Summary
Dungeons and Dragonshas captured the imagination of people for decades now, providing an outlet for free-form storytelling that truly redefined tabletop gaming. Shows likeStranger Thingsandgames likeBaldur’s Gate 3have helped giveD&Da presence in the mainstream, and today it is, without a doubt, the most popular tabletop RPG on the planet. Trying to nail down the appeal ofD&Dis difficult because it means so many things to so many different people.
Is it the combat?The character-building?The desire to bring some sort of romantasy enemies-to-lovers story into reality? All of these answers are valid, and part of what makesD&Dso fun is finding a group of people who all want to get similar things out of the game. One constant among any type ofD&Dgame, however, is the presence ofboss fights. Any boss can send a shiver down players' spines, whether they’re the BBEG of the entire campaign or a drunken, self-proclaimed goblin king bullying level one players for fun. For players who want to get the most out of a climactic conflict,there are a few tricks any DM can employ to ensure their boss fights hit with the right combination of high stakes and high challenge.
6Build Anticipation
Ramping Up To A Big Finale Is A Great Way To Make A Boss Feel Powerful
Look at any video game thatemphasizes boss fights, and it’s easy to see why it can be so important to build up their presence early on. Players shouldn’t immediately be ready to hack some damage sponge to death in the final leg of a dungeon; there should be some trepidation or uncertainty—at the very least—built up around an impending boss fight. This isn’t quite the same as “fleshing out” a character like one might do with a major villain, however.
Most villains will end up being bosses, but not all bosses are story-integral villains. A giant Ankheg doesn’t need to have motivations for killing the party besides hunger, but players should still feel the earth tremble beneath their feet, or see the partially digested remnants of previous, less fortunate adventurers who came through this way. Giving context to what makes this enemy so powerful will go a long way toward making the fight feel significant.
5Tax Players’ Resources
Don’t Let Players Fight Bosses At Their Best
Most DMs have probably felt the deflation at least once or twice when their meticulously designedboss is beaten too easily.There’s always a chance to learn from these moments, to see where future bosses might be improved, but sometimes, making players be picky with their resources, like spells and abilities, can go a long way.
Battles where players enter full up on their resources can indeed be incredibly satisfying, but the same can be said for players encountering a boss after scraping through one or two battles prior, with no time for a short rest. This makes the battle as much a puzzle as a direct fight—everyone will need to work together to maintain their spell or ability slots before the boss is defeated.
4Don’t Reveal Mechanics Right Away
Let Players Experiment And See What They Can Discover
No one wants players to feel utterly useless in battle, but figuring out how to damage a boss can be half the fun (killing the boss is the other half). Instead of warning players that rolling for opportunity attacks won’t work, explain that the boss is simply too swift the first time an opportunity attack would trigger, and it evades the attack entirely.
If a party member wants to use a barrage of poison attacks on an undead boss, don’t stop them. Let them use the attacks, and let them learn from the futility of their actions. Within the first few turns of combat, players should have a rough ‘mental map’ of a boss' capabilities—not everything they can do, but the gist. If theyhave lair/legendary actions, if they utilize one particular damage type over others, if they subvert a typicalD&Drule in any way, that kind of thing. This gives players the satisfaction of solving a puzzle on the fly, and makes a boss that seems impossible at the start more manageable as the fight goes along.
3Use Minions For Added Pressure
Who Says It Needs To Be A Fair Fight?
Bosses always have more presence and aura when it’s just them, sitting on a throne, menacingly waiting for the party to arrive. However, even the strongest medium humanoid in the world would find it difficult to keep pressure on 3-5 party members at once, each using whatever skills they have to get into position and start dealing damage.
Enemies in a boss fight don’t have to be standard damage sponges meant to draw the game out. Give them a smidgen of the boss' life total, something that could even be wiped out in a turn, but with damage or battle effects that still make them a threat. Players will have to decide whether it’s better to keep striking at the boss directly, or give that boss a turn with some more breathing room in order to deal with the minion firing a crossbow or putting curses on everybody from across the room.
2Get Theatrical
Atmosphere Can Turn An Average Fight Into A Great One
Storytelling, from an auditoryand visual standpoint, can often be just as important as narration and the more tangible elements of aD&Dencounter. Yes, this could mean things like putting on some boss music during the fight, but it’s a bit deeper than that.
How does the boss sound? Is it a creature that slobbers and roars as it fights? Or is it a brash bandit who revels in taunting the party? If DMs aren’t comfortable physically screeching in front of their players, describing how the boss shrieks or roars or whatever it does between turns is still a good option. Not falling completely into ‘combat mode’ and maintaining some of the set dressing and flavor that comes during out-of-combatD&Dcan help make the bosses—and players—feel like a more important part of the world.
1Make Them Imposing, But Manageable
Give Them Both Strengths And Weaknesses
It’s always a worry for DMs that their bosses are going to be too easy, but it’s also important to verify that they’re not too hard. This doesn’t necessarily mean giving them a weakness to balance out every strength, but it’s important to ensure that a boss isn’t all strengths. Giving a boss 500 HP and five attacks every turn will certainly make them difficult, but players won’t have fun trying to take that down.
Adragon is a perfect example. As a lesser boss, being able to fly and move really fast would mean that the creature is also fragile, while being able to strike hard would mean they’re also weak to something themselves. Dragons don’t have any of those drawbacks, but they’re still a balanced—albeit incredibly challenging—fight because they have breath weapons that need recharging, and certain attacks they can only do a few times per day, or that require them to spend a few subsequent actions to use.
