Designing Boss Fight - Succubus (Help Appreciated)

[Trit One-Ear]

My group has finally, finally, reached the mastermind behind the cultist infiltration of their current city. First off, many many thanks too all of you who have helped me get them this far. I've been posting about this adventure for ages (due to my lack of ability to pace things and my groups tendency to go long periods between sessions).

After a successful Skill Challenge to reach the citadel at the center of town, the heroes are about to kick in the door and find the Duke and his council, one of whom they suspect to be a succubus (They are of course, right). She has dominated the Duke, and who knows how many others. The heroes have decided, as the city battles behind them, that no matter what they must end this devil's hold on the city (rumor of a Grand Ritual has reached them, which they've determined to be a bad thing to let happen).

Enough back story! After reading Angry DM's articles on boss fights (Worth a read if you haven't), I've been wracking my brain on how I wanted to end this long running adventure. Here are my initial concept using Angry DM's 3-stage model.

Stage 1
After a brief dialogue, the Duke attempts to arrest the heroes. As combat ensues, the guards move in, while protecting the Duke and his Succu-visor from the heroes.
Planning this to include a handful of minions, while possibly having the Duke attack the heroes as well, forcing them to decide if they will retaliate or not. Meanwhile, our Succubus continues to play her role of advisor, relying on spells and abilities that are within her "character's" range of ability. After sufficient damage has been done to her and her minions, we progress to Stage 2.

Stage 2
Transitioning out of Stage 1, the Succubus pulls back, saying "I have humored you heroes and this charade long enough. Time to end this game." Revealing her true form, she turns the remaining guards on the humans. Her guards, surprise, are also revealed as Cambion (half-devils). Disguising herself as one of her Cambion, the heroes must now defeat her amongst her guards.
At this point I think I'll remove the Duke, by engaging him in combat with an ally the heroes have in his council. While they fight each other, the heroes must fight the Cambion, trying to figure out which one was really the Succubus. On being hit, she'll teleport and switch places with another Cambion, making this stage more about eliminating the guards as they try to whittle her down as well. Finishing off her decoy Cambions progresses us to Stage 3.

Stage 3
Feeling cornered, the Succubus now lashes out in a frenzy. Attempting to simply knock everyone in the room unconscious in order to escape, she launches a large fiendish suggestion. The Duke, his remaining council members, even the Succubus' own guards and devils all succumb. The heroes resist however, thanks to a ritual they arranged to project them before assaulting the keep. Truly feeling out of options now, the Succubus becomes enraged, lashing out.
Big satisfying chance to beat down on the cause of all the heroes' woes these past months. As she flits around the room, striking out viciously, the Succubus relies on many powers that cause the heroes to charge/attack each other (trying to actively stay away from Dominate here). Bloodied, dangerous and with nothing else to lose, this aims to be the vicious and bloody fight the heroes have been thirsting for.

I plan to add a few more elements, such as portals to various Hells opening as the fight progresses to change the battlefield stage to stage. I'm not too married to any of these ideas, so if they seem... problematic or less fun than ideas you have, please do let me know! All comments and advice are welcome. I'll be updating this more as I move forward on my designs.

Thanks as always!

Trit

 

[Kinak]

On your design, I'd say the weakest point is Stage 2. I've never found the "hiding among minions" to work well. I might be doing it wrong, but I've always found it frustrates players.

That said, I think you have a good idea with the portals. My suggestion would be to use those in Stage 2. Maybe when she's sufficiently threatened, she rips open several portals, letting lesser devils pour into the room and possibly sending the duke or others tumbling to Hell. Then she can move through the portals, spending some rounds in Hell and some in the fight to skirmish. When the portals are closed, probably through a skill challenge, she's trapped in the material plane and they can finish her off.

I was also converting a succubus boss recently from Pathfinder to... well, Pathfinder but with the style of boss fights I like. I don't know if my thoughts there will be helpful, but I'll leave them here:
She's very traditional in the adventure I'm converting, so she uses a whip. In the conversion, she uses it to grapple enemies and pull them to adjacent hexes. The whip connects the creature to her in two ways while they're grappled: (a) she steals half of any healing that would apply to them and (b) she can interpose that PC in front of one attack a round.

Her dominated guards will also interpose themselves, making it very difficult to kill her unless they can be cleared out.

Her final control ability forced the target to fall madly in lust with someone nearby and, provoking attacks normally, approach and grapple that person. Depending on your group that may or may not play well, but it seemed a nice spin on domination.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[pemerton]

A question - does the Duke know his advisor is a succubus?

The reason I ask is because, at Stage 1, my group at least would try to (i) talk or goad the succubus into revealing herself, and (ii) try to break the duke out of his domination - using (i) as a help in this. So if I was running it I would need to have some ideas about how to handle a social skill challenge component to Stage 1 - eg perhaps while the succubus is engaged in argument with one of the heroes, she can't spend her action helping her minions, and the payoff for the players is that if the challenge is successful (I'd set it as Comp 1) then they get the duke as an ally rather than an enemy or a vulnerable pawn.

 

[Quickleaf]

I totally second [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s observation.

Also, whenever I set about designing major monster fights I always look back to the 2e versions for some reason. In 2e succubi can become ethereal, use clauraudience/ESP/telepathy, planeshift, charm person/suggest, and try to summon a Baylor. In Ravenloft I believe succubi existed in dreams primarily and required special circumstances to take a physical form (often thru possession). I would interweave that idea with the etherealness & clauraudience/ESP/telepathy in stage 2 (and possibly other stages). So the Succubus might vanish into a series of erotic art objects or take control of an NPC, and can only be expelled by confronting a dreamscape or reaching the possessed NPC by drawing on things the PCs know about that NPC.

 

[Herschel]

I may also change up the succubus "dominate" power to make the actual battle with her more dynamic. Rather than making it an on-turn attack, maybe let it be an immediate interrupt when she's attacked so either the attack is re-directed or if noone is within range of the attacker then it charges the nearest ally. You could also do both, with the limit of only one creature dominated at a time. She's revealed her true nature so I like the idea that dominates are momentary perception scrambles rather than the type of dominating she'd do in cognito.

 

[Storminator]

I've noticed lots of Skirmishers, Soldiers and Brutes in the 3 part boss fights. Your stage 2 looks like you might be able to work a Lurker in there. Lurker fights are weird. I find it's hard to make it work. You definitely need lots of other things happening, because if your PCs are just waiting around for the lurker to jump out it can turn into wait-wait-wait-Nova!-Nova!-Nova! which is pretty unsatisfying.

If you pushed all the dialog/RPing pemerton talked about into stage 2, included the cambions, kept the Duke in the forefront (allowing PCs to turn him against the succubus, subdue him, whatever), then gave the succubus some brutal lurk attack I think it could be a very entertaining stage. Then have the succubus summon a serious bruiser for stage 3.

PS

 

[Trit One-Ear]

On your design, I'd say the weakest point is Stage 2. I've never found the "hiding among minions" to work well. I might be doing it wrong, but I've always found it frustrates players.

That said, I think you have a good idea with the portals. My suggestion would be to use those in Stage 2. Maybe when she's sufficiently threatened, she rips open several portals, letting lesser devils pour into the room and possibly sending the duke or others tumbling to Hell. Then she can move through the portals, spending some rounds in Hell and some in the fight to skirmish. When the portals are closed, probably through a skill challenge, she's trapped in the material plane and they can finish her off.

I was hesitant with Stage 2 myself. My initial thought was to have it be an adds/minion only fight, but that started to feel too similar to Stage 1, and I haven't been able to conceptualize Stage 1 without extra monsters fighting on her side. Which I don't see as a problem, I just need to change stage 2 then.

Maybe I make it more about her jumping between portals (only being attackable every other round?) and reduce her HP proportionally. Then the Cambion guards (and maybe other devils coming through the portals) are the main focus, but there's a feeling of needing to prioritize and hit her while she's available. Plus I could add some fire effects coming from the portals to make the terrain hazardous etc. Still just spit-balling here.

I was also converting a succubus boss recently from Pathfinder to... well, Pathfinder but with the style of boss fights I like. I don't know if my thoughts there will be helpful, but I'll leave them here:
She's very traditional in the adventure I'm converting, so she uses a whip. In the conversion, she uses it to grapple enemies and pull them to adjacent hexes. The whip connects the creature to her in two ways while they're grappled: (a) she steals half of any healing that would apply to them and (b) she can interpose that PC in front of one attack a round.

Her dominated guards will also interpose themselves, making it very difficult to kill her unless they can be cleared out.

Her final control ability forced the target to fall madly in lust with someone nearby and, provoking attacks normally, approach and grapple that person. Depending on your group that may or may not play well, but it seemed a nice spin on domination.

These ideas are a lot of fun, thanks for posting them! Have to decide if the whip fits the scene or not (I do like the classic-ness of it), but I love the healing-sharing idea. I've also been thinking of giving her an aura 1 or 2 that lowers the Will def of any enemy in it, so dragging someone closer to then seduce them to use against their enemies sounds fun. Depending on how Stage 2 ends up being built, some of the interposing stuff could find its way into there, or Stage 3 for the players. Watching the Ranger accidentally plug the Paladin repeatedly is just right for a succubus fight.

 

[Warbringer]

ethereal, use clauraudience/ESP/telepathy, planeshift, charm person/suggest, and try to summon Baylor.

My Succubi tend to me more Elite and instead Summon Harvard...

 

[Warbringer]

Stage 1 as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] suggested (social challenge)
Stage 2 as she is revealed the bodyguards show their true colors and she starts to Summon Balor (arcane focused challenge plus combat)
Stage 3 Balor appears for X rounds based on success of challenge in Stage 2

 

[Trit One-Ear]

A question - does the Duke know his advisor is a succubus?

The reason I ask is because, at Stage 1, my group at least would try to (i) talk or goad the succubus into revealing herself, and (ii) try to break the duke out of his domination - using (i) as a help in this. So if I was running it I would need to have some ideas about how to handle a social skill challenge component to Stage 1 - eg perhaps while the succubus is engaged in argument with one of the heroes, she can't spend her action helping her minions, and the payoff for the players is that if the challenge is successful (I'd set it as Comp 1) then they get the duke as an ally rather than an enemy or a vulnerable pawn.

While my group would almost certainly try this tactic too, I feel I may have pushed them too far in the past few months. They're out for blood now. It's a total toss up now whether or not they'll try to wake the Duke up before they launch in. But you're right, it is a possibility, and one I should plan for.

Part of me wanted to keep this as an RP section of the fight, but I wouldn't mind a small Skill Challenge to start things off. Mostly, I want to keep the Duke in her clutches until she's defeated however. He still has enough allies that are simply following him out of habit. I like the idea of preoccupying her with the challenge, maybe using a minor action to argue (successful social skill roll) to deny her some of her ability to aid the group. Instead of a Skill Challenge, what do you think of just adding some skill uses to influence her involvement in the fight?
Or maybe keep the Skill Challenge elemnt and just remove the Duke from play if they succeed. He become conflicted, and the Succubus just puts him to sleep, sends him away etc to not risk losing him.
[MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION] - I've kinda built the story around her being a bit more grounded in the material plane, but could combine some of these ideas with the Hell Portals opening in Stage 2. Kinda existing in two places at once? Maybe as a reaction to being damaged she vanishes till her next turn... or makes an AOE will attack to not be targetable till she attacks etc. I don't want to limit the player's ability to hit her -too- much, what with minions and teleporting already in play, but I do want to frustrate them enough so that in Stage 3, just being able to whale on her in satisfying.

Trit