Am I the only one who doesn't like the arbitrary "boss monster" tag?

[GreyICE]

@Ahnenhois Any chance you can give a shot at explaining how this would work in this circumstance? I mean what's the steps you'd go through?

Ahnehnois, what this threat is lacking is some solid examples that would make your viewpoint make sense to the rest of us.

Can you build an encounter to show us how it would work? I've got a wizard who is making a deal with a demon. The party hasn't managed to interrupt his ritual in time, so they're arriving just in time to see him complete his nefarious task and become the vessel of a demon within this mortal plane.

How would your system work in making this an interesting and compelling experience for the players?

 

[Ahnehnois]

Ahnehnois, what this threat is lacking is some solid examples that would make your viewpoint make sense to the rest of us.

Can you build an encounter to show us how it would work? I've got a wizard who is making a deal with a demon. The party hasn't managed to interrupt his ritual in time, so they're arriving just in time to see him complete his nefarious task and become the vessel of a demon within this mortal plane.

How would your system work in making this an interesting and compelling experience for the players?

Um, okay. Guess I'll bite.

"My system" is at the moment a heavily houseruled 3.5, and I did something not terribly dissimilar to this a year or two ago.

Since the warlock (not wizard) was affiliated with an ancient demon lord of vermin attempting to return and there were no obvious choices straight out of the book, I created his servant by applying some spicy templates to a naga, IIRC, and adding some vermin-y descriptions. It was already much more powerful than the party, but I selected spells for it from some of the newer supplements, gave it a couple of nice MIC items, and advanced it several HD (like all my monsters, it also had a custom ability array; since it was built as a "boss", it had stats as good as or slightly better than theirs). It pretty much owned them.

I added in a macguffin element whereby the PCs could still disrupt the ritual and unsummon the thing, split the party with the protagonist being temporarily out of action, one character trapped and about to be sacrificed to the demon, and the third and last character left alone and summoned to leave and return to the druids. Instead, she decided to search for her comrades, discovered the cultists' lair, roused a mob, and sacked the place.

The militia ran from the demon/naga and the party, the main protagonist having been sent back in the nick of time by the fey, defeated the warlock and held off the summoned creature long enough for them to destroy the macguffin and dismiss it. The character on the altar was in pretty dire straits, but it all worked out in the end. The angel on the other side of the room was freed, and it teleported them to their safehouse in the city they were headed towards (which didn't work out so well, but that's another story). I titled the session "Salvation".

***

Well, you wanted an example. To the point of this thread, the "boss" naga was not designed by whoever wrote the monster muanal as a boss, and my statblock didn't look anything like what was in the book. It's a miscellaneous monster, but I chose to make it overwhelmingly powerful because I liked the flavor and wanted to scare the PCs. It was not remotely balanced (unlike the warlock, who could also be considered a boss and was higher in level than the PCs). They could never have beaten it in a fair fight. But it was effective for what I wanted it to do.

If they had gotten the sense that it was balanced to provide a particular challenge, it would not have been scary. If they could easily identify it and understand its capabilities after having read its monster manual entry, it would have been boring. Customization-the choice to make it a "boss" by altering its mechanics using various advancement rules-is what worked here.

 

[Derren]

First, D&D 4E is the best selling system on the market, over its history. Even at the end of its lifecycle it's still number 2, and that's WITH most of the people who want the core books owning them and D&D Insider (which is amazing for WotC). The only competitors might be 3E or 2E (probably 2E wins, but it's market run was like a decade+, so there's that). Lets kill that idea off the bat.

I would really be interested in where you got that information. Because whenever I look at, for example, amazon sales ranks for RPG books, I see pathfinder on top the bestseller list, a system which was only able to rise so high because of 4Es failure to retain the D&D customer base. So not only is 4E the first D&D edition which is not dominating the other rpg products, it is also the edition with the shortest lifecycle and that certainly not because it was planned that way.
Success looks different.

As for the boss tag, I oppose nearly every gamist rule so it is no surprise that I do not like that one at all. Bosses should be defined by the story and should be as strong as they would be in the world given the circumstances. If that is "too strong" for the PCs then they have to get creative.
Also, a boss tag again reinforces the perception of D&D as a MMO inspired skirmish game where everything is geared towards combat, an image D&D imo desperately needs to loose.

 

[Stalker0]

They could never have beaten it in a fair fight. But it was effective for what I wanted it to do.

If they had gotten the sense that it was balanced to provide a particular challenge, it would not have been scary. If they could easily identify it and understand its capabilities after having read its monster manual entry, it would have been boring. Customization-the choice to make it a "boss" by altering its mechanics using various advancement rules-is what worked here.

This is a good example of a boss battle....it just doesn't really invalidate the point about needing solo type monsters.

By your own admission this monster was never meant to be beatable, it was meant to be defeating by a McGuffin while being extra scary. Its a great encounter, and it sounds like it worked just great for you.

But...some encounters you would like a traditional boss battle, party vs the big bad....battle to the end. Its these battles where the Solo type monster comes in handy.

 

[slobster]

Well, you wanted an example. To the point of this thread, the "boss" naga was not designed by whoever wrote the monster muanal as a boss, and my statblock didn't look anything like what was in the book. It's a miscellaneous monster, but I chose to make it overwhelmingly powerful because I liked the flavor and wanted to scare the PCs. It was not remotely balanced (unlike the warlock, who could also be considered a boss and was higher in level than the PCs). They could never have beaten it in a fair fight. But it was effective for what I wanted it to do.

If they had gotten the sense that it was balanced to provide a particular challenge, it would not have been scary. If they could easily identify it and understand its capabilities after having read its monster manual entry, it would have been boring. Customization-the choice to make it a "boss" by altering its mechanics using various advancement rules-is what worked here.

Well, that is moving the goalposts somewhat. We are explicitly talking about a system to make balanced encounters out of single enemies.

I'm not saying there aren't good reasons to make unbalanced encounters. Your example is a good use of unbalanced opposition used to great effect. But it doesn't address our issue, which is that we want and appreciate tools to make solo encounters that are engaging, fun, action-packed, balanced, and easy to put together.

That is customization, it's just customization with a lot of useful advice.

 

[Ahnehnois]

This is a good example of a boss battle....it just doesn't really invalidate the point about needing solo type monsters.

By your own admission this monster was never meant to be beatable, it was meant to be defeating by a McGuffin while being extra scary. Its a great encounter, and it sounds like it worked just great for you.

But...some encounters you would like a traditional boss battle, party vs the big bad....battle to the end. Its these battles where the Solo type monster comes in handy.

Well, I picked an example to fit the prompt. And it is relevant; as I said I'm not a fan of the notions of CR or "encounter-based balance", and my definition of a boss battle includes largely things that the PCs cannot beat in a fair fight (though they sometimes surprise me).

That being said, I design "traditional" boss battles where the characters are actually supposed to fight the creature directly the same way. Currently, I'm sitting on one that I wrote without knowing when or how it will be used or even what level the PCs will be when I use it. It wasn't written in the MM as a boss either, I've just customized the hell out of it. I don't know how it stands up to the PCs in an action economy sense or how its AC matches up with their attack rolls. I don't know if they will storm into its lair and defeat it (or even if it has a lair), whether they will fight several skirmishes and chase it away, or even whether it will kill them all and the game will end tragically.

But I know that it'll be fun.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I'm not going to bother arguing this degree of hairsplitting. ("Which came first, the keyword or the monster's difficulty?" "Pardon? I was gazing at my navel.")

The purpose of "bounded accuracy" is to prevent this from happening.

Also, I'm just ignoring the dude who came in here and started telling us that if your games don't have boss monsters they're wrong because, well, that's ridiculous and presumptuous.

No less ridiculous and presumptuous than calling a "BOSS'" a bad trope.

 

[underfoot007ct]

When I run games I don't always expect my encounters to last a certain number of rounds. Sure I may spend hours on a "boss" but if he gets taken out right away then I applaud the PC's for taking him out quickly. My "return" on my NPC investment is when I know that my player's are having fun.

I enjoy flipping through lots of classes and PrCs and coming up with all sorts of interesting characters. I guess where we differ is the fact that my "return" is different than yours but that's okay.

I don't want there to be one way to create encounters and NPC's. I want to be able to create them 3rd edition style and in 4th edition style for those who liked that style.

YOU GOT THE POINT EXACTLY. Your players are having fun. If both the DM & players have had a fun & enjoyable few hour, it was done correctly, regardless of tags, keywords, roles, style, or edition.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Well, I picked an example to fit the prompt. And it is relevant; as I said I'm not a fan of the notions of CR or "encounter-based balance", and my definition of a boss battle includes largely things that the PCs cannot beat in a fair fight (though they sometimes surprise me).

That being said, I design "traditional" boss battles where the characters are actually supposed to fight the creature directly the same way. Currently, I'm sitting on one that I wrote without knowing when or how it will be used or even what level the PCs will be when I use it. It wasn't written in the MM as a boss either, I've just customized the hell out of it. I don't know how it stands up to the PCs in an action economy sense or how its AC matches up with their attack rolls. I don't know if they will storm into its lair and defeat it (or even if it has a lair), whether they will fight several skirmishes and chase it away, or even whether it will kill them all and the game will end tragically.

But I know that it'll be fun.

Kudos to you, but you haven't addressed the concerns of those of us who don't like playing Russian encounter roulette. Some of us DMs like to have convenient levels (and in the absense of flatter math, caste labels) to make combat more predictable from behind the DM screen. If we want an unbeatable encounter, we can still just pick out or write an over-leveled monster.

Because I want my players to win. I want to scare the sheist out of them, but even when I'm gleefully announcing a crit against a grievously wounded PC, I'm secretly rooting for the party. Because ya know what? Most players I know like continuity, and frankly I like adventure and story more than chargen.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I'd prefer to keep the arbitrary abstractness as minimal as possible.

Calling something what it truly is, is NEITHER arbitrary nor abstract.

Call me a reactionary grognard, but I'm not interested in playing a D&D that is part Harry Potter, part Twilight, and part My Little Pony.

Done! You are taking Grognardism to new levels.

Please play whatever edition you what, no one is hindering you, why worry what 5eNext is the? You will hate it whatever it turns out to be.

Regardless If you like Harry Potter, Twilight, or any Marvel Super heroes they are huge parts of the fantasy genre, and will be for decades to come.