Stun, Paralyze, Freeze question

#1

Hey there my fellow lumpy heads.

I had a question on how you all handle the multiple ways ICRPG can stun/freeze an enemy for multiple ROUNDs when dealing with BOSS fights.

Seems like if you could stun/freeze a boss for 4 ROUNDs the fight is pretty easy with 4+ Players getting to wail on a defenseless boss for 4 whole rounds.

I had a situation in a session where my mage froze a werewolf boss (a big boss) and rolled a 4 on how many ROUNDs the wolf was frozen.

And me on the spot said she froze the wolf’s next 4 actions since it was a boss and had superior strength to break free than a common enemy. The boss had 3 actions a ROUND vs 6 players.

Then a second player a Cleric used their WIS power to paralyze the enemy for 1 turn. And was like well crap. And ruled it as one action was stunned.

Looking back, I’m not sure that was the best way to handle that. I feel like it was my fault for putting 6 players vs 1 enemy and expecting balance by giving the enemy more actions.

How do you guys and gals handle these stun/freeze situations?

#2

This is a great question. The only issue I see here is that players may feel like the GM essentially nerfed the character’s abilities to fight this Werewolf Boss. Let them be bad ass! Be a fan of the Characters!!!

But let’s look further:

A turn is 1 Action and 1 Movement.
1 Action > 1 Movement.
Therefore, 1 turn is at least 1 action + 1 Movement or 2 Actions.

This is the technical way of viewing this, especially since the Boss has multiple Actions per Turn.

A way to handle this in the future to make combats much tougher:

First! Think about the battlefield and environment! The environment can be very dangerous or awkward to traverse. It can’t be that easy for the Werewolf to be touched and paralyzed! Hit-n-Run tactics.

Big ol’ Bad Ass Bosses (BoBABs [My Term, do not steal without having a drink]) can have Legendary Actions that effect all characters and you can make up a limited amount of Legendary Saves (I don’t recommend more than 2). If there isn’t a save for an adverse effect, use up one of those saves and have them ignore and get enraged! They were threatened and they had to really turn it up!

#3

Hey! This is a great question, and one that you’ll eventually run into with games that use stuns.

The first way to handle this is your solution: Unless this creature/entity can break stun (ala Legendary Resistance from 5e), you need more enemies, more disruption, and more TIME PRESSURE. Indeed, 6v1 may have been the mistake here, but that’s okay if everyone had fun!

If you want, you can always have them see that perhaps this creature had a wound filled with a silver bullet, arrow head, etc. that weakened it (and thus allow you to retry a werewolf encounter in the future).

Anyway, my general way of dealing with this is to know my players. If I know that they can stun someone for d4 ROUNDS, there absolutely has to be minions, cover, elevation to exploit, time pressure, scene mechanics (freezing solid, for example), and the like. Additionally, a BOSS very well should have some plot armor just like the PCs, give it one or two “reactions” to be immune to a status effect (ie: 2 effects are resisted at its choice, or perhaps just the first 2). Either way, if everyone had fun, you did it right!

#4

Thanks for the great responses.

You two are right, my environmental danger has been lacking lately and it’s been something I’ve been working on. I seem to have a hard time getting past that mental block of making things too hard. Scenes I think are brutal my players just steam roll over.

I’m learning each session though, trying to find that sweet spot.

#5

Remember: You can throw everyone for a loop by having the Monster go first, or even take an action between player turns!

You can make stages of the Monster and change the environment afterwards! More damage, but not more HP for the monster.

#6

Very good points! Adjust on the fly

#7

Great suggestions on this thread already. Allow me to add another one.

Like other brilliant minds here suggested, I wouldn’t put a boss alone without minions or environment to back him up in front of the players. BUT if you just want that (and occasionally you will, because why not) then give the boss as many actions and hearts as there are PCs. You have 4 players? The boss has 4 actions+moves and 4 hearts and you adjust from there, maybe lowering the hearts, increasing the damage and so forth.

Also you can make it so that the boss can use his additional actions once per every player TURN and before the player because doing 4 actions back to back can be devastating.

#8

I had similar results but with time manipulation. I recommend Hankerin’s video on challenge tunning. Players can do unexpected things so it’s good to be able to tune difficulty during the encounter.

#9

If I may, here are some other suggestions I considered while prepping for my own game (not all of this is original, some certainly comes from CORE that I feel deserves restating).

Firstly, every meaningful encounter should include the three T’s (check pages 85 & 86 of CORE). Most combats should be more than just life or death. There needs to be consequences. What happens when the timer runs out? Well, more goblins show up. Why’s that bad? Yeah we could die, but if we die there will be no one left to protect the village, or prevent the ritual’s completion. If the odds are stacked against us, and they very well should be, how can we win? Well, there is something in the environment or scene that we can interact with, if we’re clever or roll well, that can turn the tides. Sometimes this will be obvious, sometimes not. Sometimes this will be a freebie (healing herbs, destroying a support pillar, etc.) and have no cost. Sometimes, the PCs will have to give something up (blood ritual, sacrifice to the gods, whatever).

I don’t do these for every little fight, because PCs do often slug it out with random monsters, NPCs during failed negotiations, etc. I realize not everyone uses, for example, random encounters (or wilderness encounters), but if you do then you don’t necessarily need the three T’s unless you roll something epic like a gorgon, zombie ogre, or something.

Secondly, every meaningful encounter should do the D.E.W. (see pages 83 & 84 of CORE). Remember, if you’re allotting tabletime for it, you should absolutely be making your scripted encounters amazing. You can noodle with scale, color schemes, textural schemes, genre themes, architecture, alienness, euphemisms, etc. To quote CORE, “Whatever your scene, take one piece and make it grand.” Remember, only plan one session at a time. Planning more than that is usually a waste of resources. Outlining possible events past one session can be extremely useful (the villain is going to try to steal the artifact in d4 days time. That’s an outline. The players’ actions may or may not influence that event, but the event will very likely occur somehow [or be a direct plot point for the PCs to intervene], and therefore you can reasonably assume it will happen sometime. Storyboard as much as you want, but only prep one session because PCs are nuts!).

Finally, remember that ICRPG is very modular. People who play this game, and are veterans of the RPG community, expect you to be improvising, changing things on the fly, and TRYING NEW THINGS. No vet. will bat an eye at you realizing, mid session, that something is way undertuned or overtuned (too easy/too hard), and narratively fixing it. If your big boss is getting creamed by stuns, have it go into a FRENZY and become immune to those stuns/freezes/etc. once it reaches half health.

  • Give Big Bads extra actions. I mean full on actions. Let them ACT OUT OF INITIATIVE with those extra actions. One of the big reasons bosses get creamed is that they have one turn vs # of PC turns.

  • Allow the Big Bad to have items they can use. Where do PCs get that bad ass loot from anyway? You bet your ass the werewolf boss is going to have an Amulet of Frenzy, a Signet of Bloodlust, or a Meaningful Ring. What do those things do? What about consumable items, like potions, scrolls, gems they can crush, etc.? Magical items exist, let your baddies use 'em.

  • In the end, remember that you’re still learning. This isn’t a job. You’re there to have fun, and as long as everyone is having fun, you’re doing just fine. Also, kill 'em all. :wink:

#10

A lot of great direction here. Thanks everyone this is such a great community. Now I’m off to fine tune my Sunday encounter.

#11

This may help. :sunglasses: