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Old Sep 4th, 2010, 03:20 AM
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My First Boss Monster (Ancient White Dragon)

I follow a handful of DnD blogs and podcasts. One I have recently stumbled upon is The Angry DM, who has written a series of articles on "DM Boss Fights":

Go ahead and read them - I'll be here when you get back


OK, so the idea really intrigues me - I have tried out Gamefiend / Quinn Murphy's "Worldbreaker" concept before, and was impressed to find another viable option to the long, grinding battle with a solo problem.

With an encounter quickly coming up (in a campaign adapted from Stephen Radney-MacFarland's adventure, "Winter of the Witch", found in Dungeon Magazine 162) wherein my players will face off against a rather large and angry white dragon (which I recently purchased just the miniature for!), I wanted to make it a more thrilling encounter than what I expected it to be: Wizard and Psion trap; Fighter holds; Warlock burns. Repeat until cooked through.

ADM's suggestion, where the monster is completely replaced at each stage, and large changes happen to the playing, fit my ideas nicely, and so I built my own boss! (see attached).

I'll go through some of the important changes. First, I loved the idea ADM gave with his dragon, in letting them roll initiative twice, and having an extra chance of saving each round. The only solo I have played that I felt lived up to the title was built similarly: but had three turns every round (Bel Shalor, the Shadow in the Flame; and I still think the only reason he defeated the party was that too many of them weren't posting).

Second, I lessened his immediate powers, so that they could build over time. An aura of 5, with 30 damage a round is pretty severe, so I limited the damage to the "bloodied" stage, and limited the flight-slowing to the second and third stages. His triple attack also turned into a double attack; and in stage three, was changed from a "kill one player good" to a "try to attack many players". Spreading out the hurt is always more fun; and lessens that whole "stop picking on me!" feeling

I also changed his encounter fear aura (standard action, burst 10) to a minor action (one creature). As written, it is effectively a game-lengthener: Dragon uses a standard action so that everyone else doesn't act. Now, for a third of his life (most likely, not long enough to attack each PC with it) he can use an otherwise not-used action to give a vicious glare at troublesome folk.

He didn't have any triggered actions, so I added in an alternate to the tail-slap; tailored to my party. They like teleporting, and since that would get around so much of his slowing-nastiness, I thought a little knock when they popped in could work nicely. Plus, the whole first stage is about the dragon really looking down his nose at the party. He gazes at them, he holds back as if they are not worth his time, and generally puts up with their attacks...until they anger him!


Stage two starts (or stage one ends?) with a power adapted from the scenario the dragon was from. In it, it's a standard action he can do once per encounter; but I felt that it would fit nicely: he realises that the party are dangerous, and takes to the air, tearing out a chunk of the mountainside as he goes. From there, he goes into artillery mode, breathing and strafing the party, with attacks pulled from his recharge power (5 or 6; so using it at will for roughly a third of the fight sounds about right) and ADM's sample dragon.

This will be tough for a certain fighter, but with the group's ability to send him flying, I doubt it will cause him to sit out for long. The rest of the party is ranged, so even with his new trigger, he will soon be bloodied...and crashing back to the ground!


Now, in stage three, he is ferocious and wanting to be done with the group. His aura is now what it would have been all along, he finally has access to his frost breath (but I have limited it further to just once...but with some miss effects), and he has a "thunderwave / shoulder-slam" like power to show off his new-found brutality.

Instead of slapping those who teleport, he now only catches those who are slow enough to be caught. His Fury power has a benefit if he attacks multiple targets - at this stage, it could all be over quickly if one PC had three attacks; and the bloodied dragon is clearly not thinking that straight. He just wants to lash out at everyone!

Finally, when the party deliver their last blow, he screams once more, and the mountain answers him - an avalanche of snow washes down over the party, either sweeping them away, or burying them (and stopping teleporting, just for fun). After the flying-dragon aspect of part two, and the possible-falling of part 1, I would assume that everyone has taken magical precautions against falling off the mountainside, but if they haven't, they are only getting what they deserve, right?




So, there's my attempt at reskinning a creature with The Angry DM's Boss template - what are your thoughts on it? An interesting challenge? Down-right terrifying? Or did I take too much away, is the dragon a little more whelpish now?


-hvg3



ps: sorry about the garish colours - I used excel to do the sheets, and didn't have time to make them more easy on the eye! Fixed!
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Last edited by hvg3akaek; Sep 5th, 2010 at 09:03 PM.
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Old Oct 26th, 2010, 12:07 AM
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Played the Boss Monster dragon today; against a party of four 23rd level folk (fresh from a long rest), it worked well. No one was caught by the initial scene-changing attack, and barely anyone was hurt, so I only gave them a recharge of one encounter power (no surge).

The second stage was hard, with the wizard being entombed for a while, and the fighter not having much reach (on a flying dragon!).

Still, the 2nd=>3rd change-over power worked well, and once he took on his bloody form, he really started cutting through the PCs. His aura was also quite devastating, as well as the fact that for this stage, both his initiative turns were together. That meant that there was little time for the PCs to recover from his double attacks - especially when he action pointed! Two of the team (psion and fighter) went down round after round towards the end. Some high death-save bonuses and daily items allowed them to continue to regain their feet, but they didn't get their actions, and remained within the aura!

Ultimately, the wizard missed on a crucial daily power, and rolled poorly for the miss damage, leaving it on 1 HP. Then the psion's turn came up, and he went out backwards due to the cold aura. The warlock finished it off, and the resulting deathcry was also quite lethal - fortunately, cold resistances kept the revanant from also going out backwards!

In all, a dangerous and engaging monster that is much more fitting than the original dragon (who would have died in about half the time, I expect). The breaking of effects upon it, the extra saves, and the two initiative rolls really helped make it a solo that could actually fight solo - so well done, AngryDM, for your "Boss Monster" idea, it worked well!
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Old Nov 20th, 2010, 02:09 PM
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we gonna have this in the diablo 2 gauntlet game? sounds interesting...
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 12:55 AM
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The way you've described the stages that this dragon goes through reminds me of Onyxia from World of Warcraft. Any correlation, or am I just grasping at straws again.
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 01:01 AM
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I picked up on that too Keiran. Though to be honest, many of those raid fights would probably transcribe well into DnD.
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 06:37 AM
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I've never actually played WoW, but the Boss Monster idea is taken in part from many computer game boss fights (right back to zelda or metroid style ones, I believe!).

This critter will probably never see the light of day in HG, as it is just a little beyond most of you But the "boss monster" idea is definitely something I am going to try out for the big, leg-end baddies
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 09:29 AM
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you never played WOW? holy crap man. its like an inspiration palace. yea that 3 tier fight isn't just onyxia. it was lady vash, lots of molten core fights, most of the new stuff.
my favorite fight back in WOW when i played is when the warlock was the tank against leotheras the blind. magtheridon had 3 stages. lots of bosses did. even ones in kharazan.
this idea isn't new. but its very effective!
I remember this 3 stage thing back in the battle toad and double dragon game!
in fact, i know most raid bosses weren't just tank and spank. hydross changed shifts/forms every 30 seconds regardless of what you were doing. if you messed up, then you all died. it encouraged teamwork and listening to captains and knowing your role and doing it right
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 12:16 PM
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The fact that it gets 2 turns makes it really hard to solo, but it is definitely beatable with 2 people at level 25 or so by taking advantage of stuns and dominates.
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 05:23 PM
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yeah, no level X solo should be easy for a single character of around level X

That's in part why it has two turns, and extra saves vs stun and daze
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Old Nov 22nd, 2010, 06:02 PM
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although it might be hard, its doable.
and as you said,
Quote:
no level X solo should be easy for a single character of around level X
but it was doable. some guy broke the game 4 days before it came out.
there were lots of broken things. the thing i hated the most was how they changed the teleport thing on warlocks to only do damage 1/turn when you teleport. people broke it so it got "fixed" insano damage with no hit usually does that though. meh.
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