I’m building a oneshot for my Final Fantasy.Hack and I’ve got the battle against Dark Solas (basically Lucifer doing the work of Ogdru Jahad) left.
What I want to ask you guys is;
So here I am. Casually scrolling through the Runehammer forums and I see the term “boss battle”. My initial reaction was to come in and talk about how I dislike the term “boss fight” in tabletop games. Then I read three key words:
“Final Fantasy Hack”
AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Now we’re on the same page.
So this is not from a session of mine but I think it will help. I’m a big fan of the Souls series. One thing that I think that series does well is create an illusion of difficulty. While those games are certainly difficult in some ways, it can be a lot of bark over bite once you learn them. It turns into the whole “show don’t tell” thing.
One of my favorite bosses from Dark Souls 1 is the Gaping Dragon. I would categorize the Gaping Dragon among one of the easier boss fights in the game, but the first time you see it, it makes you say “Holy Crap! What have I gotten myself into?!” Look it up if you’re unfamiliar.
Having a “boss” that you establish as a badass force of nature can make the stakes seem greater than they might necessarily be, and makes the players feel an incredible rush upon beating them. I feel like just about everyone in the RPG community knows the blog post “A 16 HP Dragon” but there’s a lot of validity to that piece.
Now go scare the crap out of your players!
One of the key reminders for me when planning a boss battle is to have the boss use movement. Bosses who just stand in place are easy targets. The last thing you want is everyone surrounding the boss and wailing away.
Have bosses who heal and use regeneration. Nothing frustrates players more than a boss that heals itself. Maybe in regard to the above reminder about movement, the boss has to get to a certain location to heal up. Hank has some good examples of this in his videos.
I also think a boss needs one or two signature moves that are just terrifying to players. Does you boss cast the Death spell? Does he cause a player to slowly rot away for the duration of the battle? Can the boss mind control a character? Is she completely resistant to magic? Does it show up riding a wyvern? Regardless, have some move that will strike utter terror in your players.
Generally, don’t have your bosses have a ton of HPs. There is nothing worse than turning a dynamic boss battle into a slug fest for round after round. I tend to believe in glass cannons. Make bosses do large damage, but don’t make them crazy hard to take out.
I think it’s also good to have bosses that interact with players in some meaningful way. In one battle, one of the bosses addressed one of my players by name. She was like, “Wait! How did the wraith know my name?!??” She was creeped out the whole fight, especially when it targeted her more than anyone else and was immune to her magic. In another battle, I had the boss show off an epic piece of gear and then challenge a player to essentially a one on one. The character was more than willing to take the bait and try to get that awesome piece of loot from the boss’s corpse. If you make it personal, players will want to kill them.
Anyway, those are a few of the tactics I try to employ. Have fun and be sure to circle back and let us know how it goes.
Holy shit that Gaping Dragon was amazing! Dark Souls do have some really badass bosses indeed. I GIT GUD = Never
