D&D General Fixing the Offense Tunnel Vision problem

[Zardnaar]

Each one provides 1 Unstoppable charge every round.

Ah gotcha. We just usually chew through unstoppable 12 and parlyze her.

 

[Sorinth]

Ah gotcha. We just usually chew through unstoppable 12 and parlyze her.

It's BG3 so yeah you can just power through, magic missile especially is powerful for this. But if everyone has focused on DPR and you can't chew through all the charges easily it can be either very hard or even impossible task to just go for the boss. It's the principle, minions who are relative weak but make the boss much tougher will make it tactically smarter to take out the minions first.

For example, if a minion has 20 HP and has cast Stoneskin on the boss who has 100 HP and the party mostly is doing BPS. You will take more of the bosses effective HP by killing that minion first, deal 20 damage to the minion and effectively remove 100 HP from the boss.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Totally. When I did B&B 2e a few months back, I gave BBEG's special powers and traits that also helps address the issue. Particulary the traits that impact its minions and alllies.

View attachment 426845

Another trait/limited ability idea:
A Sacrifice I am willing to make
When the BBEG is attacked, as a reaction, the attack is instead directed against a minion adjacent to the BBEG or the attacker.
Optional (Recharge 5-6): Treat any hits as critical hits, but until the end of the attacker's turn, all of the attacker's attacks on the BBEG are directed against that minion, even if the minion is defeated by one of these attacks.

Inspire Sacrifice
When the BBEG is targeted by an area effect, one adjacent minion can spend their reaction to reduce the damage to the BBEG by half. In turn, the minion takes half that damage, even if they were target of the attack already. If the area effect has additional effects other than damage, and the minion was not originally target of the effect, any additional effects are also applied to the minion instead of the BBEG.

 

[Sorinth]

Another trait/limited ability idea:
A Sacrifice I am willing to make
When the BBEG is attacked, as a reaction, the attack is instead directed against a minion adjacent to the BBEG or the attacker.
Optional (Recharge 5-6): Treat any hits as critical hits, but until the end of the attacker's turn, all of the attacker's attacks on the BBEG are directed against that minion, even if the minion is defeated by one of these attacks.

Inspire Sacrifice
When the BBEG is targeted by an area effect, one adjacent minion can spend their reaction to reduce the damage to the BBEG by half. In turn, the minion takes half that damage, even if they were target of the attack already. If the area effect has additional effects other than damage, and the minion was not originally target of the effect, any additional effects are also applied to the minion instead of the BBEG.

Krenko from the Ravinica book had a redirect attacks to a minion ability, though I think his was flavoured as grabbing a minions and shoving them into harms way to save himself.

A few guards with the Protection or Interception fighting styles could similarly help protect the boss.