Everybody loves a boss battle. 'Formulaic' is often used as a criticism, and it's true that relying too much on established tropes can be dull and forgettable. But tropes often become tropes because they work so well, because stories or experiences are incomplete without them. It's good to subvert expectations sometimes, or to put your own twist on a classic, but a lot of the time we want formula. To make a formula means mixing familiar ingredients in the hopes of creating something explosive, exciting. I recently relied on formula when ending my 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons game with a dungeon boss, and it felt electric.

Regular readers of TheGamer will know that 168♏澳洲幸运5开奖网:I DM🦄 a D&D game for the other editors here, and where we last left them 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:they were halfway through a dungeon. Wouldn't you believe it, in this most recent update, they only went and cleared it. In that previous catch-up, I mentioned that a DM experience was incomplete without rolling a team through a dungeon, especially one of your own design. I learned a thing or two from my first rodeo, especially with it split over a couple of sessions. The front end was loaded with more puzzles and narrative intrigue, while the final parts felt too much like a march to the end.

A 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Deck of Many Things was also a factor in the dungeon

I had sensed that when I read back over my notes a few weeks ago, and retooled it for a boss battle. That tied the whole thing together far better, and became my favourite part of the whole outing. For both myself and the players, I'm glad it didn't disappoint. They've fought a boss battle in a cave before, a successful bout that challenged them appropriately, but in the smaller skirmishes that followed I have always felt like I didn't quite get the spices right.

You're always kind of holding back as a DM. My party is Level 6, but I technically have access to beasts with 23 CR. I could be throwing tenth-level Fireballs at them and wiping them out, I make the rules and have all the tools in front of me. This holding back is less 'pulling your punches' and more 'calling in a ringer', if the ringer were a sickly Victorian urchin. Right before the boss battle, the group fought four kuo-toas, which are ugly little fishmen with harpoons. There was no risk of a TPK here, it's just a fun chance for them to use the mechanics and for me to play around with different strategies. But with my boss, the mermaid warrior, there was a real chance to kill them, and that raised the stakes.

I don't play with the DM Vs. Party mentality, but with the team ranging from five to nine in number, they can steamroller a lot of battles through sheer size alone. So it's nice to make them think 'this could be it fellas' for a change. At one point, all but one of the party was making death-saving rolls, so they certainly felt it.

After a few sessions of having Cannon Fodder #1 roll 1d4+1 to hit the dual-wielding rogue with a stinky✤ little dagger, it was great to draw both paladins towards me and one-hit KO them by upcasting Inflict Wounds and reaching into their souls. Wiping their cleric, who loves to spam Guiding Bolt, with an upcast Guiding Bolt of my own, was particularly satisfying. So, I did it twice. I also had Rebuke of the Ocean (a watery twist on Hellish Rebuke), and could do all this while shielding myself with Spirit Guardians, all while taking care of pesky ranged attackers with Spiritual Weapon.

Shadowheart Offers Up Blood To Begin Trial

In the end, as Goliath was felled by a simple slingshot, a Bite Bonus Attack that did 1d4 eventually took down the boss. But it was a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat (snatched via the jaws, in a complicated ouroboros of jaws), and the players knew they hadn't just done a bit of battling to break up the story, they had been in a fight for their lives.

Obviously the boss was appropriately pitched rather than something a gang of Level 20 adventurers would struggle with, but I knew that the only way for the battle to work was to play for keeps. No fudging misses, no intentionally stupid strategies, no sticking with basic first-level spells. Go hard or go home - it's the only way to keep them coming back. I have set myself a benchmark for the adventure, and the next major combat scenario now needs to best it.

dungeons-and-dragons-series-game-tabletop-franchise
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Dungeons & Dragons
Created by
E. Gary Gygax, Dave Arneson ꦬ
Latest Film
Dungeon💮s & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves
First TV Show
𝔉 Dungeons and Dr🔴agons
First Episode Air Date
Septe⛦mber 17, 1983 🐎

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