Theorycrafting "The Boss Fight"

narathkor · May 2013

I am working on the second party of my campaign. I hope you have played the first quest which is a very short and sweet prologue for the campaign "The Sins of the Father" (NW-DLN6BC8NX) Please check it out if you have not

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I have a theory on how to handle the boss fight for the second quest and I wanted to run it by my fellow authors to get your opinions and ideas for improvement upon it while I work it out.

Now the background. The boss fights for most general quests in Neverwinter (not the party dungeons) are just beefed up super mobs that have a lot more health and spawn adds. While we can not make them hit harder like the boss mobs do I have a theory on handling the encounter itself to at least give it a more boss feel.

Phase 1 Boss with an add or 2. Pick a hard fight that has a couple of easy adds with it, dress up the harder mob with your boss clothes. Upon Death make it disapear.

Phase 2, Harder mob spawns dressed up like your boss character with a spawn of standard mobs with it, have it say something fancy like "Now you have angered me" for example. Upon death make it disapear.

Phase 3 spawn and even harder single mob encounter with a hard spawn with it, having it say something else "My wrath will send you to the nine hells" and or Get them my minions" and this final fight will be harder obviously. Upon death you can do whatever, thats 3 life spans of the boss making it as close as possible to the actual boss encounter of Neverwinter quests where they usually spawn adds at every 1/3 health.

What do you guys think, any ideas for improvement or suggestions?

Cheers.

narathkor · May 2013

Oh and PS lol, you could make the quest objectives "Defeat Megauberness Phase 1" Defeat Megauberness phase 2" Defeat Megauberness Final Phase"

This would at least give the boss fight more of that long lasting endurance feel of a boss fight.

gralgrathor · May 2013

I like it, you could also add a "Clone phase", where the same difficult 'boss' mob spawns with a bunch of easy mobs with the boss' costume. Scare the HAMSTER out of your players for a bit and add some flair to the standard "big mob + adds".

narathkor · May 2013

I like it, wont fit this fight but hope it inspires someone and may use it later!

gralgrathor · May 2013

Ooh, and change the arena! Custom create an internal arena or room floor from single floor pieces, then after phase 1 some of them disappear and there's lava underneath. Could be tricky, though, players could be standing on one of them just as they disappear which would be pretty cheap. Maybe lava streams from the ceiling? Something like that?

narathkor · May 2013

I am pretty sure that you can not phase a map in that way, though I will certainly look into that as it is a good idea.

I see what you are saying using an individual piece but as far as I know only contacts can be phased and if using a contact as a floor piece I forsee all kinds of bugs, will keep working on that though.

waeolwen · May 2013

narathkor wrote: »

I am pretty sure that you can not phase a map in that way, though I will certainly look into that as it is a good idea.

I see what you are saying using an individual piece but as far as I know only contacts can be phased and if using a contact as a floor piece I forsee all kinds of bugs, will keep working on that though.

You could use detail pieces to cover bits up and then expose them by causing them to disappear. Or vice versa, have them appear and cover up the standard areas.

docbach · May 2013

My boss fight is phased like that; the first portion is a solo boss with his entourage. When you kill him you get an interaction segment to move the story along then he respawns as a hard mob with a couple spawns. The solo + hard spawn is a pretty tough combo, if I was going to put three back to back, I'd probably keep the MOBs as brutes as biggest, wouldn't use solos like ogres or thoon hulks.

narathkor · May 2013

Thanks waeolwen,
The thing that concerns me about this is it happening without warning. If I could make them shake, paint them red highlighted, something to warn the player first so they at least had the opportunity to move before they fell to their death. As it stands I would like to explore a way that could be done without almost certain death to a majority of the players. I do not want to earn the reputation of player killer lol.

chinspinner · May 2013

I have used the following (it wasn't a boss fight but will call it a boss for clarity): -

NPC appears wearing boss clothes- dialogue- then disappears.
Mob spawns wearing boss clothes- defeat it- then disappears.
NPC spawns (injured) in boss clothes- dialogue.

waeolwen · May 2013

narathkor wrote: »

Thanks waeolwen,
The thing that concerns me about this is it happening without warning. If I could make them shake, paint them red highlighted, something to warn the player first so they at least had the opportunity to move before they fell to their death. As it stands I would like to explore a way that could be done without almost certain death to a majority of the players. I do not want to earn the reputation of player killer lol.

If you made a large enough area, or used multiple areas (think of it like the boss "retreating" between phases), you could use Reach Points so the changes would only trigger once players had reached a safe point.

Of course, that would kind of dampen the "boss" fight feel by creating pauses

narathkor · May 2013

I have considered the last phase may be too hard for some classes at higher levels, but then again theres some pretty stupid boss fights in the neverwinter storyline too that spawns 2 hard knockdown mobs with the boss making it a mess for melee. I may just do it anyway and if it turns out too hard, have some guards spawn to cannon fodder help with the final phase or something. I want it challenging but not impossible.

gralgrathor · May 2013

Ah, I think I got it!

Phase 1 -- normal floor, whatever
Phase 2 -- remove floor pieces, but lo and behold, underneath those is another floor piece, but lower and with a cracked decal on it and a bit slanted.
Phase 3 -- remove the second floor piece, so now if they run into it it's their own fault. The floor was visibly starting to give way in certain areas.

You'd need a phase 4 too though, otherwise it'd be a bit pointless. Or just make those burning floor decals appear, less lethal.

And in any case, it doesn't have to be a trap of sorts or anything dangerous. Maybe in Phase 3 the boss "transports" you to a mountain-top, which essentially consists of making the room invisible after phase 1 encounter is dead and revealing an exterior mountain-top Or something else. Something flavorful.

Then, to go back to the arena after vanquishing the boss mob, add a glowy anything and when the party activates it, a duplicate of the original room "becomes visible" and the mountain disappears again. Because I don't think you can make something visible to start with, then invisible and then back to visible again later on.

I'm not sure how fade to black works in the Foundry, but you could add that in too to make the transition smoother.

There's a fair bit you can do if your boss is made up of several 'incarnations'. You then basically have triggers inside the fight, so anything you can think of that uses a trigger (which is everything) can be used to spice it up in some way.

For example, you defeat Phase 1. Suddenly, the room you're in turns into an incredibly long hallway with the boss appearing at the end of it (just a Contact NPC). The party starts running towards him. An objective marker is placed not too far off because running is boring, and once reached walls appear some distance in front of the party and the actual Phase 2 boss spawns there, making it seem as if the hallway got short again really quickly. Add some black-white overlays and special effects to make it 'freaky' after Phase 1 and make em disappear again when you reach the marker that spawns Phase 2 boss. Maybe trigger a lightning flash to hide the walls appearing. I dunno.

Theorycrafting "The Boss Fight"

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