Ep. 3 The Boss Fight!

Eric and Philip discuss how to build up your Big Bad. Things to avoid and ways to make the final boss fight more interesting, plus some insight into how they ended their own three year campaign is a satisfying way.

News

 * Unearthed Arcana: Traps
 * Planeshift: Kaladesh
 * Dragon Magazine: The Barber of Silverymoon
 * Dragon Magazine: Herding of Tahra's Cats

Summary

 * 0:00:00: Introduction
 * 0:03:20: News
 * 0:03:29: Traps
 * 0:11:18: Kaladesh
 * 0:13:33: Dragon Magazine
 * 0:15:39: Tomb of Horrors and Tales From the Yawning Portal Preview


 * 0:16:50: Main topic: Boss Fights!
 * 0:17:48: How to build up to the boss fight
 * 0:29:29: Getting to the boss fight
 * 0:41:30: Confronting the villain
 * 0:56:35: Allow there to be more than one solution to the encounter
 * 0:58:59: Satisfying endings


 * 1:07:31: Listener questions
 * 01:11:59: Wrap-up

Unfinished Wars
Philip and Eric gives examples of how to craft a good villain using the big bad from their 3-year-long campaign.

Lady Vol
Lady Vol is an ancient lich from Aerenal, a continent ruled by elves of the Undying Court. All the elves there are obsessed with immortality, and the way the ones from the line of Vol attempt to achieve this is through necromancy. This is generally okay with the elves until they tried mixing the genetics of a dragon in. Lady Vol was created, a half-dragon half-lich. The Aereni wiped her line out. She was an early teen when it happened, and in order to save her life her mom had her phylactery hidden, even from Vol.

Vol possesses the Mark of Death, the lost dragonmark. Her goal is to bring herself back to life to make use of her mark to achieve proper living immortality and possibly godhood. She's the source of the Blood of Vol, a religion that focuses on immortality using the divine spark in your blood. Its followers worship her but most don't know anything about her.

One of the players wanted to be the King Arthur character and King Arthur needs his sword. They used Weapons of Legacy, a supplemental 3.5 rulebook to get a weapon that would level up with the character. The player got it from an elf who died in an airship crash, and the sword started talking to her.

Everything that had been happening to the players was to drive them to Vol and come to the place that they would confront her, bringing everything she needed to restore her soul. She had some underbosses like a drow vampire from Xen'drik. He was willing to be violent but mostly just a loyal retainer to the family and in the end the players redeemed him.

The way for Vol to achieve godhood was the Draconic Prophecy. It's essentially fate, but reads as a riddle. For their purposes, it involved a battle at Thronehold, the old seat of power before Eberron fractured into various kingdoms, and it had to take place under the right circumstances. Much of the campaign was about manipulating people into the right place so the prophecy could be fulfilled. The paladin got killed very close to the end of the campaign and the person playing her decided she wouldn't want to be resurrected, but they knew they needed her sword so they brought it with them. They had to introduce a new character for the player; the elf who originally wielded the sword had a cousin, and that become the new player character. She set out on a mission to find out what happened to her cousin, and being from Aerenal knew the dangers of Lady Vol, so it was natural that she would join them.

Final Boss Fight
Vol was going to seize control of the island and complete a ritual that would draw power from the other planes and from the death of a huge number of people. She would regain her soul and resurrect herself and achieve godhood. They had a bunch of different factors in play; characters drawing on powers from other planes; a player who had become an archfey and was pulling minions from the feywild. There was a powerful wizard who wrecked a bunch of setpieces; an airship battle was going on above them. It was as chaotic and gigantic as possible.

Narratively, the ending was satisfying. Mechanically things could have been designed better. A big party means more minions means more dice rolling, which slows the game down. Lady Vol knew everything about them, so Philip sat down with the spell list of a level 20 necromancer and handpicked spells for them, the goal being to kill one of them.

Eventually Vol was ready to move on to another plane. She took the sword she was wielding, which contained the soul of her father, a green dragon, and plunged it into the ground, cast some magic, and fled through a portal. The villain doesn't need an explanation for everything they do; she's ancient and knows more magic than them. It just needs to be told in a narrative way.From the sword the undead dragon soul of her father came out, and the party had to choose to chase her or deal with the dragon. They decided to split; two stayed behind and the rest gave chase. She was creating an artifact that would allow her to achieve godhood and the players brought her down on the round that the ritual was complete. Her living form evaporated into the object she was making, and the party's wizard grabbed and kept it. The intent was for them to wonder—did they stop the ritual in time, or did she accomplish her goal?

Listener Questions
Q: In discussing the fighter, you commented about the difficulties of giving a PC a heroic and interesting background, yet still explaining why they are only level 1.

I think that’s a mistake; it’s on us to accept how great a 1st level PC is, rather than to justify why they aren’t.

''A starting hero is far more capable than an average human. They may not be ready to take on global threats, but they’d certainly be the heroes of their hometowns, larger than life people who have wrestled bears, run marathons, tricked giants, and stood against terrifying odds. Going by CR, a starting fighter is as dangerous as a lion, tiger, or bear, or an entire squad of city guards.''

''If your character had a soldier background, it’d be entirely justifiable to describe how there’s a song about how he saved his entire unit single-handedly. A criminal isn’t just some street tough or ex-pickpocket, she’s the most-wanted thief in Teren with a huge bounty on her head. A hermit isn’t just some crazy old wizard from the desert, but a strange and rumored wise man of the wastes. Your folk hero might actually be Jack the Giant Killer, or at least the inspiration for him.''

And none of that conflicts with being level 1 — it’s how they got to be level 1 heroes at all!

— Darth Pseudonym

The problem was rooted in them being a "hero" for weeks, months, or even years and, in meta terms, not leveled up at all. They can have heroic deeds, but the most interesting thing about the character shoudn't have already have happened. If you have cool things you want your character to do, talk to your DM and ask them to give you the opportunities to do some of it so it can be crafted into the story. Epic, heroic moments should happen at the table, not at your computer.

Plugs

 * Eberron Renewed
 * d20radio
 * The Geek Pantheon Ep. 29: Who Will Save the Batman?
 * Order 66 Podcast

Mentions

 * Avengers: Age of Ultron
 * Dark Souls
 * Dragon Age
 * Home Alone 2: Lost in New York
 * ParaNorman
 * Weapons of Legacy
 * Whispers of the Vampire's Blade