D&D 5E Anticlimactic Boss Fights

[pukunui]

Last night, three of my players’ 14th-level PCs went up against a death tyrant in its lair.

They quickly discovered its weakness. Without the antimagic cone that a living beholder would have, the death tyrant had no way to get the PCs to stop turtling inside the warlock’s sphere of darkness, from which she could snipe the tyrant with impunity.

I had given the tyrant the Alert feat, so the warlock didn’t get advantage on her attacks, but with three attacks per round and a minimum of 11 damage with each eldritch blast thanks to Agonizing Blast and Hexblade’s Curse, she was trashing the tyrant while it could do nothing in return.

Why? Because all the tyrant really has is its eye rays, all of which require line of sight. Its three lair actions weren’t of much use either.

Yes, it had a horde of 40 zombies as backup, but the cleric happened to position his dawn spell by the tunnels the zombies came from. The zombies didn’t stand a chance.

What was supposed to be the epic big boss fight of the dungeon turned into a pretty one-sided affair. Halaster wasn’t happy so he threw in another monster with blindsight to shake things up. The PCs still won.

Have you got a similar story where the PCs happen to stumble on a boss monster’s weakness that turns what should be a deadly encounter into a triviality? And how did you deal with it?

(In this context, I appreciate having the excuse of a god-like antagonistic NPC who can interfere to raise [or lower] the difficulty on a whim.)

 

[Quickleaf]

Good question! There are so many approaches to these kinds of situations... For some groups they're great times to celebrate player inventiveness. For other groups they're a let-down in terms of suspenseful buildup. For others, there's a mix of responses along that spectrum. What's "right" really depends on where the fun is for you and your group.

I will say that the way monsters are written in 5e can limit our GM thinking about how the monster should function. For example, the beholder's eyes mostly describe their effect on creatures it can see. Well, there's two things baked in there....

First, you could narrate/change a beholder's eye ray to be a line/ray/cone that it can fire blind - if you feel a need to "balance" this adjustment to the official stats on the fly, you could have this unique use of its eye ray cost all of its Multiattack, or a Legendary Resistance, or a Legendary Action. However, at the narrative level it's not a stretch to allow an Eye Ray to not require sight, like ray spells such as ray of frost & ray of enfeeblement don't require sight (the language for those spells is "...toward a creature within range.") I've definitely had my beholders fire blind before.

Second, you could get creative with Telekinesis & Disintegration Rays used on objects to create barriers or hazards for the PCs, depending on the terrain, or disintegrate a new tunnel to retreat down/up into.

And those are either within the rules or barely stretching them at all, before you get to all kinds of weirdness you could pull into the fight to increase the challenge on the fly.

I've had this happen so many times, probably two or three times with slow strong melee monsters without enough maneuverability or ranged attacks to deal with PCs making good combo of artillery fire and control magic... and then I learned my lesson.

I'm most satisfied when I find interesting "yes, but" answers to the players' smart play, that absolutely lets them reap the rewards of their strategies (sometimes making for overwhelming unilateral victories), but without letting a rules weakness dictate a boring play loop that mismatches the narrative.

 

[aco175]

I'm sure I have had a few. The dragon in the end of the Essentials box went down rather fast. I recall some skill rolls and some extra allies from somewhere, but the fighter was able to get close and go nova even without feats, but we do use flanking rules. I think I gave it an extra round to do do something, but it was not a big threat in the end.

 

[cbwjm]

I might have one this Friday, I have a mini-boss fight and a boss fight (if there's time) and I have a suspicion the mini-boss fight might be more engaging. I guess I'll find out, assuming the game isn't cancelled.

 

[LordEntrails]

Have you got a similar story where the PCs happen to stumble on a boss monster’s weakness that turns what should be a deadly encounter into a triviality? And how did you deal with it?

Sure. And I've had trivial encounters (a mimic encounter comes to mind) that resulted in a PC death.

IMO, it's ok. My campaigns have plenty of BBEGs that one going easy isn't an issue. It's a testement to player ingenuity, or luck, or whatever. I think it only bothers me as a DM when I put too much story planning into a pre-planned outcome. And that's something I try to avoid, but, I still do it.

Heck, I'm doing it right now in this post; D&D General - Thematic Deaths of Major NPCs

 

[Maxperson]

Last night, three of my players’ 14th-level PCs went up against a death tyrant in its lair.

They quickly discovered its weakness. Without the antimagic cone that a living beholder would have, the death tyrant had no way to get the PCs to stop turtling inside the warlock’s sphere of darkness, from which she could snipe the tyrant with impunity.

I had given the tyrant the Alert feat, so the warlock didn’t get advantage on her attacks, but with three attacks per round and a minimum of 11 damage with each eldritch blast thanks to Agonizing Blast and Hexblade’s Curse, she was trashing the tyrant while it could do nothing in return.

Why? Because all the tyrant really has is its eye rays, all of which require line of sight. Its three lair actions weren’t of much use either.

Yes, it had a horde of 40 zombies as backup, but the cleric happened to position his dawn spell by the tunnels the zombies came from. The zombies didn’t stand a chance.

What was supposed to be the epic big boss fight of the dungeon turned into a pretty one-sided affair. Halaster wasn’t happy so he threw in another monster with blindsight to shake things up. The PCs still won.

Have you got a similar story where the PCs happen to stumble on a boss monster’s weakness that turns what should be a deadly encounter into a triviality? And how did you deal with it?

(In this context, I appreciate having the excuse of a god-like antagonistic NPC who can interfere to raise [or lower] the difficulty on a whim.)

Disintegration ray at an angle so that a section of tunnel roof above the darkness sphere falls onto it, crushing those below.

 

[Maxperson]

You could also have created a tunnel via disintegration and moved out of line of sight of the warlock.

 

[LordEntrails]

The other thing I remember, BBEGs are usually smart enough to know that when they are in a no-win situation they leave. No point is sticking around when they know they are going to lose/die.

 

[pukunui]

Disintegration ray at an angle so that a section of tunnel roof above the darkness sphere falls onto it, crushing those below.

Yeah. Unfortunately I didn't think of that last night.

You could also have created a tunnel via disintegration and moved out of line of sight of the warlock.

The tyrant did move out of sight a few times, but it was also constrained by the cleric's dawn spell (which is a huge area) to contend with and the fact that its lair is a big open room with only a few pillars for cover.

The other thing I remember, BBEGs are usually smart enough to know that when they are in a no-win situation they leave. No point is sticking around when they know they are going to lose/die.

It was an undead beholder defending its lair. No way was it going to run away. Even if it had run, though, the PCs would have tracked it down as they needed to kill it in order to be allowed out of that dungeon level.* So having the beholder run away would have only served to drag out the un-fun encounter even longer.

*Halaster was making the PCs "stress test" the obstacle course for him. Afterwards, I had him tell them that the replacement death tyrant will have truesight.

 

[Maxperson]

The tyrant did move out of sight a few times, but it was also constrained by the cleric's dawn spell (which is a huge area) to contend with and the fact that its lair is a big open room with only a few pillars for cover.

Hence disintegrate being used to make cover. Once straight down and it is out of sight. Then it just begins tunneling. The beholder is out of sight. The Dawn spell is negated completely. And if it can figure out the course correctly, it could drop a very surprised party down into the tunnel and out of the darkness spell and begin zapping away.