Why Your DnD Monsters Suck - Defense
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- Опубліковано 14 жов 2024
- This video is in a 5 part series of how to improve your DnD 5e Combat and Boss Monsters.
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I think a good defensice mechanic i used in one of the best solo fights i ever ran was giving the boss a "overheat" mechanic. the players were in a fight with a giant robot, and it was so unstable it could overheat at any moment. the ability was "if the robot starts its turn under any condition, it can gain 1 level of overheat and remove all effects. but for every level of overheat it lowered it's Ac by 2, at 5 level of overheat, the robot loses 1 legendary action". that gave the encounter a more dynamic vibe, because at the start the robot had super high Ac and the only real way to damage it was with saves. but after about 4 rounds, attacks became much more effective than saving throws because the robot was super easy to hit. a mechanic that changes the strength of the boss ir reavels new weaknesses during the fight is a fun way in my opinion to spice up combat
I love this one, I might steal it!
@@ahero8101 glad you liked it
also sorry for any spelling mistakes, my english is not that good
yeah, I can concur on this one. One thing I used in the past that I didn't really think was that impactful, but my players told me later was super interesting was a monster's specific ability: it had vulnerability to a certain damage type but whenever you hit it with that damage type, it'd get a huge speed buff.
now, behind the screen, this effectively did nothing, but the players in the moment felt like that completely locked off that damage type, so after the first instance of it, they never attacked it with that type of damage again.
even if the buff is minor, it can feel significant to the players. they don't know what that creature could've done with that speed boost, maybe he gets an OP charge attack. Of course, I know at best he can kite them now, but it's still an interesting interaction that changes how they play or think about the game. it's not just "how can i maximize damage this fight".
I dislike legendary actions on principle, but this is a pretty cool mechanical idea. Translate failed saving throws into a less debilitating stacking debuff.
I would like to suggest an addition for the replacement for legendary resistance for it to *require the dragon to spend more Firepower to resist an effect proportional to the level of the spell slot used.* Something like [slot level] / 3 rounded up. That would make the cost from 1st to 9th be 1/1/1/2/2/2/3/3/3.
If it costs the same to resist a Slow or a True Polymorph, it would be very wasteful for the PCs to use their high level save spells until the dragon has clearly ran out of juice, which would take many failed saves to happen and the dragon would recover enough for 3 more on their turn. *On top of that, it would be awesome to tell the player when the dragon spends it to resist a 7th level spell that "The dragon flinches. Panting. Almost losing balance for a moment. It looks like it took a lot out of them to resist your spell!".*
Exactly this, also having to force the dragon to resist 3 saving throws every round would just end up keeping the casters in the party too busy to do anything else, the general idea of the video is really good though
@@andreavitiello3762 If the spellcasters are using their turns to 'suppress' the dragons ability to use its breath weapon, many parties would consider that a good trade. And mechanically, that ALSO balances the action economy in favor of the dragon. So needing extra points of firepower just (again) skews the fight and action economy back in favor of the PC's.
This would be a great system if the idea was that players get like 1 shot if the dragon ever uses his breath. If you make it so easy to reduce his fire power then if you are unable to keep it off of 10 it should appropriately punish you. Otherwise you end up with a dragon who never gets to use his breath if there are two casters, and even when he does it's pathetic for how much build up it had. Or you could also make it so he doesn't expend fire power on his breath. Overall i like the videos approach more. The breath is a signature part of the dragon and you'll have to deal with it at some point. This just makes it so your cc abilities can delay the breath, or with a good number of casters you can stop it entirely. It doesn't feel like your intended to fully stop it from breathing although it's possible.
@@cybercyrus6402 I think that the video kinda expects you to bump up the damage on the dragon's breath or add another devastating effect to it, because otherwise it just feels meh compared to what it takes for the dragon to cast it.
@@andreavitiello3762 firepower says every turn, not at the start of the dragons turn. That's 3 legendary resistance each turn lol.
i remember the first and most impactful boss i've ever had was a mirror knight in a room of mirrors. there are two enemies to the encounter, the mirror knight itself and a reflection of the mirror knight made of mirrors. they would act on separate turns but whatever one did the other also did which often lead them to being on opposite sides of the map. i changed this problem by making walking into mirror walls or shooting a projectile into one would cause the thing to appear on the opposite side of the room. to my surprise one of my players was dumb enough to stand on the central square while trying to reach the other enemy. he got swung at 8 times total with the two attacks on each of the enemies' turns. i gave in some obvious hints that once one was "killed" it was still active because the other one was active too. eventually they killed both and they raved about it afterward.
I think that the main problem with Legendary Resistance is that a lot of the time it feels like the DM telling the players "No" with no interesting description to back it up. As long as it is described in a way that feels impactful and makes it clear that the character who triggered it used up the monster's resources and reduced its capacity to continue fighting in a way similar to how a fighter does when they hit the monster with their sword I think it works. Your solution is a good one, but I think fundamentally the issue with Legendary Resistance is that DMs often describe it poorly and therefore the players perceive it poorly, not that it is a bad mechanic. "You cast Hold Monster on the dragon and you can feel the spell taking hold and see the dragon begin to go rigid. Suddenly its eyes lock with yours and you can feel a well of magical energy spilling out from the monster. The spell is shattered but the creature is left panting. Throwing off your magic clearly took a lot out of your foe." Something like that versus "It fails, okay it uses legendary resistance"
exactly, the effect they described is just a more flavorful version of legendary resistance and legendary actions/lair actions
I'm a big fan of making Legendary Resistances still make the creature take damage, generally at a d6 per spell level(or equivalent for non-spell abilities) implying that it hurts them to overcome the magic. Flavor it however you will, telling the player that their spell failed but they still get to roll damage dice makes it feel like they still contributed on their turn.
Coming off a game where we fought three legendary monsters back-to-back-to-back, our GM was particularly guilty of that. "I cast [Spell] on the Meatball!" "Legendary Resistance, it doesn't work. Just gonna mark that down..."
From my perspective though, it was forgivable because he also always made sure to mention how the monsters' pools of Legendary Resistances were decreasing. While it wasn't very narrative, it at least made me feel like we were worming away at the monsters' defenses, slowly making them more vulnerable, before we could hit them with our ultimate abilities.
These more unique defensive mechanics would've been even more interesting by far, though. As would proper descriptions.
So your issue isnt with legendary resistances then. You just want the dm to flavor it. Nothing wrong with asking for that flavor
I like Epic Legacy's design. It has the Mythic Resistance Trait, which costs a legendary action to succeed.
Another idea for a monster mechanic was an extremely powerful feature that charges over the course of a few turns, before unleashing a devastating effect when finished. However the effect can be reset if the monster fails a concentration check similar to if it was casting a spell.
I used this for a Aberrant monster I made; where it would screech at a higher and higher pitch over 3 rounds, until out of the range of human hearing on the 3rd turn, then unleashing an extremely powerful blast of thunder damage on the 4th turn, potentially exploding a grappled creature's head on a failed con save.
After the first boom goes off the party immediately realties that 'oh crap, we can't let this thing's attack go off'; which due to their relatively low health and the fact they can fail a concentration save isn't all too hard to end it's screech. Also because it goes off at the beginning of the 4th turn, prepared creature can duck for cover to save themselves from the blast.
This seems iffy because the counterplay is just... murdering it. Which is what the party was probably going to do anyways.
It is nice to see parity between player and monster mechanics though. If a spellcaster can blow a concentration check then surely some monster abilities can be thrown off? It does add some neat flavor, and probably creates interesting strategic considerations when paired with other enemies that are more threatening on a per-turn basis. Do we try to kill off the screechers now, or do we kill the more immediate threat and then weather the storm?
@@anachronity9002 I agree with you, the mechanic is a bit crude if the party can't interact with it and it forces the party to do something they already plan to do. Also the only ways to deal with them is to kill the creature or cast "silence" However, if instead of exploding theirs head. The constant buzzing would either put them at a "disadvantage" or prevent them from concentrating on spells (or both) or make them confused, or simply inflict damage on them.
It could have its uses not as a defensive mechanic per se, because if the sound is canceled the encounter becomes a regular combat. But it can be a good puzzle for the party, finding some way to deal with the buzz before engaging the enemy.
P.S. Excuse the strange grammar, my English... let's say I just read and listen :P
The silence spell sounds pretty good against him
lovely video, tried this with my dnd group tonight after i watched it last night. Had to overtime a bit to change my encounter but my party really enjoyed the fight, my wizard often gets disappointed when their big spell just get legendary resisted and he told me it felt much better using your mechanic. Glad i found this channel
Thank you for trying out my mechanics! Glad to hear it went well. :D
I had a an “ice sorceress” fight that while it did include a pair of ice golem minions, any time she took melee damage she would use a reaction and appear one of 8 random locations. This made the fight a bit more tactical, and required the highly mobile party to have to deal with the golems as they were a bit spooky left alone. The golems themselves had ice armor which had a damage threshold, and their arms could change to a shield to increase AC and defend against fire attacks, turn into a maul to crush enemies (extra damage), a sword to cleave enemies, or a javelin to throw. It was a bonus action to change one hand per turn. As they took damage the ice armor chipped away and they became more vulnerable, though a strategic cone of cold was able to restore them a bit. The sorceress had a bit of randomness and wild magic element so some teleports were very good, but some did happen to place them in worse danger.
Now this sounds like a wild fight
Okay, the random TP boss ability is something I WILL be stealing.
Holy crap this is just what I have been looking for. I have no clue how to make interactive monsters and I have really wanted to put some into my games. Having fights be like this, where the players have some control over the monsters, is way more interesting than basic combat.
A simple one I like to use at low levels is to give certain bosses a rage mechanic a little like the barbarian, if they take too much damage in one turn or they reach a certain amount of hp they become enraged, gaining appropriate damage resistances (usually bludgeoning piercing and slashing) and slightly higher melee damage however this means that the creature now fights more recklessly either attacking the nearest target or focusing the creature that enraged it. For sentient bosses, this means that the players might need to switch objective and protect a certain player and if the boss has minions this now makes the players decide if they should try and kill the boss ASAP to save the targeted teammate or if they should deal with the minions so the party as a whole takes less dpr. The good thing is that if the party has some really bad rolls, you don't HAVE to use it, but having the option there has enabled me to make encounters a bit more interesting.
My problem about these kind of gimmicks on sentient bosses is justifying not using it later, especially with smarter characters.
This was a pretty interesting way to make it stronger without giving it a million hp good job. Also wow I did NOT expect you to be a new channel. Your content is so well organized. Hope to see more of you
THIS!
This series better blow up. This is a great video. I love your ideas for making things more interactive, and while I could see players getting upset, I think this approach is better for the game than allowing things like forcecage to make encounters trivial.
Thank you so much for the kind words!
You took the words right out of my mouth! Every now and then, just when I think I've exhausted YT for useful content for running my games, it shows me an absolute gem with fresh concepts and takes like this very video. Looking forward to more from Hero!
This was an awesome video. The form was great, and the idea was awesome. Having an ability that feels powerful, yet feels fun for the players to interact with and learn as they play is awesome. Definitely adding this to any red dragon in my games. Can't wait to see more content from you! A welcome edition to my watchlist of D&D content. Honestly some of my favorite right now.
Great content! That was a really good example of haw an epic battle can turn into a painstakingly long sequence of turns. And the solution was pretty well thought, nice job!
I agree it was a good example of why lone boss monsters are bad, but the solution is actually terrible. It's just legendary resistance that recharges. Realistically you are *not* going to meaningfully deplete that resource when your save-or-suck polymorph spell only reduces their firepower by *one*.
@@anachronity9002 I see what you mean and I partly agree with you.
In some way it is just a legendary resistance that recharges. But in some way it makes the use of the spell have some meaning instead of it being completely useless or rendering the an otherwise epic enemy completely useless.
But the thing that I really would want to change is the legendary resistance part. Even if your spell has some use (in this case reducing the firepower by a tiny bit) it still negates the spell completely, maybe reducing the impact of the spell or something could be also good.
But would you suggest another way to deal with the problem? As a striving to be better DM it's always good to hear new ideas. Thanks for the reply btw!
I like adapting a concept from the anime Jujutsu Kaisen: domain expansions. Basically, powerful monsters (or any with the right knowledge/magic/lore) can transform the map into a lair and have new lair actions. For a red dragon, something like transforming this treasure hall into a raging inferno or volcano. Or for hags, creating a large arena/cage made of thorns. The idea is it shifts the nature of the combat and unlocks surprising lair actions and terrain features.
However, the point you make about the combat shifting every time there is a counter is a good one, and the visible traits of powering up can add some good tension. Going to be thinking on this more.
I don't disagree that the mechanics introduced are fun, I just find it weird they consider it adversarial to in-game mechanics, this functions almost exactly like legendary actions and legendary resistance, just combined into one ability with neither name, which is cool but weird that they don't just admit that is a barely edited version of rules that 5e has, like the ability to give nearly any dragon spellcasting, this edition was designed to be homebrewed into whatever someone wants, not to give the perfect boss for Adventurer's league players.
@@LadyHearth Well if whatever someone wants Is a good boss fight, this video Is a great guide. Game designwise thing all the mechanic to one resource has huge implications. Is because It vives more choices to the way to fight the dragon, contrary to normal legendary resistance or no legendary where battles can boil down to the sme strategy every Time
I don't know if it would be considered similar, but I made a demon that was very slow, but could attack through and instantly travel through blood.
So through the combat it would kill npcs or hurt the players, and expand it's area of control like an evil Splatoon boss.
I have a DM who did this exact same thing, made for some very difficult boss fights!
I really like this! Utilizing that sort of firepower mechanic as "ancient bloodlust" or something of that sort can really spice up the vampire BBEG of my game
One of my favorite new things that I as a DM like to play around with is the Mythic State thing introduced in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons, that sudden surge that makes a fight that much more, giving new abilities and actions in a legendary monster's potentially final moments. It's not really a defensive thing on it's own, sure, but it wouldn't be hard to imagine a collapsing star in creature form can tear through space and time (deliberate or no) to get through the magic tricks
Yeah, you get the idea. Sell the fantasy of your monster and sell it as a threat!
Just cuz I like giving credit where credit is due, the mythic traits actually debuted in Mythic (yep, the thing) Odysseus of Theros. Really cool ideas in that book imo. Mythic traits, and the piety system. Not to be that guy, just so that book can get some love :)
@@roark914 I'mma be real, forgot that book existed
Gotta give it a read, thanks for pointing that out :)
@@abracadabruh5718 I don't blame you. Not much in there worth remembering minus as I said, the piety system and mythic traits. Cool monsters and gods I guess. Hope you like it though lmao
I have found that often times giving my bosses player feats such as sentinel or mage slayer, really catches them off guard and makes the fight far more interesting. Also using terrain and environmental effects adds to the sense of danger and realism.
This is absolutely amazing, i love this idea.
another thing i heard somewhere and love to do, is modify legendary resistances to weaken the creature as they use their resistances. For example, a Dragon could use their legendary resistance to block a powerful spell, (as in: chooses to succeed), but instead of just "haha you fail", the dragon has to use a powerful resource to do so, maybe it blocked the spell using one of its wings. In return, the dragons fly speed is halved, or down by one third. This gives the players a better feeling than "o thanks, i just wasted my most powerful spell for nothing". Instead, they have a feeling of "oh no, this is bad. My spell was really powerful, but at least _Something_ happened and it was worth to do". sure, a more knowledgable group/player might be like "oh yes, we need to burn through 3 legendary resistances", but that doesn't solve the problem of the mechanic being unengaging. although i have to admit, its sort of the opposite of a defensive mechanic, but it makes fights a lot more fun imo.
Now i need an idea of how to combine my usual approach with this idea as well. especailly since it solves one of the most imminent problems i have with creature in D&D: recharges. As a DM, it's sort of fun rolling more dice, but it can just screw both you and the party over so so so much. The Dragon doesn't get to use the breath weapon more than once the whole 10-15 turn fight? wow, amazing hurray. The Dragon just incinerates the party in the first 3 turn with 3 breath attacks? amazing, much fight. I think the idea of running monsters, especially bosses and legendary creatures more like Video Game Raid Bosses and not like, well, D&D Monsters becomes more and more appealing to me, the longer i DM.
This is the way to do UA-cam right. Professional and highly entertaining content that hits the algorithm just right. Great job!
Greatest idea I've heard in a long time, here's the elegant "universal" version.
[Legendary Power: As a legendary action, the creature ends an effect or condition currently affecting it. This replaces Legendary Resistance.]
Players can now interact with a monster's action economy more directly. And there can be "openings" between the monster's last turn and the subsequent player turns. (IE, a wizard wants to cast faerie fire, all martials upstream ready their actions to attack when it lands)
On group taste, the Legendary Power ability can be limited to 1-2 times a turn instead of 3 "legendary resistances" a turn.
EDIT: Been testing this for months now and it's been a rousing success since start! Legendary Power costing 2 legendary actions is just enough to feel impactful, and give both sides of the fight meaningful cost-benefit analysis.
In addition, I had to add 1 other ability to pair with it:
[Legendary Recovery: If this creature would make a saving throw to end the incapacitated condition, it has advantage on the saving throw.]
Due to one night a group casting non-stop stuns and paralyzes, Legendary Power can't be used (it is now an action), and Legendary Resistance isn't available. Still respects the group as there is a chance to fail and they'll get 1 turn of it, but it's just highly unlikely to get extra turns without more casts.
I think the best implementation would be for Legendary Power to cost 3 Legendary Actions, making it a substantial investment for the monster to use and therefore they have to be a little more conservative with it like Legendary resistance, high level bosses already usually have 3 or 4 incredible saves and having even one Legendary Resistance every round would mean they can use it way more reliably because they know it will recover in 6 seconds rather than an entire day.
@@matthewmoran1866 Aye I think that fixes it up nicely. 2 cost on resistance should be just fine for most groups (still gives the boss ONE extra action per round). And means I don't have to hold in my head whether or not it has the juice left to fire. I'll be testing it tonight so will see how it goes.
@@matthewmoran1866 Not a bad idea to build upon: I'd be tempted to go with 2 legendary actions (assuming a 3 legendary actions monster). That way, the boss monster cannot use it more than once a turn, which leads to an opening for other player effects, etc. and that would severely limit their actions out-of-turn. I'd suggest pairing that with making their more powerful legendary actions cost 2 actions (i.e. casting a spell, using a more powerful attack, advancing toward their goal in a dynamic fight, etc.), leaving them to a single, less powerful ability to use this turn (such as a dragon's Detect ability).
@@matthewmoran1866 Lots of months playing with it, 2 has honestly been perfect across many groups. Monster still gets other things it can do, but they are far less impactful making it feel very worth it. Being able to simply end a negative condition isn't always worth it when you can down someone and has made DMing just as much more fun!
1 extra thing though, add [Legendary Recovery: If this creature makes a saving throw or check to end the incapacitated condition, it does so with advantage.]
As I had one group full pull all the stops with Hold Monsters and similar, which completely removes Legendary Actions from the equation anyway. The ability still respects the players, but makes it far less likely I sit there for literal hours doing nothing but watching my players wail on a boss.
Loved the firepower mechanic. Besides getting more firepower with each passing turn, I would establish things that the boss could accomplish to get more firepower. These things should be in tune with the flavor of the enemy, for example:
A legendary vampire with the firepower (bloodpower, bloodfuel, bloodcharge) trait could get 1 - 2 charges of firepower per turn, but get more charges anytime they draw blood from their victims (dealing enough damage to half one of the players hp), or whenever they bite a creature.
This way, the creatures will have reason to be played in tune with their themes, the players will be encouraged to play in a way that deny the enemies of the actions that fill their firepower and each combat could be a lot more dynamic.
This mechanic could be used in order to create a potential second phase that would happen if the creature got their firepower to a certain threshold. The more I think about it, the more I find interesting ways to implement this idea. Excited to see what other ideas you have to share, keep up the good work!
THIS. This sounds so interesting, basically creating a threat tracker that lets the fight move through phases! You can see the strength the vampire spent to overcome the spell and their eyes go from the blazing red to normal again as they expend power and lose the teleport they had just a moment ago.
Perfect timing for this type of content, as my party will be running into their first boss fight very soon. Initially, it was going to have a few mobs. Now, you've inspired me to try and make an engaging solo boss encounter.
I can't wait to see more of your content. 🖤
FYI, Forcecage doesn't allow any matter nor spells to enter the cage as per the second paragraph of the spell, despite the 1/2in bars. The spell creates a magical forcefield - the bars are aesthetic.
Specific overrules the general rule of "you can cast/shoot through the bars cause you can see through them"
Sorry, that was just nagging me :')
Great video and tips! Keep it up!!
Read the actual spell before commenting. The spell barrier CLEARLY applies only to the box variant of the spell, not the cage variant, which can have line-of effects enter the cage as it is “a prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart.”
The specifics this case only applies to a singular mode of the spell instead of both, so your interpretation of the RaW is null.
@@tai-cx5vj what about the fact that gargantuan creatures can't be trapped inside of force cage anyway? The spell specifically says if the creature can't completely fit into the cage then it is pushed outside of it. Did you read the spell before commenting?
Gargantuan= 20 ft high minimum
Force cage=10 feet high maximum
So the scenario in this video couldn't even happen. Also if the bars are half inch thick and half inch wide the fighter better be making a high DEX attack to be able to fit an arrow through that. The wizards fireball would also have a really hard time fitting perfectly through half inch spacing and not just immediately dissipating on impact on the bars which wouldn't hurt the creature
@@Odande Where are you getting the 10 foot maximum? That's the box variant again. The cage variant can be up to 20 ft on all sides.
Dael Kingsmill has a great video on dragons where she recommends "legendary reactions" as responses to this kind of problem - i implemented some of her ideas and my players loved it.
Specifically for a case like this, i gave the dragon the ability to essentially try and shout so loud it cancels out the verbal component - prompting a CON check from the player to try to raise their voice above the roar. They loved it, and fwiw i did too.
Very slick and pleasant presentation, will happily watch future videos.
I guess I don't 100% fall within the target demographic for this sort of breakdown as I just wouldn't let a climatic encounter fizzle because a spell unintentionally broke it (unless the players got there by being very clever or very funny). I'd have the spell have a sizeable but not crippling impact that is befitting of its target, and move on.
That said, I fully agree that all or nothing spells while sometimes great for drama/comedy can really be frustrating if your group isn't as willing to accept homebrew effects as a sort of default expectation when fighting big threats, and legendary resistances are very boring.
I do think the example you give is neat and functional, despite the ever present twinge of fear I get every time someone mentions encouraging more summons over big splashy spells :D
As to the separate issue of creature sizes being silly on a grid and making some spells way too good I've always handwaved it away when it didn't seem to make any sense, let the big lads be proper big, you're not gonna trap an ancient dragon with a 6meter cage, you'd be lucky to catch a youngling with that kind of net! Of course once again this requires a group that is willing to trust each other and roll with the whole common sense > rules compromises philosophy, and not everyone has that luxury from the get go
This has SUCH great flavor! I love it!
I put a spin on Legendary Resistance in some of my home games. Instead of passing a save automatically, my monster's Hit Points are reduced each time they use it, usually by 1d6 for each point their failed save would need in order to pass.
Awesome idea! Appreciate the use of Foundry VTT as well to showcase your encounter!
I think you did a really good job on this, I’m a bit new to being a GM and this does really speak to me. Campaigns can seem quite dull with basic legendary resistances and such, this makes me want to rework multiple boss encounters I have because this is amazing, thank you
Awesome stuff! Been planning a video about just like this, but with a bit of different ways to tackle the problems you outlined here.
So I played around with it for a little bit and fire power felt like it would invalidate spells, especially high level ones (1 FP to cancel a 7-9 lvl spell?), especially when compared to how fast it regenerates and how expensive counterspell is. Also the Magic Resistance would only work on the dragons turn, which might be intended, but felt underwhelming so far.
And the dragon definitely has more FP at their disposal, over a fight, than the players will have spell slots.
So I changed it (for now, first draft) to:
- Start with 5/10 FP
- Gain 3 at the END of the first turn of the dragon (I like Boss monsters with 2 turns so First Turn is important)
- When Subjected to a continues effect or saving throw, spend 3/4/5 fire power to end the effect or succeed the save (for Spell level 0-3/4-6/7-9) (Yes, way more expensive, but I also would give that dragon max hp, so it should average out. Also that might give the players a turn or two of force cage, which will then break at some point, instead of just breaking, as an example)
- The Dragon can end any permanent magical effect in the attack range, on their turn, by spending 5 FP
- When the Dragon has 10 FP, they gain Magic Resistance (Now for a round, as they gain FP at the end of their turn)
- If the dragon starts their turn with 10 FP, they have to use their breath weapon, consuming 5 FP in the process.
Also, maybe the recovery should be lowered to 2 per turn at 50% HP and 1 per turn at 25%, so that the dragon can't outpace a party at a certain point.
Also I just realized, that for lower CR monsters, this might be too much, so CR 12-15~ monsters with LR could be changed to:
- Max Fire Power is 7
- Recovery is 2 per Turn
- They start with 3
- Their breath (or similar feature) costs 4
- And if they choose to destroy an effect, they need to spend 5, the destruction happens at the start of the next turn, and they don't regenerate FP for this turn and the next.
Imagine an adult white dragon starting to freeze the spell around them, exerting everything they got and then some to freeze away the magic, as they don't quite have the power and experience the older, more vicious dragons have. On their next turn, the spell shatters into empty shards of ice, but the dragons body is still covered in sweat like droplets of moisture, as cold vapor is fuming out of the body. At the end of their next turn, the droplets freeze and the mist vanishes slowly, as the dragon regenerates their internal temparture.
Not sure if I am happy with that version either, but that's my current take.
A boss I used was a worm of ice and fire. It was like a weakened purple worm stat block, though had an ever shifting tones of frosty blue and fiery orange. When a player hit it with either ice or fire damage, it changed the scales of the creature, changing the combat.
Bright orange gave resistance to fire damage, dealing extra fire damage with their ranged attack, and having a searing touch if anyone did melee.
A mixture of blue and orange gave it 2 attacks, one of each color, making it scary to keep in the middle.
Blue made it deal more cold damage (overall less than fire), resistance to cold damage and reduced movement by half if hit.
It worked well to keep the players focussed on the monster and trying to adapt to the changing scenario, rather than trying to catch it. It also worked well with the spellcasters, as they had to cooperate since nobody had both a fire and ice spell.
Absolutely phenomenal video. Presented well and quickly instead of sitting there with a camera on your face talking forever about vague ideas like most dnd "advice" channels
Wow this is your first video but it's really good! It's super engaging, informative, and interesting.
The way you showed the difference in effect between the RAW dragon and your homebrew version was excellent.
Can't wait to see more content!
What I do in my table is follow the suggestion of changing Legendary Resistances and using many optional rules in the DMG:
• Legendary Resistances don't have the same effects as RAW, instead something different may happen depending on the creatures, in short, Legendary Resistance (LR) is another ability that the creatures will have or that might be triggered by something in the battlefield. I.e. A Dragon fails the save of a Hold monster spell and has a LR, means the spell tries to paralyze it completely but ends up paralyzing its wings or some of its movements, reducing his actions or his options in combat. It might also get enraged similar to the bloodied condition in 4e or to the triggers some monsters have in MotM, exploding in flames as it resists the efects partially or breaking through in the following round or after a damage threshold, etc. Also, back to the example, you can decide on the go or have a player roll the die to see which part is paralyzed. The wings, preventing flight and some attacks, the feet, reducing movement and claw attacks, grabs, etc, or the head, preventing the dragon's breath, bites and so on, the tail is also there, you get the idea.
There are other rules our table loves to use, I'll list below for other players and DMs to see if they like it too :)
• You can use potions as bonus action (Thieves' Fast Hands allow to do so as a free action once per turn), but to give to someone else you use an action (BA to Thief's Fast Hands). You can also make improvised actions together with your attacks by imposing disadvantage on yourself but giving great rewards such as: Trying to hit the eyes of an opponent (maybe a cut or throwing sand with your attack), this would give you disadvantage on your attack but if you manage to hit, the target would be blinded until the end of your next turn. This goes for almost everything the players want to do outside of the box, another common example is to hit the legs to reduce their movement speed by half, the same ruling is applied.
• You are able to use the environment as a free action such as making an athletics check to kick a table onto the guy as part of the attack: In that scenario the PC would have to make an Athletics check, on a success they get the table to hit for some extra 1d4 damage or more up to the DM and the situation ofc, on a failure they hurt themselves for 1d4 damage or more etc and the table doesn't move.
• Another hypothesis is to use Acrobatics or Athletics to jump or fall from something, maybe a rope, and hit the target with advantage on a success or with disadvantage on a failure, etc... Depending on the circumstances you might be able to try to look at the vulnerable spots of a creature making an investigation/perception check, on a success you know information about it, on a failure the target has advantage against you for the next turn.
This is a very interesting way to grant your bosses some power instead of just saying “oh yeah this one has spells” or pulling something from no where, I might actually steal this dragon one as it’s somewhat relevant to a campaign I’m running currently, but I never thought of just giving it something to replace the boring things or rather a better way to explain why they happen
I actually ran a boss monster once with a lair action that functioned defensively. The entire arena was flat to start with, and was separated into a grid. He was given 30 feet of lair action to move the squares of the grid up and down on a turn, and would also summon 1d6 cultists made out of the mist that he had been creating monsters out of throughout the game. They had to choose between attacking him and attacking the cultists, because at the end of each round the cultists would all be sacrificed and their remaining hit points added to the beholder's life force. The melee crew had the choice to rush in and actually attack the beholder and then be trapped by the beholder building a wall between them and the bard, or to stay behind and help defend the mostly-helpless bard vs the cultists. The walls also hurt in the form that the bard had to keep pivoting and climbing to get line of sight to the people who needed healing and/or to cast control on the beholder, but it was dangerous to be on any particular pillar since he could move it upwards and trap you with threat of fall damage or being crushed into the ceiling on a failed Acrobatics/Athletics check of DC 25. The party was only level 9 though, and didn't have any crazy spells so I think it worked out. The boss didn't have legendary resistances and they ended up using a magic item to kill him through some interesting uses of the mechanic so I think it worked well.
You deserve a bigger following. Great content with solid tips!
Making boss mechanics like this is one of my favorite parts of designing or revamping a monster. I ran an encounter a while back where my players were fighting an altered version of Yeenoghu along with a pack of gnolls and a gnoll shaman that was buffing him. Whenever he failed a saving throw against a spell or magical effect, the shaman had the option of remotely sacrificing a gnoll fodder bozo to shatter the spell. It could also do the same thing to buff his attacks or restore health to itself or Yeenoghu, which forced them to actually focus on bursting down some of the smaller enemies.
This is a brilliant concept and definitely something that I will more than likely use in most if not all future bossfights that I design if I ever get back to DMing.
I haven't really thought to create interactive defensive mechanics of this sort in the past and mostly just focused on giving my bosses extremely powerful offensive abilities or making my bossfights consist of enemy parties designed using the rules for character creation.
Here's what I managed to come up with after thinking about it for a little while, this one was somewhat inspired by the MTG card Mother of Runes.
The mechanic would be Boss who can choose to have protection from any school of magic or damage type, but can only have protection from one thing at a time and can only change it once per round using their reaction. You'd probably also want to make it so the boss automatically uses its reaction to end the relevant effect if it becomes incapacitated as soon as it is able to. Protection from a damage type would grant immunity to that type of damage, and having protection from a school of magic would render the boss entirely unaffected by any spells cast of that school, as well as end any spells of that school currently affecting it.
In the Forcecage example, you could get something like "The dragon's scales suddenly begin to glow and shift across its massive body and take on a new pattern. As the dragon begins walk forward the Forcecage that was once binding it bends and flows around its body like oil against water. 'Your magic will not bind me so easily he says'". Perhaps an arcana check could reveal that the new pattern of scales on the dragon is that of Evocation magic.
I do think this could initially lead to some "wasted turn" feelings the first time it happens, however I also think there could be a lot of interesting counter play to a mechanic like this. For example, if the fighter swings his Greatsword only to have the Boss gain protection from Slashing, then a clever player might think to pull out one of their Javelins after the first attack and do their remaining attacks with that instead in order to inflict piercing damage.
This mechanic also becomes really interesting to interact with once you consider the ready action. Any spellcaster trying to get in a powerful spell could take the ready action and attempt to wait for the dragon to use their one reaction for the round on something else in order to get it off unobstructed. Or if they're really clever and have a deep enough spell pool they could ready one save or suck spell and cast it at the start of the boss's turn to force their reaction; then on the caster's next turn they can cast a different save or suck spell of a different school of magic once the boss's defenses are down. On the flip side, a spellcaster with an early enough initiative could choose to ready a low level spell or even a cantrip to try and bluff the dragon into saving their reaction for nothing. Of course, even if a save or suck effect does manage to go off, the boss would still be able to use their reaction at the start of their next turn to end the effect in order to keep fighting, however doing so would leave them exposed for that entire next round.
Watched this video and thought this is a well thought out and edited video. Wondered why I’d never seen you’re channel before. Great work
There aren't enough channels and videos that talk about the mechanical economy of RPG combat!!! Instantly subscribed, I badly want to learn more about this.
One mechanic I have thought of is to give certain enemies a defensive mechanic which is basically the shield spell, except +1 instead of +5 and goes off every time you'd be hit and it stacks (and goes away when the monster takes a turn like shield) . This type of defensive mechanic seems nice to build encounters with multiple enemies where you want to discourage focus firing, and can also tip the fight in favor of big splashy damage vs lots of little damage.
The reverse mechanic is also a neat idea. Giving an enemy +5 AC, and having it's AC go down by 1 for a round every attack that misses could be a neat way to have some kind of crumbling armor that the PCs have to chip away at to get hits in.
There are few channels I've seen with a first video as clean and well polished as this. Looking forward to your content.
This video is criminally underrated, it's amazing and useful information!
Personally, I'd also look at the lair mechanics as well if they're playing with force cage shenanigans.
A lot of those are ones that can form a framework for that kind of thing, both for creating what is, effectively, a boss chamber, and in making it interesting...through the entire way in.
Something like tremors as the dragon moves, even just smashing against the cage, characters are forced to keep moving to avoid what amounts to avalanches of gold.
Using the map in the video, perhaps there's a chamber beneath them judging by the wooden floor...the fire breath can instantly turn the entire battlefield into it's own issues for the party with smoke and fire...and parts of the floor weakening and/or collapsing beneath them. Things on the rafters falling down upon the players...don't forget things specifically to hinder concentration checks.
If you want to make things even trickier, use the classics...Red Dragons love to lair in or near volcanos. If the players have any allies or similar living on the island, the dragons rage being tied to the volcano itself could make it even worse for them and create other issues they might need to deal with because as it gets more and more angrier, the close the volcano comes to blowing its top, perhaps wiping out the villagers nearby and/or the players way off the island.
Always remember that most monsters are smart enough to be able to take advantage of the terrain and setting things up.
And other Legendary Actions can make an encounter memorable...my players still remember what they refer to as the magical murder hag. Turned a battle with a Hag into a nasty thing where they had to figure things out. Being able to use a legendary action to Fey step combined with an action to go invisible until attacking again while there were other complications thrown into the mix.
I'd put magical items amongst the dragons treasure.
Perhaps the dragon purposely set itself near that item that emits an antimagic field.
Perhaps it purposely used its tail attack to fling a cursed item that causes a creature to have their strength drop to 10 if they touch it until they pass a decently difficult save at the barbarian, and uses its legendary resistance to ensure it isn't affected.
"You think I am some pathetic magpie collecting everything shiny without purpose or understanding!?"
It's not lair actions per se, but it is still being smart about its home field advantages
Indeed: even caged, the dragon is far from helpless. They can still use their breath weapon, and although the dragon might be initially reluctant to damage their own hoard (hence why striking them in their hideout is sometimes not the worst idea ever), in a life-or-death situation, it will not hesitate to melt their gold piles otherwise used as cover by the players into a deadly molten trap that will rapidly cool off and partially encase them, to name just that. Not to mention the fact that the dragon does indeed know every detail of their lair and will know what rafter or other feature to hit to hinder invaders, where the ground is soft enough to burrow through, have already laid out magical items and other hoard items in their favour as well as traps and a couple of escape routes. Let's not forget dragons are extremely intelligent creatures that tend to get a little paranoid at times.
Second video of yours I’ve watched and man oh man is this good stuff! Can’t wait to see more!
Something that would be cool to see is more stuff like this - changing monster blocks to make things more interactive for both dm and players 👌🏼
I always like to surprise my players when a boss has surprise spellcasting, especially when it is a creature you would not expect to be intelligent enough to do so.
When they realize the Chimera or displacer beast is smart enough to talk and has spells, then you see them realize they may have bitten off more than they could chew, (though the spells you give the monster may not actually make it more lethal, the players don't know that)
Well those are like my two favorite monsters so I love the examples. ;P
I love to give them new ways to see monsters they are familiar with, even if it's as simple as you're level 1 and there's a displacer beast.
And in my opinion chimeras definitely should talk and have magic
My man has 64 subscribers and ended up in my recommended. For the first time I think the UA-cam algorithm is working!
Another successful D&D channel out of thin air, glad to have you!
Instantly subscribed, your content is EXTREMELY high quality for your low subscriber count. Amazing work and keep it up
I designed a combo of two keywords for mechanics regarding "boss" creatures that are more revolving around melee. The aim is to make the fight more dynamic and possibly reward players to move around during the fight more - especially ranged attackers.
"Stance" and "Charged attack"
Imagine Borb the Giant. A giant blessed by own gods with a blade that can split rocks.
Mechanically Borb has potential to put to 0 lots of classes with a single attack, especially casters. And even if he cant do that now one lucky initiative roll and he will likely reach the party with Dash and create a threat of an attack on opportunity. Being not a dumb giant he wont leave it for clearly welladjusted melee and he will surely decide to land his blade on weaker rangers.
Instead, when creatures like this get to them being close the enter "Stance'. It consumes reaction - which lets people run away if they chose to. They see that he raises his arms with weapon, ready to deflect projectiles and kick whoever tries to hit him. Ranged attacks get disadvantages vs him and get reflected back if they miss, melee attacks get punished with immediate weaker attacks - kick - to face. During stance he does "Charged attack" that will hit everyone around him immideately when his turn starts.
Combine that with terrain, minions and hazards and it will turn into more dynamic fight. It also gives enough pause to do defensive actions as well instead of locking and bursting the creature down.
Brilliant video! I can't wait to implement this in future games! I look forward to seeing the rest of your Monster Workshop!
Hey there! Thank you for the vid and the awesome advice you are providing here. I'm learning a lot from it no doubt.
However, while the pictures you show certainly enhance your point, may I suggest that you also provide a transcript of your spoken text?
Not all DMs are 100% fluent in english and some people have hearing issues. On top of that, you are talking pretty fast while also providing written info on top of that at the same time.
It might only be me, but I had to pause and replay your video several times to get all your meanings.
Thank you for making theese nonethless. Keep up the good work!
Man! this is such an awesome video, you just changed completely the way I see combat in d&d from now on
Honestly, one of the best and most unique mechanical Ideas for 5e I have ever seen!
Likes, subscribed and waiting for the next vid! ;)
ancient red dragons have specific rules for being able to cast sorcery so ive never had an issue with specifically force cage, as the dragon could either counterspell, misty step or dispel magic a hole into the cage. But the spell has otherwise been an issue of particular annoyance and your advice for running singular encounters more dynamically was really well layed out
This is just want I needed! I have been trying to figure out how to make combat more interesting. This is a great help!
If you don't want to introduce new rules, you could telegraph the fire breath the turn before. This doesn't solve the entire issue, but does make combat more fun in low level campaigns.
Amazing first video by the way, congrats on the success
This is a cool little first video, I endeavor to see the rest when it’s released, good work.
A great one I came up with is a massive siege golem having shield ram arms that it can push together to basically create a wall in front of it. Abilities originating in the direction of this wall are blocked/autosaved/reduced in power etc (depending on how you want to play it)
Now, this golem, being a massive lumbering construct, had directional positioning when it moves/ends its turn, so party members can easily circle around to its back to have more effective spells. However, the golem has various ways of dealing with people in specific areas. Releasing steam vents to damage directly around it, possibly blinding people etc.
I recently had an absolutely fantastic encounter with my players last session. I've always struggled creating boss monsters because they would always feel way too underpowered, or just use one attack and then that's it. At the time, I was afraid to implement legendary actions because I thought they would make the fight go over too quickly.
But, the players encountered one of the bosses that I've eluded to for some time. (I'll be perfectly honest, I tossed it together in an hour because I procrastinated :P) and it...was...glorious. The boss was balanced, there was tension in the form of one of the boss' minions teleporting one floor at a time, searching for the gunpowder stash in their ship's storage, while the boss slaughtered the ship's crew (The players were on a ship btw). The boss itself was stylized after a beholder. She was a ten-tailed fox devil and each of her tails did something different. Some did damage, other imposed a status effect. I...uh....aaaalso broke the rules by accident. See she had only 40 feet of movement, but I had this idea that she could jump 4 times as far, and she also cast the jump spell. This gave her in actuality roughly 192 feet in a long jump, and 72 feet high jump. I also ruled that it didn't provoke AOO because jumping isn't technically movement (Which it actually is, I think?) But the players were cool with it.
She was elusive, hard to pin down, and had tons of tricks up her sleeve since she could activate the effects of 3 tails on her turn. She did not have legendary resistance but could use her reaction to block an attack roll as if she cast shield, this would randomly cause one of her tails to become non-functional until the end of her next turn. She also had a bunch of spells in her arsenal, mostly control spells like summon lesser demons, which I used to keep some party members busy.
She also had two homebrewed hell hounds with her. One originating from Cania, and covered in icy-cold armor. The other from Phlegethos, and wreathed in flame. These two had the ability to sense freezing/firey temperatures within 30 feet in their vicinity, and could teleport to any such locations as they were aware of as a bonus action. So the firey hell-hound would teleport to lower decks, sensing the lit candles below. While the other fought alongside the main boss with the remaining party.
Tensions mounted, near the end of the fight the fiery hellhound managed to locate their stash of gunpowder on the lower decks, on its next turn, it would light it, and that signaled doom. The druid failed her grapple check while transformed as a giant snake. It wasn't looking good. Above deck, the party managed to kill the icy hellhound and both lesser demons summoned by the boss, but one party member was down, and the echo knight was temporarily incapacitated by the boss. The artificer fired one last volley of bullets from his double-barreled rifle. And the boss goes down. Only to rise again as she absorbs her last hell-hound for extra HP in one final attempt to defeat the party. It fails, and she goes down for one final time.
That fight lasted 4 hours. The party was on the edge of their seats the entire time. At the end of it, since that was one of the BBEG's of the campaign, they got to level up. They're now level 8, and I'm really looking forward to playing again...at least once we all feel better. All of us got sick. If only paladins existed so we can have lay on hands!
You’ve inspired me to modify the dragon from Dragon of Icepsire peak for my newbie group. This defensive change and some other new abilities via Matt Colville are gonna (hopefully) make this memorable! Thanks dude!
Ay yo, this looks to be ur first video, and it's quite impressive, good luck on ur UA-cam journey dude ^^
Great video. Great ideas and although chill,still very entertaining.This channel will blow up quick.
When players are about to deprive themselves of a challenging encounter be sure to pause for a moment as a Dungeon Master.
In the case of Forcecage around an Ancient Red Dragon. I would rule that the dragon's breath is as powerful as a Disintegrate spell (which can burn away magic).
Have the dragon on the first round break enough of the cage to cast fire through a crack or get a claw through. Then on the second round it shatters the cage.
The Wizard bought the party a turn and a half, getting to feel like a badass, and the party isn't deprived of a cool encounter.
This for me - spending turns but giving the boss a way out makes it feel very worth it for the players but also gives the boss a chance.
Unfortunately a turn and a half most likely means a dead boss tbh but hey an action or two is better than nothing
@@Killer66hitman boss might be dead in a turn and half (depends on the level and party composition).
Be sure to force the party to blow some resources before they get to the boss. And if they still burn through his hit points too quickly, you can always have a nearby magic item absorb some of the damage (Lair-gem or something).
As a last resort you can always have the 'Dragon's Mate' show up or have a nearby nest of younglings.
@@mark_sturzbecher I don't know...I feel like if they're killing the boss in a turn and a half, you probably didn't choose a suitable enough boss for them.
There's no way they should be killing an ancient dragon in two turns.
I feel like they don't have all of that treasure and charisma so they can pop out of the pile and be instantly killed...
I feel like they should be a bit more intelligent than a freaking ogre.
+7 stealth, +freaking 16 perception, and a pile of distracting loot in the room, the first thing it should be doing is hiding and watching.
Identifying threats like who has focuses or magical items it recognizes, waiting for an opportunity like when the party grabs a handful of loot, and perhaps just going straight for the spellcaster before initiative is even rolled.
And if it knows it can't win it might try intimidation, or bargaining instead.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 I was just responding to Killer66hitman's comment about his boss not being alive in a turn and a half, and suggested ways of making the fight last longer.
That being said, players can come up with some pretty abusive combos. One shotting a boss is a common enough problem for newer DMs.
This is great, having a resource used for offense & defense together really helps make for a dynamic fight, great stuff!!
I can imagine the wizard saying "HEY THAT'S NOT FAIR! YOU ARE JUST MAKING NEW RULES TO MAKE THE GAME HARD!!!"
This is some great advice, as this is a new channel... we will be watching your career with great interest.
Here is something I’ve done in my game. The players were fighting a wizard, and he had four people trapped in orbs high in the battle space. Each of those orbs acted as a concentration spell. On every other round, his lair action would activate one of the orbs and that would continue for the rest of the fight. I think one was globe of invulnerability, one was cloud kill, and I forget the other two, but the point is that those spells could be broken if the orbs were broken. Another thing I’ve done is give legendary resistance a cost to it, like when they use it, their main stat goes down a little, like their intelligence starts at 24, and with each use of legendary resistance, it goes down by 2. It doesn’t have to be those exact numbers, that’s just an example.
This sounds great! The only issue I have with your description of it here is the assumption the party would know about this new mechanic, using spells to counter it. Unless you're just telling straight out, if this is their first encounter with your homebrew dragon they will slowly learn the mechanics thru your descriptions/guess n' check rather than going in using spells to tactically 'prevent' the accruing firepower.
Other than that, great suggestion!
My good sir, you just got yourself a new subscriber. I -love- this idea, and I will certainly be using it for the next three big fights in my game. I -do- like video-gamey mechanics such as telegraphs, so I may add a visual representation to this just so that the players are aware of the mechanic.
IMO, if the players are using the cage option and firing into the cage, the dragon should be able to fire back, or, since huge monsters can squeeze into smaller areas, the fighter should expect their weapon to get taken by the dragon, if they are lucky. Forcecage prevents it from leaving, not from firing outside of the damn thing. AND, if forcecage is the solid box option, then the PCs have only bought time as that prevents things from going in or out. They can't attack it and it can't attack them, but that angry dragon sure can still use its frightful presence ability.
If you are letting a dragon of all things get defeated by a cage, then you aren't being very creative in the first place.
Yeah I was thinking, fire breath out and start throwing coins or whatever else you've got inside the cage.
By default the ranged attack of a fire dragon is his cone of fire. Ranged weapons have more range than it and some spells too, so by default the dragon has little to nothing to do.
@@lucaslepesteur7846 Unless the dragon uses the coins it is sitting on as an improvised thrown weapon, like a dart or something. Shovel sand in your general direction. Also, Dragon Fear; the dragon can pump that out and nobody gets the ability to attack it accurately unless they pass the save. Finally, Lair Actions; if the dragon is in their lair, they can still use lair actions even though they are in the cage. A dragon in its lair should never be helpless.
According to force cages rules, you can't fire into it, and something in it can't fire out. This includes magic as well (hence why you can't teleport out of it) Meaning all force cage does is just remove it temporarily from combat. Like a stasis in a way
@@VexedVergil TBF, if it wasn't specifically a dragon in its lair, you'd be right. With the way they word Lair Actions and Dragon Fear, the dragon just becomes an active area hazard. That doesn't go away until you kill it.
A rather situational example, but still one regarding defense mechanics.
During an old campaign, my PC party was composed of several magic users who were very fond of light based spells and attacks, so I threw something at them that I called a Barrier Hulk, or a Reef Elemental. It was this big, chunky SOB with a passive ability called Lumophage that allowed it heal from holy/radiant attacks, but would also grow in size. This could be mitigated with cold or sonic damage however for a single turn, which allowed them to suppress its passive and briefly deal their preferred damage type if they could hit it with something else first. I made several abilities for it revolving around this cycle of growth and supression, as shown below:
Exponential growth (immediate reaction; at-will) Trigger: Whenever the reef elemental grows. Effect: The reef elemental can drop a chunk of itself into an adjacent square, making that square impassable. It then shrinks by one size.
Brine cloud (standard, recharge 5 or 6) close burst 3, + 19 vs fortitude; 3d8 + 16 damage, and the target(s) are dazed until the end of their next turn and take ongoing 10 damage (save ends, +19 vs fortitude). Special: This attack may be used from any coral chunk dropped via Exponential growth. The chunk is then destroyed. This attack also activates as an immediate reaction the first time the Barrier Hulk drops to below half health.
Hyper-calcification (standard, at-will) effect: The reef elemental becomes sedentary and gains resist 10 to all damage until the end of its next turn, and its Unstable Riptide aura drops to 2 squares of range. While in this state, it grows one size per turn it remains in this state. It cannot make attacks, and is immune to debuff effects while in this state. If the reef elemental spends an action point to sustain this effect, it takes 20 damage. Sustain standard: The effect persists.
Supermassive coral blast (standard, unique) Special: This attack can only be used when the reef elemental achieves gargantuan size. Close burst 10, +22 vs reflex; 8d8 + 26 damage, and the target(s) are stunned until the end of their next turn. The reef elemental then returns to its original size, and doubles the range of its Unstable Riptide aura. Action points cannot be used immediately after this attack.
Tidal shredder (immediate reaction; at-will) Trigger: Whenever the reef elemental grows. Effect: The reef elemental may discharge a chunk of itself as a volatile storm of coral in the following attack. +19 vs reflex, close blast 3; 4d8 + 20 damage, and the target(s) are immobilized until save.
Our ideas are fairly in line conceptually I think, although Firepower's strengths are in forcing the players to use their suppression abilities to stifle enemy resources (which is great for an uber monster like an Elder Dragon) while mine was more focused on forcing players to husband their most powerful spells for when it wouldn't blow up in their faces.
Hurry! More I’m on the edge of my seat due to your epic mechanics+story! Love it keep it up
Love this channel! Just found out about the videos you make and thank you so much for the advice on monsters. Can't wait till the next one!
Wow, after watching this I got really excited to watch your other videos only to realize this was your first! Good job. Would love to see your idea turned tinto a supplement at some point, maybe offered on patreon
This is good stuff! I'm certainly sharing this with my other DMs and using this kind of idea in my game. I'm not a fan of legendary resistance, but finding boss monsters too weak I'm forced to slap it on all of my homebrew creatures. Problem is, when my players know they have a boss fight on their hands they play chicken with me to waste my legendary resistances and try not to use their big spells until they've negated my 3 points of failsafe. It sucks, its dumb, and it makes every fight the same. With your method, I have a pool of points that fuel resistances, fuel big attacks, and a limit break mechanic that my players can prepare for if they know what to look for. I think this is smarter game design overall.
I did something similar. The boss was a giant fire elemental and the mechanic was that it gained 1d4 levels of heat each turn. It had an immolation aura which damage was dependant on the heat level and a ranged attack (hurl magma) that also did damage based on its heat. If the elemental ever would have reached level 12 it would have caused an erruption which basically meant TPK.
However, I also made sure to introduce lots of ways for the players to cool it down and forshadowed the mechanic by having some dwarf NPCs cool off a similar smaller elemental a few room earlier.
These mechanics included barrels of water standing arround, a kind of hose like firefighters use it and I also said there was water dripping down from above which my players very soon figured out had to mean that the lake above them must be dripping through.
The fight ended up being way to easy because once they realized what was up they all just started dousing the flames but I felt like they did nice team effort in doing so I just let it happen and instead added difficulty afterwards by letting the elmental blow up ("becoming unstable") once it was dead. Which of course caused the ceiling to collapse ending with the players having to rush out of the cavern Indiana-Jones-Style.
my current DM made a custom dungeon and boss with a really cool defensive mechanic. my party is me a dhampir paladin, a centaur druid, and a half elf rogue. in the fight the thing could spend an action to enforce battlefield rules or it would gain a buff. we were told the rules before the dungeon started and if we broke the rules bad shit would happen, one rule example being "if there is a statue of a man you cannot speak" or "all entitys are hostile unless they know your name" and "you cannot ask questions" we had to take notes on the rules because one of them was "no rule can be repeated or restated". so we had to play along with the bosses battlefield rule enforcement while fighting it, if we broke the rule during the boss fight it would get a random buff. it was one of the coolest bosses ive ever fought and i highlybreccomend using it
one thing thats worked for me in the past was giving the boss multiple turns and some damage threshold. Basically the Boss would act once after the first person in initiative, and once before the last person in initiative, adjusted as necessary. This has more benefits than just "boss gets to attack more" since they also get more movement, and something i didnt realize until testing, they repeat saves more often! This both lets your boss overcome save or suck spells (hold person and the like) a bit better, while still making the players feel like they accomplished something "I burned two of his turns and bought us time!"
My other mechanic thats been nice is a damage threshold, after taking (x) amount of damage after their turn, the boss gains *something* automatically to help defend themselves, whether that be damage resistance, an AC bump, or some kind of boosted evasion or maybe even automatic movement varies depending on the flavor of the boss. This bonus lasts until the boss's next turn, ideally buying them time to do something about their current predicament.
All your videos have really interesting ideas in them, this one included. Can't wait for a dragon fight so I can try a version with some of the suggestions from the comments, yet not too convoluted to handle as a DM.
Maybe the firepower gained increases each turn to guarantee a breath weapon at some point, and create rising tension. Might also make the firepower cost to succeed saves or dispel magical effects proportionate to the spell's tier. Seems like it'd still keep things simple enough.
First video already abanger! good luck on the next ones!
A great video. Looking forward to the later parts.
I have always balanced bosses with more monsters. I do this because I am well aware the greatest power is action economy and I play with 6 PCs.
Also, as a person I am pretty dismissive of Capital E Evil and i have always been disapointed by BBEGs as a DM and PC. But these mechanics could really add something to creatures that should feel far above us. Maybe not evil, but forces of nature you can barely combat. A dragon is a great encounter.
Dude this is what I was always trying to rationalize in my head but could never nail down the idea in a concise way. Thanks for the great video, it helped me think of some new ideas. I've always been a fan of enemies using their environment more as dnd doesn't have too many crazy thematic moves for boss' like having them grapple a player then next turn have them jump and slam them through the wooden floor down into the 1st floor to change the battlefield, etc.
You'll love one of the later episodes. Stay tuned. It's coming out after my next video.
For anyone thay wants an easy copy. Firepower. The Ancient Red Dragon starts every Initiative with 5
Firepower. At the start of every turn, they gain 3 Firepower.
Whenever they are subjected to an effect, or saving throw, they
can choose to end the effect or automatically succeed the
saving throw by spending 1 Firepower to burn the effect off.
They can also end a magical effect within their Attack range by
spending 2 Firepower to incinerate it into nothing. When they
reach 10 Firepower, they gain Magic Resistance and must use
their Dragon Breath. After using their Dragon's Breath, their
Firepower goes down to 5. As the Dragon's Firepower increases,
they visibly appear to produce more flames from their snout
and breathe heavier. When their Firepower increases to at least
9, their skin cracks with magma flowing through it.
i've got a few i've used in the past and some i will be testing soon, but for right now here are some you may think on
Intangible: every odd round of combat (1/3/5/7) this creature is immune to damage from any source) this is used on resurrecting bosses that have been given displacing mechanics forcing the party to interact with the game in a different fashion where now they have to weigh when they can actually do damage, and how they wish to position when it is immune until they can find what's keeping it alive
Essence Theft: a portion of the magic damage received slowly raises the power of the creature as they become overloaded by the effect raising dice and adding new attacks/abilities to the creatures... this is given to multiple moderate size creatures and some larger ones that can survive aoe's making the casters think when they need to dish out damage and when they need to hold back making it a balancing act between them and the martials in a race to the end
Mirroring scales: any magical effect that is placed on this creature is returned back to the caster, note (this effect can trigger multiple times on the same cast if multiples are around) it does not stop the effect from going through to the target it only returns it back to the caster... this is given to smaller creatures packed within larger separate groups that make target prioritization a key feature
Roar of the champion: high dc Wisdom save, target becomes convinced that the creature it is fighting is too powerful for it to succeed against in combat, this only prevents attacking the creature directly but does not stop them in aiding allies against the creature, you may repeat the save at the end of each of your turns
life tap: aoe necrotic burst that slowly drains hp from all targets within reach, this deals middling damage, but its major purpose is to prevent units stacking on top of one creature as the health it gains back causes it to... given to larger, harder hitting undead
Unstable: given to multiple small creatures that like to attach to party members or larger extremely slow ones that can take a hefty beating (10ft per round), triggers a self-annihilating explosion on death for massive damage, this scales off size and rewards proper positioning, and even displacing enemies
if this was helpful, please let me know :> and if you have any feedback feel free to comment!
one boss defensive mechanic I used was Prism Armour. The boss gainst resistance to the last three damage types it had taken. Makes the players diversify the damage types they use, and passively enables team coordination
There's a couple of defensive abilities that I thought of that i'd like to incorporate into my games. I call them Quick Recovery, Adaptive Immunity, and Rage Counters. I could use some feedback on these though.
Quick Recovery is an ability that makes status effects last a lot shorter than they usually do. So if the boss is hit by a Hold Person, they will affected by the spell for the first turn, but will always break out when they get a chance to make a save. This can also work on spells that don't normally have a save like Banishment.
Adaptive Immunity makes it so when the boss gets hit by a certain spell or effect, the become more resistant to it the second time around. So if you try to Hold Person the boss a second time, they could either have resistance to it, or just be immune, forcing the party to change their strategy.
The final one is Rage Counters. How this works is if the boss is hit by a certain effect, they will get a special action to do a powerful ability to retaliate. This makes it a bit of a gamble. Do you try and go for that Hold Person and risk the powerful spell they unleash if you fail?
I haven't had a chance to implement this yet, but my intended boss monster fix is the "halflings in a trenchcoat" method. The boss itself is secretly multiple monsters each with their own initiative and individual health pools as well as an overall health pool for the full creature. For example, a dragon could have:
- Legs - claw attacks and a grounded move action.
- Back - wing and tail attacks, aerial move action and can act as Shield spell for other body parts.
- Lungs - offensive spells and breath attack.
- Heart - dispel magic and healing/support spells.
- Head - Bite attack.
Partially this is meant to solve action economy issues, the dragon gets to be more reactive throughout each round rather than dumping a nova every turn then getting beaten on, but it's also to give save-or-suck protection. A sufficiently large and powerful creature will only have parts of itself affected by certain spells - polymorph will certainly debuff the dragon, probably taking one of its actions away, but it won't be a fight-ender. Even a save-or-die won't be an auto-win, because you'd start the fight with no line-of-effect to the heart and that would at least have Revivify.
The issues with this solution are getting the wording airtight and figuring out hp for each part. Damage to any part should affect the overall health pool, but how should AoEs factor in? What about spells that suddenly become lethal if each part can be targeted separately - I don't want my dragons decapitated with Banishment. How does this work on a map without being a horrid mass of tokens? What does a Vorpal crit do if the wielder is attacking the dragon's legs? How do you determine when the creature is dead due to vital part loss? etc.
In practice, I find that waves of minions work better than static boss + minions. You have a higher encounter budget for the boss because the fight is never so heavily weighed against the players unless they allow it to become so, it's also less to manage at any one time. Dragon + 20 Kobolds is a harder fight than Dragon + 5 Kobolds every 2 turns for 8 turns, so in the latter example you can have a stronger dragon while still forcing a similar amount of attention to be focussed on mook-killing.
Please remember that the bars of the forcecage are half an inch appart: only a kid's arrowhead would fit through that. Magic can pass through as long as it doesn't create a projectile that's bigger than half an inch.
You're letting the spell Forcecage be better than what's written on the spell, that's why the fun drains
For anyone curious, I think the TTRPG he's using is Roll20. That being said, I like the ideas presented in this video. I've been struggling to design encounters as a DM, despite it being one of the most crucial skills. Going to have to try this.
Lots of good ideas to take from 4e for monster design, especially for solos. My favorite: the "instinctive action", where a boss enemy gets to take a certain action at a certain initiative count. If they're somehow prevented from taking this action, they can end the condition preventing it instead. This makes control effects still potent (eating at the monster's action economy) while protecting the boss monster from the outsized impacts of a control spell. This ends up naturally simulating how control effects are supposed to work, placing a sizeable dent in enemy action economy without removing it entirely, and flows naturally into the game's core mechanics. It also makes bosses more interesting to fight!
A more "5e-native" implementation of this could use Legendary Actions instead, giving them a chance to spend 2-3 legendary actions to end a condition or effect on them even if they would normally be unable to take actions.
In a TTRPG I am currently working on, Hydras have a somewhat similar mechanic. My system uses a multi-action system simialr to PF2E where players have 3 actions each and monsters have varying amounts depending on the monster type (usually boss monsters would naturally have more). Any action that remains unused converts into another reaction the creature can use before it's next turn (there is also a much larger variaty of useful reactions then in 5e due to this trade-off).
A Hydra in this system has 1 action for each active head, with more heads sprouting as the fight progresses (due to it's lower body being impenetratable and too tough to damage succesfully). This indirectly solves a different monster design problem ("are big monsters really that mechanically different from their underlings if they can just tank more hits and hit harder?"). It also requires strategy as now AOE spells and spacing out attacks evenly betweens heads become a priority, because you want to damage the Hydra as a whole as much as possible, but you don't want heads to fall off and sprout new ones as that just means more trouble.
In relation to what you're talking about her:
One of the abilities the Hydra in my system has, is a 'dispelling breath' reaction (I should probably make it usable as an action as well). Due to how the system works this means that the more force-cage style spells the Hydra gets attacked with, the less it'll do on it's turn. Now the party has an incentive to keep casting these spells at the hydra because every 'cheese'-ish spell casted this way is one less chance the Hydra has to inflict terrible damage or other dangerous and nasty actions (such as shaking off any martials trying to scale it's heads to attack them), and the need to burn this action ever increases throughout the fight.
I once did a couple Animate Object castings worth of bones to create a Gargantuan Skeleton with several Actions, that could Catapult pieces of itself and whatnot. Worked pretty well since the players had to think about their options more as well as where to target since the soul of it could recast the Animate Objects again if it lacked a certain number of pieces, potentially gaining new limbs from the environment.
Imo a appendages esc route like hearthstone where they have hp tied to certain body parts that give access to abilities could be fun, where there things have to be destroyed to take down a targets magic spell immunities. Like the technology and some of the armor being implanted from a Helmed Horror on to a dragon, making it immune to certain spells as well as the effects of the Ring of Free Action but only towards magic. Until that thing is destroyed the creature can't be save/sucked by spells specifically, but if you can get your martials to deal out Afflictions with Grappling or Falling onto the enemy maybe you can get some gears turning before then.
Wow! Very informative and really gives a good jumpstart for DMs who have running their games following RAW and are looking to homebrew!
I have always thought about stuff like this. How there was always something missing. I use to lurk around forums and posts online looking for answers to the issue. Until I gave up and made my own thing, where I didn't go super hard by the rules anymore. I stopped looking at CR and features and starting creating what made sense to the monster or BBEG. Giving them flavorful abilities that made them unique and powerful. I also just gave some monsters features I think they should have that aren't on the statblock. Some creatures have no claw attacks despite having claws, or a creature seems like it would be immune to something instead it's resistant.
My players loved the idea where something they are fighting has a mechanic where it forces them to move because if they don't move they get hit. So a monster has an attack that will automatically hit in an area, like a cone or a line. The attack is "charging up" so the characters have to move from their spots. They loved it because they could choose if the attack was gonna hit them. Which allowed some characters to bravely/stupidly stay in order to protect another character, or just be badass.
The monster has to finish the attack and then it gets its normal turn. It makes the dude threatening and keeps the players on the move constantly.
"Creates a barrier that prevents any matter from passing throught it"
Meaning the fighter sword and the ranger arrowns cant reach the dragon..
Even spells are blocked so the mage cant kill it either.
If you want to make the encounter less boring you can rule that the dragon also can attack creatures inside his range so when the rogue get to close thinking he is being sneaky the dragon gonna bite his ass off
only the solid prison blocks everything, the bar prison doesnt have that feature
Read the actual spell before commenting. The spell barrier CLEARLY applies only to the box variant of the spell, not the cage variant, which can have line-of effects enter the cage as it is “a prison in the shape of a cage can be up to 20 feet on a side and is made from 1/2-inch diameter bars spaced 1/2 inch apart.”
@@tai-cx5vj Shush im too tired to read, thank you comment person for correcting other comment person with my same question
@@tai-cx5vj if it is that tight the only attacks the Dragon could make are the Breath Weapon and Wing attack which sucks, but it would probably provide cover for him like a chainmail.
@@gabrielbaieel8073 It would certainly provide cover for the dragon, but at Level 13, cover is the least of your concerns.
I plan to rework legendary resistances to work for a dragon as follows:
- A dragon that would normally have 3 legendary resistances would have 5, other numbers for dragons with more or less should be adjusted appropriately
-Young dragons will have access to a singular legendary resistance, for an extra bit of survivability
- A legendary resistance can be used to succeed on a saving throw, or the effects of a spell no higher than third level. Two legendary resistances must be used against a spell of fourth to sixth level, and three must be used against a spell of seventh to ninth level.
-As a part of the dragon's multiattack, a legendary resistance can be used in place of one of its claw attacks to end a magical effect caused by a spell (third level or lower), and it must spend the appropriate 2 or 3 legendary resistances for higher level spells (same formula as mentioned above)
-At the end of another creature's turn, The dragon can spend 3 legendary resistances to halve all damage it dealt (This cannot be used against creatures of equal or higher level/CR to the dragon)
Thoughts? I also plan to use a different form of meter-based breath weapon, where instead of rolling a 5-6 for instant recharge, whatever the d6 rolls is added to a meter, which must reach 10 for the dragon to be able to use its breath weapon (the dragon would start initiative with 10)
I struggle with like DND bosses and stuff because I love very tactical combat so what I've done mostly is make the villain essentially like another player and be a humanoid with abilities etc etc and a real character. Easiest solution for me but I want more engaging gameplay so this video is super awesome! Thank you!
while watching this video I had an awkward moment where I'd forgotten that dragons can typically be polymorphed since I gave all dragons the metalic dragon shapeshifting (my players loved the idea of all dragons being shapeshifters)... polymorph, even true polymorph, simply doesn't affect shapechangers
typically I rule it so that the polymorph innitially works but the shapechanger is immediately free to change back. since the metalic dragon change shape takes an action this gives my players at least a small reward of wasting the dragon's action
I absolutely love this concept. It means that late game boss enemies no longer have to worry about "Oops, I failed 3 saves and now the chronurgy wizard can just force me to fail" or those nasty no-save effects lie forcecage