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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 4943544" data-attributes="member: 53980">While I like the idea of phased boss fights, IMO you can't directly translate WoW-style fights into D&D (because they're different mediums; real time MMO vs turn based RPG).The first half of your example sounds boring and grindy (the dragon just spams it's at-will attacks until bloodied).  It's almost as though you're shifting the grind from the end of the fight to the beginning, and I don't see what the benefit could possibly be.Phase 2 seems kind of cheesy to me.  Even in the Onyxia fight (at least in the vanilla WoW days when last I fought her), which is what I assume this was based on, ranged attackers can hurt her while she's flying around.  Turning minions into standards also seems like a real nuisance (at the very least a minion ought to have to spend a full round in a cloud before transforming, so that the PCs' have the chance to stop the transformation).The buff from the bursts in phase 3 seems excessive.  In addition, I'd use 4 standard creatures rather than 4 elites (adding 4 elites will introduce a mountain of hp, adding to the grind rather than reducing it).In no situation would I recommend using an enrage timer.  That's a cheap WoW gimmick used because in certain fights, under the right circumstances, a group can wear a "low" damage boss down over time ez-mode style.  This is because WoW has in battle mana regen and cooldown timers on abilities (in battle resource recovery).  In order to make these fights challenging, the designers put a time limit on them (the enrage timer).  D&D characters, as a general rule, don't have in-battle resource recovery (recovery generally requires resting, regardless of edition).  Hence, D&D characters don't need to be "challenged" with a time limit (they're inevitably getting weaker as the battle continues).  Additionally, hard-mode kills in WoW are for parties that are vastly over geared for the encounter in question or got the guy down to 1% health before the enrage and had just enough juice left to get him down despite the enrage.  D&D characters don't really have the option to over-gear or over-level, so "hard-mode" is a rather foreign concept.That said, phased bosses can be a lot of fun.One easy approach is to design your "solo" as 2 elites or 4 standard creature.  As each creature is "killed", the next set of stats are used.  This creates a creature that varies it's tactics throughout the fight.Another twist I've used is a creature that berserks.  Basically, I create a x level encounter using a solo and additional creatures.  If all of the non-solos are killed off before the solo is bloodied, the solo goes berserk, taking half it's remaining hp in damage and dealing double damage thereafter.  The few times I've used it, it's lead to short and tense end battles (hypothetically, the solo is dealing the same damage over the remainder of the fight, but because the fight is half as long it's much more stressful for the party).  I suppose that it might superficially be similar to an enrage timer, but it really isn't, as rather than making the fight nigh impossible for the PCs, it's simply designed to bring the fight to it's conclusion in half the time (with a bit more challenge).Don't get me wrong, a lot of your above examples were actually pretty dynamic and cool.  The concept of an attack that then becomes a zone buff for the solo's allies is great, as is the idea of a buff that the PCs can "steal" for themselves.  Adding non-solos to a solo fight is a rule I swear by.Where it goes off track, IMO, is that unlike WoW the PCs are only going to get one chance at doing the fight "right" (if they die, a retry is not a corpse-run away).  Therefore, it's important not to make something like the arcane buff from phase 3 mandatory.  DR 10 is pretty decent resistance even at epic levels, and +5 to hit is an enormous buff.  I could easily see a TPK if the party doesn't figure out that they're supposed to steal the buff, or even if they figure it out but roll like crap with their forced movement attacks.  It's fine for a gimmick to make a fight easier or harder, but it shouldn't make it potentially insurmountable.  +2 to hit and +5 to damage would be plenty IMO (no DR), without making the buff an outright necessity.Your ideas are good, but you need to keep in mind that you're designing the fight for a D&D party, rather than a WoW raid.</blockquote>

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