The "Legend" Boss Fight

Hello! This blog post is based on some advice I gave someone on the 24XX-Cord pertaining to boss fights. When I was done writing my 2000 characters, I thought, "Hm, maybe I should just make a blog post about this." So, that's what I've done. Enjoy!

HP - Trending Downwards

Ever since I read the 16 HP Dragon, I was enthralled by the elegance of a monster with as little statistics as possible. However, we can go lower. For example, when I ran Prison of the Worm Queen by Chris McDowall (which I am still running an extension of, if you read my Part One play report), the big boss of the module has around HALF of the 16 HP Dragon, having 8 HP and Armor 2 (basically -2 to damage, if you haven't read Into the Odd or Electric Bastionland, which, um, what're you doing here if so?). In my GMing career, I used to think of a boss as having 100+ HP and tons of attacks. About midway, I refined my range to 16 HP. Very recently, I lowered it to even fewer. Now, I think I'm ready for the next leap of logic. NO HP AT ALL.

The "Legend" Boss Fight

Inspired by the nature of The Legend of Zelda's boss fights, the Legend Boss Fight has no HP. Instead, it has a number of Hits. No protection or points, just Hits (see Any Planet Is Earth for something similar but for players). Hits, in this case, are whatever you want them to be. Successful skill rolls, attack rolls, high damage rolls, whatever. As long as they are tracked in increments of 1, it is perfectly acceptable to be however you want. The following suggestions are mere guidelines, not hard rules. Hack them, break them, do whatever. Hell, if you want to add it to your own rules, be my guest! Just please reference me in some way.

The Three Steps

A successful Legend Boss Fight has three main steps: Finding a Weakness, Finding an Opportunity, and Going for the Kill. For the sake of describing something, as well as personally still being fond of the 16 HP Dragon, I'll use a dragon in my examples. This evil black dragon, Illmyr, is cunning, dangerous, and greedy. However, Illmyr has two weaknesses: His Achilles' Underbelly, the primary weakness, and his Ravenous Greed, the secondary weakness. Let's start having a legendary boss fight.

Finding a Weakness

Like a number of The Legend of Zelda bosses, Illmyr has a key physical weakness. The weakness that is used to kill the boss will be referred to as the primary weakness, while anything else (such as Illmyr's Ravenous Greed) that can be used against them will be referred to as the secondary weakness(es). Your boss fight should have some weakness that needs to be utilized mid-fight in order to defeat them, and other weaknesses are optional but recommended. In order for the weakness to be utilized, however, the players need to know about it, right? That's where the Three Clue Rule comes in.

The Three Clue Rule In Combat

While the three clue rule is generally utilized in adventure design, we can still use it in the heat of combat. Specifically, the Inverse of the Three Clue Rule. To give a summary, the Three Clue Rule states that "For any conclusion you want the PCs to make, include at least three clues." The inverse of this rule states that "If the PCs have access to ANY three clues, they will reach at least ONE conclusion." So, if we want the players to get the conclusion that Illmyr has an Achilles' Underbelly and is specifically vulnerable underneath him, we should prepare three clues for this conclusion, and for each other conclusion about the fight we wish to make.

Running This Step In-Game

Illmyr is a powerful opponent. No measly attack will even scratch him. Unless, of course, it utilizes his weakness. Illmyr, whether he likes it or not, will give clues to the players that he does NOT want to be attacked in his underbelly. These clues are handed out by the GM for each attack the players botch. It's not their fault that they botched the attack and didn't deal damage, it's just due to the immense scale difference between Illmyr's power and the characters'. So, I personally recommend this outline for describing attacks:

Attack 1: Nothing happens.

Attack 2: Nothing happens and Clue 1.

Attack 3: Nothing happens and Clue 2.

Attack 4: Nothing happens and Clue 3.

Etc. etc. until the players get the conclusion that they need to move on to Step Two, Finding an Opportunity. However, we're not quite ready to move on ourselves. The reason that in my outline I did not give a clue the first attack is actually a clue in of itself. "You will need to be more creative if you want to even DAMAGE this creature" is what it gets across, as do the other attacks, in addition to their clues. Once the players get the conclusion that, "hey, we're going to need to put all our energy into finding a way to kill this guy," they can start thinking more critically about the fight and put the clues you've given to work. Once they get the conclusion you want them to have, how do they put it into effect? Well, it's mostly up to them at this point, but there are a couple things you can do to push them in the right direction in Step Two.

Finding an Opportunity

Once the players have all three clues (or less, if your players latch onto something early), they can start to use their ingenuity to plan their attack. This is largely up to both the party and the boss itself. However, this is where your secondary weaknesses come in. As the players fight Illmyr, they will need to ask the GM for information on how to get past his defenses. Not specifically, of course, but through careful questions and observation. For example, Illmyr's Ravenous Greed is a curse that was placed on him thousands of years ago by an archdruid for destroying her grove. When Illmyr sees an available coin, however small, he must attempt to take it. Through the player's prior knowledge and accounts of Illmyr, they may know of this weakness already. However, if they didn't catch it, now is the time to give them hints (or failing that, being direct with them) that they can use their action or whatever equivalent in your system to make a roll to recall information about Illmyr or observe him for anything that can be useful. Giving specific examples of how you can apply something similar to your bosses is a bit tricky; I'm not sure I can encapsulate everyone's bosses concisely. However, hopefully the concept comes across, that once the players are in this step, they need to utilize their ingenuity and information in order to come up with some plan to attack them. In your description of your bosses attacks, especially misses or similar, you should try to describe anything that can be utilized by the players to help their plan if they're stuck.

Going for the Kill

This part is also going to largely depend on your game, except mostly the system. Once the players pull off their plan, they should have easy access to all run in and attack. For each person that pulls off a successful attack, mark a hit for the boss. Once all the hits are marked, they're down! They might have to pull off a second or even third plan, but that's perfectly ok.

Please let me know if the Legend Boss Fight works for you! I'm SageDaMage#5463 if you have a play report to share with me, or any questions (although you can always comment them down below as well).

Thanks for making it this far! More on the way in this blog soon!