Boss Fights! Changes You Made or Wish You Had [SPOILERS]


Rise of the Runelords


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Some of the most memorable moments in this AP are the bosses at the end of each book. Half the fun in running these encounters is to tweak or customize them to make them challenging to the PCs. What are some of the changes you made (or wish you had) with the iconic bosses in this AP?

Spoiler:
After their first encounter with Xanesha, my PCs absolutely grew to despise her. I did not change her too much mechanically when I ran it initially, but I had her become a recurring villain who went up in sorc levels. I ended up replacing Lucretia with Xanesha, and then also had her offer help to the PCs in taking down Mokmurian (her greatest rival) in Book 4. It was particularly entertaining to watch them overcome their temptation to kill her in order to defeat the "greater" evil. Of course, this was all a part of her master plan to take over Karzoug's organization.

Some mechanics changes that I am planning on making for the third run-through:

Aldern Foxglove as a Slayer
Mammy Graul as a Witch


If you replaced Lucretia with Xanesha, then who was running the Paradise operation while Xanesha was in Magnimar? And was there any clue-filled letter amongst Xanesha's belongings when the party cleaned out the clock tower?


Bellona wrote:
If you replaced Lucretia with Xanesha, then who was running the Paradise operation while Xanesha was in Magnimar? And was there any clue-filled letter amongst Xanesha's belongings when the party cleaned out the clock tower?

There was a 6 month time lapse between Book 2 and Book 3 in my campaign. My PCs were engaged in doing some missions around Varisia for the Pathfinders.


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I changed Mammy Graul into a Gravewalker Witch with the Flight, Cauldron and Eat People Hexes. Her first action upon being attacked by the party was to Dimension Door out of her tiny bedroom and into the yard. She then proceeded to raise all the Ogrekin, dogs and the giant spider the PCs had previously killed as zombies while the party blundered through the house trying to figure out where she went.

Flying witch dropping spells on the party from above while they were being swarmed by the reanimated corpses of the foes they had just dispatched made for a much more interesting battle than beating a disgusting old woman to death in her bedroom.


Lets see:
Nualia: Ran her as is but she escaped players founder her and Elyrium(who also escaped) in book 4. She had gone full half fiend and had some levels in divine scion
Justice Ironbriar: Made him an Inquisitor, had a good melee fight with the party.
Barl Breakbones: Left him the same, made his minion the defeted ogre clan leader instead of a stone giant. He had barbarian levels, and I built him with knockdown and combat reflexes and greater trip. Never got to use him. Party did not do well against the witches, so I have Barl just taunt them and let them leave. For some reason they have never gone back (they are now in book 5.)
Mokmurian: I changed a couple of spell around after he watched the party fight and then they had to rest, so I could reprep spells. Went for max AC to stop the paladin, barbarian, and inquisitor. It worked quite well for a while. Also had Kaven and Lucricia in the fight, they didn't last long.

One kind of regret from that fight, after the paladin, inquisitor, and barbarian moved into the fog blindly I should have cast wall of force over the doorway, and used dimension door to get to the other side, and could have easily killed the party cleric, bard, and Shilelu. I say it is a kind of regret because there would have been a party wipe if I had done that. Instead only the paladin was left standing when the smoke cleared.


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Kalshane wrote:

I changed Mammy Graul into a Gravewalker Witch with the Flight, Cauldron and Eat People Hexes. Her first action upon being attacked by the party was to Dimension Door out of her tiny bedroom and into the yard. She then proceeded to raise all the Ogrekin, dogs and the giant spider the PCs had previously killed as zombies while the party blundered through the house trying to figure out where she went.

Flying witch dropping spells on the party from above while they were being swarmed by the reanimated corpses of the foes they had just dispatched made for a much more interesting battle than beating a disgusting old woman to death in her bedroom.

Nice! I am totally going to steal these tactics. Thanks!


I completely rebuilt the Aldern Fight because there was absolutely no possibility of Aldern lasting more than 2 rounds vs my party.

*I rebuilt both Aldern and Iesha into undead faceless stalkers but Aldern gained the "undead lord" trait, granting him a desecrate aura. Aldern started the fight with an attack to his face by Iesha but drank a potion of greater invisibility.
*Put several low level undead in the encounter like ghouls, juju zombies, crawling hands and zombies.
*Changed the fungus on the wall and reworked it so that Vorel's fungus would constantly animate undead every round during the fight but the undead would spend their first round animating before they could take an action.

The fight lasted about 5 or 6 rounds with the lower level minions being one rounded and the druid sitting a flaming sphere on top of vorel's fungus stopping it from raising undead.

Aldern managed to drop the tank and do some serious damage to the wizard but was eventually dropped by a combination of area attacks and the wizard having the foresight to keep a "see invisible spell" up his sleeve.

I also completely reworked his treasure because I thought it was way too much money for the total encounter, changing it to a total 12k pool of items I knew the party would actually make use of.

If I was to replay the encounter I'd have the spawning undead immediately attack and also have multiple undead spawning instead of one at a time. In my case the party ripped apart the minions with ease.


For Nualia, I had a 6 PC party, so I had upgraded the Yeth Hound to a Shadow Mastiff and given her max HP and time for her full buffs. Still, she only lasted about 5 rounds. The Paladin standing next to her smiting may have had something to do with that. The Mastiff lasting 2 more rounds due to concealment.

I would have put her fight in a bigger room. She had no way to get out of the small room, and the Paladin crit her as she tried to finally run (of course, because she could have withstood a normal hit). She bled out while they finished off the Mastiff. She never stood a chance at escaping. Additionally, I would give her an extra level to compensate for my group numbers. Probably not necessary for smaller parties.


My PCs faced Nualia in the chapel. It was a two-stage fight, with the PCs taking on the goblins in the audience while Nualia was wrapped up in her ritual. Once all the goblins were destroyed, Nualia's ritual finished and the two yeth hounds materialized from the Abyss. The PCs then proceeded to have the final boss fight inside the chapel.


I made Nualia an Anti-Paladin, one of the PC's was an Orphan Aasimar Paladin from Sandpoint so they were thought of as sisters and had been best friends growing up. I Also had 2 hounds with her and I think gave her an extra level, she lost but dropped about half the party. I gave her a dimension door effect so she teleported out before dying and returned later to drop all but one of the party before they killed her. Know she has risen as a Demon to stand alongside Karzoug against the party.

I have given most bosses some extra levels (5 pc party) and usually make sure there are some mooks/summoned creatures to prevent the party mobbing the boss.

Mokmurian has 4 Runeslaved stone giants the pc's had killed the day before a Dire Tiger and Tyranosaur and had stacked Cloudkill, Stinking cloud and Solid fog on the door which made the pc's lives interesting


I altered Aldern by adding a couple class levels and changing what magic items he had - he had Slippers of Spider Climbing instead of a magical war razor. First round of combat he ran up the wall onto the ceiling and proceeded to go after his Hated Target (the ranger/wizard who dismissed him back in Sandpoint, meaning he didn't have any opportunity to fixate on the strong half-orc barbarian). Sadly he didn't last too long as the new sorceress in the group cast Strangling Hair and... well, that's one truly nasty spell. ^^;;


(Yes, I know that this is technically thread necromancy. I prefer to add to an old thread instead of starting an identical one.)

Nualia as a Warpriest 6 (Evil and Strength blessings and slightly re-organised ability scores) has given both my groups a run for their money.

Ironbriar will probably be a Warpriest 8 (cult leader archetype).

Right now, I'm pondering if Aldern needs a class-based face-lift, particularly when the party meets him again. Any suggestions? I'm open to almost anything up to and including the ACG (although a few classes and/or archetypes are on my personal ban list for this campaign).


I'm gonna redo Aldern as a Slayer. Seems to fit his singleminded and obsessive nature than just Rogue.


Adventure Path Charter Subscriber

Re-imagined Elyrium as a Half-Field Goblin Snake Sorc 3, a little more Offense, a little less defense, the party had to fight her twice. Even still, if I did it again, I would make the sin spawn pool work cinematically - let her keep making Sin Spawn all she wanted until she was done.

Golarion Goblin wrote:
I'm gonna redo Aldern as a Slayer. Seems to fit his singleminded and obsessive nature than just Rogue.

I'd love to see what you do with him.


In the very last fight (which my players did end up winning) I swapped the 2 CR 14 Wardens of Thunder (which I was pretty sick of by that point) with 2 CR 14 Stone Giant Elders from Giants Revisited.

I also changed their spell list to include ice storm instead of stoneskin.

I did this partly because the party was basically constantly in energy resistance (electricity) by this point in the adventure and I wanted a source of light pressure that wasn't covered by defenses they had established, and partly because the storm giants don't fit in the map as presented in the module and I didn't feel like coming up with a new layout. They're still rewarded for prepping the electricity resistance by the presence of the blue dragon.

It worked well - 10d6 of no-save damage per round added a nice bit of pressure without being overpowering.


Golarion Goblin wrote:

I'm gonna redo Aldern as a Slayer. Seems to fit his singleminded and obsessive nature than just Rogue.

the Lorax wrote:

I'd love to see what you do with him.

+1 for that.

Now that it's been suggested, I'm pondering Aristocrat 1/Rogue 2 (to keep Evasion)/Slayer 4, or alternatively Rogue 2/Slayer 5 (cut-throat archetype). (I did toy briefly with the idea of the Stygian slayer archetype, but then dropped it as being too magic-focused.)

In all cases, I'm assuming that Aldern has managed to re-train from his previous classes into whichever one(s) I eventually re-build him.


After they killed Aldern, my group chopped off his hands and feet, cut off his face and had it facing his rear, and left him in the chamber with the mold.

When they returned, the mold was gone as was the body. They'll be running into a Mold That Walks later on. ;)


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Just make sure his head is facing backwards when he makes his reappearance :-)

Dark Archive

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Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

Not sure I like that monster without the alliteration, Tangent. How's about "The Mold That Meanders?"

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