Killing the grind: phased "boss" fights

[Halivar]

So, I don't use solo monsters in my 4E game anymore. The grind is just too much. But it's such a shame, right? I mean, sometimes I want to have a BBEG who's bigger, badder, and tougher than everyone around him.

Yesterday I was playing WOW with my guildies, going through a succession of solo boss fights in a raid dungeon. After a bit, I realized I was having more fun with those boss fights than with 4E's. The difference between the two is this: in WOW, solo boss fights have "phases" where the battle-scape is altered dramatically, and tactics must adapt to the new situation.

Can this be done in 4E? I think so.

As an example, let's take our standard Solo Elite poison-breathing dragon. 4 times the hit-points, 4 times the PITA. Now, let's mix it up.

First, half the hit-points because for about 1/3 of the fight, players are going to be too preoccupied to hit the dragon. The fight will still be as long, but it will be more varied.

Phase 1: (100%-50% hp)
The dragon operates as normal, and the fight is your standard tank n' spank. The dragon saves his encounter powers and action points. Once the dragon hits 50% health, phase 2 kicks in.

Phase 2:
The dragon makes its bloodied attack (if any) and takes flight. He shrugs off all marks and effects while he does so. Let players nearby make their opportunity attacks, but any attempt to move, slide, push, drop, or otherwise prevent the dragon from taking flight fails.

While in the air, the dragon is out of range and making full use of its flight speed. Essentially, it's off the map and "up there." A small hoard of dragonling (or dragonborn, or kobold, or whatever) minions pours out and attacks the party. Every round, the dragon chooses a party member at random and hits them with a glob of poison. It's a standard attack against that person, and the map is marked. Next turn, that glob of poison becomes a burst 2 area of effect that lasts 1 turn. It does damage to allies in range, and empowers minions, turning them into standard monsters with full hit-points.

This continues for a predetermined number of waves.

Phase 3: (50%-0% hp)
The dragon lands, and calls for backup. 4 elite "adds" pop out and attack the party. Make sure the players know that all creatures on the board will not ignore marks, and will attack players that marked them consistently. Periodically, the dragon targets an elite and hits it with a glob of arcane goo. After one round, the arcane goo becomes a burst 1 area of effect that affects creatures and players other than the dragon, and lasts for 1 turn. Anyone or thing in the burst gains DR 10, +5 to hit, and +10 to damage. The idea is that the dragon is trying to empower his allies, but if players move them off the bursts, they can take its bonuses for themselves. If the dragon dies before the elites do, then players must fight the elites without the benefit of the arcane bursts (a moderate passive insight check to realize this). If the elites die before the dragon does, then the dragon stops creating arcane bursts, and it becomes a normal boss fight until the dragon drops.

What it looks like:
In phase 1, players are beating on the dragon. In phase 2, players are avoiding areas of danger while killing minions OR doing damage control on empowered creatures. In phase 3, players moving elites around to steal their dragon-given bonuses. They can choose to kill the dragon first, but this may make the fight harder for them, since they'll be facing 4 elites without the benefit of the the arcane burst bonus.

Optional: Timed boss fights
Sometimes things drag out way too long and everyone at the table wants some immediate resolution. In WOW, bosses have something called an "enrage timer" that prevents players from nickel-and-diming a creature to death over the course of an hour. Essentially, if you don't kill the boss fast enough, the boss gets big, red, angry, and everyone dies.

Now, sudden death isn't very fun, but I think the concept can be adapted to create a time limit on the fight.

Predetermine the maximum number of rounds the fight should take. Give the players a mechanism to know what that round limit is. When you hit that many rounds, the boss gains DR 20, +5 to hit, +10 to damage, and +4 to saves. Essentially, the fight is over. Players are aware that the creature has enraged, and they have lost the fight. They can discretely take a leave of absence from the fight, OR they can stick around and try to drop the "hard-mode" boss for an appropriate XP bonus.

 

[Fanaelialae]

While I like the idea of phased boss fights, IMO you can't directly translate WoW-style fights into D&D (because they're different mediums; real time MMO vs turn based RPG).

The first half of your example sounds boring and grindy (the dragon just spams it's at-will attacks until bloodied). It's almost as though you're shifting the grind from the end of the fight to the beginning, and I don't see what the benefit could possibly be.

Phase 2 seems kind of cheesy to me. Even in the Onyxia fight (at least in the vanilla WoW days when last I fought her), which is what I assume this was based on, ranged attackers can hurt her while she's flying around. Turning minions into standards also seems like a real nuisance (at the very least a minion ought to have to spend a full round in a cloud before transforming, so that the PCs' have the chance to stop the transformation).

The buff from the bursts in phase 3 seems excessive. In addition, I'd use 4 standard creatures rather than 4 elites (adding 4 elites will introduce a mountain of hp, adding to the grind rather than reducing it).

In no situation would I recommend using an enrage timer. That's a cheap WoW gimmick used because in certain fights, under the right circumstances, a group can wear a "low" damage boss down over time ez-mode style. This is because WoW has in battle mana regen and cooldown timers on abilities (in battle resource recovery). In order to make these fights challenging, the designers put a time limit on them (the enrage timer).

D&D characters, as a general rule, don't have in-battle resource recovery (recovery generally requires resting, regardless of edition). Hence, D&D characters don't need to be "challenged" with a time limit (they're inevitably getting weaker as the battle continues). Additionally, hard-mode kills in WoW are for parties that are vastly over geared for the encounter in question or got the guy down to 1% health before the enrage and had just enough juice left to get him down despite the enrage. D&D characters don't really have the option to over-gear or over-level, so "hard-mode" is a rather foreign concept.

That said, phased bosses can be a lot of fun.

One easy approach is to design your "solo" as 2 elites or 4 standard creature. As each creature is "killed", the next set of stats are used. This creates a creature that varies it's tactics throughout the fight.

Another twist I've used is a creature that berserks. Basically, I create a x level encounter using a solo and additional creatures. If all of the non-solos are killed off before the solo is bloodied, the solo goes berserk, taking half it's remaining hp in damage and dealing double damage thereafter. The few times I've used it, it's lead to short and tense end battles (hypothetically, the solo is dealing the same damage over the remainder of the fight, but because the fight is half as long it's much more stressful for the party). I suppose that it might superficially be similar to an enrage timer, but it really isn't, as rather than making the fight nigh impossible for the PCs, it's simply designed to bring the fight to it's conclusion in half the time (with a bit more challenge).

Don't get me wrong, a lot of your above examples were actually pretty dynamic and cool. The concept of an attack that then becomes a zone buff for the solo's allies is great, as is the idea of a buff that the PCs can "steal" for themselves. Adding non-solos to a solo fight is a rule I swear by.

Where it goes off track, IMO, is that unlike WoW the PCs are only going to get one chance at doing the fight "right" (if they die, a retry is not a corpse-run away). Therefore, it's important not to make something like the arcane buff from phase 3 mandatory. DR 10 is pretty decent resistance even at epic levels, and +5 to hit is an enormous buff. I could easily see a TPK if the party doesn't figure out that they're supposed to steal the buff, or even if they figure it out but roll like crap with their forced movement attacks. It's fine for a gimmick to make a fight easier or harder, but it shouldn't make it potentially insurmountable. +2 to hit and +5 to damage would be plenty IMO (no DR), without making the buff an outright necessity.

Your ideas are good, but you need to keep in mind that you're designing the fight for a D&D party, rather than a WoW raid.

 

[Halivar]

Oh, not by any means was I proposing a polished encounter. Consider it more of a proof-of-concept. The idea is not to bring WOW into D&D. Rather, plunder from WOW those combat elements designed to fix some of the very same shortcomings that are evident in current D&D combat. The numbers given are mostly a hand-wave.

 

[fuzzlewump]

I like the idea, and actually use it already, but a word of advice is to try to avoid making the encounters seem contrived: forced into phases that don't make much sense. If you're fighting a dragon in its layer, it's going to use the best tactic at all times. If that means he can fly up and be immune to attacks, he's always going to be doing it. Like you said, not a polished encounter, but something for everyone to keep in mind in adventure design is to have appropriately intelligent monsters. While it does make designing an encounter more difficult, I think it would be more rewarding in the end.

More appropriate for an intelligent being fight, I think, is to have phases arise from things that the enemy didn't expect, whether the characters did or not.

Here's my rudimentary example: dragon sees players fights and with full force, sending minions, causing eruptions or whatever, that sort of thing from the get go. It sees a losing battle and tries to fly away. 'Phase 2' is the player's stopping it, which can depend on the adventure. If they are 'monster hunting' maybe they have a harpoon of sorts, or a tethercord, something along these lines in order to hold on to it. If they can't stop it, then it flies away with no trouble. This may seem bad, but it makes it more rewarding when they finally do take it down.

'Phase 3' is ripping free of the harpoon, damaging its wings or whatever, and starts bleeding acid/fire/lightning blood everywhere, and goes into a reckless-backed-into-a-corner last stand.

In summary, make the phases more fluid, and don't use contrived 'hold-off-on-power' unless maybe the enemy is an incredibly proud Dragon Ball Z character. ("I'm only using 10% of my power right now, blah blah")

 

[CCamfield]

The thing that I don't get is, well... having those minions appear and possibly turn into full monsters and having more reinforcements sounds more grindy to me. A predefined number of waves of minions coming out - that's a grind right there.

The books already talk (at least in DMG2? I think?) about amping up the damage or granting the solo a new ability when it becomes bloodied.

Just... don't use solos alone? Use a lower level one with some additional allies?

And I can't emphasize enough (and I say this as an experienced WoW player and guild master), the enrage timer idea is completely and utterly horrible for D&D.

 

[fuzzlewump]

The thing that I don't get is, well... having those minions appear and possibly turn into full monsters and having more reinforcements sounds more grindy to me. A predefined number of waves of minions coming out - that's a grind right there.

The books already talk (at least in DMG2? I think?) about amping up the damage or granting the solo a new ability when it becomes bloodied.

Just... don't use solos alone? Use a lower level one with some additional allies?

And I can't emphasize enough (and I say this as an experienced WoW player and guild master), the enrage timer idea is completely and utterly horrible for D&D.

Wait so, reinforcements are more grindy, and yet you say to not use the solos alone? As someone who puts minions (1 hp) on the board with as many tokens I can find at the time (12 or so) I can say that they add an interesting component to any fight. Not to say to use them all the time, but they can be a dramatic component to an adventure.

 

[CCamfield]

I think it's the bit where, at the time that the players are in the middle of fighting with the boss, they are literally stopped from doing so, and having to fight a predetermined set of waves of minions. That's what I find "grindy". "Ok, if we kill these 12 minions... ok, 8 more... then eventually we'll get to fight the boss again." It seems like an artificial interruption to the boss fight, rather than ratcheting up the tension by throwing the reinforcements in at the same time as fighting the solo. That would force a player choice - do they try to finish off the solo, or divert attacks to take out the reinforcements?

A more natural interruption of the fight would be if the boss retreated deeper into its lair (considering this is a dragon), and its allies popped an ambush on the players as they tried to pursue.

 

[Saeviomagy]

I think that the key to avoiding grindy boss fights is to watch for reasons why players and monsters might be repeating the same action over multiple rounds.

Typically those reasons are either that the individual has no more encounter/daily powers OR that a tactic is working just fine and only requires at-will powers.

The solution is to make sure that these things don't happen.

For the first (running out of dailies and encounter powers), you need to give people things to do that are more effective than firing off all their dailies followed by all their encounter powers.

One of the ways to achieve that is by having terrain that gives a bigger benefit from using an at will than using a daily or encounter power will. Bullrushing a foe into the lava, grabbing them to keep them there, attacking terrain features to collapse them on top of foes and making skill checks to get something to go are all good examples.

Another way is to simply make sure that there is always some sort of condition that can occur which will make a daily or encounter power MORE valuable when the condition happens. Keep this up as a theme, and try to telegraph it.

For example: sure blasting the shapeshifting mithril golem with a fireball is a great idea, but wouldn't it be better to do it AFTER knocking over that vat of liquid nitrogen onto him? If the bad guy is helpless until the beginning of his next turn after whomping out his uber-attack, isn't it better to save brute strike for then? etc etc.

The second one is where we might consider "phases". If the dragon is going toe-to-toe with the party, and they've settled into a routine of "everyone hit the dragon with your biggest damaging at-will" and it's working for them, then the fight will be routine and boring. The dragon needs to mix it up. Taking wing would seem like like the obvious course to take, but unfortunately that means that most characters will be reduced to basic ranged attacks, which sucks. So if the dragon is going to take wing, something needs to be added to the encounter to make ordinary, boring ranged attacks a sub-par path to take. That could be one of two things: either the players get given something else to do (something to climb and leap upon the dragon from? Some terrain feature that can force the dragon to ground?) OR the dragon needs to mix up what the players need to do to survive (melt the platforms that the players are standing on with breath attacks! collapse parts of the ceiling! inhale for a mega breath that the players must take shelter from!).

All are very wow-like boss effects.

The important thing that you MUST remember if you do this is that the course of action must NOT be totally damning. WOW boss tactics typically TPK the raid if the raid doesn't understand what to do. You can't afford to do that with a D&D party: they can't just run it back. Courses of action should be relatively obvious (because the party will only get one shot at the encounter), and penalties for failure should be forgiving (at least the first couple of times).

 

[Markn]

Phased fights are awesome and do work.

I tried it for the first time a few sessions ago and it turned into the best 4e fight we have ever had bar none. My group fought a purple worm that was modified somewhat so that it had 3 standard actions per round - at 35, 25 and 15. I also added a few powers that let it attack further away so it wasn't always attacking the same person. But here is what I did to make it phased:

100%-75% HP's - Wormbrood (minions) came out of the ground and attacked PC's keeping them thinking not only on the worm but the minions as well.

75%-50% - A wall of water that was holding water back burst (due to the thrashing of the worm) and it flooded the lower part of the caverns. It turned out that this had almost no effect in play, other than two things. First, the wizard PC triggered it about a round early using an item that let him burrow and he enjoyed the surprise. Second, the only other PC that was affected by this was the dwarf fighter and he had boots that let him walk on water and was able to avoid being knocked prone. So it let the PCs shine with some items while vastly changing the landscape and the area in which the PCs could fith.

50%-25% - Again, the thrashing of the worm knocked stalactites loose from the ceiling which targetted everyone at the beginning of their turn. I made an attack roll and if hit did some damage. I had a few areas where 2 PCs could gain cover from the stalactites and this encouraged movement to those locations if they wanted to avoid the auto attack at the beginning of their turn.

25% - 0% - Fungus that was growing on the stalactites released a gas that targetted PCs 50% of the time at the start of their turn causing an attack that had some debilitating effect that was random between three effects. This gave some of the other classes a chance to shine.

In the end this fight was wicked awesome! Phased sole fights work very well. Use the terrain as much as possible, throw in things that can let classes shine during that phase and a good time will be had by all.

There were some previous threads of people who did the same thing, only I can't locate them. There were even better ideas in there. If anyone can locate them, I'd appreciae a post here.

And to the OP, good luck with future designs for solo battles!

 

[keterys]

I'd posted about one a... long... time ago:

Adult Black Dragon, level 11 Solo (3000 XP)
~8 Blackspawn Hordelings, level 9 Minions (800 XP)
Falling Stalactites (500 XP)
Caustic Geyser (400 XP)

Phase I: Overconfident
In the first phase, it assumes they will be easy meat for its attacks and takes few precautions to defend itself properly. It tries to group the party up as much possible for breath weapons and uses an action point to use frightful presence and a breath weapon in the same turn. Phase I ends when the dragon is reduced below 450 hp.

Phase 2: Suddenly Cautious
It will begin to use Cloud of Darkness to serious effect so it can try to work its way past defenders to more fragile strikers or controllers in backlines and take them down. It likely burns its second action point during this phase so that it can use both a cloud and breath in one turn, or something similar. Phase 2 ends when the dragon is bloodied.

Phase 3: Rage
When bloodied, the dragon lets loose an awful roar and breathes. Its eyes gleam with eldritch energy and the entire cavern shakes and its four pools of water boil with acid surging to the surface. The Falling Stalactites trap is triggered by its breath. It can then fly into its acid pools to make them burst out as a caustic geyser attack when it goes in, and when it goes out on its next turn. Each pool can only be used in that manner once, but continues to deal acid damage to anyone who falls into them. Phase 4 begins either when it's reduced to 140 hp or after the rain of stalactites ceases.

Phase 4: Desperation
It calls upon the powers of a demon god, promising it payment, in exchange for its help. From the dragon's scales, blood, and the acid of the pools minions begin to form. Four form immediately widely separated, then 1 emerges from one of the acid pools each round until the combat ends. It likely spends a lot of time in a cloud of darkness at this point as it fights in whatever way makes the best tactical sense .