Bosses with multiple targets / pieces, Multi-form bosses, and superbosses


Homebrew and House Rules


First off for those who don't know what I'm even talking about a brief description on what each type of boss is:

Multiple targets/pieces:

As the name suggests this type of boss has multiple parts that can be targeted. In most cases each part is considered a separate monster therefor have their own stat blocks with unique abilities and/or spells. Also in most cases when the main core of said monster is defeated the entire monster is defeated.

multi-form:

This type of boss has multiple forms as in you kill form a it transforms into form b so on and so forth until you defeat its final form.

last but not least

superboss:

A boss, by design, that is supposed to be tougher than the final boss. A high level boss that has an insane amount of hit points and loaded with abilities and spells that could kill an unprepared party in ONE HIT or at least very very quickly.

So knowing what these kinds of bosses are do you think they could fit into pathfinder?

Paizo Employee Developer

Multiple Targets could work, though I'd make sure you treat each creature as its own CR and calculate the EL based on that, assuming each part can take its own action.

Multi-form is also workable. Heck vampires transform when taken to (or below) 0 (though it's into mist). It's not unprecedented, just make sure you take into account party resource usage. Maybe give them a 1 round breather. Otherwise the EL might get wonky. It's not 2 simultaneous creatures, nor is it really 2 separate encounters if the next form is immediate.

The Superboss idea isn't new at all to PF. Often the final encounter of an adventure has an EL or features a monster 2-3 levels above the party. Just look at dragon breath. Some unfortunate (or fortunate, from the dragon's perspective) rolls could kill several party members if the dragon is old enough.


I don't see a problem with a Multiple Target enemy, so long as you make it clear to the players what is considered a "normal" target, able to be hit without extra penalties. Would you be planning on giving each piece it's own action sequence each round? If so, it's not really any different than facing off against a squad/party that must remain in formation at all times.

It'd also be important to remember area-effect abilities are going to be able to be used to hit more than one area of a Multiple Target enemy.

Multi-form enemies might be more difficult to deal with. If you don't plan on having "spill-over" damage from one form to the next, expect to hear complaints from people who used their more powerful attacks/spells at the beginning of the fight.

Superbosses are something that I'd object to. Any boss that could TPK with a single hit either needs to be handled in a cinematic (oustside of combat) fashion, or should be treated as background enemy masterminds, who will never actually be encountered (evil gods and so on).


Taking some inspiration from video games?

Honestly I think they can all fit rather well.

I've actually done multi-form with a homebrew and it went very well. It also makes for a great moment when your PCs realize they haven't won yet.

Honestly you just need to be careful with balance. These types of bosses can easily lead to a TPK.

Scarab Sages

mooks also accomplish this well... there should always be some meat in between the actual boss and the PCs.

I like the idea of a boss with multiple forms or multiple targets but for me it does take some of the realness out of it.

"what part of the boss are you attacking"
"...I don't know, whatever I can hit with a +12 on my attack..."

Also some players may get carried away with this. I've seen players that try to use called shots even when we aren't using any called shot rules... This would honestly aggravate that situation.


andromada369 wrote:


So knowing what these kinds of bosses are do you think they could fit into pathfinder?

No.

Just kidding.

Multi-form creatures exist in the game and have been part of Paizo Adventure Paths before. One creature in one such AP (#8) dies, but then is resurrected as a new creature, as an example. Some Frieza "You Have Not Witnessed My True Power" shenanigans are kind of unwelcome, though.

I've done multi-target bosses before, and they were fun. Arms and torso seems to be a big thing for me, because, well, everyone will go for the head if you give them the option.

Super-bosses are already in the game, as Alorha mentioned. They're called dragons! :P Anything that's 2 to 3 CR above the party is free game, but you want to kind of fix them up if they're going mano e muchas mano with the party. Feats like whirlwind attack, great cleave, a lot of natural attacks, AoE save-or-suck or save-or-die spells are bread and butter to make these encounters not feel like lame cakewalks. On the other hand, if you want to describe Super Nova or Angel Tear or some other crazy summon animation real badly, go check out the Returner's Final Fantasy RPG here. I've played it. It's a system that, at its core, needs a lot of love, but the idea is there for you to harness.

If you're looking for good ways to make combat more epic, consider just rocking some really unusual or dynamic encounter locations. I know AP#14 has a fantastic encounter in a tower, and AP#44 has an encounter near the end of the book that defines "helplessness". These encounters, where the environment is the real danger, are always much more memorable, in my opinion, than encounters where the monsters are just very tough.

One time I had a dark sorcerer bind a man with a house and create a giant walking demon house monstrosity. It was very fun for the PCs to clamber around the house, jumping up and down around it, climbing around the inside of the house to find its weak points to kill it as the furniture attacked them. Lots of fun there, and lots of danger. A literal combination of enemy and environment :P


I have mixed reaction to these ideas. They are all workable, but all have drawbacks, so I think care is required in creating them.

The multiple target boss sounds an awful lot like the old hydras, which worked great until PCs figured out all they had to do was attack the body and all the heads would die. After that hydras became pushovers. So long as you can keep their vulnerability from being obvious, I think such a creature can be very entertaining as a boss.

The multiple forms I don't like so much, probably dating back to the frustrating experience I had playing one of the old Eye of the Beholder computer games, in which you have a horrific battle with some archmage who could inexplicably hurl two spells at a time, and when you finally beat him, he miraculously transformed into an ancient red dragon with full hit points. I must have died a hundred times trying to win that battle before I quit and gave up on the game in frustration. To this day I don't know how that battle is winnable without cheat codes (which I refuse to use) or many, many die, reload and try agains. This kind of boss monster can be cool, but can be tremendously frustrating and "unfair" in the eyes of the PCs as well, particularly as there is no save game option in PF/D&D.

The superboss, in my opinion, should only exist in the same way an evil deity exists, as some mover and shaker behind the scenes who the PCs may encounter occasionally, but are never intended to actually fight. Unless you want to have that encounter take place as the end of an entire campaign, at 20th level or even epic levels, when the PCs will have similar mindblowing powers.


Yes I got these ideas from video games, the Final Fantasy series to be exact. But when I think of a superboss I think of a one-off monster that's hard for level 20 and beyond characters to defeat. One that comes to mind quickly is Yizmat from FF12. This beast had a whopping 50 million hp and could kill a level 99 party that was unprepared in 2 swats of its paw.


Andromada369 wrote:
Yes I got these ideas from video games, the Final Fantasy series to be exact. But when I think of a superboss I think of a one-off monster that's hard for level 20 and beyond characters to defeat. One that comes to mind quickly is Yizmat from FF12. This beast had a whopping 50 million hp and could kill a level 99 party that was unprepared in 2 swats of its paw.

The problem with the FF "Superbosses" is that they're not usually part of the actual storyline, but extra things for players to do with their saved games, after they bore of beating down the "final" boss.

These extra fights (like the "Weapon" bosses in FF7) are really just there in order to give the game some extra playability. Those extra fights really aren't necessary in a Pen & Paper RPG... if the players REALLY want to dust off some uber-powerful retired characters, then the GM can easily whip something suitable epic up for them, outside of the campaign they retired from.


BigJohn42 wrote:
Andromada369 wrote:
Yes I got these ideas from video games, the Final Fantasy series to be exact. But when I think of a superboss I think of a one-off monster that's hard for level 20 and beyond characters to defeat. One that comes to mind quickly is Yizmat from FF12. This beast had a whopping 50 million hp and could kill a level 99 party that was unprepared in 2 swats of its paw.

The problem with the FF "Superbosses" is that they're not usually part of the actual storyline, but extra things for players to do with their saved games, after they bore of beating down the "final" boss.

These extra fights (like the "Weapon" bosses in FF7) are really just there in order to give the game some extra playability. Those extra fights really aren't necessary in a Pen & Paper RPG... if the players REALLY want to dust off some uber-powerful retired characters, then the GM can easily whip something suitable epic up for them, outside of the campaign they retired from.

That's exactly my thinking behind a superboss. Something that isn't related to the can give a challenge to über characters players may want to dust off.


Multi-Target Bosses

I like the idea, and it's been somewhat used in the RAW (the hydra allows you to chop off its heads with special sunder attacks). I've thought about using it in the past, and do enjoy the concept. The only problem I find is getting players to say "I attack the creature's _____", and to help them understand that such a mechanic only works against certain creatures so as not to introduce called shot rules where there are none. You could, if you don't mind a little meta-gaming, just tell the players that each limb on this enemy is its own creature/target.

Another option might be to make creatures like this so large that the players have no choice but to attack each particular limb separately. I've done this before, and it's worked out quite well (multiple tentacles each being their own target on a massive Kraken, for example).

Multi-Form Bosses

This is something I really don't like. I didn't like it in video games and I don't like it in PF. At least, not in the traditional sense of "You slay him, but then he gets back up as a monster! Rawr!"

I'm running a game right now wherein the players are about to fight a boss, and I intend for him to come back as a lich, plaguing the campaign world until they fight him again. That kind of multi-form boss I enjoy. But the kind promoted by JRPGs, particularly final fantasy really doesn't work for me.

Superbosses

This is a tough sell for PF. The whole TPK as a single action is a REAL problem, simply because, in PF, there are no save points, and there is generally no grinding. Dead is dead, unless the GM rules otherwise. Now, there are some creatures who can kill a player in one round (Dragons are a nasty example with all their natural attacks) if they really try. But generally that's a full-attack.

As for loads of HP, I do that all the time. If a scene really calls for a boss to be alone, I'll give it incredible amounts of HP (or AC, depending on the boss). Like, 150-200 at level 5. But that's just to give it staying power.

Alternately, I've also experimented with giving lone bosses a sort of "Boss-Haste" that gives them two turns within each round (rolling a second initiative check for their second turn). This has also worked out well, particularly with mages.

A few ideas...

-The Beast


andromada369 wrote:
That's exactly my thinking behind a superboss. Something that isn't related to the can give a challenge to über characters players may want to dust off.

That's all well and good, as a one-shot experience for retired characters, but I think it should be kept out of canon for the campaign (unless everyone agrees that it was awesome), and that it shouldn't cause any permanent problems for the characters (i.e. death).

There is merit to the idea, such as the history of D&D having "impossible" monsters... The Tarrasque, major demons/devils like Orcist... I even saw 2nd ed stats for the Jabberwocky at one point. Just make sure there's an unofficial "save" point before doing something like this.


Brian Bachman wrote:

I have mixed reaction to these ideas. They are all workable, but all have drawbacks, so I think care is required in creating them.

The multiple target boss sounds an awful lot like the old hydras, which worked great until PCs figured out all they had to do was attack the body and all the heads would die. After that hydras became pushovers. So long as you can keep their vulnerability from being obvious, I think such a creature can be very entertaining as a boss.

You could give incentive to attack limbs. What if the hydra's body had dr 10/- and lost a point of dr everytime a head was slashed? Sure, you could hurt it with magic, or be strong enough to stab through the dr, but attacking the heads could be important for some people.


One of the few things I really liked about 4th Edition was the addition of boss-type monsters that gained extra actions, either generally or based on certain triggers (such as being brought to certain HP thresholds) as a way of making single-monster boss encounters that actually work for a party of adventurers. Typically, a single monster gets annihilated by a party simply due to being outnumbered on actions, or totally obliterates a party because its actions have been inflated in power too far to make up for getting fewer of them than the party.

I think this is the idea behind a superboss: something with enough HP and enough actions or abilities that it can stand up against a party as a real challenge without any minions or additions on its side of the fight.

Dark Archive

andromada369 wrote:
So knowing what these kinds of bosses are do you think they could fit into pathfinder?

The first such critter I remember was the nine-lived guardian familiar that grows into a larger and nastier version of itself when killed.

Possessing creatures make good multi-stage boss fights, since the first fight can be with the demon-possessed host, and then, once beaten down, the demon itself can manifest and the final battle can occur.

Undead can also become multi-staged encounters, if a ghostly presence has animated a corpse, and once the corpse is destroyed, the spirit then presses the attack as a ghost/spectre/whatever.

A spellcasting BBEG, or a creature with the ability to project bits of it's lifeforce into the surrounding terrain, or to split off components from itself and send them to harry foes, could recover power as their minions are slain, whatever life-force or arcane/divine energy used to animate them leaves the slain animations and returns to the central creature, bringing it up to full power.

In the case of a genius loci sort of critter, the sub-creatures could be elementals, and as they are slain, glowing trails of energy spiral off through the forest or down the tunnels to the central creature itself, whereas a master vampire 'boss' could have created sub-vampires that, when they feed, feed him, and he sits immobile in his crypt, experiencing the world through his dominated drones, whose acts of feeding send him the vital energy he needs to exist. As each vampire is destroyed, their energies return to him, and when the last of his minions falls, he gets up from his throne (which he hasn't left for many decades) and enters the fight in person, to destroy those that slew his children (and intending to make them the replacements for the children they slew...).

Hybrid / symbiotic / parasitic creatures, such as an infested thing that has one or more swarms or oozes living within it, can also make for a multi-part boss, with the creatures lashing out from within the infested host until it is blasted apart (using it mostly as walking cover), and then boiling out when the host creature(s) are destroyed and attacking in full.

Even the simulacrum or animate dead[i] / [i]create undead spells could be used in such a way, by a spellcaster who has devised a spell or device by which they can re-absorb the energies used to create the simulacrum or undead (or summon the outsider), and boost itself. One minute, the party is facing the necromancer, and some of his undead, but the undead are almost blasted down anyway by the cleric's channel energies, so thenecromancer uses his special technique to re-absorb all of the remaining hit points from the undead, destroying them, but giving himself a powerful heal effect and possibly a fat stack of temporary hit points.

Unlike some of the previous ideas, where killing the minions only makes the BBEG stronger (as he automatically reclaims the energy he invested in their animation / creation), in this latter case, *not* killing the necromancer's minions (or conjurer's horde of demonlings) means that he's got an enormous battery of extra hit points waiting around, to be tapped as he needs them.

One might even have a reverse shield other link to some of his conjured or animated minions, so that if he is attacked, half of the damage done to him is shunted to a minion, probably destroying it, but allowing the master to remain functioning longer. The link might also be exploited by enemies, as it's possible that blowing up a linked minion through a direct attack might stagger him for a round, making it important to destroy the minions first and ignore the BBEG, since attacks on him are just going to be shunted away to expendable flunkies, while targetting those expendable flunkies might slow him down a bit, and remove that resource from him.

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