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2018/06/20

OSR: Boss Fight Design

I like boss fights. They provide a nice change of pace from traditional dungeon exploration.
Surviving their challenges and emerging triumphant. My Alexandrian Dark Souls setting will include
a lot of boss fights, so I thought I'd lay out my general principles.

Artem Demura

The Action Economy

I: Combat Effort

If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight.

-Sun Tzu

Five PCs can make five attacks in a turn. A standard enemy can only make one attack.

The obvious - and incorrect - adjustment is to make the one enemy's attacks five times stronger and
give them five times as much HP. This can work, but it makes a fight deadly and boring. Damage
isn't everything. The 5 "attacks" the PCs can make could include stun effects, terrain modification
effects, confusion, flanking, pushing someone off a cliff, etc. Just multiplying the numbers won't
help.

II: Bullshit Effort

If your enemy is secure at all points, be prepared for him. If he is in superior

strength, evade him. If your opponent is temperamental, seek to irritate him.
Pretend to be weak, that he may grow arrogant. If he is taking his ease, give
him no rest. If his forces are united, separate them. Attack him where he is
unprepared, appear where you are not expected.
 -Sun Tzu

Five PCs can get up to five times as much bullshit as a standard enemy. They can tie ropes, toss
items around, communicate, plot, and execute. They can combine items, spells, and abilities.

The obvious adjustment is to give your enemy bullshit-cancelling techniques: stun effects, sleep
effects, turning people into trees. These can work, but you can't cancel all bullshit all the time.
Instead, bullshit right back.
III: Mental Effort

Be extremely subtle, even to the point of formlessness. Be extremely mysterious, even

to the point of soundlessness. Thereby you can be the director of the opponent's fate.

-Sun Tzu

No matter how clever you are, five players can still think faster than you because there are five of
them. They might be thinking in different directions, they might be thinking incorrectly, they might
be thinking themselves into trouble... but they are still moving faster than your poor GM brain can
manage.

Good boss design can minimize mental effort. At a bare minimum, the boss fight should include all
the information you need. If an enemy can teleport, don't list dimension door. List the range and
limitations. Having to pause in the middle of a fight to look up some minor detail is a waste of
everyone's time.

Jens Kuczwara

The Elements of a Boss Fight

You don't need to include all these elements in the same boss fight. Pick and choose.
I: The Rules
Bosses can break them. End of story. A fair fight is a fight you've already lost. Your rules say
enemies attack once per round? Screw it, this boss attacks three times around. Your rules say
creatures have a to-hit value? Screw it. You can't hit this boss with conventional weapons, or you
automatically hit them.
II: Terrain
A 50'x50' room is boring. Consider including:
Interactive (things to knock over, push, throw, or dodge)
Intuitively connected areas (a room with a balcony, a sailing ship)
Unintuitively connected areas (portals, teleporters, floating platforms)
Something going on (an active forge, a collapsing building, a rotating water wheel)
Places to maneuver, hide, or circle around (pillars, darkness)
Areas that limit movement (flowing water, video game lava or acid, swarms of slippery
maggots)
Dangerous areas (pits, drops, mashing gears, flame jets)
Strong themes. This is almost mandatory. The arena should be as interesting as the
boss.
Try to include a potential escape route and a place to hide for a few rounds.
III: Phases
Tension in a boss fight tends to drop off fairly quickly. At first, there's this feeling of "Augh what the
fuck is that thing!?", but players tend to figure out bosses fairly quickly. The fight becomes a slog.

You can continue to increase the tension by the uses of phases.

Phases can be triggered by:

# of rounds since combat began (kill it quickly or it gets tougher or drag out combat to
tire it out)
Damage taken (1/2 HP or a specific threshold)
Specific actions (melting ice, breaking chains, opening a door, using a spell)
Triggers should be obvious to the GM and easy to track.
Phases can include:
A change of boss moves (different or better attacks)
An increase in the number of enemies (calling goblin assistants, splitting in half)
An change in pace (slower or faster attacks)
A change in terrain (see above) as the boss moves or alters its environment

IV: Boss Moves

A minimum starting point:
One "moderate" damage attack. Enough to chip away at one or more PCs but not
enough to kill a full health PC.
One "oh fuck" damage attack. Enough to almost kill a PC or at least scare the hell out of
your players.
 One "aha, thought you were being clever" attack. Usually an area-of-effect burst or a re-
positioning.
One "weird" effect. Passive or active. Does something unexpected. Helps control the
fight, combat the PCs' bullshit.
Don't forget; the boss can re-position itself as well as attacking. It can circle, move back, flank,
isolate, corner, or retreat. A boss shouldn't remain stationary to let the PCs surround and wail on it.
Additional Moves

Telegraphed mega-damage attack. One round to get out of the way or you're probably
dead.
Area control attacks. Classic MMORPG boss fight moves. Designate an area; anyone in
the area after a few rounds has something horrible happen to them.
Reactions. Occur when a PC does something (casts a spell, fires a ranged weapon,
smashes a vital gem). Breaks the normal turn order. Frightening.
Summoning low-threat allies.
Passive Boss Abilities

Initiative penalties (this boss is really quick)

Multiple actions per round (It goes at the start of each round and in the middle of each
round)
Actions after every PC's turn (It goes after every PC)
Automatically hit (this boss is huge, you can't possibly miss) coupled with damage
reduction (but it's so huge your weapons barely harm it)
Immunity to some types of attack
An inconvenient movement move (flight, hovering, swimming)
Additional Complications

Immune until some action is taken (smashing a crystal, opening windows to let sunlight
in)
Terrain can be used against the boss (ancient rusting cannons on the balcony, fragile
ceiling)
A second boss arrives in the middle of the fight.
Boss Move Tips

The move's name and description should enable the GM to describe it, with as much or
as little purple prose as needed, without preparing ahead of time.
Powerful moves should be telegraphed. If a boss spits fire, its mouth should dribble
flames all the time, even when it's not using that move. If it has a dart-forward multi-
attack, it should move like a duelist, etc.
Moves should be repeated to give the players a chance to learn and adapt.
Try to include more than one path to victory. The Basilisk can be fought traditionally or
blinded by stealth or fed to make it into a sort of ally.
Some bosses deserve as much foreshadowing as you can give them. Hype them up.
Give hints and warnings and, perhaps, mangled survivors.
Some bosses should be horrible surprises.
V: Twists
Not all bosses need to be larger or stranger than the PCs. The first boss fight in
Bloodborne is against Father Gascoigne. He has the same equipment and the same
moves as you... and he kicks your ass, because he uses them better. He thumbs his
nose at the player. "I don't have any special advantages or tools. I'm just better. Get
good, scruuuuub."
Some bosses, especially ones with immunity to common attacks, can be treated more
like puzzles than fights.
Some boss fights can be tragic instead of hectic. They can be easier than expected for a
reason that only becomes obvious later.
A composite boss (a smaller creature riding a larger creature, two allies with different
fighting styles, a caster and a sword-wielder)

VI: Music
Boss fights are a chance to get bombastic. If you don't use background music normally, now's your
chance. Mostly silence, with only some areas having music, is a Dark Souls hallmark.
VII: Prose
Your goal, as a GM, is to make the boss fight interesting. Take your time describing the boss and
the terrain before the fight begins. Linger over details. Build a complete picture in your players'
minds and you will be rewarded for it later.

Practice describing things. Go onto Artstation or some other site, find some monsters, and describe
them - out loud if possible. Your goal is to produce an experience that your players will vividly
remember.

Yongsub Noh
Example Boss Fights
The Basilisk (by far the best and most complete boss fight I've written and tested)
The Stone Cobra Guardian
The Blizzard Eel
Xiximanter the Lich, the Apocalypse Shell, and the Umbral Duchess

Further Reading
Held Kinetic Energy in Old School Arenas
JRPG Inspired Encounter Design
5th Edition's Legendary Actions
Action Economics 101 and 102
Broodmother Skyfortress
All the boss fights in Dark Souls
EDIT: Better Boss Fights
Boss Mechanics from World of Warcraft
Monster Design - Focus on Special Attacks
Monster Design

Skerples at 01:14

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10 comments:

TheLawfulNeutral 20/06/2018, 06:23

I've always felt that Bosses were one of my weak areas as a GM and this article has some par
excellence advice that I will be taking to heart.
Reply

Joseph Manola 20/06/2018, 08:20

Is there not a tension between this kind of 'fight design' and the assumed OSR playstyle? The moment
my players see anything resembling a 'boss monster', they run off in the opposite direction, and don't
come back until they've found a way of comprehensively rigging the encounter in their favour, whether
by befriending it, betraying it, immobilising it, evading it, tricking someone else into killing it, or
whatever. And if monsters are being treated as obstacles to be circumvented rather than challenges
to be overcome - which, in OSR-style games, will often be the case - then the nuts and bolts of MMO-
style boss fights, with their enrage timers, multi-stage battles, 'don't stand in the fire', and so on, will
simply never come up...

Reply

Replies

Skerples 20/06/2018, 12:38

Possibly, but see the first Sun Tzu quote. If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must
fight.
Running away is entirely viable. Rigging encounters is entirely viable. It doesn't really change
 that the boss may still need a move set, some special abilities, etc. No plan is perfect. And
sometimes, the best plan the players can come up with is "hit it really hard with our swords
and see what happens."

Take AD&D dragons, for example. They've got all the classic boss fight moves + rules for
subduing them + an implied environment.

Fungi Fetishist 20/06/2018, 12:59

This comment has been removed by the author.

Wizzzargh 20/06/2018, 23:40

I think of it less as a 'this game will now be focused on new-school tactics and battles' as 'in
the event that there is combat, it might as well be entertaining combat.' My players try to be
smart and seek those 'rigged encounters' too, but sometimes they just want to shoot magic
missiles and swing swords and I think this can work to make those moments more
interesting.

There IS that tension you speak of, though. Personally I don't think more interesting
combats will squash the spirit of the OSR, but I've made poor choices when it comes to
mechanics-as-design-intent before...

Fungi Fetishist 21/06/2018, 13:51

I love the idea of bossfights but I'm interested in this tension. My OSR games do tend to
lack bossfights for the aforementioned reasons, but I also love a fun combat and bosses
seem the perfect opportunity to break OSR rules and focus on combat for a bit.

Reply

Spwack 20/06/2018, 08:53

Number 2, Terrain, is something I've started to try and apply to every single room in my dungeon. It's
definitely sprung from "Held Kinetic Energy" that you've got on the reading list, and it makes a huge
difference to *every* fight, not just boss fights.

Players are always looking for that hidden advantage, that bullshit way to utilise combinations of
mechanics. I'd say to GMs, start thinking like a Player again.

I also had a boss honourably retreat, leaving behind some of its enchanted gear, rather than potentially
dying in the last round. Just the right combination of irritation and victory. I'm sure he won't get so
lucky the next time around.
Reply

Yami Bakura 20/06/2018, 17:45

I recently published my own thoughts on Boss Fights, but I'm still glad for your perspective, Skerples.
But on the subject of the action economy, I think I have a solution. I think, and clearly many others do,
 that overcoming the massive imbalance in the action economy is the biggest problem for a Solo
Monster. Though I'm still not sure what the solution is, as obviously giving the boss more hp and
making their attacks do more damage is not sufficient. Perhaps you could borrow a page from the
Angry GM, who came up with the idea of Paragon Monsters, which are, to make a long story short,
monsters with multiple pools of HP. As each one is depleted, they can get stronger or weaker, or use
their multiple pools of HP to do other things. But I have another thought. What if instead of just
boosting the Boss' damage and HP, you also give them multiple actions. That seems a little too
obvious, but what if you took the Boss' 1d12+3 damage attack and instead split it into three attacks
that do 1d6 each, and gave it three turns. So instead of Boss, Fighter, Thief, Cleric, Wizard, the initiative
order would be Boss, Fighter, Thief, Boss, Cleric, Boss, Wizard.

Maybe that's too obvious, but it might work.

Reply

Replies

Skerples 20/06/2018, 21:29

I'll add your post to the "Further Reading" section. Sorry, I didn't see it when it first went up.

Multiple HP pools is very cool - it's essentially what a 2-part boss is. Ornstein and Smough
from Dark Souls is a perfect example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHDPr07hyzs If
you deplete one HP pool (Ornstein) first, the boss gains a new move set, etc.

Reply

tipsta 23/06/2018, 11:27

This all pretty cool stuff and I hope to one day get around to using it. Below is another blog post (not
mine) that may be of interest, though it is very focused on Dungeons and Dragon 5th Edition as a
baseline instead of B/X or any OSR system.
http://theangrygm.com/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e/

I actually drafted up (but never actually ran) a boss battle myself drawing from that as inspiration, if
you'd like to take a look I'd be happy to share it with you.
Reply

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