I am running a 5e campaign in which the pcs are doing a task for Hades and are going out to kill the seven deadly sins (who are creatures) and the first one is going to be greed. I would appreciate some concepts and ideas of how this boss would run and what this boss's strategy would be. I'm not looking for a fully fleshed-out character just some ideas I can draw inspiration.
I already have an idea that it would be a large pig minitour thing that's very persuasive and has a bunch of loot phased into its body, it uses a large gold chain with an ax head on the end. the stats can be provided if wanted
Well, he should incite greed as an ability. If they fail a save, they have to use their action to steal from others, or take psychic damage for fighting the greed.
His eyes flare with green light when he uses his abilities.
he should have slaves aplenty. Maybe he tries to collect people before killing them. Lots of cages in his lair. He tries to trap them with dropping cages, or shoving them into cages.
In order to kill him, it is necessary to destroy or render inaccessible the treasure.
I like this. Maybe his HP is tied to his wealth somehow. This would take a lot more thought to make mechanically sound and have it discoverable by players who tend to assume you kill things by hitting it, but it fits well with the theme. Maybe they find an NPC who has dealt with Greed before and he drops that insider knowledge on them before they go confront him. Maybe they find religious texts that instruct the way to overcome Greed is to embrace poverty.
In order to kill him, it is necessary to destroy or render inaccessible the treasure.
I like this. Maybe his HP is tied to his wealth somehow. This would take a lot more thought to make mechanically sound and have it discoverable by players who tend to assume you kill things by hitting it, but it fits well with the theme. Maybe they find an NPC who has dealt with Greed before and he drops that insider knowledge on them before they go confront him. Maybe they find religious texts that instruct the way to overcome Greed is to embrace poverty.
1 gold = 1 hp for the boss. The amount of gold he has is the amount of his HP. That'd be pretty interesting!
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I left Heavens Gate to seek the truth of 9 legendary warriors who once visited my homeland. They are known as "The Cloud Nine".
In order to kill him, it is necessary to destroy or render inaccessible the treasure.
I like this. Maybe his HP is tied to his wealth somehow. This would take a lot more thought to make mechanically sound and have it discoverable by players who tend to assume you kill things by hitting it, but it fits well with the theme. Maybe they find an NPC who has dealt with Greed before and he drops that insider knowledge on them before they go confront him. Maybe they find religious texts that instruct the way to overcome Greed is to embrace poverty.
I would probably have it be regeneration -- he recovers X hp at the start of each of his turns, only if he has treasure within range. If you want to make it obvious, have the treasure visibly move into him (a problem I see is that there isn't an easy way to make stuff inaccessible on a combat timeframe. Maybe have a convenient bottomless hole. Or a Sphere of Annihilation.).
Maybe the lair is filled with treasure, and as part of his actions, he can absorb some of the treasure which translates to hit points. “You see Greed run over to a pile of gold coins, and about 100 of them fly into his body as if sucked up by a vacuum. He had looked weak and bloodied before, but now looks renewed and ready to press this fight.” Might give Thorn Whip or Lightning Lure a chance to shine. Or some other spell or feature that lets you control movement of creatures.
I think that he would be inherently protective of his treasure. If it is approached by any of the players, he makes a beeline for them and does as much damage as possible. As far as stats go, i would take heavy inspiration from a few of the devil stats, specifically the chain devil. His stat block seems to match the kind of character you want, especially the chain attack.
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I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
I think that he would be inherently protective of his treasure.
In general you expect devils associated with a given vice to try and incite it in others, and conversely, the key to defeating them is resisting the associated sin; these are basically puzzle monsters, so difficulty should not too high if PCs solve the puzzle. Thus, the keys to defeating each sin are:
envy: Envy switches everyone's character sheets around, except characters can still use their original weapon proficiencies and cantrips if they attempt to do so. You must defeat Envy without using any abilities that were not on your original character sheet.
gluttony: Gluttony afflicts opponents with the equivalent of one day without food (Con save negates) every round, to a maximum exhaustion level of 5. He can only be defeated by a character suffering from at least 3 levels of exhaustion due to lost food.
greed: To defeat Greed, you must forsake wealth. Tossing treasure into a sphere of annihilation seems good.
lust: to defeat Lust, you have to resist desire. I can't think of a terribly easy way to implement this in a game.
pride: you cannot defeat Pride on your own. You can only successfully affect Pride with an attack or effect if another character gives you help, and once you have done so you cannot affect him again until you have given another character help.
wrath: Wrath has advantage when attacking anyone who has taken a hostile action during their last turn, and disadvantage on anyone who has not. Wrath regenerates his full HP every turn. During any turn in which Wrath is within 30' of a foe and neither attacks nor is attacked, he suffers one level of exhaustion, otherwise he loses one level. This effect can kill him.
sloth: the house of Sloth is a relaxed place, with no wandering monsters. To reach Sloth, you must first defeat three guardians, each of which is a medium to hard encounter. Every time you take a short rest, one guardian is resurrected. Every time you take a long rest, all the guardians are resurrected.
Check out the Mammon section in MToF for some inspiration.
There are also some great Aq-Inc spells like Incite Greed and Jim's Glowing Coin that would work thematically.
An interesting thing you could do is a variation on the Maze spell, in which the character is transported to a demiplane filled with illusory riches. They can use their action to make a save to see if they want to leave. You could swap the save from INT to WIS or CHA if you like.
There's a lot you can do with simply reflavouring existing content as above, in order for it to fit the theme you're showcasing.
I would also like to see Greed presented as a suave man in an extremely expensive suit. I think it's more sinister and pervasive for him to be a subtle, unscrupulous businessman than as some monster.
Mammon except it's Wolf of Wall Street, basically.
maybe have him use a sword that has venom on the edge. green scales around the left eye snake fangs and some venom magic since snake are a symbol of greed in certain places
Hands down I'd have to make Greed a Dragon. Dragons are well known for their need to be in charge of a GREAT Treasure!
Second, like someone said before me, his lair would be built like a vault; lots of heavy trapped doors, many portcullises and exposed viaducts to cross to get in and out.
A dragon's treasure hoard is too great to be that connected with his health, but some of the items in the hoard could be key to his power, and the players could get story bits in advance to tell them what to go and find.
I'm just wondering what do you do to top this segment of the adventure?
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Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
A lot of really cool and interesting ideas posted.
I seem to recall minotaurs have (had?) a connection to Baphomet. If your pcs are doing tasks for Hades, you could maybe tie that in to the narrative. Since it's greed, and a boss, I think I would have some kind of high risk/reward. Some people have mentioned destroying the bosses treasure to weaken or kill, to see if they can forsake the sin of being greedy. That's cool, and I like that idea. But I think I would make a twist. Instead of destroying the bosses treasure, each pc must give up a personal item or weapon, to be destroyed with the boss and shed their own personal greed. But then Hades would provide the high reward for such a sacrifice, since it was a blow to Baphomet losing a boss. As a reward, Hades can give back the item, but better. Some examples: a pc gives up their hiking boots they get back Boots of Levitation, they give up a sword +1 they get back a +1/+4 to ogres, etc. But I suggest this with an extremely heavy dose of caution. Players (especially me included) love their items and gear, and would be hard pressed to give up an item, especially magical. So I would not take too much time in between the risk and the reward. You don't want to lose any pcs or friends.
Have a hall filled with golden statues of adventurers. Then steal the petrify effect from things like the basilisk/gorgon/medusa/cockatrice, but instead of stone, they turn to gold.
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I am running a 5e campaign in which the pcs are doing a task for Hades and are going out to kill the seven deadly sins (who are creatures) and the first one is going to be greed. I would appreciate some concepts and ideas of how this boss would run and what this boss's strategy would be. I'm not looking for a fully fleshed-out character just some ideas I can draw inspiration.
I already have an idea that it would be a large pig minitour thing that's very persuasive and has a bunch of loot phased into its body, it uses a large gold chain with an ax head on the end. the stats can be provided if wanted
Well, he should incite greed as an ability. If they fail a save, they have to use their action to steal from others, or take psychic damage for fighting the greed.
His eyes flare with green light when he uses his abilities.
he should have slaves aplenty. Maybe he tries to collect people before killing them. Lots of cages in his lair. He tries to trap them with dropping cages, or shoving them into cages.
His lair is a treasure vault. In order to kill him, it is necessary to destroy or render inaccessible the treasure.
He can sense gold/jewels and attacks the member of the party that is perceived to have the most wealth first.
I left Heavens Gate to seek the truth of 9 legendary warriors who once visited my homeland. They are known as "The Cloud Nine".
I like this. Maybe his HP is tied to his wealth somehow. This would take a lot more thought to make mechanically sound and have it discoverable by players who tend to assume you kill things by hitting it, but it fits well with the theme. Maybe they find an NPC who has dealt with Greed before and he drops that insider knowledge on them before they go confront him. Maybe they find religious texts that instruct the way to overcome Greed is to embrace poverty.
1 gold = 1 hp for the boss. The amount of gold he has is the amount of his HP. That'd be pretty interesting!
I left Heavens Gate to seek the truth of 9 legendary warriors who once visited my homeland. They are known as "The Cloud Nine".
I would probably have it be regeneration -- he recovers X hp at the start of each of his turns, only if he has treasure within range. If you want to make it obvious, have the treasure visibly move into him (a problem I see is that there isn't an easy way to make stuff inaccessible on a combat timeframe. Maybe have a convenient bottomless hole. Or a Sphere of Annihilation.).
Maybe the lair is filled with treasure, and as part of his actions, he can absorb some of the treasure which translates to hit points. “You see Greed run over to a pile of gold coins, and about 100 of them fly into his body as if sucked up by a vacuum. He had looked weak and bloodied before, but now looks renewed and ready to press this fight.” Might give Thorn Whip or Lightning Lure a chance to shine. Or some other spell or feature that lets you control movement of creatures.
I think that he would be inherently protective of his treasure. If it is approached by any of the players, he makes a beeline for them and does as much damage as possible. As far as stats go, i would take heavy inspiration from a few of the devil stats, specifically the chain devil. His stat block seems to match the kind of character you want, especially the chain attack.
I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone, there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
- Litany Against Fear, Frank Herbert
In general you expect devils associated with a given vice to try and incite it in others, and conversely, the key to defeating them is resisting the associated sin; these are basically puzzle monsters, so difficulty should not too high if PCs solve the puzzle. Thus, the keys to defeating each sin are:
Check out the Mammon section in MToF for some inspiration.
There are also some great Aq-Inc spells like Incite Greed and Jim's Glowing Coin that would work thematically.
An interesting thing you could do is a variation on the Maze spell, in which the character is transported to a demiplane filled with illusory riches. They can use their action to make a save to see if they want to leave. You could swap the save from INT to WIS or CHA if you like.
There's a lot you can do with simply reflavouring existing content as above, in order for it to fit the theme you're showcasing.
I would also like to see Greed presented as a suave man in an extremely expensive suit. I think it's more sinister and pervasive for him to be a subtle, unscrupulous businessman than as some monster.
Mammon except it's Wolf of Wall Street, basically.
maybe have him use a sword that has venom on the edge. green scales around the left eye snake fangs and some venom magic since snake are a symbol of greed in certain places
Hands down I'd have to make Greed a Dragon. Dragons are well known for their need to be in charge of a GREAT Treasure!
Second, like someone said before me, his lair would be built like a vault; lots of heavy trapped doors, many portcullises and exposed viaducts to cross to get in and out.
A dragon's treasure hoard is too great to be that connected with his health, but some of the items in the hoard could be key to his power, and the players could get story bits in advance to tell them what to go and find.
I'm just wondering what do you do to top this segment of the adventure?
Cum catapultae proscriptae erunt tum soli proscript catapultas habebunt
A lot of really cool and interesting ideas posted.
I seem to recall minotaurs have (had?) a connection to Baphomet. If your pcs are doing tasks for Hades, you could maybe tie that in to the narrative. Since it's greed, and a boss, I think I would have some kind of high risk/reward. Some people have mentioned destroying the bosses treasure to weaken or kill, to see if they can forsake the sin of being greedy. That's cool, and I like that idea. But I think I would make a twist. Instead of destroying the bosses treasure, each pc must give up a personal item or weapon, to be destroyed with the boss and shed their own personal greed. But then Hades would provide the high reward for such a sacrifice, since it was a blow to Baphomet losing a boss. As a reward, Hades can give back the item, but better. Some examples: a pc gives up their hiking boots they get back Boots of Levitation, they give up a sword +1 they get back a +1/+4 to ogres, etc. But I suggest this with an extremely heavy dose of caution. Players (especially me included) love their items and gear, and would be hard pressed to give up an item, especially magical. So I would not take too much time in between the risk and the reward. You don't want to lose any pcs or friends.
Could also do a play on King Midas.
Have a hall filled with golden statues of adventurers. Then steal the petrify effect from things like the basilisk/gorgon/medusa/cockatrice, but instead of stone, they turn to gold.