Make Bosses More Scary ....

Message:


Boss Recommendations.

Start the mission with a Boss penalty rating of say "10 / 2". As the Boss gets tougher, increase the rating. The rating is "Number of Penalties" / "Minimum Number of Penalties".

Change your new "Special Areas" like "Elven Council", "Wizard's Coffee Shop", "Talking Tree Trope" to give benefits against the boss. Allow them to remove one "Penalty" per the list below.

Base Boss:
All bosses start with 3 Stat checks of the 5. (INT, STR, CON)
Combat is d4 rounds +1. Hey, he's the boss.
The boss has one reward per player (level or treasure) plus one GREAT Item.

Roll for each penalty that has NOT been cancelled by the magic areas. To make life easier for Ref, just roll one number and included the next penalties.

(1) Without the special boss key, you can't get to the boss. (You don't need to define this because it would only be mentioned if you don't have it ... and you don't.)
(2) Before you get to boss, you have to fight one preliminary guard. Three Stats, 2 rounds.
(3) First Round against boss, all rolls suffer additional penalty of -4.
(4) First Two rounds suffer an additional penalty of -2 to all rolls.
(5) Boss rounds of combat increased to 8.
(6) Boss always gets all six five stats to fight.
(7) Limit the amount of magic used against Boss to no more than a total of 4 points for the Party
(8) Double the cost of magic to 2 points per spell.
(9) Magic ITEMS don't work against the boss. (Spells do.)
(10) No Overkills permitted in combat against the boss.
(11) First failed roll each round against the boss suffers DOUBLE injury.
(12) Every round, all characters suffer 1 injury at the end of the round.
(13) FIRST roll against the boss each round is an automatic fail.
(14) One player at random each turn is unable to act (but the good new is they can't suffer penalty)
(15) Boss has particularly nasty trap waiting as you arrive to the final battle. Suffer 4 points of damage before the battle starts.
(16) Reduce the Treasure by 2 items.
(17) Reduce the Treasure to no more than 1 GREAT Item.
(18) Only spells which affect a single Stat may be used in fight against the Boss.
(19) Only spells which affect at least TWO stats may be used in fight against the Boss.
(20) Hit Points are reduced to no more than 8 at the BEGINNING of the combat.
(21) You are not permitted to retreat from the boss fight once started.
(22) Whoops, you were given bad intel, add 4 penalties to the boss.
(23) Tabulate the number of "hits" against the boss. If, by round 4, the party has not done 20 hits to the boss, the boss flees with the lootz.
(24) No weapons, shields, or Missile Weapons may be used against the boss.
(25) Death Save. As the battle finished, roll a Death Save. If Roll is 1 or 2, character was slain during the fight but that was not noticed.

(May want to randomize these items.)


Treasure:
A GREAT item is the same as a regular item but the player may alter the item, spell, or characteristic. (For example, change locket into sword ... so that it may be combined into a single item.)

Plus, you can add additional items that cancel certain penalties. (i.e. If you have these elven booties, you can suffer penalty 15.)


Yours,