.
My main concern is that might start feeling pointless/annoying for the pc's once they figure out they can't fully get rid of him(cause obviously they allready have). Do you guys have any ideas or advice on recurring bosses in this regard? Or on how to give the players more agency? (maybe they have to figure out how to damage the time piece?)
One way would be for one or two of those subsequent encounters that they would best serve their own interests by working with the villain temporarily. Like maybe they either track down or bump into the villain under some particular circumstance. And then, while the villain is monologuing with pre-fight or during a cutscene, some other outside force comes in and they all have to work together to survive. And then the Villain has some Deus ex machina escape at the end.
Another way is to have the villain already making their escape from some dastardly do when the heroes arrive on scene. That way the villain is still the villain, but the adventure is not about stopping them from doing something but instead dealing with what they have already just done that’s just about to kick in.
Another way is to have them deal with something they believe to be completely unrelated only for them to discover clues at the very end that indicate the villain had been behind the whole thing. That way they still deal with that Villain plot, but don’t interact with them directly at all, only their agents.
Of course, stories like this are usually well served by having a fair number of shorter “monster of the week” and “personal development” stories interspersed among the main story adventures. Sometimes that main Plot-line needs to shift down to B-Plot or even C-Plot level for a while so it can dramatically interject itself on the party at an inconvenient time to really ratchet up the drama.
In a boss fight in the end when he is on low hp he time travel the pc to the past (500-1000 years) and he go to find a weapon. And the pc go to jail for a reason (Idk) and need to escape and stop the boss form to get the weapon.
I'm running a game where one of my pc's somehow got transported 100 years into the future and who is now trying to figure out why and how he can get back. As a part the story around this I have a scientist/wizard who has invented a timepiece that allows him to enter, navigate and exit the temporal plane safely. (he has also gone mad from the temporal energy and is just all around evil).
My idea was that this scientist will encounter my pc's multiple times as a recurring boss, but becuase he is a time traveler the encounters will be in a different order for him than for the party. I thought it would be a cool idea if the parties first encounter is where they actually kill him(because his time-piece is broken) and in successive battles when he dies he will be transported to the temporal plane to regenerate.
My main concern is that might start feeling pointless/annoying for the pc's once they figure out they can't fully get rid of him(cause obviously they allready have). Do you guys have any ideas or advice on recurring bosses in this regard? Or on how to give the players more agency? (maybe they have to figure out how to damage the time piece?)
No real help here, but this is why I, as a DM, avoid time travel like the plague. Too many possibilities to contend with, and too many ways that things can go wrong for the DM. Good luck with finding a solution that works for both you, and your players.
It will be hard to make the order and game balance feel authentic. My suggestion would be having him weakened at the end of battles and then he travels back in time further to try earlier. For example he may have armor and weapons that break before he flees this justifies him getting weaker for what is forward in his time while still getting stronger from the players perspective.
An interesting version may be that travelling back in time warps his appearance. So early battles may be this crazed mutant beast and then over time it reveals what he is actually like. Combine with say mech suits that also hide his appearance it may not necessarily need to be obvious that all the bosses are him a he appears in different forms. If players then put that together it may give a sense of accomplishment.
He may also not necessarily need to fight himself but arm other characters the parties face. For example the time traveler would know the parties enemies and could try to help them. In that case they can still destroy the current enemy hes just a complication one that could also remain a mystery supplier of tech.
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Hi,
I'm running a game where one of my pc's somehow got transported 100 years into the future and who is now trying to figure out why and how he can get back. As a part the story around this I have a scientist/wizard who has invented a timepiece that allows him to enter, navigate and exit the temporal plane safely. (he has also gone mad from the temporal energy and is just all around evil).
My idea was that this scientist will encounter my pc's multiple times as a recurring boss, but becuase he is a time traveler the encounters will be in a different order for him than for the party. I thought it would be a cool idea if the parties first encounter is where they actually kill him(because his time-piece is broken) and in successive battles when he dies he will be transported to the temporal plane to regenerate.
My main concern is that might start feeling pointless/annoying for the pc's once they figure out they can't fully get rid of him(cause obviously they allready have). Do you guys have any ideas or advice on recurring bosses in this regard? Or on how to give the players more agency? (maybe they have to figure out how to damage the time piece?)
One suggestion is to watch Dr. Who and model your boss after The Master.
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Reverse flash is another one.
Id also suggest having your overall plot well thought out, so That during fights, he can drop some hints about what they'll face next, since he’ll know and they won’t. Even a bit taunting. “It’s a shame about what happened to [beloved NPC]. No one should die like that.” And the party had seen that very NPC a week ago. It can be a good way to throw out adventure hooks. And if you do it right, the hook will actually be part of the boss’s plan. If the PCs didn’t help beloved NPC, then the boss wouldn’t have been able to steal his necklace kind of thing.
The party could also find some divine allies. I bet the god of death would be upset at this guy for cheating his, and maybe send a cleric or a celestial to give the party advice on how to beat him. Could be damaging the device. Old editions used to have a spell called dimensional anchor that stopped teleportation. Make the party find a homebrew version of that spell and cast it on him before he can zip away.
Or better yet: “It’s a shame about what will happen to [beloved NPC]....”
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I said happened because for him it’s in the past. In my version he’s sometimes confused about where exactly he is in the timeline.
But yours probably works better for the scheming.
He should also mention actual things, to earn some credibility. “That earthquake next month is a doozy.” Then once they believe him, he can throw out some red herrings. Beloved NPC was never in trouble, villain just wanted the party far away from what he was doing. Or NPC is in trouble and he is doing something far away and now they have to choose which one they’ll do.
Thanks for the replies, I'll put soms additional thought in it, using your suggestions. I think "what happened" might help with the mad part, as my scientists has indeed become quite confused about the chronology of events.
Okay, so they've already killed him, so the question is, how to maintain dramatic tension, knowing that he'll survive all subsequent fights and escape and that ultimately, he'll get his?
I think the way you'd have to do this is avoid physical confrontations with the villain in later encounters. Have him go after things the players care about, or send henchmen to fight them.
Don't forget that the players aren't just going to be silent pawns pushed around a board. One of them is going to say to the guy, "Look, we already killed you. It doesn't matter if you kill us now, because you're killing a later version of us. Your death is already assured." Now the time-traveller is going to start looking for ways to avoid his fate. He decides not to time-travel anymore so he can't end up in the past. But that's going to cause a paradox. Dinosaurs and WWII soldiers are going start appearing on the streets and fighting the PCs. They go talk to the King or a wizard or whatever, who introduces them to the greatest living expert on time-magic, the inventor, who is now meeting the players for the first time, from his perspective?
So the players have to find him and persuade him to go back in time and get himself killed fighting them? Maybe they have to become HIS bad guys. In order to stave off the paradox, they have to start going after HIS life until they get him desperate and angry enough that he makes that last fateful journey to try to kill them?
I dunno. This is why I avoid time-travel stories. They're 100% plot and players are chaos agents who eat plot for breakfast.
Yeah. “Plot” based stories are often seen as railroads by the players. And as Vedexent so wisely pointed out once, sooner or later your players are gonna smash it into a sandbox.
One way would be for one or two of those subsequent encounters that they would best serve their own interests by working with the villain temporarily. Like maybe they either track down or bump into the villain under some particular circumstance. And then, while the villain is monologuing with pre-fight or during a cutscene, some other outside force comes in and they all have to work together to survive. And then the Villain has some Deus ex machina escape at the end.
Another way is to have the villain already making their escape from some dastardly do when the heroes arrive on scene. That way the villain is still the villain, but the adventure is not about stopping them from doing something but instead dealing with what they have already just done that’s just about to kick in.
Another way is to have them deal with something they believe to be completely unrelated only for them to discover clues at the very end that indicate the villain had been behind the whole thing. That way they still deal with that Villain plot, but don’t interact with them directly at all, only their agents.
Of course, stories like this are usually well served by having a fair number of shorter “monster of the week” and “personal development” stories interspersed among the main story adventures. Sometimes that main Plot-line needs to shift down to B-Plot or even C-Plot level for a while so it can dramatically interject itself on the party at an inconvenient time to really ratchet up the drama.
I hope that helps.
Creating Epic Boons on DDB
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In a boss fight in the end when he is on low hp he time travel the pc to the past (500-1000 years) and he go to find a weapon. And the pc go to jail for a reason (Idk) and need to escape and stop the boss form to get the weapon.
No real help here, but this is why I, as a DM, avoid time travel like the plague. Too many possibilities to contend with, and too many ways that things can go wrong for the DM. Good luck with finding a solution that works for both you, and your players.
It will be hard to make the order and game balance feel authentic. My suggestion would be having him weakened at the end of battles and then he travels back in time further to try earlier. For example he may have armor and weapons that break before he flees this justifies him getting weaker for what is forward in his time while still getting stronger from the players perspective.
An interesting version may be that travelling back in time warps his appearance. So early battles may be this crazed mutant beast and then over time it reveals what he is actually like. Combine with say mech suits that also hide his appearance it may not necessarily need to be obvious that all the bosses are him a he appears in different forms. If players then put that together it may give a sense of accomplishment.
He may also not necessarily need to fight himself but arm other characters the parties face. For example the time traveler would know the parties enemies and could try to help them. In that case they can still destroy the current enemy hes just a complication one that could also remain a mystery supplier of tech.