I would...just build three separate opponents (or however many you want forms for) and have them do a brief monologue and transformation scene when one is removed from the fight.
What sort of encounter are you looking for?
If we're going by the Final Fantasy genre of the trope, I'd imagin they start as a powerful magi-sort of opponent (gestalt magus/brawler or something?), who "transforms" into a immensely muscular version of itself (warpriest/barbarian?). Then they unfold into some kind of mountainous, tentacular horror (giant lake octopus sorcerer?), and finally into an otherworldly version of their first form (glowing eyes, shifting tattoos and you can't forget the classic one angel wing/one demon wing-type of aesthetic that FF is so fond of.)
been there done that.
9th+ level nimble guardian npc monk (the prince's personal guardian). most of the time he's a little kitten (Diminutive animal, young cat form) then goes into normal medium catfolk for normal threats. then if need to get down to buisness turn into a huge warcat form.
he got a Ring of Eloquence to talk in any form. and ring of ki mastery to make sure it only cost 1 ki to change shape (he can probably technically also take large and tiny sizes and spread the 'not final form' in a real Dragon ball manner from the level 7 beast shape ii ability)
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One encounter I'd want to run is a swarm bursting from a body. The players hit the body and immediately things get so much worse. You can easily do this at lower levels with a giant spider, a spider swarm and a zombie covered in webs.
Another example is the undead abomination. The BBEG immediately rises as an undead horror after he's been killed. Unless the players manage to cast Temporal Stasis, ofcourse.
Adding a template after each point where it changes to a new form - a death or whatever - does sound like an idea to keep the prep from getting unreasonable, but not just the same template. Fiendish then giant or whatever has more flavour than mutant * X.
I think the closest I've come to this was one of the bosses from the "Gorilla Island" adventure I devised for my Freeport campaign. I built a high girallon with a few levels of cleric, and created a version of the demon-possessed template (from Green Ronin's Advanced Bestiary) based on a baregara. (It's a CE outsider, but not a demon. However, it fit the simian theme better than any true demon did.) That brought her up to CR 11, which was a challenging solo encounter for the PCs after fighting their way through the rest of her tribe's lair. Then, when they defeated her, her blood rose up into the air and materialized into the baregara that had been possessing her all along--which was CR 12, when they were already low on resources. It was an epic fight!
(In hindsight, I probably should have given her a language in common with the party, just so there could have been more opportunity for villainous banter.)
You could add another stage to this method by having the villain not be possessed to start with, and just fighting at their normal power level. But when they hit a certain level of hurt, have them produce and use an item that unleashes a fiend, which promptly possesses them and boosts their abilities by a couple CR's. Then, when the combined form is defeated, have the (unhurt!) fiend itself materialize to fight the party. Templates like demon-possessed, devilbound, etc., vary in CR adjustment by how powerful the possessing fiend is, so choose a middling-to-powerful one whose own CR is a little above the host's CR while possessed.
I have a Kasatha Tetori Monk that turns into a freaking spider at around level 15 due to Fiendish Obedience Mazmezz... four arms, eight legs... Hamatulatsu, Hamatula Strike, Throat Slicer... gross.
You could have the transformation happen halfway through a battle, if you wanted... just level up the bad guy mid-combat... poof, size large spider Monk, full health, and a few new tricks...
Using the Evangelist prestige class gets you Spiritual Form, which could further add wings or a tail...
"Behold my true power!!!"
-Dracula, Castlevania SoTN.
Be a Human Reincarnated Druid with Mark of the Devoted... rise as a JuJu Zombie 1D4 minutes after they kill you... or something else 1 day later... either way, you're coming back. Lol.
Oh, become a Lich... things just got wierd...
back in the olden days of 3.x, I got the Book of Vile Darkness and there was a feat called Masochist(?) that any time you took 50+ points of damage from a single hit, your strength got a +2 bonus.
Once my party hit 20th, I sent a Red Half-Dragon Troll Barbarian after them with the feat. The main fighter-type couldn't do less than 50 per swing and just kept hitting him, but thanks to his immunity to fire and regeneration, they couldn't kill him, just knock him down for a bit. Eventually he got up and backhanded the Cleric who had wandered to close. I rolled the trolls damage out in the open, like a 1d8 or so, rolled a 2, announced the cleric took 143 points from the swat...they had hit him, just so many times!
My PCs actually begged OOC for the fighter to stop hitting him. Good times, good times.
Ah, yes. The BoVD.
...what a terrible, terrible supplement.
I think that was the only thing I ever used out of it.
Right? Exalted Deeds had some great stuff in terms of the philosophical implications of being the Goodiest Good and what that meant in a game that had objective Good and Evil.
Meanwhile, it's evil twin gave us an interpretation of evil that ranged from immature to actually comedic to downright offensive. I mean, I liked the way they described and gave of an example of different types of evil people and stuff like that...but that was like, 2-3 pages.
That is a pretty great opponent, though. I ran a half-black dragon pyrohydra a while ago to similar (but obviously less devastating and hilarious) effect.
Right? Exalted Deeds had some great stuff in terms of the philosophical implications of being the Goodiest Good and what that meant in a game that had objective Good and Evil.
Meanwhile, it's evil twin gave us an interpretation of evil that ranged from immature to actually comedic to downright offensive. I mean, I liked the way they described and gave of an example of different types of evil people and stuff like that...but that was like, 2-3 pages.That is a pretty great opponent, though. I ran a half-black dragon pyrohydra a while ago to similar (but obviously less devastating and hilarious) effect.
that feat and the picture of the "cloud fist" smashing some poor sod on a hill (Fist of a Vengeful God, or something like that) are about all I remember from that book, though now that Mark mentioned it, I do remember the Emperor Armor with the chained urchins.
Still, better than the Book of Erotic Fantasy...ick.
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BoVD gave me one idea I ever actually used: there was a villain in the book that just had normal, mundane victims chained to him such that any attack on him had the chance of hitting an innocent.
I took that and ran with it recently for an interesting encounter where there were mundane, innocent NPCs chained to the sides of massive lizard creatures which in turn were being ridden by demons. If the PCs wanted to target the bad guys with ranged or AoE attacks, they had to be extremely careful.
I took that 1 step further.
Exotic weapon proficiency (Baby in a sack)Weapon Focus (baby in a sack)
Shield proficiency (7 year old child)
Armor proficiency (babies strapped to body)
Then charge at the paladin. If the babies die it's his fault for not dodging.
Oh, right. The Dread Emperor, the guy who just said he was the emperor of the world, lived like...on the Astral Plane? --and occasionally frequented large cities to buy/sell/trade magic items and replenish his stock of children he used to take damage for him and to power metamagic spells.
And the Crushing Fist of Spite. 20d6 to one 5f5 square per round. "What do you do with the highest level of magic available to mortals?"
"I punch folks. With an evil hand."
I also liked all the ones that hurt you to cast, like: you cut off your hand and it turns into a spider! You spit your tongue out at people and it, like, grabs them and stuff! You spit your tongue out at people, but it turns into a snake this time! Your fingers explode off your hand like little missiles!
For this transforming boss fight though--or for any 1 Vs party encounters, really--I wonder if giving an opponent multiple turns in a round would help much? And multiplying hp. Like, if they've got 3×the hp and take 3 turns each round, but don't have 3×the attack bonus or damage...that would hopefully make the combat last more than 2 turns.
Oh, right. The Dread Emperor, the guy who just said he was the emperor of the world, lived like...on the Astral Plane? --and occasionally frequented large cities to buy/sell/trade magic items and replenish his stock of children he used to take damage for him and to power metamagic spells.
And the Crushing Fist of Spite. 20d6 to one 5f5 square per round. "What do you do with the highest level of magic available to mortals?"
"I punch folks. With an evil hand."I also liked all the ones that hurt you to cast, like: you cut off your hand and it turns into a spider! You spit your tongue out at people and it, like, grabs them and stuff! You spit your tongue out at people, but it turns into a snake this time! Your fingers explode off your hand like little missiles!
For this transforming boss fight though--or for any 1 Vs party encounters, really--I wonder if giving an opponent multiple turns in a round would help much? And multiplying hp. Like, if they've got 3×the hp and take 3 turns each round, but don't have 3×the attack bonus or damage...that would hopefully make the combat last more than 2 turns.
Trailblazer had a boss system like that, you multiplied the BBEG's hit points by the number of PC present* and they also had an action(hero) point system that only bosses could use for extra turns. I've found they help a great deal with solo-boss encounters.
*should a PC fall, they recommend just silently taking off that portion of the extra hit points