V. McNugget's page

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to create a memorable boss fight that presents real risk and desperation with my PC's. I think I have a great concept brewing on paper right now, but I would like a few people to critique for me.

So for the past few months, the players have been trying to create an airship for quick traveling. It took them a while, but I finally awarded them an airship and they are really excited. The next session we have will be their ship's maiden voyage to a Capitol city.

About 3 months ago, the group didn't finish off a group of young green dragons that were attacking a small town. One of them got away. This young dragon, it's mother, and more young dragons (siblings of the survivor) are going to ambush the group during the maiden voyage seeking revenge.

The fight is divided into three phases.

Phase 1 is just the adult (maybe older) dragon attacking the airship. It's weight causes the airship to tilt. Players moving in the direction of the Dragon must roll a balance check DC 20. Success, they move normally. Upon failure, they roll a d4 - 1 (minimum result is 1) and multiply the result with their total amount the moved, meaning that they are running too fast down a slope. They can accidentally run off the edge of the ship, which they must then make either a reflex save or a climbing check (whichever is higher) to grab onto the edge. Their action round must be spent getting back on the deck.

Phase 2, the dragon breaks from the group and begins flying around pelting the group with its breath weapon. Only ranged attacks are allowed. Two cannons will be available should melee characters decide to use them, but young dragons will begin to land on the ship to take out the ranged characters. Their weight does not tilt the ship.

Phase three, all hands on deck. The rest of the young dragons and the parent will land on the ship and engage combat. The adult dragon will fly off the ship after each breath weapon and land in a different location each turn. The tilting rule still applies with these changing positions.

The last condition is a tricky one that I'm not sure I want to incorporate. Whenever the parent dragon misses a physical attack, it strikes the airship causing it to lose hitpoints. The ship has a DR of 5 and hit points close to 800. Each missed attack is assumed to hit the ship and deduct hp. A breath weapon, no matter who it hits, also hits the ship.

If the ship survives, it will be repaired by the time they need it again (there is a crew of NPCs with it that will perform repairs). If not, they crash land and the group must find parts to complete the repairs causing a delay in the adventuring (but they won't know that during the fight).

Typed this up in a hurry, so sorry for the lack of details and grammatical errors. Please critique and let me know what you guys think.

I appreciate it!

Note: I found a similar question re: Telekinetic Force. People who replied said that at-will spell like abilities need to be limited when used for damage, but I'm not sure how I would do that in this particular case. I hope this isn't considered a repost.

In my campaign, there is a player that has created a psionic character Thrall herd class using psionics unleashed. He is using a psionic power called telekinetic force in a weird way that I'm not sure is legal.

First he has hoarded a massive amount of greatswords found littered in dungeons. None of them are magical. He keeps about 8 of them sheathed and strapped on his person. In his opening move, he uses Telekinetic Force to shotgun blast an enemy with all of them at once (he initially wanted to swing standard attacks with each one on each turn but I overruled it). At first, I didn'the believe that Telekinetic Force could be used for attacks, but there is a paragraph explaining the rules for attack rolls for throwing objects in the ability description. Then I thought that there was a limit to how many great swords he can launch, but that doesn't seem to be a limit for the ability either.

We've played a few sessions with it and i've found that an easy way to get around this is to give enemies damage resistance, but this makes enemies significantly harder for the rest of the group. I've also ruled that he can use that ability only once per fight since he would have to collect his swords to use it again.

I really can't understand why this would be legal, but I can't find a rule passage to challenge it. I'd rather not flex my DM muscle to limit his character yet again, because in his mind he's following the rules. Help?