DMs! Have you ever had a “boss encounter” turn into a cakewalk? What happened?

[Imaculata]

I prefer to use prudence in randomness. But it would be more disheartening to my players when they finally meet Mr. Baddie if the encounter played out like he was a wimp and/or buffoon. Of course, I would never cheat my players if they do something clever or such. But, I disagree, a BOSS is suppose to be climatic! Otherwise, they are just another encounter...

I disagree in regards to the idea that a boss fight can't be climactic unless the DM forces his hand to make the fight tough(er). Quite often the fights against big bads that are easy, are the most memorable. Even last evening, as me and my friends sat down for an early xmas dinner together, one of the players recalled casting that Feeblemind and reducing the big bad to a magic-less idiot, and using a cannon to blow another big bad apart. It seems players also remember the times that they outsmarted their DM, and not just the really tough as nails fights.

Also, I won't penalize a player, either, sometimes making a critical hit that would kill them into a normal hit (unless I know they have a way to restore them later on) or decreasing the effect of a spell or something on a failed save. Luck is part of the game, to be certain, but if you are such a slave to fate as to not use good judgment, then you are doing a disservice to your players IMO. But, that is your game and you know your players best.

I don't hold any punches when it comes to my players. But because I also don't fudge hitpoints and saves for my bad guys, I don't have to worry about hitting them with a crit every now and then. It balances out, as long as you know the strength of the group, and are able to balance your encounters. And because my players know that I don't protect them against the randomness of the dice, that means they are a little bit more cautious, and there is more suspense when they are about to die. They know that no DM-hand is going to shield them from death, and that raises the stakes.

My point was, you have the power as DM to say it won't happen and give your players the enjoyable and challenging reward of a good, dramatic encounter.

I get that, but sometimes they also need to suffer. Death and misfortunate are as much a part of the game as victory and fortune are. If you take away the chance for them to fail miserably, you remove a little bit of their feeling of victory too I feel. A few sessions ago an unlucky crit of one of my crocodile soldiers nearly killed one of their favourite cohorts (he was down to like 2 or 3 hitpoints). I would not have shielded him if he had died, and so my players panicked, and then later made a sigh of relief when the fight was over. Thats what you get in return for being merciless to your players, some real suspense when things go bad for them.

And the point of having stats? Well, they are the guideline. Sometimes the baddie has too many HP and is about to TPK. Why not let the last hit, when only one player is standing, win out the day and send the foe to the floor in defeat? That makes the encounter heroic and something to remember, instead of "Hey, remember when the monster killed us all off? Wasn't that a great way to end the campaign?"

So a TPK can't happen in your campaign? Then where is the suspense?

My players are going to be fighting a dragon sometime soon (for the first time in the campaign), and they know that when they do, I will absolutely try to murder all of their characters. It will be a mean, hard, bad-@ss fight with no punches being helt. They could very well die, and they are scared of that fight, as they should be... and yet also excited. How many times do you get to fight an actual dragon in Dungeons & Dragons? Well... that depends on the campaign I guess... but I try to make these sort of encounters memorable, and truly terrifying. Facing off against the game's namesake should be nothing to sneeze at. If the players had any feeling that a TPK was not a possibility, because the DM doesn't want them to die, that would undermine a lot of the suspense. But because they know I don't shield them at this point (they are high level), you can bet they will be preparing very carefully for this fight.

 

[Sadras]

Hmmm... you know, I'm looking through this thread, and this appears to be the first time 'open tundra' was mentioned, or the fact that the creatures was not in a significant location, and that the PCs could just walk away from it. But I do note that the thread title uses the words 'boss encounter'. Maybe, just maybe, it's not actually unreasonable to assume that a fight in a thread about "Boss encounters" was not a pointless random encounter that could be ignored, but something that, even if not an actual boss, was a creature that was actually in some way involved with whatever the PCs objective is or the location where it is. For the love of Great Gummi, why would they bother to fight it in the first place? How bad are your adventurers at bypassing unneeded encounters that they'd fight a deadly encounter that they are fine with bypassing?

It's really douchey to leave out key information about a situation, then get snarky when someone asks questions trying to understand what you posted. And it's really overflowing the canoe of douche to leave off that key information when the situation you posted in a thread that it doesn't come close to fitting the thread topic, and the person asking you questions is clearly trying to make sense of what you posted in light of what the thread is about.

In my first line of my original post I stated it was not a Boss Fight. The reason you might ask as to why this was important to me, was also stated in my original post - it was my first ever use of that monster (nevermind that it was calculated as a deadly fight).

Furthermore, I described the scene: PCs falling into the hole made by the remorhaze erupting from the snow covered earth with some PCs falling into the icy waters underneath (there was no mention of horses). There were a lot of clues in that sentence but hey...

Lastly, I'm sure you are well aware that it is often the case where thread topics evolve or expand.

 

[WhosDaDungeonMaster]

Imaculata, you are making some gross assumptions here. First, as I said before, these are things I (or YOU, believe it or not) "can" do. You don't have to do them, I don't have to. I have had TPKs before, especially when players act stupidly or foolhardy. They know, walking into the dragon's lair, that if they don't play their best, they could die. Also, I can't change their rolls... if they fail that third death save, for instance, they die.

There is more than enough suspense and chances for death, even with me occasionally ignoring the die roll. And you know what, there are even times when I go the other direction and make a hit a crit or tell the player they failed the save if things aren't suspenseful enough. What!? Say it isn't so!

If that doesn't suite your sense of "letting the chips fall where they may", then be a slave to fate and the dice and don't worry about having control over your game. As I said before, your choice.

And so, back to the OP, I will state a final time and then be done with it:

You are the DM, you control the game, if something happens that ruins the fun/challenge where your players are concerned, change it. Period.

 

[Dessert Nomad]

In my first line of my original post I stated it was not a Boss Fight.

Sure, but you didn't say "this was not only not an actual boss fight, but was in fact a random encounter that the PCs didn't need to do anything but bypass, so doesn't really fit this thread, and the use of spells or abilities to bypass this particular encounter is really pretty expected and not something that should really be marked as noteworthy but I've posted it anyway. If it comes off as a pretty bland anecdote to you, you should definitely just assume that it's actually uninteresting and not ask questions trying to figure out what you missed, and if you do I'll get snarky and condescending."

Lastly, I'm sure you are well aware that it is often the case where thread topics evolve or expand.

If you're not aware that trying to insult someone with comments like "how linear are your games?" for asking questions to understand what you posted is douchetastic, I'm sure you're well aware of that now. Clearly I made a mistake by assuming that you had posted an interesting situation that was relevant to the thread and that I must have missed something about the situation that made it so, and in asking questions in an attempt to understand what you posted.

 

[Sadras]

Sure, but you didn't say "this was not only not an actual boss fight, but was in fact a random encounter that the PCs didn't need to do anything but bypass, so doesn't really fit this thread, and the use of spells or abilities to bypass this particular encounter is really pretty expected and not something that should really be marked as noteworthy but I've posted it anyway. If it comes off as a pretty bland anecdote to you, you should definitely just assume that it's actually uninteresting and not ask questions trying to figure out what you missed, and if you do I'll get snarky and condescending."

You're right, I should include reading proficiency required in my signature.

 

[Umbran]

Ladies and gentlemen,

Many cultures have variations on the winter holiday, focused on how hard it is to live in the dark, with a long winter between harvest and planting. To my knowledge, none of them make being nasty to each other part of the rituals.

Interestingly, a version of the holiday common in my culture does include the concept of someone who watches behavior, and rewards accordingly.

A couple of you, apparently, cannot be kind to each other right now. So - OverlordOcelot and Sadras neither of you is to post in this thread again. I cannot put coal in your stockings, but I can end this pointless squabbling.

If there's some question about this, please take it to e-mail or PM, or send a letter to Santa Claus, and have him reach out to me about the issue. Until then, you two are done here.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You are the DM, you control the game, if something happens that ruins the fun/challenge where your players are concerned, change it. Period.

If you have to cheat in order for the game to be fun, then something has gone horribly wrong.

Personally, it would ruin the entire campaign for me, if I knew that the DM was casually cheating (either for or against the players). I'm glad that I don't play at your table.

 

[MechaPilot]

Have you ever put a load of time an effort into making a scary encounter, only to have your big bad go down like a chump? How did you deal with the crushing disappointment? (Or were you secretly rooting for the PCs all along?)

I've had that happen a few times. It's sort of part of the learning curve of making encounters with different editions (and different RPGs).

One time I handled it by having the corpse of the big bad transform into a dead changeling, making the players question whether they'd killed the actual big bad or just a minion posing as him. That gave me time to make a new big bad encounter using what I'd learned about encounter design from the previous failure.

Another time I posthumously demoted the big bad, revealing a little while after his death that he had actually been working for someone even bigger and badder than he was.

I've also had a big bad raised from the dead. In one case it was literally a resurrection spell, while in a couple other cases the big bad came back as an undead creature (one was a vampire, and one was a ghost).

In the case of a wizard big bad, saying the slain foe was a magical clone of the wizard gave me the ability to have the big bad learn how the party fights and plan accordingly for the next encounter.

I will also add that in the case of a lich, as long as the party doesn't find the lich's phylactery and spellbook, there's always a way for it to reform and come back with new tricks to avenge itself upon the party. The whole not staying dead thing is kind of one of the major perks of lichdom.

 

[Imaculata]

Imaculata, you are making some gross assumptions here. First, as I said before, these are things I (or YOU, believe it or not) "can" do. You don't have to do them, I don't have to. I have had TPKs before, especially when players act stupidly or foolhardy.

I have never had a TPK in any of my campaigns, surprisingly. No matter how hard I try.

They know, walking into the dragon's lair, that if they don't play their best, they could die. Also, I can't change their rolls... if they fail that third death save, for instance, they die.

You say that, but then in the very next sentence you say that you may make a hit a crit, or tell them they've failed a save when it wasn't so. How is that not changing their rolls?

There is more than enough suspense and chances for death, even with me occasionally ignoring the die roll. And you know what, there are even times when I go the other direction and make a hit a crit or tell the player they failed the save if things aren't suspenseful enough. What!? Say it isn't so!

My players would get rightfully upset at me if I told them that they failed a save, when they didn't. The point of setting challenges, is that the players can attempt to overcome them. When I ask my players to make a jump, I have a difficulty in mind. I don't tell my players that one of them failed their jump, just for the sake of suspense. If they made it, then they made it.

If that doesn't suite your sense of "letting the chips fall where they may", then be a slave to fate and the dice and don't worry about having control over your game. As I said before, your choice.

But that is what the game is about. A lot of the suspense comes from the chance for failure and success. While the DM is in his rights to change things, I don't think you are being 'a slave to fate' for following the rules of the game as they are laid out. Plus, a DM who understands how to balance his encounters does not need to change the outcome of die rolls, ever.

You are the DM, you control the game, if something happens that ruins the fun/challenge where your players are concerned, change it. Period.

And I would advise completely against this. There is only one thing you need to worry about as a DM: Is everyone having fun?

Sometimes the players outsmart their DM, and they often feel proud for doing so. Just allow them to have this moment. Yes, this can make a big boss fight over in a heartbeat, and it may feel anti-climactic (to you). It may not be at all what you intended, but as long as the players had fun, the outcome is probably a lot more memorable than some prolonged battle. In the end a big bad is merely another disposable story element that is on borrowed time. As soon as you introduce a villain, realize that he is on borrowed time, and be prepared to let him die (even if it isn't in the climactic way you intended).

D&D (the game) isn't a movie (that is to say, not when you're playing it). You can try to have cinematic moments, but in the end the game also has a lot of unpredictability. Embrace the joy of not knowing what may happen next. You may have planned one thing, when your players do something totally unexpected that drastically changes the fight... and that is okay. Embrace the chaos!

For example: I did not expect that my players would use the powers of a giant lens to banish the menacing ghostship from the big pirate battle I had laid out in front of them. This drastically shifted the odds in their favor, but I embraced it, and loved it. Players can be amazingly inventive, if you let them. <-- very important

 

[MechaPilot]

I have never had a TPK in any of my campaigns, surprisingly.

It's been my experience that TPKs typically happen without my trying to achieve one. Generally, it happens when one or two players make bad decisions in an encounter that I've designed to be challenging, but not overwhelmingly difficult.

I can't say if that's so for everyone, and it is just my experience (so take it with a grain of salt). But, it has been my experience for the four most recent editions of D&D.