Behold My True Form: Creating Evolving Boss Monsters for 5th Edition

New for EN5ider patrons! It can be tough to run a solo boss encounter when the PCs have it outnumbered 6:1 with actions. The focused-fire principle often means that such encounters are embarrassingly short, unless you just make the creature a ridiculous bag of hit points. This article talks about ways to make your solo boss encounters more challenging, and more interesting, by giving it special traits which kick in at different times. By James J Haeck; illustrated by Ellis Goodson.

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[Slit518]

Isn't this what Angry DM did two and a half years ago?
http://theangrygm.com/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e/

Are you referring to giving the monster/creature multiple turns in a round?

If so, I've been doing that since 2nd edition for certain encounters. I don't think it's something radically new, I just don't think many people think to do it.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Just give your boss double hp, adv on saves until bloodied (and it gets a save against things that dont normally allow saves, eg sleep or forcecage), and off turn attacks (ie it gets an attack or move/attack after every PC's turn). And you have a true solo that will scare the sh*t out of the party.

 

[Morrus]

Just give your boss double hp, adv on saves until bloodied (and it gets a save against things that dont normally allow saves, eg sleep or forcecage), and off turn attacks (ie it gets an attack or move/attack after every PC's turn). And you have a true solo that will scare the sh*t out of the party.

I can't speak to what others may have written about before, but our particular article deals with ways of enhancing solos without “bag of hit points-ing” them. It gains one or more special abilities/events which kick in at half and zero hit points. It’s a fun approach which adds a little variety to other methods.

 

[dave2008]

I can't speak to what others may have written about before, but our particular article deals with ways of enhancing solos without “bag of hit points-ing” them. It gains one or more special abilities/events which kick in at half and zero hit points. It’s a fun approach which adds a little variety to other methods.

I haven't picked up the article yet (and I plan to), but 4e did something similar and I have played around with it in 5e as well . By the MM3 4e already had it has standard monster design the solos should change when bloodied (50% HP), and they often had a reaction that triggered at bloodied. I went so far as to give some monsters 2 stat blocks to model the change. There is definitely room in 5e to make this interesting idea.

I look forward to seeing what your authors have come up with.

 

[Psikerlord#]

I can't speak to what others may have written about before, but our particular article deals with ways of enhancing solos without “bag of hit points-ing” them. It gains one or more special abilities/events which kick in at half and zero hit points. It’s a fun approach which adds a little variety to other methods.

I like that method too - reminds me of 4e & 13th Age bloodied effects which were common. I suspect without extra hp however the fight will be over very fast vs a party of 5 or 6 (if it is a true solo encounter, not backed up with minions or similar).

edit - course a quick fight usually isnt a bad thing

 

[Mr. Wilson]

At level 8, my PCs can dish out hundreds of HPs per round without breaking a sweat. Any Solo that doesn't have at least 300 hps will last less than two rounds.

 

[CubicsRube]

I like the idea of adding moves at bloodied status, or even an evolution in form after 0hp. It really adds some enjoyable unpredictability.

A simple orc boss could die and outside of the corpse comes a spectre, perhaos an ethereal representative of gruumsh.

What was it doing possessing a simple orc bandit captain? Why has gruumsh turned his eye here? And most importantly, can we kill it before it kills us?

I'm a big fan of combat in waves and this is anither really good way to do a wave