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I feel that this trope is common enough that it could be used in a game as a fight mechanic or plot point. Maybe a villain is interrupted while performing a ritual that requires a sacrifice, and his death fulfills that last step - and transforms him into a terrible horror.
Or maybe a villain that the party already defeated returns from the dead shortly after as a powerful undead, and picks up his plans where they left off.
How would you feel about something like that happening, and what would you like to use such a trope for?
Paizo did that kinda(as an example) in escape from old korvosa i believe, with the urgathoan cleric villain if memory serves.
Might have been 7 days to the grave, but i know it was in the crimson throne AP.
I would be totally fine with something like this happening.
I had the BBEG necromancer of one of my campaigns do something similar to this. The PCs were invading his cathedral. He sent waves of undead minions and necromancers to stall the PCs long enough to finish converting himself into a lich (bottle-necked them at the door to his ritual room basically).
The first stage was him bleeding to death on an altar while casting offensive/buff spells occasionally. While he wasn't the main player in it, I think that still counts as a "first stage" of sorts.
After sufficient time had passed he finished ritually carving himself up and started walloping the PCs in his new lich form. He ended up winning though (oops).
Paizo did that kinda(as an example) in escape from old korvosa i believe, with the urgathoan cleric villain if memory serves.
Might have been 7 days to the grave, but i know it was in the crimson throne AP.
Yup. Actually caught us off guard when we were running through it.
I've seen it in a Module as well and its done very well:Feast of Ravenmoor Spoiler
Feast Of Ravenmoor's Final Encounter has a Cleric/Druid who fails to complete a ritual and the killing blow on him unleashes the creature thats been gestating within.
Equal parts gross and unexpected if you burst too much on the boss.
The trope is fun when done right. It helps to extend the fight but the second part needs to have an interesting twist thats not just more meat to cut through.
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It also happens in Carrion Crown.
Good times. ^_^
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This wasn't for a big boss fight, but back in the days of 3.5, I had my PCs fight that Gargantuan undead hound made of dozens of human corpses, but then had it fall apart when it "died" and had its component corpses rise as zombies.
This might actually work a lot better in 5th Edition....
Also, kind of similar, before I got the 5th Edition Monster Manual, I had to make up my own monsters. I made a Large giant that, when wounded became 2 Mediums, then 4 Smalls, then 8 Tinies. That was kind of fun.
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Paizo did that kinda(as an example) in escape from old korvosa i believe, with the urgathoan cleric villain if memory serves.
Might have been 7 days to the grave, but i know it was in the crimson throne AP.
They also sort of did it in Feast of Ravenmoor where the evil priest had a bug monster burst out from him after he died.
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I ran a highly modified version of TPK Games' The Reaping Stone. The BBEG in the printed module is a priest of a goddess of undeath; I switched it to a priestess of Urgathoa. I redesigned the boss battle, stealing a page from Seven Days to the Grave, and had her turn into a Daughter of Urgathoa after the party though they'd defeated her.
I used this trope later in a follow-on adventure when the party was fighting an evil sorcerer and his minions. The PCs killed them, only to have intellect devourers crawl out of their mouths and press the attack!
Dot.
Did this in a PbP. Got lots of complaints. Might just be my GMing. More later.
Paizo did that kinda(as an example) in escape from old korvosa i believe, with the urgathoan cleric villain if memory serves.
Might have been 7 days to the grave, but i know it was in the crimson throne AP.
Yup. Actually caught us off guard when we were running through it.
I've seen it in a Module as well and its done very well:** spoiler omitted **
The trope is fun when done right. It helps to extend the fight but the second part needs to have an interesting twist thats not just more meat to cut through.
It was definitely 7 Days to the Grave. We were so surprised by this that we called the second form "Random Boss" for weeks. The GM swears that if we had done more research we would have had some clues about what was coming, but we had no idea.
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Dot.
Did this in a PbP. Got lots of complaints. Might just be my GMing. More later.
I think it might just be inherent to PbP. The play is so slow that it could be frustrating when you think you're done with a fight only to have the boss transform.
Though it would probably be okay even then with some heavy-handed foreshadowing so that they expect it.
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It doesn't even have to be 'boss fights' either!
The Moyster Manual 5 back in 3.5 had a few monsters who changed their role/attacks once they were reduced to 1/2 hp.
The one I can remember was a magma golem of some kind. Basically, molten rock inside a suit of armour. It started as a tough but slow baddie that did some fire damage but after enough hits it changed to become faster, with a fire aura. The idea being as it got hurt, the armour cracked and more magma was exposed.
....something like that. I haven't looked in a long time.
Still, the concept is one of my favourites and would love to see a few more such creatures in Pathfinder.
It is too bad Deadman's Contingency can't be used to cast (Greater) Create Undead on yourself. That seems like it would work well for this sort of scenario. Have the Boss turn into some undead monstrosity (with class levels?) once you strike him down. That seems kind of cool.
It is too bad Deadman's Contingency can't be used to cast (Greater) Create Undead on yourself. That seems like it would work well for this sort of scenario. Have the Boss turn into some undead monstrosity (with class levels?) once you strike him down. That seems kind of cool.
Can't you just use vanilla Contingency for that?
It is too bad Deadman's Contingency can't be used to cast (Greater) Create Undead on yourself. That seems like it would work well for this sort of scenario. Have the Boss turn into some undead monstrosity (with class levels?) once you strike him down. That seems kind of cool.Can't you just use vanilla Contingency for that?
Yeah I suppose you can actually, at least with regular Create Undead. I've just had the new spells from UI on my mind lately.
I've done this once before with a BBEG in a homebrew game back when I ran 3.5. It works very well for groups that are used to the trope from video games, especially if you need to break something out in order to make a fight climatic (essentially, if you make a mistake and the party curbstomps the first stage, this is a good saving throw in my book).
The Moyster Manual 5 back in 3.5 had a few monsters who changed their role/attacks once they were reduced to 1/2 hp.
The one I can remember was a magma golem of some kind. Basically, molten rock inside a suit of armour. It started as a tough but slow baddie that did some fire damage but after enough hits it changed to become faster, with a fire aura. The idea being as it got hurt, the armour cracked and more magma was exposed.
Absolutely right. I loved the monsters they put out with this mechanic. They usually make for good encounters.
I'll have to remember to use this occasionally in my 5th Edition campaign.
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Had two of these recently.
One was a Large vermin with a Small parasitic wasp growing inside, which burst out when the host was sufficiently injured.
The second was an incorporeal energy creature which was animating a material body. When the body was heavily damaged the animating spirit abandoned ship and started fighting with a vampiric touch ability.
Both had a positive reception despite the first being a complete surprise.