So I'm a newer DM, and after running Phandelver and a couple other campaigns from DMs guild, I've been writing my own campaign. But, the concept of writing an epic boss battle is pretty strange to me. I'm okay with coming up with stats for custom bosses, but how do I even fathom the idea of a fun boss fight? So, I though I'd come here with a question. Fellow DMs, what is the best boss battle you've ever run, and what made it to special?
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"Players beware, the DM is here!" - Probably Some 80's Cartoon
For me, it's all about build up and anticipation. I had a battle with a Fallen Deva. He had fallen out of favour with the God he had served as a minstrel. He was trying to obtain a Cli Lyre so that he could return and kill his old master. He was rather insane. He also had a reputation as one of the greatest bards in Faerun. The group was ALSO trying to obtain the Cli Lyre. So they put together a plan where they found this bard, and put him in contact with the Noble who had the Lyre, and they planned on hosting a gala event as a fundraiser of sorts. The noble wanted A LOT of money for the Lyre, which the party didn't have, and this was kind of the work around. They didn't realise that the Deva (who was in human form) had a plot of his own.
When the gala event happened, the Noble had employed wizards to create an anti magic field that would cover the performance area. You don't want accidents happening where a Cli Lyre is involved. The Deva came in in Angel form, but passed it off as a costume, because he was performing his new epic, which was the tale of an Angel in 4 parts. It was his story, and when it ended and one of the servants approached to take the Lyre back, he snapped their neck and started laying into people to make his escape. Then all hell broke loose and we had a pretty epic time of it.
I think a lesson I learned is that encounter design is really not simply about who the party's fighting.
What I mean is that you could have a custom designed enemies with a dozen interesting abilities that gives the party different debuffs and weird damage effect and so on, if the only thing interesting about the enemy is what he does to them, then the players' turn will always be "I attack" and a simple d20 roll.
To me, encounter design has to be dynamic, it can be dynamism when it comes to the fight arena, dynamism from reinforcements coming in that you have to handle, dynamism because the objectives is ultimately not the defeat of the enemy, but getting something he's protecting, but there has to be something that makes a player go "so, what's my priority here ? how do I handle this ?"
An encounter I enjoyed creating was for a party of lv3. Basically, a bard had made a deal with a demon, and had an extraplanar space where he would abduct people and turn them into puppet actors in his theater. When the party arrived, they were at the entrance, and the first part of the fight was to actually reach the scene, which had 2 obstacles: 1) the ground made sort of "waves" that would stop their progression, make the terrain difficult, and require a dex saving throw to not fall prone and 2) the stairs to the scene were actually some Hallucinatory Terrain, that you needed to disbelieve, or find your way around. For that whole sequence, the enemy was on a catwalk above the scene, shouting some Vicious Mockery, for some light damage.
As the first character reached the scene, they could find a worker creating the effect, and kill him to let the rest of the member join.
They then needed a way to get the boss down, as 2 dancers came out of backstage, attacking in synchronized dance (basically a pirouette turned into a kick, etc). So they had to handle the problem of getting the bard in range and handle the 2 people attacking them. I believe this is when the bard started using some more powerful spells, like charms.
Once the bard was down and the dancers dealt with, the bard got some additional help (I believe some strongmen, but I can't really remember).
Finally, as the fight was over, the party was supposed to bring him in alive, but the demon who made a deal with him appeared to the greediest (know your players!) character, and offered him a powerful magic sword in exchange for killing the bard. That sword, obviously, was powerful but cursed, and became the hook for a subsequent adventure.
But some may be more straightforward, although playing with the terrain is always a fun idea, and a boss should probably never be alone, because he'll go down way too fast otherwise. But even that's not a rule, my players in my current campaign are pursuing a changeling (although they don't know it's a changeling, which complicates matter), and as they find him, he will pretty instantly try to escape. He's a lv9 wizard, and he knows he can't take them all. So he's going to fly, and try to fly over some other monsters as he flee so the party has some others issues to deal with. As fly is a concentration spell, the game will be to break his concentration to force him to fight, while dealing with what he was able to add to the fight (unless they searched the place thoroughly before, and actually killed everything already).
I was running krenkos way with a party of 5th level characters so I made some adjustments the best was the final fight against krenko. So it worked like this the pcs were in a giant warehouse there were 4 goblins on a catwalk shooting arrows there was krenko who was very powerful and his 3 body gaurds (all goblin bosses). The fight worked really well and ended with the warehouse burning down. I think the the archers really added a special element to the fight.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .
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So I'm a newer DM, and after running Phandelver and a couple other campaigns from DMs guild, I've been writing my own campaign. But, the concept of writing an epic boss battle is pretty strange to me. I'm okay with coming up with stats for custom bosses, but how do I even fathom the idea of a fun boss fight? So, I though I'd come here with a question. Fellow DMs, what is the best boss battle you've ever run, and what made it to special?
"Players beware, the DM is here!" - Probably Some 80's Cartoon
For me, it's all about build up and anticipation. I had a battle with a Fallen Deva. He had fallen out of favour with the God he had served as a minstrel. He was trying to obtain a Cli Lyre so that he could return and kill his old master. He was rather insane. He also had a reputation as one of the greatest bards in Faerun. The group was ALSO trying to obtain the Cli Lyre. So they put together a plan where they found this bard, and put him in contact with the Noble who had the Lyre, and they planned on hosting a gala event as a fundraiser of sorts. The noble wanted A LOT of money for the Lyre, which the party didn't have, and this was kind of the work around. They didn't realise that the Deva (who was in human form) had a plot of his own.
When the gala event happened, the Noble had employed wizards to create an anti magic field that would cover the performance area. You don't want accidents happening where a Cli Lyre is involved. The Deva came in in Angel form, but passed it off as a costume, because he was performing his new epic, which was the tale of an Angel in 4 parts. It was his story, and when it ended and one of the servants approached to take the Lyre back, he snapped their neck and started laying into people to make his escape. Then all hell broke loose and we had a pretty epic time of it.
I think a lesson I learned is that encounter design is really not simply about who the party's fighting.
What I mean is that you could have a custom designed enemies with a dozen interesting abilities that gives the party different debuffs and weird damage effect and so on, if the only thing interesting about the enemy is what he does to them, then the players' turn will always be "I attack" and a simple d20 roll.
To me, encounter design has to be dynamic, it can be dynamism when it comes to the fight arena, dynamism from reinforcements coming in that you have to handle, dynamism because the objectives is ultimately not the defeat of the enemy, but getting something he's protecting, but there has to be something that makes a player go "so, what's my priority here ? how do I handle this ?"
An encounter I enjoyed creating was for a party of lv3. Basically, a bard had made a deal with a demon, and had an extraplanar space where he would abduct people and turn them into puppet actors in his theater. When the party arrived, they were at the entrance, and the first part of the fight was to actually reach the scene, which had 2 obstacles: 1) the ground made sort of "waves" that would stop their progression, make the terrain difficult, and require a dex saving throw to not fall prone and 2) the stairs to the scene were actually some Hallucinatory Terrain, that you needed to disbelieve, or find your way around. For that whole sequence, the enemy was on a catwalk above the scene, shouting some Vicious Mockery, for some light damage.
As the first character reached the scene, they could find a worker creating the effect, and kill him to let the rest of the member join.
They then needed a way to get the boss down, as 2 dancers came out of backstage, attacking in synchronized dance (basically a pirouette turned into a kick, etc). So they had to handle the problem of getting the bard in range and handle the 2 people attacking them. I believe this is when the bard started using some more powerful spells, like charms.
Once the bard was down and the dancers dealt with, the bard got some additional help (I believe some strongmen, but I can't really remember).
Finally, as the fight was over, the party was supposed to bring him in alive, but the demon who made a deal with him appeared to the greediest (know your players!) character, and offered him a powerful magic sword in exchange for killing the bard. That sword, obviously, was powerful but cursed, and became the hook for a subsequent adventure.
But some may be more straightforward, although playing with the terrain is always a fun idea, and a boss should probably never be alone, because he'll go down way too fast otherwise. But even that's not a rule, my players in my current campaign are pursuing a changeling (although they don't know it's a changeling, which complicates matter), and as they find him, he will pretty instantly try to escape. He's a lv9 wizard, and he knows he can't take them all. So he's going to fly, and try to fly over some other monsters as he flee so the party has some others issues to deal with. As fly is a concentration spell, the game will be to break his concentration to force him to fight, while dealing with what he was able to add to the fight (unless they searched the place thoroughly before, and actually killed everything already).
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I was running krenkos way with a party of 5th level characters so I made some adjustments the best was the final fight against krenko. So it worked like this the pcs were in a giant warehouse there were 4 goblins on a catwalk shooting arrows there was krenko who was very powerful and his 3 body gaurds (all goblin bosses). The fight worked really well and ended with the warehouse burning down. I think the the archers really added a special element to the fight.
The 6 most hated words in all of d&d history: make me a dex saving throw .