General RPG DiscussionDiscussion of all RPGs and non-system-specific topics. DM/GM/player issues, settings, etc. Rules discussion belongs in one the forums below.
I would be tempted to have the guards capturing the players and holding them as prisoners. Have a sub-adventure of the players trying to perform a jailbreak and escaping. It may possibly generate enough XP for the players to level up, and have another go at fighting the boss.
What does the bad guy want? Does he realize that, since he can't leave, he is screwed? Why not bargain for his life?
Being a "miniboss" I assume he's got lots of information to give to the PCs. Have him trade his life for information like this. Maybe he has things he can teach the PCs - new rituals in 4E, or a prestige class, or whatever.
This might actually be better for the PCs. If they are able to get valuable information from him, they'll get more than they would just from killing him.
Anyways, while he's talking with the PCs, have him try to corrupt them over time. If you're playing 4E this could be a good place to use a skill challenge, but that requires a certain style of play.
__________________ "If people bring so much courage to this world the world has to kill them to break them, so of course it kills them. The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places. But those that will not break it kills. It kills the very good and the very gentle and the very brave impartially. If you are none of these you can be sure it will kill you too but there will be no special hurry."
-- Ernest Hemingway, "A Farewell to Arms" Burning Empires:Boldaq Keep on the Shadowfell
Let the guard lay siege to his castle/manor/dungheap/etc, while the pcs sneak in through the sewers/secret tunnel/wine celler/etc. The pcs MUST get the drawbridge down so the guard can take the castle before the bad guy's reinforcements/dragon/etc gets back to fry the guard. Or maybe they need to rescue prisoners, disable the magical whatsit, etc. The guard wades through the cannon fodder, the pcs have a chance to shine and save the day - or die horribly in a dungeon. :-) Also gives the bad guy a chance to use his more powerful spells/attacks before the pcs confront him.
First, what do you're players want? Some want to have the opportunity to take out high level guys with ingenuity, with the understood risk of absolute buttkicking being handed to them, while others prefer the game to be in a certain range of "fair" encounters. Have you asked them how they would like you to go about it?
How free are you with game-term info in game? If you describe stuff in a "in character" tone, you can fudge the numbers, cover it with story, and everyone gets what they're happy for.
I would say, have the guard fight the boss, and lose. After the guard has softened him up, run the boss as a solo a few levels higher than the party, and justify it as him already being pretty beat up. That way, the boss gets set up as a real threat, and the players get to save the day. Win-Win.
__________________ ~Sky
Professional Male
Certified P.H.A.T.Man
Don't assume that the PC's can't kill the miniboss. In my experience, motivated players can be surprisingly effective. I never put an NPC in the same room with the PC's and rely on him to live.
I agree with the various people who say that, in a sandbox style game, you shouldn't be lowering the miniboss's power level to make it more appropriate for the PCs. That said, a fight between a more powerful enemy and the PCs plus allies can still be fun and exciting. If the PCs lose, okay. If the PCs win because they brought along the right allies, that can be fine, too.
I've played in games where the PCs functioned as the clever people figuring out who needed to be taken down and when and then calling in the cavalry (in the form of allies or whatnot) to do the actual fighting. It can be very satisfying and fun. It's a little odd, and players who need the big fight to feel happy may be disappointed, but I like it as an approach. That said, if you go this way, you want to be careful to make the PCs manage their resources. If they get the guards killed now, there will be less (or less capable) guards next time (or the king may be unwilling to let the guards go with the PCs next time). If they're sending NPCs to put out fires, there more be more fires than the NPCs can deal with at any one time. And obviously, to the extent that there's opportunities for the PCs to wade in to play a critical role, that's great.
Trying to answer all the questions (apologies if I missed one!)
Yes, I was being a little vague partially because 3 of my 5 players have a reasonable chance of seeing this thread (though they pretty much know most details, just not the details about the miniboss other than a general idea). And also, partially to spare everyone a long-winded story about the miniboss. But, in order to answer some of the questions that were brought up ....
My players (D,J,M,E,and K), stop reading just in case! I know you're grown-up enough not to try and let this affect your actions, but still, just stop reading. :P
Background
Spoiler:
In very very basic terms, there is a powerful relic and trapped inside is the miniboss. While inside, the miniboss is tapping in to the relic's power and doing bad things.
The only way the PCs have found to destroy the relic would also free the miniboss trapped inside.
When they found the way to do this, I told them in game (by way of the NPC that gave the information) that "... it would be unleashing a very strong foe, the likes of which is unknown but power that they have not yet seen, as fearsome as some dragons of legend..." And, later, I told them out of game during a casual conversation that it is a very high difficulty creature that can kick their collective "rear ends" with but a gesture.
Thus, they are getting the king's men to come help them, hoping it will be enough.
About the miniboss
Spoiler:
The party is currently 5th level.
The miniboss (as originally conceptualized) is (I don't want to say the exact number) .... let's just say in the teens level). Generally, I have been okay with upping or downing a creature by a level or two from my original concept depending on the level or the party to keep things proportionally appropriate. However, deflating from "teens" to something for the 5th level party just seems like a huge deflate to me.
The miniboss is basically in the relic so he will pretty much 'be there' once the PCs go to it and do the thing
i will not have a hard time giving this miniboss some minions/cannon fodder.
Some options I've picked up from this thread so far ...
Spoiler:
* let the players run the royal guardsmen, and it turns in to an all out assault on the miniboss (in my particular situation, that might have mixed results, some of the players are just really attached to their PCs and running other things is outside their interest -- the idea of running a temp npc for a session came up once before and it had some player disinterest since it wasn't their own pc which is how i know. But it is an option that i like none the less so i want to still consider it)
* let the royal guardsmen focus on the miniboss while the PCs focus on the cannon fodder
* let the royal guardsmen focus on the cannonfodder while the PCs focus on the miniboss
* have the miniboss wipe the floor with the guardsmen (because, honestly, the miniboss could do just that, though it might be close...) and let the PCs make the decision to stay or flee (after all, they were warned in character twice whenever it came up and now they get to see it for themselves)
* another option i considered was to simply have the method of relic-destruction fail. but, it would come off as major cheese since this is something they've been wanting to do since they got the thing at the start of the campaign.
I may be forgetting some random relevant facts, but those are the main points that I can think of in response to the questions asked so far.
The suggestions have been great so far, thanks! If the above sparks any other ideas, by all means, feel free to share. I still have a couple weeks before the session itself.
__________________ If you're bored and like to follow links provided by random strangers, check out my ENWorld Blog http://www.enworld.org/forum/blogs/fba827/
It will have campaign logs and random thoughts...
Okay, I would definitely not deflate the boss under these circumstances. I also would have the PCs fight the boss; if there is cannon fodder, it should face off against the royal guardsmen, not the PCs. My first rule of DMing is that the PCs should always be the stars of the show.
Some ideas:
Spoiler:
When the PCs break the relic, there is a rush of howling, disembodied souls preceding the emergence of the miniboss. These souls attack the royal guardsmen and suck their life out in record time. The PCs have a chance to flee. If they don't, they fight the disembodied souls and can beat them back with an extreme effort. Again, they can flee at this point. If they still stick around, the miniboss himself emerges, opens up a can of whup-ass on the PCs, and then rips their souls out of their bodies. Now their bodies lie comatose where the relic was opened and their souls are being forced to serve in the miniboss's army; they have to figure out a way to slip their bonds and get back to their bodies before those bodies die.
Spoiler:
The miniboss has read his Sun Tzu. He knows the PCs are coming, but isn't sure how powerful they are, and doesn't want to fight them when they set the terms. So he creates a weaker simulacrum of himself and leaves it behind, with cannon fodder, to fight the PCs and the guardsmen, while the real miniboss makes his escape under cover of invisibility. The PCs can spot him with a really good Perception check, but he moves too fast for them to catch him. If they fail the Perception check, they don't spot the real miniboss and instead duke it out with the simulacrum; they can win without too much trouble, but drop a hint that their victory was a little too easy.
Spoiler:
To make it a straight-up fight, abstract the royal guardsmen to an extreme degree; basically, they deal 1dX damage to the miniboss per guardsman each round, and the miniboss's attacks kill 1dY guardsmen each round. Have the miniboss concentrate on the royal guardsmen first. Thus they serve to soften him up a bit and absorb his first few rounds of attacks, weakening him for the PCs to finish off - or not, as the case may be.
Last edited by Dausuul; 26th June 2009 at 02:00 PM..
Leave the boss as it is and remove the royal guard from the combat.
Not everything the PCs meet must be a easy to slightly challenging winable encounter.
__________________ Everything about RPGs is subjective, so everything I say about them is I my opinion and not hard facts
Having a backstory is good. Using this backstory in game is better. And for that you need background skills.
4E, the game where you play HSMFOS
Heroic
Only good, or at least unaligned adventurers are supported and no monster you can fight is good aligned.
Super-
The PCs become masters in any skill automatically and it is impossible for them to be bad at a mundane task
Mutants
Compared to NPCs of the same strength, PCs poses a ungodly amount of HP and can withstand huge mountains of punishment. That or they can spontaneously regenerate wounds.
From Outer Space
Yet despite no matter how powerful the PCs become, they can never do anything special what the "natives" (=NPCs) can do like animating a skeleton.
Remove the guards somehow from the equation. Have them focus on henchmen or somehow get taken out early.
Level the mini-boss down from impossibly high to just pretty hard.
The point of the game is for everyone to have fun, not teach lessons about the vagaries of sandbox style play.
The lesson to the players then becomes: "I the GM will void your actions if they don't fit my plans".
The players learned that the miniboss was too tough for them, and sought out allies to deal with it. That's smart play. Nerfing the miniboss or turning the royal guard into human rabble or whatever in order to create a balanced encounter is NOT FUN. It's not fun because the players by their actions have already indicated what they find fun: getting an advantage through cleverness that enables them to beat a superior foe.
What does the bad guy want? Does he realize that, since he can't leave, he is screwed? Why not bargain for his life?
Being a "miniboss" I assume he's got lots of information to give to the PCs. Have him trade his life for information like this. Maybe he has things he can teach the PCs - new rituals in 4E, or a prestige class, or whatever.
This might actually be better for the PCs. If they are able to get valuable information from him, they'll get more than they would just from killing him.
Anyways, while he's talking with the PCs, have him try to corrupt them over time. If you're playing 4E this could be a good place to use a skill challenge, but that requires a certain style of play.
I am S'mon and I approve this message.
This is exactly the kind of lateral thinking a GM needs to be doing.
I just ran two Goodman Dungeon Crawl Classics - "No NPC That Doesn't Need Killing". Well, that can get damn boring after the umpteenth combat encounter. Having the Duergar high priest negotiate a peace treaty & return of prisoners & loot, rather than just charge into the meatgrinder like the other 63 encounters as scripted, really livened things up IMO and made for a great change of pace.
I would say, have the guard fight the boss, and lose.
The "super bad ass NPCS who turn into total incompetents once they're on the side of the protagonists" is a common meme in adventure fiction, but one that I always try to steer clear of, and I advise other GMs to do the same.
Remember the SWAT team in Die Hard 2? Did you think that was a cool scene where they all got wiped out in 2 seconds, leaving the hero to save the day? Not me; it just trashed my Suspension of Disbelief. Compare with the perfectly plausible equivalent in Die Hard 1 - single corporate security guard ambushed and shot. Or the realstic, dramatic depiction of the police station massacre in The Terminator - the NPCs were doomed to lose, because they were hugely outmatched and didn't know what they were fighting, but the GM/Director didn't treat them with contempt. Another good example again by Jim Cameron is his treatment of the Colonial Marines in 'Aliens' - again, they don't know what they're up against, and they are defeated, but they're not treated as disposable minions.
If the *mini* boss wipes the floor with the Royal Guard, the King's best warriors, in a battle of their choosing, stop and think for a moment what message that sends the players. It reduces the RG to the level of cardboard cut-outs, like the Die Hard 2 SWAT team, only there to make the PCs look good. 99% of players will appreciate it far more if the Royal Guard are depicted as just as tough & competent as they ought logically to be. Then when the PCs eventually surpass them in power, it becomes a genuine achievement.
Going by the OP's update - if you're going to have trouble running the fight with the Royal Guard as statted, turn them into Minions. You do this by keeping their XP total, but raising their Level. Heroic Tier Soldiers become Paragon Tier minions. Then if they lose, at least they lose quickly. If the PCs can't scratch the boss, the challenge then becomes getting out alive.
Based on fba827's second post it seems the PCs have a very obvious course of action - run away. Destroying the artefact is the main goal, they've got no reason to stick around and fight the mini-boss once that's achieved. In fact they could use the royal guard to cover their escape, leaving them to be horribly massacred.
__________________ The female tiefling's horns are not 'handlebars'.
Are the soldiers tough enough to beat the boss? Or come close?
If so, is the boss smart enough to run away?
The fact the PCs brought the soldiers with them means that they can break the mcguffin without being killed by it, but the boss isn't going to fight on their terms.
So, they may choose to chase him, in which case he'll be dropping henchmen, summoned demons/whatever in their path while they follow.
or
Spoiler:
When is the miniboss released? When the first crack appears?
When does he stop getting power from the artifact? When it's fully destroyed?
If both those guesses are right, then finishing off the macguffin, while trying to stay alive, could be a big important goal.
I see no reason why the miniboss would necessarily want to stick around, and if you felt like it, he could clean the clock of the PCs and then go off elsewhere to do more important stuff. No need to make a clean kill, and the guard's medic could come in, and cast "Mass Heal" or some such spell on everybody.
The miniboss could also conceivably be weakened coming out of the relic and WANT to flee so he could recover his power.
And here's an idea
Spoiler:
Instead of making them fight the miniboss, give them the evil doppleganger fight. Assuming you haven't done it already, that is. Just put them against a few reverse versions of themselves, and have the big bad dude go off because well, with his relic destroyed, what's he got to hang around for? Revenge? He'll have that later. Or he'll go after a real target, like....
Last edited by Bumbles; 26th June 2009 at 06:43 PM..
The lesson to the players then becomes: "I the GM will void your actions if they don't fit my plans".
The players learned that the miniboss was too tough for them, and sought out allies to deal with it. That's smart play. Nerfing the miniboss or turning the royal guard into human rabble or whatever in order to create a balanced encounter is NOT FUN. It's not fun because the players by their actions have already indicated what they find fun: getting an advantage through cleverness that enables them to beat a superior foe.
Getting TPKed by something you have no chance at all of defeating or watching NPCs (even ones you get to temporarily run) doesn't sound like much fun to me.
A 5th level party can't be of much help at all against a monster in the teens. So basically their advantage is that they found someone capable of actually completing the quest fro them. Which I guess could be kinda fun of you managed to trick a dragon or something. But teaming up with guards? Thats fun?
__________________ "Well, no, I wasn't actually one of the original members of Pink Floyd." - Giles
If the *mini* boss wipes the floor with the Royal Guard, the King's best warriors, in a battle of their choosing, stop and think for a moment what message that sends the players. It reduces the RG to the level of cardboard cut-outs, like the Die Hard 2 SWAT team, only there to make the PCs look good. 99% of players will appreciate it far more if the Royal Guard are depicted as just as tough & competent as they ought logically to be. Then when the PCs eventually surpass them in power, it becomes a genuine achievement.
Another option is to have the team of Royal Guards be nearly and narrowly beaten by the mini-boss, and let the PCs act as the Cavalry that tips the balance of the fight.
When the PCs show up, the RGs are not exactly pasted, but have fought the mini-boss to a standstill. The RGs are on their last legs and exhausted. the mini-boss as well, is beaten up pretty badly, but still has a small edge over the RGs. At this point, the PCs can provide that extra bit of firepower to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat... The RGs have just enough strength left to provide distraction and support, while the PCs actively finish off the mini-boss.
Then, after it's all done the terribly would leader of the RGs can compliment them, "We couldn't have beaten him, if you hadn't shown up when you did."
__________________ The Pbartender
"I don't believe it. There she goes again! She's tidied up, and I can't find anything! All my tubes and wires and careful notes and antiquated notions..." - Thomas Dolby
Linear Mode
And yet another word from our sponsors
