I recently read the Boss Fight mechanic by AngryDM and really like it. So I want to break down the Meyanda Fight (WILL take place in the reactor room) into three stages:
Stage 1:
Meyanda will cast spells and make use of her inferno pistol, as written in the book
Stage 2:
Meyanda will shoot the reactor, or some pipes, triggering the radiation + set some other environmental hazards (streams of hot gas/plasma, burning tiles, electric arcs, and so on)
Stage 3:
Meyanda would rather die in a big bang taking the PCs (and the town) with her. She deactivates some more safety protocols / disables the reactor cooling / overloads the reactor, so in x turns it will explode.
For the "x turns" I think I will have to adjust on the fly, because I really don't want the reactor to blow up. It will probably not be a fixed amount of turns, rather some nasty alarms going off and messages on androffan, saying "reactor failure, internal pressure exceeding safety parameters".. So no matter if the PCs re-enable the safety protocols / cooling during the fight or after the fight, it will be a last second rescue.
The environmental hazards will make the encounter slightly harder, but not much. Also I plan to give Meyanda a few more hitpoints, to prevent the PCs from slashing her down to stage 3 in the first combat round. To counter that I will remove the collector drone, or rather replace them with a few of the weaker scrapwall orcs, to bind the PCs in melee, while Meyanda gets some shots from behind.
I still have to find out some way to get her disengaged from a possible melee for the transition to stage 3. I houseruled in "Villainpoints" for some special monsters and bosses, a counterpart to the hero points, so she can disengage (5-ft-step), go to a console (move) and engage the reactor destruction (standard).
But I also like to interrupt the PCs turn, as soon as a player "kills" her at stage 2. I liked the idea of a spell or grenade (although grenades take one round to explode) that flashbangs the players, so she has some time to use the console (and of course release a super-villainy quote while doing this)
This is still a rough idea, no exact stats calculated, but I wanted to see, what you think about that change in the AP.
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I dunno if I'd run Meyanda as a "three stage boss" - unlike Hellion, she's basically a humanoid with class levels, not that different from the PCs. I think it feels much more artificial with her than it'd feel with Hellion.
Also, considering how hideously painful radiation damage is, don't count on anything after that taking more than a round or two or everyone will be dead already.
I think the main thing in the Meyanda fight is to realize she starts up on the ledge where the players have to actually work to get to her, rather than on the ground floor.
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After running the Hellion fight, I certainly would recommend the three stages method for him. He's got tons of HP and hardness, it can be a really long fight. Using the three stages method it'll feel a lot more like there's actual progress in it.
That's why I wanted more "weak" stages, the Hellion Boss variant transforms and changes the place of fight, while Meyanda only changes her tactics or the environment. Maybe radiation would be too hard, although the book already says, that she will shott the ractor, causing radiation in the room, so with stage 2 there is not really a big change other than naming it "stage"..
I really like the idea of running her as a boss, because she is the BBEG of that adventure, and the scene kind of deserves a slightly more epic fight, than just grinding her and her robot (which I think is the much bigger problem with his hardness) down
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Thing is, she shoots the reactor when she's just about to drop, not halfway through the fight like you made it sound. Because she needs the reactor for her mission; she'd only shoot it if she lost all hope of winning.
Also don't underestimate that fight. If she's up on the platform and the robot is making it hard for the PCs to get to her, she can really do a number on them with her gun. She's shooting at touch AC, +1 gun, with deadly aim (+4), point blank shot (+1), divine favor (+2) and favored enemy human (+2); that's 1d6+10 damage per shot. And the PCs may have just had to fight their way past a lot of other hard-hitting monsters (gearsman, gargoyle, ratfolk rogue teams) too.
You are right, didn't see these bonuses. Although it should be "only" +9, divine favor should give +1 for each 3 levels (she is 5 levels of cleric).
I still like the 3rd stage, so I will simply change her tactics from shooting the reactor to disabling the cooling, causing a time limit for the PCs (which really is none, because at every given time the reactor can be "just before exploding").
If the PCs act really stupid (which is totally possible in my group) I still could live with them blowing the whole town up, means just more work for me to get a complete new group back on that trail.. :D
But I also still like the 2nd stage activating some environmental dangers. Maybe I will also keep this, but make it not as much threatening for the group. Some tiles on fire should not be that much of a problem. As a bonus, I can test, whether my dwarf player learned from a situation a few years ago in DnD 4e, where he had the option to stay in his tile, hitting the monster in front of him, or 5-ft-step out of that tile and survive, because that tile he was in was burning. He chose to die before he could hit the enemy again :)
I'm playing with the idea removing or at least weakening the collector bot anyways..
What I mean by "more epic" is not that the encounter should be harder, just more interesting due to some things changing while the fight goes on, instead of just grinding hitpoints down
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You could telegraph the seriousness of the reactor with warning lights, sirens and so forth; maybe it doesn't take so well to energy effects (lasers, fire spells) being used nearby and makes warning noises every time someone does that. That doesn't really need to have a lot of game effects yet.
Or it could activate some fire extinguishers in the building, creating wet hazards and or fire control foam.
The collector bot was a bit underwhelming as I recall, but when I ran it the PCs tried to pacify the gargoyle first by promising it speech implants. It was still more loyal to her though, so they were fighting both at the same time. But afterwards they brought the gargoyle back, and the town cleric is now trying to domesticate it.
maybe it doesn't take so well to energy effects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt0sH1C_XBc
:D
maybe it doesn't take so well to energy effects:D
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I like the boss mechanic, but I feel that if every villain has the boss mechanic, it dilutes the "special snowflake" flavor of the mechanic.
You can make things interesting, and make each BBEG different, without using that mechanic for all of them. The enviromental damage is an example. You could have some enviromental effects, even if it's not staged as a videogame 3 phase final fight.