Today on the second blog post, you get to learn about how I'm a complete liar. You know how I said this blog would not be a discussion on mechanics? Well, we're going to talk about some mechanic ideas I've had. Particularly pertaining to bosses.
First of all, let me say that some huge inspirations for this are:
1. The AngryDM's paragon ideas. He has a great blog first of all, and second of all his ideas on boss battles is unique yet familiar. Take a look at his stuff.
2. Spoony's look at the Terrasque in the 1e monster manual. All of Spoony's youtube videos are quite entertaining and some of them are worth mining for ideas.
3. Goblin Puncher's post about boss mechanics in WoW and how they could translate into boss fights in DnD.
Now, onto the post itself. This is be quite disoriented. None of this is organized in any way that helps to understand it. It's just a bunch of ideas and concepts that I find interesting when dealing with a new creature type I like to call Colossi.
Why Colossi? Well, because this idea started brewing in my head on my re-playthrough of Shadow of the Colossus. I started thinking about the idea of fighting giant creatures and beasts like that in a DnD campaign. But Colossi aren't always large. In fact, their size is not indignant of their name at all. Some of them are as small as bacteria and some don't have a organic form at all and only exist as thoughts.
So let's look at some of these ideas I have, starting with rules for what constitutes a Colossi and then diving into what makes each one an individual.
1. All Colossi must be wished out of existence after being slain. This leads to a campaign that is 3/4 collecting a wish spell through questingj, and 1/4 fighting some a Colossus. If they are not wished away then they will return as if never injured, and they hold grudges. They live forever. And I mean forever. If you could ever speak to one (maybe in the afterlife) they could tell you about what it was like before time, before a sun lit the galaxy. Things of that nature.
2. Colossi campaigns are not made for hack and slashers. Dungeon crawlers can still find solace in them, because some Colossi are so large that their bodies are in fact dungeons. But the idea behind the Colossi is that it is a thinking-mans campaign. It takes deciphering and understanding of each ones particular weakness or circumstance to be able to defeat these beasts. Here's a quote from my original notes: "What can I say? I like it when players are clever and ideally, if the party comes up with a unique way to defeat one of these creature, let them." The idea behind these things is for them to be epic. Fun.
So, that's not many rules, but I think that covers the basis. Make them epic. Wish them away. Simple as that. That's all it takes to make a creature a Colossus. So, simply put, Strahd could very well be a Colossi. As could the Tomb of Horrors. And yes, I mean the Tomb itself, not the creatures inside of it.
Now onto some ideas for specific Colossi:
1. You can't willingly kill it. Only natural ones hit the creature. It goes against the very nature of the game. This could be interesting, at least to me I think it could be. Players would have to figure out how to not hit the beast. For example, maybe swinging on your friend would instead cause damage to the creature? Or trying to become its friend? Or helping it destroy a town? Who knows?
2. Healing hurts it. Hitting it gives it hit points. It starts at 1 hit point. This has sort of been done, because in games that I run, undead are harmed by healing spells, including healing potions. So disguising this thing as anything but a skeleton or zombie should let this "trick" work. They attack, it doesn't seem to die. They end up making it so powerful it's nearly unstoppable. But what if they cast True Resurrection on it? Hmm...
3. The monster is a dungeon, literally. A big, confusing dungeon crawl inhabited by all things it has eaten, Maybe it flips upside down, turns sideways, breaks itself, swallows lava, etc. Maybe the way to kill it is to survive long enough for it to kill itself?
4. The moon is a mimic. Also, maybe the atmosphere is becoming a gelatinous cube, OR! Maybe a gelatinous cube from space is threatening to devour the planet.
5. The Colossus must be killed in one turn. ONLY ONE.
6. The Colossus only takes damage from one person, chosen at random, and it changes every round. There would be a pattern. Figure out the pattern, coordinate your buffs and attacks, and you're good to go.
7. Exists on one plane at a time, so you must be able to travel to various other planes for the entire battle. Or maybe there are several parts that exist in random planes at any one time, so you have to find where it is and attack each part at the same time. It moves quite often, or at least some of it does some of the time.
8. Distorted reality. The creature can swap HP, stats, etc, with players. Example: it attacks itself and gets close to dropping, then it switches its HP for a players. Or it drains its STR and switches it with the fighter. So it never actually attack anyone. The trick (one of them) is to kill a party member and trick it to switch HP with it. So you "Weekend at Bernie's" it. Another idea is to put magic itmes on that raise a low score to a high one, so it wants it. Then, when it takes it, it doesn't have the ring so it's score is low enough to be drained to zero.
9. An entire city. I've actually designed this one. I'll link it: https://www.docdroid.net/JVWQjhB/make-my-day-5e-starter-adventure.pdf.html
10. A monster like Sin, from FFX. Cutting off parts are easy, but each part cut off becomes its own monster. Merely touching this Colossus risks being plan shifted/amnesia. It's attacks cause tectonic plate shifts. It is split into body pats and its lesser parts have gravity based attacks. One way to kill it is to sacrifice yourself and let your party use your spirit to do some massive damage (the last aeon).
Well, that's a lot more than I thought. Not as disjointed as I remembered it being. Hopefully something in here sparks your interest. If it does and you think of more to it, or if you come up with your own ideas of Colossi, let me know in the comments.
Stay awesome,
Your DM
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