D&D General Powering Up and Delayed Actions

[Xeviat]

Hi everybody!

I've been thinking about D&D boss fights and how to make them more exciting. 5E has Mythic monsters. I know there's Kaiju rules out there too. But I had a thought that I was wondering how you think it would play out.

What if abilities like Breath Weapons took a full round to come out? Like round 1, Dragon uses an Action to inhale, then it uses its breath weapon automatically at the start of its next turn. This way, players would have the opportunity to take cover, to scatter, or even to heroically charge in and leap into their exposed vulnerable mouth.

It also got me wondering about balancing magic and weapons by doing the same to spells. How much better would fireball be if you knew where it was going and had a chance to react?

 

[Quickleaf]

In order for that kind of thing to work in 5e / modern D&D-alikes, there's certain things that need to happen. Generally, evading the Super Attack needs to cost more than just movement for most PCs (the exception being those who have Bonus Action movement or exceptional speeds).

So you're looking at areas of effect that, if centered on PC #1 would extend 30-feet away from them in all directions. Which would be something like a 70-foot sphere or an even bigger cone (something like 120-feet). If you look at an adult red dragon (2014) its breath weapon is a 60-foot cone, so we're talking about TWICE that.

If it can be interrupted, that's a HUGE weakness that's being added to the monster (or spellcaster). In older editions this was a thing for spellcasters and even though it was a let-down, turns went fast enough that you'd have a chance again soon enough. 5e turns take longer, so action denial has a greater impact, at least emotionally speaking.

 

[ezo]

How much better would fireball be if you knew where it was going and had a chance to react?

I think it would nerf casters big time, but that isn't a bad thing in my book.

Otherwise, I've always liked the idea of something like this in the game. However, a different form of initiative would help make it happen so it wouldn't have to be a round-to-round thing, but could be an action-to-action thing within a round.

 

[Zaukrie]

Boss fights are already in the PC's advantage due to the action economy.....that said, there 100% should be abilities that power up over time, to build the tension. Just have to counter balance that with a way to keep the BBEG alive for it to be an actual threat.....

 

[DEFCON 1]

This kind of sounds like your typical "puzzle fight"... wherein the object of the battle isn't purely just to knock the opponent down to zero HP, but to need to accomplish something else during the fight in addition to knocking the opponents to zero. Things like "knock down all the energized pillars to bring down the wall of force protecting the BBEG while the other enemies try and stop you", or "hop across all these islands in the lava pool to get to the other side to flip the switch that stops the cage holding the prisoner from descending into the lava."

In this case its "Avoid the massive damage by using a turn to run around the corner to hide from the attack before rushing up to finish the dragon off before they regain their breath weapon". It's a "puzzle" you kind of have to telegraph in order for it to work to allow your players to figure it out. You would need to show the dragon taking a round to inhale, then a round of it using the breath weapon that does so much damage that no one could survive it (even after successful saves). Then the dragon needing three rounds after that for the breath to recharge.

That's the only way that your players would probably consider the idea of running away during the intake phase. Because if you didn't telegraph it... they'd just take that one "empty" round of the dragon doing nothing but inhaling as just a free round of actions and not use it to duck and cover-- because with things like Opportunity Attacks and AoEs that "fill spaces"... the idea of using cover is not in most player's playbooks as legitimate tactics. You would need to train them to do that first.

 

[SteveC]

Time for a "back in my day..." story. Back in my day, this actually happened: you had spells that took segments to cast, and if you acted during that time, you could move out of the way or disrupt the spell. I'd say that the game has pretty thoroughly moved away from that. But still, I just finished a game (Fell Seal) where there were what amounted to demonic cannons that set an attack for a particular location, and later on that location was hit. It did make for exciting game play. I just don't think 5E is ready for that since it's much less of a movement/tactics game.

 

[Xeviat]

In order for that kind of thing to work in 5e / modern D&D-alikes, there's certain things that need to happen. Generally, evading the Super Attack needs to cost more than just movement for most PCs (the exception being those who have Bonus Action movement or exceptional speeds).

So you're looking at areas of effect that, if centered on PC #1 would extend 30-feet away from them in all directions. Which would be something like a 70-foot sphere or an even bigger cone (something like 120-feet). If you look at an adult red dragon (2014) its breath weapon is a 60-foot cone, so we're talking about TWICE that.

If it can be interrupted, that's a HUGE weakness that's being added to the monster (or spellcaster). In older editions this was a thing for spellcasters and even though it was a let-down, turns went fast enough that you'd have a chance again soon enough. 5e turns take longer, so action denial has a greater impact, at least emotionally speaking.

Why would it need to be so big? I can see jumping up to 40 ft radius so it's bigger than a typical character's single move action, but even just requiring movement to get behind cover limits their options on the next round.

I don't think I'd go for distributable unless there were a lot more changes.

And this type of thing would definitely require solo monster design. I've really enjoyed how Mythic monsters play. I found that effectively 2 back to back lower CR monsters glued together makes for a much more exciting fight than 1 higher CR monster.

 

[Quickleaf]

Why would it need to be so big? I can see jumping up to 40 ft radius so it's bigger than a typical character's single move action, but even just requiring movement to get behind cover limits their options on the next round.

I don't think I'd go for distributable unless there were a lot more changes.

And this type of thing would definitely require solo monster design. I've really enjoyed how Mythic monsters play. I found that effectively 2 back to back lower CR monsters glued together makes for a much more exciting fight than 1 higher CR monster.

Yes, sorry, I was thinking diameter. A 40-foot radius would work.

The general idea though is... this sort of thing works easily in a video game where movement is truly at a premium... but in most 5e games movement is not at a premium. That's why I would recommend (and what I do with these sorts of "cued power attacks") designing area of effect to require some kind of action investment. There are exceptions to this, but that requires more thoughtful design of monster & terrain imo.

 

[the Jester]

Hi everybody!

I've been thinking about D&D boss fights and how to make them more exciting. 5E has Mythic monsters. I know there's Kaiju rules out there too. But I had a thought that I was wondering how you think it would play out.

What if abilities like Breath Weapons took a full round to come out? Like round 1, Dragon uses an Action to inhale, then it uses its breath weapon automatically at the start of its next turn. This way, players would have the opportunity to take cover, to scatter, or even to heroically charge in and leap into their exposed vulnerable mouth.

That robs the DM of the opportunity to act tactically. The party scatters, and now the dragon can only hit one target with its breath. That's absolutely not to my taste.

It also got me wondering about balancing magic and weapons by doing the same to spells. How much better would fireball be if you knew where it was going and had a chance to react?

Same problem, but in reverse.

I prefer an "imprecise aim" rule; for example, instead of targeting a square with an area of effect, you pick a square and target a random corner of the square.

 

[Stalker0]

In dave2008s monster compendium, his recent dragons do exact this. They get a breath weapon, and then it requires an action to recharge them.

I think the key to this working, is you want to create a scenario where the monster cannot be attacked as easily, and therefore, the party considers tactics other than attacks.

Take the dragon I mentioned. If the dragon just stands there powering up while getting beat on....that adds nothing to the fight. However, imagine a dragon that breaths the first round and takes to the air, in the second round he's circling high in the sky while inhaling for a clear recharge of his mighty weapon, and then round 3 comes crashing down breathing fire.

What that does is either it forces the party to use suboptimal attacks (aka the melee guys might use weaker ranged attacks, or casters use longer range but maybe not their desired spells)....or they decide to prepare for the onslaught through other means.


Another version of this, is a monster that while powering up, a sphere of force builds around them, and breaks in the next round as the big whammy is released. you know have a moment of pause between the next round of action, which breaks up the normal narrative of combat and requires the player to think a bit differently than "swing swing swing"