/tg/ - Traditional Games » Thread #43297137

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Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 12:37:18 No.43297137 View Reply Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43298174 >>43298238 >>43306496

Ok /tg/ so my adventurers are fast approaching a kind of big boss battle. A mage has been fucking with them since their first game, sending a zombie horde after them, warning other villains to prepare for them coming, arranging for them to be captured and sent to prison, even tricking them into massacring a village of innocents.

How do I make this a great, interesting battle?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 12:38:19 No.43297147 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Also, it's a typical medieval D&D style game that we're playing

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 14:01:59 No.43298174 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43298276

>>43297137
Have it be according to plan?
Provoking them into an attack is what he was after all along. Through something they will do, they will trigger the Apocalypse Machine

Then they need to scramble while they undo their thing and murder the bastard.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 14:06:32 No.43298238 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43297137

What level (or power ranking, or whatever) is the mage?

If he's low level, it might be interesting to have him lead them into traps and ambushes. Like, casting silent images to lead them into places full of undead, taunting them from afar, until they finally find him.

Mid-level, he should have some ability to teleport himself, or redirect you. A chase through various planes might be good.

If he's higher level, the party shouldn't be fighting him at all.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 14:09:22 No.43298276 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43298174
The obvious question that comes up is, "Why does he need the party in the first place."
The answer to that has to be
1. It's pretty difficult to pull off. You can't just hire a hobo from the street to go stab someone and call it a job well done.
2. It's at least potentially dangerous, which is why the mage needs someone who doesn't know why they're doing it, and why he's not the one doing it himself.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 15:06:06 No.43299071 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43302235

the mage is actually possessed by a demon and pisses the party off because he belives only this particular group of people will be powerful enough to exorcise the demon

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 18:40:51 No.43302235 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43305492

>>43299071
Exactly, the mage isn't exactly a bad guy himself, more the morally ambiguous one who really has done nothing wrong. A more powerful entity possesses or controls him from within, and the only way to defeat that is kill a man who is truly not 100% to blame for what he did.
A boss fight that makes the players question morality is a fucking great one.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 21:55:12 No.43305492 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43306353

>>43302235
What's the demon in it for though?

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 22:00:57 No.43305582 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Plan it in three stages. Each stage should have differences in terrain, and in each stage the boss should have a different tactic. Video games accomplish this by giving the boss additional forms, but that's very transparent to modern players so I would avoid it.

The way I plan my boss' actions for each stage is to think about how he wants to go about beating the players. First stage he could be cocky, setting up an elaborate situation, possibly with spectators, where he can look real cool while he defeats his enemy. If the boss has a big ego, this works great. The second phase should be where the boss starts getting a little worried. He should immediately change tactics, trying to counter what the players have been throwing at him. Make sure that your players make different choices as for how they go about damaging him. The boss switching from close-quarters combat to flying around shooting magic/summoning stuff works well. The last stage is where all limiters are removed. The boss realizes that it's a distinct possibility that he will lose and redoubles his efforts to either defeat the players once and for all or tries to cut and run or set up some kind of emergency backup plan. Throw everything the boss has got at the players. Make it clear that he's getting desperate, even throwing stuff out that clearly isn't going to work against the party if you want to make it look like he's getting so worried that he's getting sloppy.

It's up to you what defines the stages and what differentiates them from one another. Just remember to force your players to move around a little. Nothing is more boring than a fight where you never leave the five-foot square radius you've been occupying.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 22:46:45 No.43306353 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43305492
Alignment wise, chaotic evil does stuff for the sake of being evil, and neutral evil for fun

Anonymous

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Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 22:56:54 No.43306496 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43297137

Give the BBEG genitals.

Then let the PCs make their Great Finale Moral Decision about what to do with his genitals.

Anonymous

Anonymous Mon 26 Oct 2015 23:54:23 No.43307301 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Depending on how much you want to mess with your players' heads, you can have said boss hold a town/country/planet hostage (depends on his power level) and have him offer the players terms of surrender. Add extra confusion to this by dropping hints that BBEG isn't unfair and might actually not betray / tpk the characters if they surrender. Maybe he's chaotic neutral?

If they surrender, role play something major - like he is trying to stop some greater threat and believes the players are messing up his chances to set things right (this gives the chance to work for someone on the other side of the alignment spectrum).

If they choose fight him, let the players find out that there are consequences for their actions... perhaps he kills the hostages / curses the hostages so the players have a Pyrrhic victory.

Alternately, if you can pull it off, role play the mage as totally insane - speaking to entities that aren't there, commanding squads of his underlings to do very odd tasks like clean all leaves from 50' of the boss lair enterance or have everyone who works for him shave their heads and then glue the hair to their faces as "beards." When the party gets to him, he's not aware that they are a threat or treats one of them like a long lost child (you don't have to actually pull a vader and make him their father, just play it like he thinks he's their father).

Even wilder - have someone who looks and sounds exactly like the mage approach the characters in tattered rags and beg them to help because a clone of himself has seized his power and is terrorizing everyone (the players were fighting the evil doppelganger all along), but have it so if they kill / hurt the "evil" mage, then the good one dies / gets hurt too.

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