I’m making a final boss for a campaign and one of the ideas I had was giving it an ability that reduces all damage it takes to 1 damage. What are some problems with this, and how should I balance it?
Well that is going to be tough, I mean resistant (half damage) is pretty potent on its own. This would seriously hamstring anyone without multiple attacks unless there is someway to nullify the effect temporarily. Maybe reducing the dice rolls to one might be 'more' doable so you don't totally hose your spellcasters that only get one or two attacks in a round. Would the players have some inkling that this would be happening and what kind of healthpool were you considering? But overall as stated it sounds really unfun.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
So what reducing all damage to 1 means is that they die after a set number of hits as opposed to a set amount of damage. Consequently the best strategy for players will be to do as many hits as possible. Classes that can put out allot of hits for example some one casting magic missile or a fighter using action surge may end killing your boss faster than you expect.
It reminds me of the minions rule where you reduce creatures hit points to 1 so they die in a single hit. You boss would work similarly to a collection of minions except it would have a smaller number of more powerful attacks as opposed to many weak ones.
As for how to balance it. I think adding up all the attacks your players can do in a round and multiplying it by 3 would probably be appropriate.
SolarSyphon: That was the idea I was going for, the boss idea thematically is that he is a collection of a lot of smaller creatures with a hive mind who joined together as a monster. So psychic damage could bypass because it would harm them all together
Since you would be working with a low overall health pool I would make the psychic damage be resistant, and maybe have strong saves in the mental stats to prevent a blowout of sorts if they figure it out really quick. Still having the boss take like 8-10 damage will be a big hit. Vicious mockery could be a bards best weapon lol.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
There is a decent chance no one will have psychic damage, but I dunno.
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"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
A quick trait description I was thinking about would be:
HP: 50
AC: 10
Combined body: due to the nature of the monster being many combined monsters, all single target attacks are reduced to 1 hp except for psychic damage. AOE attacks are instead halved.
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
I’m making a final boss for a campaign and one of the ideas I had was giving it an ability that reduces all damage it takes to 1 damage. What are some problems with this, and how should I balance it?
Don't.. Just don't. The PCs are going to be there all day trying to kill that thing and a lot of classes are going to be just wasting time doing a lot of damage increases that aren't going to matter. A typical low level boss probably has 60-100 HP, which means 60-100 attacks. Level 5 fighters, rangers, paladins, barbarians are going to do 2 attacks per round, everyone else is going to do 1. So with 5 players, you can expect 7 damage per round. So at 60 it would take 10 rounds. Which is going to be about two hours of game time. At 100 hp you are looking at 15+ rounds or 3+ hours of game time. This also means that the bad guys are going to have to do little damage to the PCs. And a lot of player choices are going to be meaningless. At some point your Players are going to start wondering why you have a 1,000 hp bbeg for such a low level party and why you are dragging out the encounter so long.
Okay so I realize you said 50 hp. That is still going to probably be around ten rounds of combat, and the typical encounter should last 3-4 rounds. If you guy psychic, either the party isn't going to have any, or if they happen to have psychic damage, the encounter is going to be too easy.
I’m making a final boss for a campaign and one of the ideas I had was giving it an ability that reduces all damage it takes to 1 damage. What are some problems with this, and how should I balance it?
Well that is going to be tough, I mean resistant (half damage) is pretty potent on its own. This would seriously hamstring anyone without multiple attacks unless there is someway to nullify the effect temporarily. Maybe reducing the dice rolls to one might be 'more' doable so you don't totally hose your spellcasters that only get one or two attacks in a round. Would the players have some inkling that this would be happening and what kind of healthpool were you considering? But overall as stated it sounds really unfun.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
So what reducing all damage to 1 means is that they die after a set number of hits as opposed to a set amount of damage. Consequently the best strategy for players will be to do as many hits as possible. Classes that can put out allot of hits for example some one casting magic missile or a fighter using action surge may end killing your boss faster than you expect.
It reminds me of the minions rule where you reduce creatures hit points to 1 so they die in a single hit. You boss would work similarly to a collection of minions except it would have a smaller number of more powerful attacks as opposed to many weak ones.
As for how to balance it. I think adding up all the attacks your players can do in a round and multiplying it by 3 would probably be appropriate.
I was thinking about giving him 40-50 hp and allowing something like psychic or force damage to bypass, so that they aren’t completely blocked.
SolarSyphon: That was the idea I was going for, the boss idea thematically is that he is a collection of a lot of smaller creatures with a hive mind who joined together as a monster. So psychic damage could bypass because it would harm them all together
Since you would be working with a low overall health pool I would make the psychic damage be resistant, and maybe have strong saves in the mental stats to prevent a blowout of sorts if they figure it out really quick. Still having the boss take like 8-10 damage will be a big hit. Vicious mockery could be a bards best weapon lol.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
This sounds like it's going to be incredibly not fun for of the players who's characters can't deal the appropriate damage type.
Find your own truth, choose your enemies carefully, and never deal with a dragon.
"Canon" is what's factual to D&D lore. "Cannon" is what you're going to be shot with if you keep getting the word wrong.
There is a decent chance no one will have psychic damage, but I dunno.
"Where words fail, swords prevail. Where blood is spilled, my cup is filled" -Cartaphilus
"I have found the answer to the meaning of life. You ask me what the answer is? You already know what the answer to life is. You fear it more than the strike of a viper, the ravages of disease, the ire of a lover. The answer is always death. But death is a gentle mistress with a sweet embrace, and you owe her a debt of restitution. Life is not a gift, it is a loan."
Maybe it’s something they can do as a reaction, so it’s only 1/round. Or it uses 3 legendary actions.
A quick trait description I was thinking about would be:
HP: 50
AC: 10
Combined body: due to the nature of the monster being many combined monsters, all single target attacks are reduced to 1 hp except for psychic damage. AOE attacks are instead halved.
1 word. shedinja
Pronouns: Any/All
About Me: Godless monster in human form bent on extending their natural life to unnatural extremes /general of the goose horde /Moderator of Vinstreb School for the Gifted /holder of the evil storyteller badge of no honor /king of madness /The FBI/ The Archmage of I CAST...!
Alignment: Lawful Evil
Fun Fact: i gain more power the more you post on my forum threads. MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!
Fight might drag on. You'll probably want to think about phases or a dynamic environment to keep the juices flowing.
Don't.. Just don't. The PCs are going to be there all day trying to kill that thing and a lot of classes are going to be just wasting time doing a lot of damage increases that aren't going to matter. A typical low level boss probably has 60-100 HP, which means 60-100 attacks. Level 5 fighters, rangers, paladins, barbarians are going to do 2 attacks per round, everyone else is going to do 1. So with 5 players, you can expect 7 damage per round. So at 60 it would take 10 rounds. Which is going to be about two hours of game time. At 100 hp you are looking at 15+ rounds or 3+ hours of game time. This also means that the bad guys are going to have to do little damage to the PCs. And a lot of player choices are going to be meaningless. At some point your Players are going to start wondering why you have a 1,000 hp bbeg for such a low level party and why you are dragging out the encounter so long.
Okay so I realize you said 50 hp. That is still going to probably be around ten rounds of combat, and the typical encounter should last 3-4 rounds. If you guy psychic, either the party isn't going to have any, or if they happen to have psychic damage, the encounter is going to be too easy.
Thanks for the feedback, I realize this is a terrible idea now.