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Well, disarm stops them from threatening.
Dirty Trick can be used to nauseate, or blind them.
Reach weapons can help stop them from getting too close.
Snag Nets can be used to entangle foes, eating up their actions.
You can combine Whirlwind Attack with Sunder, Trip, or Disarm attempts.
Boss is a single powerful human fighter-type.
So your fighter captain doesn't know how to hire low level warriors? Give him 2 or 3 first or second level warriors and have THEM utilize repositions, bull rushes, and trip combat maneuvers to put the more powerful boss into favorable positions against the party. If you're worried about the possibility of this turning poorly for your players, have the mooks utilize only combat maneuvers or make them monks and have them deal non-lethal damage. You can always have the boss decide that if things are going in his favor, the PCs are more valuable to him alive and choose to non-lethal damage them until they go unconscious. He can then sell them into slavery and now your PCs have to jail break themselves (maybe with the help of an ally or two if a few decide to escape) and then take their revenge on their short term (or long term if the story benefits more from it) arch nemesis.
Just some ideas & brain storming there. Best of luck!
Fighter boss takes a potion of blur and gains concealment, no SA. cost for 2nd level potion is worth it as concealment negates sneak attack, even just 20%. Concealment is concealment.
RAW
The rogue must be able to see the target well enough to pick out a vital spot and must be able to reach such a spot. A rogue cannot sneak attack while striking a creature with concealment.
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Grappled opponents cannot flank, so a few minions can help here. It doesn't sound like its the answer you want though.
How about Whirlwind attack, spring attack chain with the magic item ignoring difficult terrain.
Edit: looks like I just though I was at the bottom of the thread lol, missed your additional info.
So he doesn't have minions and he doesn't have magic items. Which is good, because otherwise he'd kill the PCs without breaking much of a sweat... he's a lot higher level than they are. Him having minimal equipment and no minions or magic makes this a fairish fight, something like CR+2 or +3 instead of CR+4.
Doug M.
He's doomed. Action economy will slaughter him. If you want him to survive, you'll need to change this up.
If he's high enough level over them to negate that, you'll need to play him very carefully to avoid a TPK, more likely than not.
If the enemy hears them coming, have him retreat slightly into his cell to limit the avenues of approach. If he stands in the doorway of the cell, then the players can't get behind him. At best (assuming you have the cell line up on the middle of the squares instead of on the lines), they could be in a "squeeze" position flank, which would be a penalty to attack rolls anyway.
If it's a prison-break scenario, adding in a few low-level minions isn't that hard. Maybe a couple of his own lackeys came to help him bust out. Maybe he freed another couple prisoners on the condition that they swear loyalty to him. Heck, maybe he bribed the guards into letting him go.
Bottom line, the "One Big Boss" types of fights just don't work well in Pathfinder. Like others have said, action economy and the rules of the game are not kind to those sorts of fights.
The P.C's will just close the cell door and leave him there maybe take pot shots with arrows.
That's why he stands in the doorway. The PCs can't close the door on him then.
So they us one of the dozen ways to move someone 5 feet back or even just ignore him and walk by forcing him to chase them. If he has to stay in the door he loses all initiative (tactile sense) because the P.C.'s can just step back at any time don't even need a tank in that case.
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So, the bad guy wants to escape, doesn't have any of his gear or allies with him... this is easy. He shouldn't fight. Unless he's a mindless orc, his objective is NOT kill the heroes. It's ESCAPE THE PRISON. So... have him bull rush a weaker PC off a ledge or something while he makes a run for it, someone has to save the dangling halfling cleric while the armored fighter tries to chase down the big bad, who is running ahead, jamming doors shut, maybe stopping for a second on the other side to get a cheap shot in on a PC, but spends his move actions fleeing.
A good chase scene can be cinematic. Especially if there is some interesting terrain... a locked door to smash through, an overturned washtub spilling soapy water over a stairwell, a closing drawbridge to leap, maybe they even make it outside and have to quickly mount a horse and spur it (see ride skill) to catch the fleeing villain!
The PCs have 0 chance of dying to this tactic, so you can give him a little extra juice so you don't have to worry about "you lose initiative, you die" if they successfully catch him, hooray they feel great about the win, but if they don't, now they are responsible for freeing a new bad guy, and maybe feel guilty about it, compelling them to track him down while he rebuilds his (evil empire, crime family, gang of bank robbers, death cult) et cetera
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Of course if your group is less into cinema and more into rollin dice for big damages hur hur hur just take great cleave and power attack, maybe shield of swings so he can't one-hit you champs and will get a lot harder to hit even in flanking.
if you're worried about adjacency requirements for cleave, make him a dwarf (racial feat Orc Hewer (?) lets you ignore adjacency requirements vs medium enemies)
One level of Maneuver Master Monk can give you an extra combat maneuver every time you full attack. Also, there are a couple rage powers that let you do maneuvers in place of an attack instead of as a standard. Improved Disarm could turn the tables as well, giving him a weapon and keeping the PC's from threatening.
You could just use a Robe of Eyes. If you don't want to drop a 120,000 gp item, get rid of the other abilities it provides besides all-around vision.
Make the guy have a few body guard mooks. Due to the action economy alone the PCs will probably win this encounter if it's just a single enemy. Give him a buddy with a trip weapon. My personal favorite body guard involves a Flying Blade Fighter with Combat Patrol, and Improved and Greater Trip.
I rather like the baddie attempting to literally force his way out of prison. Make him an Unarmed Fighter (archetype in UC) with Iron Will and see if anyone can stop him. He's got a goal - and that includes a window or anything else he can dive/jump through to escape, presumably via conveniently placed river some considerable distance below.
Another option: up-ended tables for cover/difficult terrain. Perhaps he's just armed himself, but he hears the PCs in time to upend the table and hide behind it. When the PCs go in to investigate, the open cell and downed guards, he attempts to trip one and run past the rest as part of the escape.
Set fire on the prison! Have him stand with his back near a fire, if they wanna flank him, they take fire damage?
Bonuses to disarm and 5ft spam is a fairly decent way to go, perhaps he stole a shield from the guard as well, it might help.
I tend to /cheat/ a bit with boss fights, give them special attacks, like throwing a stool at their feet that might Prone them, or a short range breath attack by grabbing a torch and setting fire to the spirits he found at the guards desk. If you're evil and smart, there's plenty of things to do.
Cover a guard in spirits then toss a torch on him mid-fight. Release the inmates before hand, toss junk around to make difficult terrain. The Catch Off-guard feat is a decent one for bosses, if you wing it a bit and allow them to use things around them to hassle the PC's, especially when combined with Dirty Fighting.
So, the bad guy wants to escape, doesn't have any of his gear or allies with him... this is easy. He shouldn't fight. Unless he's a mindless orc, his objective is NOT kill the heroes. It's ESCAPE THE PRISON.It's unlikely (though not quite impossible) that he'll be able to escape. The PCs are in his way, so he really has no choice but to fight them. A cinematic chase scene is certainly possible, but it's not what I'm after here. There's a question -- WTH is he doing here, and where's the princess? (Not actually a princess. But the PCs are reasonably expecting someone else, not him.) Do the PCs try to negotiate this information out of him? (They're good-aligned, so torture not really an option -- though of course, that one guy will always try.) As it turns out, they can't -- Baron B. will attack them and fight to the death rather than tell them anything. What's that all about? Why...?
Well, that's the mystery. But in terms of what ensues, I want a combat, not a chase. I just want to make it a bit more interesting than the standard surround-flank-hack-hack-hack, if possible. Also, the PCs know that the Baron is a badass. I want them to have the interesting experience of fighting a higher level NPC who would normally be able to wax them -- except that he's stuck without his normal magic items, his high-quality equipment, and his servants. Bad luck for him, to be sure... but I still want to make this interesting and memorable.
(Now that I've explained -- twice -- why there aren't minions or magic items, can people stop suggesting minions and magic items? Thnx.)
Doug M.
Cad and/or Unarmed Fighter, going on memory, pack some mean punch potential with Greater Dirty Trick and Quick Dirty Trick. He'll sack 'em in the 'nads, eye poke 'em blind, throat punch 'em silent and otherwise dump massively unpleasant conditions upon them in a right hurry.
The only way this guy has a chance of surviving is along these lines as far as I can tell. You can't flank when you can't see and your other buddy is barfing up his lunch.