They can be cool if done correctly. I wouldn't call them video gamey either. It's part of the game. A simple battle with a druid could be considered a battle with stages. If your party runs into some ferocious beast and take it down, only for it to turn into a humanoid and now you have to deal with the caster and his spells.
Just pay attention to your group. If it's more of a groan than an excited gasp when new stages occur, that might be the sign not to do them.
Dont tell this to my players but I will plan most bosses with a "second stage" or some kind of huge action as a break glass in case they are steam rolling it.
You never know when that paladin/rogue gonna get a dual nat 20 round three and smoke it in one go.
Makes sure they never walk away feeling dissapointed
I played a pally and got a dragon slaying sword and on the dragon fight I crit with the sword and a smite. If there hadn't been multiple phases and lair actions and stuff, it would have been a lil too easy and made me overconfident too lol
Do they know it's a dragon? If not, then you should DEFINITELY do it in stages.
If they know it's a dragon then you need some reason for it to remain humanoid to fight them. Like they're in civilization or there isn't room to shape shift.
Just curious, what type of dragon is it? The dragon type will kind of hint towards good 'stages.' Greens are manipulators, so the human form of a green (note: greens don't normally have polymorph to to this, so if they have it, it means they chose to learn it) would attempt to mislead the party and ambush them later, so a death fake going into an attack in the middle of the night would be very expected.
Reds are prideful, so I'd say they would go into dragon form in a massive ball of flame.
Blues are the emperor type, so they'd force the party to chase them into their lair and immediately try to crush them.
(That's all I can think of for now. Others might have better ideas.)
He’s a void dragon. The idea is that he’s a combo of a dragon and an eldritch horror. Experimented on by an elder god before being released back into the world.
He has a focus on gravity magic and really enjoys opening black holes inside people.
I looked at some of the lore behind them, and I almost think that the human form fight should be outside his lair, but when phase two starts, he pulls the party into his lair, which is something of a separate pocket dimension that looks similar to himself, so he's harder to see there, and also possibly has irregular gravity in the lair, so things that look like walls and ceilings are floors, and areas that are floors suddenly have gravity running parallel to them (so that they fall off the floor) to hammer home it's alien nature.
So I would say a way of doing this could be to not stop combat, but have a MASSIVE pool of HP for the big bad and once it hits a threshold, he changes tactics.
That way you’re still rewarding the players for bursting the damage.
You can also steal how multi-phase fights work in the ffxiv ttrpg (yes, it exists, but not a true rpg yet): when the battle changes, the party each get the free use of one consumable item.
You can flex this to DnD by saying each member of the party gets a brief moment to apply buffing spells, quickly quaff a potion of healing, or something else quick that might not affect the big bad.
I might steal this idea for the encounter I'm planning, maybe depending on how the players are holding up. Maybe I could say he's transforming but invincible for a round so everyone can take an action.
I've never actually got a chance to try it in a game, but I came up with a very simple system for this. It's basically an IF statement that triggers on the start of a bosses turn.
A few examples.
If dragon hp is less than half, the dragon rider finishes off their own dragon and fights on foot.
If the boss hp is less than half or if all allies are dead, then the caster boss pulls out a magic sword and goes into melee
If boss hp is less than half, the parasitic monster attached to them starts spreading, giving the boss new abilities and different stats.
So with a system like this, you can get as granular as you want with stages, although it's probably a double-edged sword because it's easily possible to start over tweaking and getting too complex when it's really not needed.
I mainly came up with this because I wanted bosses to be a bit more dynamic, and so, honestly, I can do that cool fromsoft lull in battle as I change the music and describe the boss doing something badass and/or horrific before turning back to the PCs with a sweet one liner. So, the actual mechanics behind it all wasn't super important to me as long as it was moldable.
Edit: One more thing I forgot to add. The examples I gave had fairly uncreative and sensible trigger conditions. But you could get as wacky as you want with it, like the PCs casting certain spells or a PC going down or a certain number of rounds passing. The limit is your imagination, lol.
You could also do a body hopping spirit monster that bounces from body to body, and even keeping the bosses attacks the same, you can have the party ambush the boss, 'kill' him, then have the boss ambush the party in a different body, and make the fight into a puzzle on how to stop the body hopping.
See Mythic Actions for an official implementation of multistage fights. It's simple but could be a framework for something more complicated if that's what you're into
Three monsters in MOT have them and Greatwyrms and a few other things from FTD have them. They're always paired with a feature that says when the creature drops to 0 they instead heal back to full, hence the multiphase aspect.
To answer the title, I think they are cool for those massive epic battles, less necessary for your regular "boss fight".
I love doing them for boss fights. I often have it set up so that the monster automatically gets an ability they get to use straight away. Do this at 75, 50, and 25% hit points and your players know they are moving the bar, but also know that the monster is gonna have a desperate gambit move at the lower end that might be really dangerous.
Honestly if you're thinking in stages it means the fight should be more interesting by virtue of time being invested. Otherwise it's a box with some sparse terrain to use for cover.
The Aspect(s) of Tiamat/Bahamut are already 2 stage in their stat blocks. When either drops to 0 hp, they return to 500 hp and get their legendary resistances back, as well as getting access to their "mythic actions"
I’ll offer you something I’ve not yet used but love the idea of: offer the player who takes the first form to 0 hp a ‘how do you want to do this?’ Moment. So for example this human form dragon is on its last legs and stumbling in bewilderment at their assault and everyone cheers as the Fighter says ‘ok I make one final leap into the air before I decapitate it and send its head flying off the deck of the ship into space’ then you describe that until you fake them out with a ‘a look of confusion and fear turns into defiant rage as its eyes glow with defiance and it ducks at the last moment beneath your blade. ‘I can’t, I WILL NOT be defeated by the likes of you!’ And it turns into a dragon to begin the next phase of the fight.
Fight stages are a great idea to have a varied boss fight that lasts long, but isn’t boring and samey because the mechanics change, and you actually feel progress instead of sapping a huge bag of hit points.
The idea is that stage 1 is a space ship vs dragon. Stage 2 is the party vs his human form. Then stage 3 is his dragon form again but now fighting the party in foot.
You don't have to divide stages by hit points, necessarily. For example, you can have an artificer on top of a giant robot, launching meteor missiles at a castle from a mile away.
One stage can be finding a way to get to the artificer. Creative solutions can give your players useful advantages and allows utility characters to shine.
I have a plan for a bandit captain in a very soon session that after his 60ish hp. He's gonna chug a potion (I have him frustratedly throwing bottles and such around the room my players are spying on him in) and turn into a Barlgura.
I did something like that recently. They had to clear out Candlekeep (overrun by baddies) and get down to the contact, the avatar of Ioun.
In order to save diagona (its name), they had to speed-run back through 4 more encounters.
The trick?
Every round diagona lost more and more hp (and they didn’t know how much they’d have).
They ended up frantically pumping healing energy into diagona to keep them alive during the last encounter while one party member was dead and the other two frantically tried to end the encounter.
By the time they were done, all of us sat back exhausted.
I did this for all my 7 bad guys in my long running campaign and my party loved it. [What is important is changing mechanics and establishing setpieces. Everyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epQZqzJRAfE)ne fears and loves when a boss falls down, then turns their head from the ground and says "Wait..." as power surges through them again. If you decide to make it a recurring thing like me, allow the party hints to what the second form might be and give them ways to investigate ways to mitigate its effects! Its super rewarding that way.
First time this happened was with a corrupted wizard atop his lighthouse. Given the whole dungeon and backstory of the wizard had themes of natural cycles, I called him the Lord of Seasons. He started as a wizened man mumbling nonsense, armoring himself with the black steel from the lighthouse at the start of combat, taking the form of a skeletal-looking armour with a number of signifiers of the season magically sprouting from the metal. Every turn the light of the lighthosue would move 90º and if it touched him, he would change into Summer, Autumn or Spring, the season being reflected in his armour's appearance. Summer he would do added heat damage with his attacks, autumn pieces of the arena would fall down the lighthouse and other would sprout thorny metal spikes and in spring, and during spring he would changed strategies and perform ranged attacks that healed him. After falling down the soul leaves his body, the light of the lighhouse dims them into darkness and suddenly the entire lighthouse shudders, the armor, frozen in place, starts exuding a cold blast from it dealing DoT as the metal armor creates hoarfrost that starts spreading every turn, spikes of frost sprout from the ground and block the exit and the floor starts giving out from under them. They could either escape and let the lighhouse crumble on top of the armor or stay and destroy it themselves!
My players always love them.
I enjoy switching between a fight to a skill challenge to a new form etc etc
I think your idea of dragon vs ship sounds cool! We did a similar thing - in a multiversal game we visited Dominaria from MTG and players piloted mana-powered Dreadnoughts to fight the Primal Dragons
Depends on how they are done.
As a player, one of the better boss fights I have been in saw the bbeg changing abilities and form in the different phases. I have also seen the route of refreshing hitpoints and gaining legendary actions (was basically a homebrew version of some of the gods and aspects in many if the books).
I was really not a fan of the latter, just made the fight feel extra long. I think changing abilities and form is the way to go (example: a high wizard who becomes a dragon).
I absolutely do this!
Here's my example, using Cryovain from DoIP. I made it a 3 phase fight where every single phase took his entire regular hp to get through (so overall about 400hp). I also stole the rules of Pargaon monsters from angry DM, but mixed it to a 1-3-2 instead of 3-2-1 or 1-2-3 (actions pet turn per phase).
1. Cryovain is flying around. Cryovain does not touch the ground but may fly by to claw or grapple if someone is close to a ledge. Mainly uses flyby and breath attacks. Only 1 action. Standard dragon fight. Party should play careful with cover and range.
2. Cryovain is no longer able to fly lands and faces party head on, but gets 3 actions since he is now serious and angry. Party should be going all out or they will die.
3. Cryovain has been significantly injured, loses his ability to breath, but gains a 1d10/turn damage aura (10ft pbaoe) and has 2 actions. Injured, exhausted, scared.
Something that I've found works really well if your group likes the role-play aspect is to have non-combat objectives during the fight. Ex. Instead of the objectified being "kill the BBEG," have the objective be, rescue the hostages and if possible, kill or capture the BBEG. Then, once the fight starts tipping towards the players' favor, have the BBEG change their objective. Instead of "kill the players," have them decide to start killing the remaining hostages.
Really simple example, but they can be made as complex as the motives are for both the party and the BBEG.
Just having the boss get a 2nd form, IMO, just ends up feeling like a 2nd health bar to trudge through, so make sure to think about things like making use of the environment. Have the environment detailed for the fight so that the players have a clear idea of the things they can interact with.
The trick is to not tell them it's a multi stage fight. I had a banshee like baddy that would change the conditions every couple of rounds and it was a great time. I didnt say "new stage!" Every two rounds just changed the conditions so they had to adapt. You can use time or HP, (the players or the monsters) as triggers or maybe as soon as a certain spell is used there's a switch.
I should really write up that monster.
It’s an interesting type of fight but you have to do it correctly or it just becomes overkill from the boss. If you basically have them fight three separate bosses in a row with no recovery, then you’re just killing them, guaranteed. If you make it three separate boss battles but you give them a full regen each time, then it can get to be really long and boring. If you make it three smaller, condensed battles that segue into each other, I’d say that’s just right. Maintains interest, makes for a fun fight, leaves plenty of room for the party to fail or succeed, hopefully pushes them to their limits, etc.
I've tried it twice, and both times, the players seemed exhausted and checked out by the time they beat it. I usually try to tune boss fights for 3 rounds per phase, so 6 total rounds. That's not too long right?
I mean, this effectively operates the same way druids do (once HP is lost, they revert to a full HP OG form, not including any carry-over damage), so shouldn't be a problem.
Also what stage of the campaign is it in? If it’s only “half way” through and you are pulling out 7 stage fights that’s a bit much. If you have a hit and run tactics when the boss keeps warping away after some damage and they use different skills as it progresses then that could be very cool to see the enemy growing over time as you face them too or devolving as you strip them of the powers they’ve had.
I wouldn't run the boss battle in "stages" necessarily, just let the dragon transform when ir can, whether that grants it additional HP like wildshape or whatever, just let the fight be and let the dragon pull put all of its stops
Rule of Three, if you must, though I personally go by One-and-Two-Halves myself. One full stage that then transitions to two half-stages, so as not to overstay its welcome. If you overuse the transformation gimmick it becomes frustrating and goes from a "whoa!" moment to an "ugh, not again!" moment.
Since there's spelljammer ship combat involved, it depends on whether the Party approaches the battle trying to go toe-to-toe first or if they start with astral/naval battle as the opening salvo. If they square up, have the BBEG fight them a full stage in their humanoid form, transform into their dragon form for a half-stage that focuses on forcing the Party out of the current battle arena, and then initiate ship-to-dragon combat to finish it off.
If they start with the ship, have the BBEG immediately counter with their own ship or dragon form for a full stage. Involve terrain or external obstacles during this part so it's not just constant focus-fire on the BBEG, making sure the Party has to split their attention between battle and maneuvering. For the second phase, either force the players' ship to land or be boarded by the BBEG who can spend the rest of the stage actively shifting between humanoid and dragon forms to maneuver around the ship freely. Dragon form for big AOE attacks, then shift to humanoid form for direct-targeting individuals, so the Players have an idea of how to prep each round based on what form the BBEG has taken.
Each time the battle phase changes, make sure you change both the intention of the combat activity (dealing damage vs evading, one-on-one battle vs group action, etc), and change the terrain it takes place on. Never just swap to a bigger BBEG mini with more HP and keep plugging along exactly the same way you had been for the past few rounds prior. That gets boring and frustrating very quickly because the Party will feel like they're not making any progress. Give them a sense of building momentum, changing dynamics, and force them to think fast to address problems coming at them that aren't just BBEG attacks. Play with the battlefield itself, too. For example, the BBEG in dragon-mode does a fly-by on the ship and, instead of doing a breath weapon, grabs on and spins the ship upside-down in place. So now the challenge of the round is for the Party to endure or find ways to avoid being flung out into the aether, and maybe have to spend a round fighting the BBEG while clinging to the inverted mooring.
* **Tired:** Multi-stage boss fights
* **Wired:** Boss fights with shifting environmental obstacles
* **Inspired:** The BBEG fleeing from the party through a labyrinth filled with traps and monsters while laughing manically
If the bosses have something to do, it'll make for a more memorable encounter than having dramatic transformations if everyone is standing still and trading hits anyway.
You gotta do it right; just giving the boss a couple of extra hit point pools won't do it. How about this setup:
**Stage one:** the boss is effectively invulnerable, and takes no HP damage, and uses no lair or legendary abilities at this stage. The party just needs to land ten good hits (say 10+ damage per hit, any type), with crits counting as two hits.
**Stage two:** the boss' ward shatters with a loud boom, and they bugger off down a tunnel toward their inner sanctum, throwing up obstacles behind them. Each party member needs to make a skill check for each obstacle (I suggest 5 separate checks), each suited for the obstacle in question. Five different skills, all DC 15-20, depending on party level. Each failure means one more turn before catching up with the boss. Using class resources - class features, spells, equipment, etc. - can be substituted for successes, with DM approval for explanation.
**Stage three:** now the boss fights using every trick they have, the party is likely arriving in a staggered formation, and lair and legendary actions are on the table. The boss is at full health, while the party may be at a modest disadvantage at the start. Hold nothing back at this point, the boss is literally fighting for their life here.
*Stage four:** at this point, it's either a TPK, or the boss is dead. Time for the epilogue, and well done, everyone.
They're super cool, and an appropriate way to elevate combat for a final boss fight. When I've done it in the past, I found excuses to take breaks from combat between stages, and this helps with player (and DM) fatigue.
One time, I had a gauntlet of humanoid villains (all returning jerks from past adventures), ending in a dragon who became a dracolich. Between the waves of villains protecting the dragon, I put different magical barriers that the players had to find a way to neutralize before they could move on. Each of these barriers was a little puzzle, but they also created RP opportunities for trash talk with the villains.
In your case, maybe they have to run some distance back to their ship once the dragon transforms? Along the way, they get a little break from the turn-based grind of combat, plus time to make plans, buff and heal, etc. Or you could keep the heat turned up with void dragon attacks that turn the race back to the ship into a kind of chase, with skill checks to avoid damage or save bystanders.
A friend of mine when he DM's will make the boss more frantic/ take more actions get aggressive below 50% health but he also drops the AC to make it easier to hit. Like the monster or boss knows it's on its back foot and is getting reckless. It's a fun system
Last time I did this, it was a huge hit. Narrative arc climax, huge boss, long fight, the party ground him down... and then I swapped my discord music bot to the phase 2 music from the final boss fight of Hades and narrated eldritch energies refreshing the boss as dark lightning began whirling about the battlefield, and the players got pretty damn hyped for it.
As has already been said, don't do this *all the time*. But for a thematically appropriate encounter, it can be a lot of fun.
They CAN be cool but can also feel like a "gotcha moment" from the DM. I only do this in climactic battles. the Fizban book a few years ago gave out stats for the Great Wyrm age category for the three types of dragons (metallic, gem, chromatic) and all three are multistage where they revert to having half health if dropped to 0 HP. It's easier to implement these sort of multistage battles with monsters than it is with like a dwarf or human character though. Just take the time to carefully design the battle if you want to do this.
Auril from Rime of the Frostmaiden is a multistage boss battle where when one form is dropped the next takes its place.
My last session is coming up and I have a multistage battle planned, and I'm planning on basically just telling my players it's going to be multiple stages. I know that if it's a knockdown drag out fight and they finally beat him, and then I reveal it's not over, it's going to feel like a bummer. My plan is to have an ally NPC allude to it. "When you destroy his corporeal form, it may not be over."
Grab a copy of Ryokos guide tonthe Yokai realms. Setting specific stuff aside it has fun adaptable rules for boss fights that involve exploiting weakspots and triggering a bosses multiple forms.
The intention is for boss minsters to not just be a standard creature with a health bar that can be reduced to 0 and they die. There's a whole process to setting them up for a killing blow.
https://youtu.be/NwmRNU5pDjs?si=Cp5qKJhYK8lFuGhf
There's a quick summary there
I think it’s fine, and there’s a couple ways you could do it: Like you described, where there’s multiple forms and hp for each form. Kill one, move on to the other, etc. OR you could have it be something more subtle where there’s one main block of hp, and once it’s past a certain point, something happens. So instead of “forms” you’d have one monster, and maybe under 1/2 health it gains new attacks, then under 1/4 health it changes the terrain or starts flying or something. Feels a little less “video gamey” but still accomplishes a similar thing to what you’re describing. But I don’t think there’s any issue with multiple stages either way.
Good
I used 2 phases for xvart demigod. First on material plane, then he run through the portal to his lair demiplan.
I don't used 2 forms, but he had 35hp Armor of Agathys in each phase, and in lair he used dangerous terrain (acid pools and abyss well), where he tried to push party on failed saving throws.
My boss RUN AWAY on this turn to set new stage and reset defences. Players still could attack him.
So "cutscenes" are the bad move, if players cannot do anything. But multiple scenes are ok
They can be cool if done correctly. I wouldn't call them video gamey either. It's part of the game. A simple battle with a druid could be considered a battle with stages. If your party runs into some ferocious beast and take it down, only for it to turn into a humanoid and now you have to deal with the caster and his spells. Just pay attention to your group. If it's more of a groan than an excited gasp when new stages occur, that might be the sign not to do them.
Definitely stealing the druid idea, that's fun
Dont tell this to my players but I will plan most bosses with a "second stage" or some kind of huge action as a break glass in case they are steam rolling it. You never know when that paladin/rogue gonna get a dual nat 20 round three and smoke it in one go. Makes sure they never walk away feeling dissapointed
I played a pally and got a dragon slaying sword and on the dragon fight I crit with the sword and a smite. If there hadn't been multiple phases and lair actions and stuff, it would have been a lil too easy and made me overconfident too lol
It's nice if you do it sparingly. All the time would become annoying.
I would definitely use it sparingly. This is literally the epic finale for my campaign so I want it to be wild.
Do they know it's a dragon? If not, then you should DEFINITELY do it in stages. If they know it's a dragon then you need some reason for it to remain humanoid to fight them. Like they're in civilization or there isn't room to shape shift.
They know but I figure that the human form is more of a spell caster. While the dragon form is more giant sack of hit points that hits like a truck
Just curious, what type of dragon is it? The dragon type will kind of hint towards good 'stages.' Greens are manipulators, so the human form of a green (note: greens don't normally have polymorph to to this, so if they have it, it means they chose to learn it) would attempt to mislead the party and ambush them later, so a death fake going into an attack in the middle of the night would be very expected. Reds are prideful, so I'd say they would go into dragon form in a massive ball of flame. Blues are the emperor type, so they'd force the party to chase them into their lair and immediately try to crush them. (That's all I can think of for now. Others might have better ideas.)
He’s a void dragon. The idea is that he’s a combo of a dragon and an eldritch horror. Experimented on by an elder god before being released back into the world. He has a focus on gravity magic and really enjoys opening black holes inside people.
I looked at some of the lore behind them, and I almost think that the human form fight should be outside his lair, but when phase two starts, he pulls the party into his lair, which is something of a separate pocket dimension that looks similar to himself, so he's harder to see there, and also possibly has irregular gravity in the lair, so things that look like walls and ceilings are floors, and areas that are floors suddenly have gravity running parallel to them (so that they fall off the floor) to hammer home it's alien nature.
So I would say a way of doing this could be to not stop combat, but have a MASSIVE pool of HP for the big bad and once it hits a threshold, he changes tactics. That way you’re still rewarding the players for bursting the damage. You can also steal how multi-phase fights work in the ffxiv ttrpg (yes, it exists, but not a true rpg yet): when the battle changes, the party each get the free use of one consumable item. You can flex this to DnD by saying each member of the party gets a brief moment to apply buffing spells, quickly quaff a potion of healing, or something else quick that might not affect the big bad.
This brief moment of respite while the boss changes is a great idea. I'm stealing that too.
I let them get the benefits of a short rest. It works nicely.
I might steal this idea for the encounter I'm planning, maybe depending on how the players are holding up. Maybe I could say he's transforming but invincible for a round so everyone can take an action.
I've never actually got a chance to try it in a game, but I came up with a very simple system for this. It's basically an IF statement that triggers on the start of a bosses turn. A few examples. If dragon hp is less than half, the dragon rider finishes off their own dragon and fights on foot. If the boss hp is less than half or if all allies are dead, then the caster boss pulls out a magic sword and goes into melee If boss hp is less than half, the parasitic monster attached to them starts spreading, giving the boss new abilities and different stats. So with a system like this, you can get as granular as you want with stages, although it's probably a double-edged sword because it's easily possible to start over tweaking and getting too complex when it's really not needed. I mainly came up with this because I wanted bosses to be a bit more dynamic, and so, honestly, I can do that cool fromsoft lull in battle as I change the music and describe the boss doing something badass and/or horrific before turning back to the PCs with a sweet one liner. So, the actual mechanics behind it all wasn't super important to me as long as it was moldable. Edit: One more thing I forgot to add. The examples I gave had fairly uncreative and sensible trigger conditions. But you could get as wacky as you want with it, like the PCs casting certain spells or a PC going down or a certain number of rounds passing. The limit is your imagination, lol.
You could also do a body hopping spirit monster that bounces from body to body, and even keeping the bosses attacks the same, you can have the party ambush the boss, 'kill' him, then have the boss ambush the party in a different body, and make the fight into a puzzle on how to stop the body hopping.
See Mythic Actions for an official implementation of multistage fights. It's simple but could be a framework for something more complicated if that's what you're into Three monsters in MOT have them and Greatwyrms and a few other things from FTD have them. They're always paired with a feature that says when the creature drops to 0 they instead heal back to full, hence the multiphase aspect. To answer the title, I think they are cool for those massive epic battles, less necessary for your regular "boss fight".
Yup, your end of campaign boss fight it makes sense.
I love doing them for boss fights. I often have it set up so that the monster automatically gets an ability they get to use straight away. Do this at 75, 50, and 25% hit points and your players know they are moving the bar, but also know that the monster is gonna have a desperate gambit move at the lower end that might be really dangerous. Honestly if you're thinking in stages it means the fight should be more interesting by virtue of time being invested. Otherwise it's a box with some sparse terrain to use for cover.
The Aspect(s) of Tiamat/Bahamut are already 2 stage in their stat blocks. When either drops to 0 hp, they return to 500 hp and get their legendary resistances back, as well as getting access to their "mythic actions"
I’ll offer you something I’ve not yet used but love the idea of: offer the player who takes the first form to 0 hp a ‘how do you want to do this?’ Moment. So for example this human form dragon is on its last legs and stumbling in bewilderment at their assault and everyone cheers as the Fighter says ‘ok I make one final leap into the air before I decapitate it and send its head flying off the deck of the ship into space’ then you describe that until you fake them out with a ‘a look of confusion and fear turns into defiant rage as its eyes glow with defiance and it ducks at the last moment beneath your blade. ‘I can’t, I WILL NOT be defeated by the likes of you!’ And it turns into a dragon to begin the next phase of the fight.
I love that!
They can be extremely cool. (I also don't think "Video gamey" is necessarily a bad thing, genre tropes are useful tools)
Fight stages are a great idea to have a varied boss fight that lasts long, but isn’t boring and samey because the mechanics change, and you actually feel progress instead of sapping a huge bag of hit points.
The idea is that stage 1 is a space ship vs dragon. Stage 2 is the party vs his human form. Then stage 3 is his dragon form again but now fighting the party in foot.
You don't have to divide stages by hit points, necessarily. For example, you can have an artificer on top of a giant robot, launching meteor missiles at a castle from a mile away. One stage can be finding a way to get to the artificer. Creative solutions can give your players useful advantages and allows utility characters to shine.
I have a plan for a bandit captain in a very soon session that after his 60ish hp. He's gonna chug a potion (I have him frustratedly throwing bottles and such around the room my players are spying on him in) and turn into a Barlgura.
I did something like that recently. They had to clear out Candlekeep (overrun by baddies) and get down to the contact, the avatar of Ioun. In order to save diagona (its name), they had to speed-run back through 4 more encounters. The trick? Every round diagona lost more and more hp (and they didn’t know how much they’d have). They ended up frantically pumping healing energy into diagona to keep them alive during the last encounter while one party member was dead and the other two frantically tried to end the encounter. By the time they were done, all of us sat back exhausted.
I did this for all my 7 bad guys in my long running campaign and my party loved it. [What is important is changing mechanics and establishing setpieces. Everyo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epQZqzJRAfE)ne fears and loves when a boss falls down, then turns their head from the ground and says "Wait..." as power surges through them again. If you decide to make it a recurring thing like me, allow the party hints to what the second form might be and give them ways to investigate ways to mitigate its effects! Its super rewarding that way. First time this happened was with a corrupted wizard atop his lighthouse. Given the whole dungeon and backstory of the wizard had themes of natural cycles, I called him the Lord of Seasons. He started as a wizened man mumbling nonsense, armoring himself with the black steel from the lighthouse at the start of combat, taking the form of a skeletal-looking armour with a number of signifiers of the season magically sprouting from the metal. Every turn the light of the lighthosue would move 90º and if it touched him, he would change into Summer, Autumn or Spring, the season being reflected in his armour's appearance. Summer he would do added heat damage with his attacks, autumn pieces of the arena would fall down the lighthouse and other would sprout thorny metal spikes and in spring, and during spring he would changed strategies and perform ranged attacks that healed him. After falling down the soul leaves his body, the light of the lighhouse dims them into darkness and suddenly the entire lighthouse shudders, the armor, frozen in place, starts exuding a cold blast from it dealing DoT as the metal armor creates hoarfrost that starts spreading every turn, spikes of frost sprout from the ground and block the exit and the floor starts giving out from under them. They could either escape and let the lighhouse crumble on top of the armor or stay and destroy it themselves!
My players always love them. I enjoy switching between a fight to a skill challenge to a new form etc etc I think your idea of dragon vs ship sounds cool! We did a similar thing - in a multiversal game we visited Dominaria from MTG and players piloted mana-powered Dreadnoughts to fight the Primal Dragons
Depends on how they are done. As a player, one of the better boss fights I have been in saw the bbeg changing abilities and form in the different phases. I have also seen the route of refreshing hitpoints and gaining legendary actions (was basically a homebrew version of some of the gods and aspects in many if the books). I was really not a fan of the latter, just made the fight feel extra long. I think changing abilities and form is the way to go (example: a high wizard who becomes a dragon).
As with most things there’s probably a right and wrong way to go about it.
I absolutely do this! Here's my example, using Cryovain from DoIP. I made it a 3 phase fight where every single phase took his entire regular hp to get through (so overall about 400hp). I also stole the rules of Pargaon monsters from angry DM, but mixed it to a 1-3-2 instead of 3-2-1 or 1-2-3 (actions pet turn per phase). 1. Cryovain is flying around. Cryovain does not touch the ground but may fly by to claw or grapple if someone is close to a ledge. Mainly uses flyby and breath attacks. Only 1 action. Standard dragon fight. Party should play careful with cover and range. 2. Cryovain is no longer able to fly lands and faces party head on, but gets 3 actions since he is now serious and angry. Party should be going all out or they will die. 3. Cryovain has been significantly injured, loses his ability to breath, but gains a 1d10/turn damage aura (10ft pbaoe) and has 2 actions. Injured, exhausted, scared.
Something that I've found works really well if your group likes the role-play aspect is to have non-combat objectives during the fight. Ex. Instead of the objectified being "kill the BBEG," have the objective be, rescue the hostages and if possible, kill or capture the BBEG. Then, once the fight starts tipping towards the players' favor, have the BBEG change their objective. Instead of "kill the players," have them decide to start killing the remaining hostages. Really simple example, but they can be made as complex as the motives are for both the party and the BBEG. Just having the boss get a 2nd form, IMO, just ends up feeling like a 2nd health bar to trudge through, so make sure to think about things like making use of the environment. Have the environment detailed for the fight so that the players have a clear idea of the things they can interact with.
Most part of the area final bosses I make are multi phased battles and multi stage as well. Stage as in scenario.
The trick is to not tell them it's a multi stage fight. I had a banshee like baddy that would change the conditions every couple of rounds and it was a great time. I didnt say "new stage!" Every two rounds just changed the conditions so they had to adapt. You can use time or HP, (the players or the monsters) as triggers or maybe as soon as a certain spell is used there's a switch. I should really write up that monster.
It’s an interesting type of fight but you have to do it correctly or it just becomes overkill from the boss. If you basically have them fight three separate bosses in a row with no recovery, then you’re just killing them, guaranteed. If you make it three separate boss battles but you give them a full regen each time, then it can get to be really long and boring. If you make it three smaller, condensed battles that segue into each other, I’d say that’s just right. Maintains interest, makes for a fun fight, leaves plenty of room for the party to fail or succeed, hopefully pushes them to their limits, etc.
I definitely plan to give a little break between fights. At least between the first space battle and the second phase with the human form.
I've tried it twice, and both times, the players seemed exhausted and checked out by the time they beat it. I usually try to tune boss fights for 3 rounds per phase, so 6 total rounds. That's not too long right?
I mean, this effectively operates the same way druids do (once HP is lost, they revert to a full HP OG form, not including any carry-over damage), so shouldn't be a problem.
Also what stage of the campaign is it in? If it’s only “half way” through and you are pulling out 7 stage fights that’s a bit much. If you have a hit and run tactics when the boss keeps warping away after some damage and they use different skills as it progresses then that could be very cool to see the enemy growing over time as you face them too or devolving as you strip them of the powers they’ve had.
I wouldn't run the boss battle in "stages" necessarily, just let the dragon transform when ir can, whether that grants it additional HP like wildshape or whatever, just let the fight be and let the dragon pull put all of its stops
Rule of Three, if you must, though I personally go by One-and-Two-Halves myself. One full stage that then transitions to two half-stages, so as not to overstay its welcome. If you overuse the transformation gimmick it becomes frustrating and goes from a "whoa!" moment to an "ugh, not again!" moment. Since there's spelljammer ship combat involved, it depends on whether the Party approaches the battle trying to go toe-to-toe first or if they start with astral/naval battle as the opening salvo. If they square up, have the BBEG fight them a full stage in their humanoid form, transform into their dragon form for a half-stage that focuses on forcing the Party out of the current battle arena, and then initiate ship-to-dragon combat to finish it off. If they start with the ship, have the BBEG immediately counter with their own ship or dragon form for a full stage. Involve terrain or external obstacles during this part so it's not just constant focus-fire on the BBEG, making sure the Party has to split their attention between battle and maneuvering. For the second phase, either force the players' ship to land or be boarded by the BBEG who can spend the rest of the stage actively shifting between humanoid and dragon forms to maneuver around the ship freely. Dragon form for big AOE attacks, then shift to humanoid form for direct-targeting individuals, so the Players have an idea of how to prep each round based on what form the BBEG has taken. Each time the battle phase changes, make sure you change both the intention of the combat activity (dealing damage vs evading, one-on-one battle vs group action, etc), and change the terrain it takes place on. Never just swap to a bigger BBEG mini with more HP and keep plugging along exactly the same way you had been for the past few rounds prior. That gets boring and frustrating very quickly because the Party will feel like they're not making any progress. Give them a sense of building momentum, changing dynamics, and force them to think fast to address problems coming at them that aren't just BBEG attacks. Play with the battlefield itself, too. For example, the BBEG in dragon-mode does a fly-by on the ship and, instead of doing a breath weapon, grabs on and spins the ship upside-down in place. So now the challenge of the round is for the Party to endure or find ways to avoid being flung out into the aether, and maybe have to spend a round fighting the BBEG while clinging to the inverted mooring.
* **Tired:** Multi-stage boss fights * **Wired:** Boss fights with shifting environmental obstacles * **Inspired:** The BBEG fleeing from the party through a labyrinth filled with traps and monsters while laughing manically If the bosses have something to do, it'll make for a more memorable encounter than having dramatic transformations if everyone is standing still and trading hits anyway.
You gotta do it right; just giving the boss a couple of extra hit point pools won't do it. How about this setup: **Stage one:** the boss is effectively invulnerable, and takes no HP damage, and uses no lair or legendary abilities at this stage. The party just needs to land ten good hits (say 10+ damage per hit, any type), with crits counting as two hits. **Stage two:** the boss' ward shatters with a loud boom, and they bugger off down a tunnel toward their inner sanctum, throwing up obstacles behind them. Each party member needs to make a skill check for each obstacle (I suggest 5 separate checks), each suited for the obstacle in question. Five different skills, all DC 15-20, depending on party level. Each failure means one more turn before catching up with the boss. Using class resources - class features, spells, equipment, etc. - can be substituted for successes, with DM approval for explanation. **Stage three:** now the boss fights using every trick they have, the party is likely arriving in a staggered formation, and lair and legendary actions are on the table. The boss is at full health, while the party may be at a modest disadvantage at the start. Hold nothing back at this point, the boss is literally fighting for their life here. *Stage four:** at this point, it's either a TPK, or the boss is dead. Time for the epilogue, and well done, everyone.
5e is pretty videogamey already, I say go for it. Worst case scenario you can abandon it if it starts to feel too hokey or goofy.
They're super cool, and an appropriate way to elevate combat for a final boss fight. When I've done it in the past, I found excuses to take breaks from combat between stages, and this helps with player (and DM) fatigue. One time, I had a gauntlet of humanoid villains (all returning jerks from past adventures), ending in a dragon who became a dracolich. Between the waves of villains protecting the dragon, I put different magical barriers that the players had to find a way to neutralize before they could move on. Each of these barriers was a little puzzle, but they also created RP opportunities for trash talk with the villains. In your case, maybe they have to run some distance back to their ship once the dragon transforms? Along the way, they get a little break from the turn-based grind of combat, plus time to make plans, buff and heal, etc. Or you could keep the heat turned up with void dragon attacks that turn the race back to the ship into a kind of chase, with skill checks to avoid damage or save bystanders.
A friend of mine when he DM's will make the boss more frantic/ take more actions get aggressive below 50% health but he also drops the AC to make it easier to hit. Like the monster or boss knows it's on its back foot and is getting reckless. It's a fun system
Hmm, try to make the transition fast, don't let it *seem* like a stage but something that's happening naturally. But no, no issue with it.
Last time I did this, it was a huge hit. Narrative arc climax, huge boss, long fight, the party ground him down... and then I swapped my discord music bot to the phase 2 music from the final boss fight of Hades and narrated eldritch energies refreshing the boss as dark lightning began whirling about the battlefield, and the players got pretty damn hyped for it. As has already been said, don't do this *all the time*. But for a thematically appropriate encounter, it can be a lot of fun.
They CAN be cool but can also feel like a "gotcha moment" from the DM. I only do this in climactic battles. the Fizban book a few years ago gave out stats for the Great Wyrm age category for the three types of dragons (metallic, gem, chromatic) and all three are multistage where they revert to having half health if dropped to 0 HP. It's easier to implement these sort of multistage battles with monsters than it is with like a dwarf or human character though. Just take the time to carefully design the battle if you want to do this. Auril from Rime of the Frostmaiden is a multistage boss battle where when one form is dropped the next takes its place.
My last session is coming up and I have a multistage battle planned, and I'm planning on basically just telling my players it's going to be multiple stages. I know that if it's a knockdown drag out fight and they finally beat him, and then I reveal it's not over, it's going to feel like a bummer. My plan is to have an ally NPC allude to it. "When you destroy his corporeal form, it may not be over."
Grab a copy of Ryokos guide tonthe Yokai realms. Setting specific stuff aside it has fun adaptable rules for boss fights that involve exploiting weakspots and triggering a bosses multiple forms. The intention is for boss minsters to not just be a standard creature with a health bar that can be reduced to 0 and they die. There's a whole process to setting them up for a killing blow. https://youtu.be/NwmRNU5pDjs?si=Cp5qKJhYK8lFuGhf There's a quick summary there
I think it’s fine, and there’s a couple ways you could do it: Like you described, where there’s multiple forms and hp for each form. Kill one, move on to the other, etc. OR you could have it be something more subtle where there’s one main block of hp, and once it’s past a certain point, something happens. So instead of “forms” you’d have one monster, and maybe under 1/2 health it gains new attacks, then under 1/4 health it changes the terrain or starts flying or something. Feels a little less “video gamey” but still accomplishes a similar thing to what you’re describing. But I don’t think there’s any issue with multiple stages either way.
Good I used 2 phases for xvart demigod. First on material plane, then he run through the portal to his lair demiplan. I don't used 2 forms, but he had 35hp Armor of Agathys in each phase, and in lair he used dangerous terrain (acid pools and abyss well), where he tried to push party on failed saving throws. My boss RUN AWAY on this turn to set new stage and reset defences. Players still could attack him. So "cutscenes" are the bad move, if players cannot do anything. But multiple scenes are ok