D&D General BBEGs shouldn't miss.

[Charlaquin]

Actually, no. I'm not a native english speaker, I know the language, but some common expressions and pop culture references are lost on me sometimes.

The saying is “when you assume, you make an ass out of u and me”, referencing the spelling of the word. But it’s such a trite and overused idiom, most people just say “you know what they say about assuming.” Though, that too has become awfully tired.

 

[Charlaquin]

Another option is to have a vague plan in mind that if the dragon does randomly come up, for whatever reason it's not coming in hot and thus the PCs have a chance to talk or bribe their way out of the situation.

Then the choice is on the players/PCs as to whether they wanna fight the thing, as are the consequences if-when they do.

Yeah, that’s a good approach as well.

 

[billd91]

Well, for me anyway, having a DM fudge dice rolls means I have lost all agency as a player. If the DM is just deciding what happens that means there is no reason for me as a player to be at the table as the choices I make as to what my character is doing are meaningless.

Bad luck with the dice can do the same thing. In fact, a DM willing to fudge to support a player getting the outcome they want and try to achieve can support player agency against the arbitrary results of the dice.

 

[RangerWickett]

Emperor Palpatine confirmed a mook.

Then again, it wasn't like Luke, Han, Leia, and Chewie all attacked the Emperor at the same time.

Aside from Thanos, there aren't many examples in cinema of a singular villain taking on multiple protagonists at once.

 

[Lanefan]

I think there shouldn't be Boss Monster's. The idea of a Boss Monster means I'm playing a video game. I prefer to present my players with a living world. If I wanted them to play a video game, I would tell them to go do that.

Er...the idea of boss monsters long pre-dates video games.

No matter what you're fighting - be it a village of Orcs, a guild of Assassins, unknown horrors in the forest, or whatever - there's almost always something behind it all, and because might makes right often that 'something' either is the biggest baddest thing out there or has surrounded itself with them: the Grand Leader of the Orc village, the head of the Assassins' guild, the Lovecraftian thing corrupting the forest, etc.

And in the end, one way or another the goal of the party (whether they know it or not) is to bring that key individual down.

An interesting twist that IMO we don't see often enough is to have the truly toughest foe in an adventure not be the 'leader' at all but instead be a major pet or bodyguard or similar. For example, the party might be out to knock off some raiding Orcs and have backtracked them to their village. Scouting reveals the village is held together and run by a Grand Leader to whom all the other Orcs bend the knee, so that's who the PCs key on as the main foe. What they don't know is that the Grand Leader herself is a pushover, and the real threat is the Ogre she keeps hidden in her longhouse.

Or, another take might be that while the Grand Leader herself is a pushover the rest of the Orcs will die to protect her, making the "boss battle" a fight against the whole village.

 

[Charlaquin]

Bad luck with the dice can do the same thing. I

Not if the DM is sufficiently forthcoming with information. Rolling the dice should be a calculated risk. If you go in knowing roughly how likely you are to succeed and with a decent idea what the consequences might be if you fail, then dealing with the consequences of failure is an affirmation of your agency rather than a loss of it. Granted, a lot of DMs withhold information unnecessarily, but that’s a separate issue.

 

[Zsong]

Not if the DM is sufficiently forthcoming with information. Rolling the dice should be a calculated risk. If you go in knowing roughly how likely you are to succeed and with a decent idea what the consequences might be if you fail, then dealing with the consequences of failure is an affirmation of your agency rather than a loss of it. Granted, a lot of DMs withhold information unnecessarily, but that’s a separate issue.

The problem isn’t necessarily to hit bonus versus DC and damage. It can be other abilities in the game that were not accounted for. Teleportation, mirror image, counter spell, banishment, etc, movement abilites just to name a few. There are countless others. It’s not all about being a big bag of hp and simple attack versus dc.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Bad luck with the dice can do the same thing. In fact, a DM willing to fudge to support a player getting the outcome they want and try to achieve can support player agency against the arbitrary results of the dice.

I believe fudging of any kind revokes player agency as fudging means the DM has just decided the outcome of an event that is supposed to be randomly determined. If I wanted the DM to just decide everything then I would not play a game where certain elements are supposed to be decided by a random dice roll. Whether the funding is done in my favor or against me, doesn't matter.

 

[Eltab]

DM'ing Tiamat when we got to Arauthator's lair, I changed him from Adult Dragon to Ancient Dragon, max'ed out his HP and everything else I could, came up with 3 turns of attack plan - much more enemy than the book provided.
After 3 turns, half the group was making Death Saves (the others were scattered from an early Frightful Presence). Then they turned it all around and Arauthator died on turn 6.
It was the high point of our (truncated) campaign.

I like BBEGs with some kind of "can't miss" feature, but that feature can vary. AoEs (Fireball) will get somebody or other in a group; 'Save for half' like dragon breath (only the Evasion Rogue can laugh it off); Catapult gets to target other NPCs around the target for a little damage; apply a condition (like Slowed) until the PC saves.

BBEG is supposed to be so dangerous that the other monsters submit to his say-so rather than fight him to settle a disagreement. He/she ought to feel like it to the PCs too. "Always does something" helps create that feel.

 

[zarionofarabel]

Perhaps you are unaware, but the term "videogamey" has been used as a derogatory term on these and other forums for many years (very strong during the 4e days, but it predates that). So while you may not have intended a negative connotation, it is associated regardless. It is not simply an assumption by Olrox 17.

Be that as it may, at no point did I say "you play like it's a video game and that's bad" or anything even remotely close. Hell, if you like playing like it's a video game and you enjoy it, that's a good thing!

Anyone ever see Player One? I think playing a campaign where things worked like a video game with saves and such might be fun! As a bonus, if a player decided to leave the game partway in, I could have a hilarious scene where they accidentally saved themselves to death!