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<blockquote data-quote="airwalkrr" data-source="post: 6001219" data-attributes="member: 12460"><p>I kind of like the idea of &quot;boss monsters.&quot; But I do play a lot of MMOs, so caveat there. And boss monsters can always have easily whackable minions who give the PCs a stepping-stone sense of accomplishment as they wade their way to the boss without terribly draining the boss' hit points. The truly memorable boss monsters for me though are those who can't be beaten through sheer brute force, but require some cunning. One good example springs to mind. There is an erinyes in the early levels of the Shackled City campaign path who has everything in her advantage. She is a powerful ranged attacker and has a huge open room to fight in. The PCs might have the fly spell, but even that is not enough as she can teleport away, wait for the fly spell to end, then return. And the PCs can very well find themselves locked in this room. But there are a variety of ways to weaken her. And if they PCs are clever enough, they can figure out she can only be summoned for a particular period of time. So if they manage to evade her for that amount of time through tactical maneuvering, she will vanish and the battle is over without any blows exchanged. I like encounters like this where the deck seems stacked in the enemy's favor, but some clever thinking weakens the boss' control of the battlefield.</p></blockquote><p></p>

[QUOTE="airwalkrr, post: 6001219, member: 12460"] I kind of like the idea of "boss monsters." But I do play a lot of MMOs, so caveat there. And boss monsters can always have easily whackable minions who give the PCs a stepping-stone sense of accomplishment as they wade their way to the boss without terribly draining the boss' hit points. The truly memorable boss monsters for me though are those who can't be beaten through sheer brute force, but require some cunning. One good example springs to mind. There is an erinyes in the early levels of the Shackled City campaign path who has everything in her advantage. She is a powerful ranged attacker and has a huge open room to fight in. The PCs might have the fly spell, but even that is not enough as she can teleport away, wait for the fly spell to end, then return. And the PCs can very well find themselves locked in this room. But there are a variety of ways to weaken her. And if they PCs are clever enough, they can figure out she can only be summoned for a particular period of time. So if they manage to evade her for that amount of time through tactical maneuvering, she will vanish and the battle is over without any blows exchanged. I like encounters like this where the deck seems stacked in the enemy's favor, but some clever thinking weakens the boss' control of the battlefield. [/QUOTE]

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