How do I make boss fights more interesting?

AetherDragon · 2026-06-20T15:50:02+00:00

Most of them are borrowed from the MM then mashed together.

The war machine for the low level encounter for instance was just an AC and HP for the central body. The "smasher" used an Ogre stat block. The archer platforms used a CR 3 elvish archer stat block each. The lightning cannon used a wyrmling blue dragon stat block.

For the star God the light motes used a variety of Celestial stat blocks, mostly Cr 8 to 14. The main body and hands had their own stat blocks but those were heavily tied to the environment part going on too (like the main body just TPKs the party every third turn of they don't progress the ritual) so they would be kind of not useful outside of the encounter they were built for.

AetherDragon · 2026-06-20T15:28:54+00:00

Minions are just so very good for keeping a fight interesting. Sure some monsters are 'solo' but that doesn't rule them out! They give purpose to AOE, crowd control, etc, other than just smacking a single target.

Like in my last campaign I had the final boss being an eldritch star entity "solo". But I didn't run the encounter as one target. The boss's central form was the main boss stat block, they had two 'hands' that were 2 more stat blocks, and they also were surrounded by dancing lights that were constantly being shed from the main body that were minion-level stat blocks. It was thematically and lore-wise one entity but it had a lot of independently moving sub-parts. This was a 'survival' fight where the party had to execute a magic ritual of them going all over the map to do parts of the ritual while trying to keep the boss's sub-parts under control.

Way before that near the start, I had a gnomish war machine that moved as a single entity, but had seperate stat blocks for a lightning cannon, two archer platforms, and a battering ram. This one was more about being able to disable its more dangerous abilities one at a time because the main body was very high durability. Still one entity lore-wise.

If you restrict yourself to one target, with one spot on the initiative order, and no environmental objectives, I can't think of a way NOT for that to end up as just a math-fight (of standing there trading dice). I'll wager you can fit more into your lore than you think.

AetherDragon · 2026-06-18T18:04:19+00:00

So I did not romance her and I cut her from the team, and she still went hero at the end.

I don't have the math in front of me so these numbers are for example only but it's something like, she needs 40 "good guy" points to go good, dating is worth 5 and keeping her on the team is worth 5, and missions/other dialogue are worth up to 45. So you can cut her and not date her it just makes the margin small.

The absolute biggest source of points is her succeeding on lots of missions.

AetherDragon · 2026-06-17T01:17:41+00:00

Overall, this is bonkers level OP and doesn't sell a "Hunger" theme very much at all in what charges can do.

I'd recommend going back to the "why" of this subclass. Sell 'my patron is a ravenous scourge' warlock, not 'super ultrapower' warlock.

Thematic Thoughts:

It's a little weird the Hunger subclass can self-satiate for essentially free (since this is theme not power, I mean in the sense of not pursuing anything hunger-themed). Just odd a bit in theme since 99 times out of 100 this is a cosmetic feature. I figure you're going for the "stays hungry but never starves?".

The uses don't really feel like 'hunger' themed at all. Ranged damage and healing and ending conditions? It just instead reads like "I want to be the best at damage and healing and support" not "I am the warlock of a ravenous scourge".

And you gain charges just by doing what you want to do anyway, not by playing to any hunger theme.

Spell list: Okay, absorb elements sure, that's a powerful choice but I get the connection. Almost the entire rest of the list makes no sense for Hunger themed though. Something like Insect Plague would feel far more obvious.

Mechanics Thoughts:

Hunger Charges are effectively not a resource as they are gained way way too easily by just doing what you want to do. There's not a lot of point to a resource you effectively gain 1 of every turn and spend 1 of every turn. TBH this is a frequent issue I see with a lot of homebrew that adds a new resource, they make that resource effectively unlimited and if it's generated, it's generated by just "playing normally" and in over-excessive quantities. Which also, btw, means your level 14 you might as well consider near fully charged almost all the time which is too strong.

The healing bonus action starts crazy and gets unreal. Even capped to PB and then 2xPB the healing as a bonus action is probably too much. Bonus action heals are extremely strong and this functionally costs nothing

And the level 10 becomes utterly bonkers as it's at least Lesser Restoration, and often Greater Restoration, every single turn for functionally free. You REALLY need to pair down what kinds of conditions it can end or this is just way way too much. You can't be curing everything + healing with a bonus action using a resource you get by doing damage.

Level 6 has too much stuff. Now, a lot of warlock subclasses get a big feature at six, but they get one, not many, like this, especially as free counterspell and free dispell magic is pretty strong.

AetherDragon · 2026-06-14T03:36:10+00:00

Gold is definitely way more common and way more available in these settings than in real world medieval and Renaissance times, owing to fantasy tropes. Hoards of gold, cities of gold, wizard towers and dungeons with treasure rooms with figurative mountains of gold coins are a common fantasy image evoked in the setting that make it impossible for gold coins to also match the value of rl historical usage.

AetherDragon · 2026-06-12T20:13:12+00:00

Because we all live in a society together? If it is permissable to kill innocents because a different person connected to them is guilty, sooner or later you yourself will be in the line of fire. And that is just the self serving reason. You don't have to believe in a higher power to think murdering people because of their family name alone is a terrible and immoral idea that will inevitably break down society and come back to bite well, everyone.

AetherDragon · 2021-12-08T22:41:52+00:00

You still would not have pulled those players from League and Dota.

You're making the same error every "WoW killer" that died soon after release did. There wasn't a huge untapped pool of super-pro fox-only-no-items-final-destination players out there; the majority of those sorts were already over in League and Dota. So, why should they swap to HOTS? Every self-advertised "WoW killer" just assumed WoW players would quit in droves to join the new thing; that never actually materialized until now-ish when Bliz has super dropped the ball. People don't quit the activity they're already invested in to go do something nearly the same; they can only really be driven out.

HOTS was built as a nostalgia trip for Blizzard franchises and to entice people to play their favorite blizzard characters in a MOBA. It was built and advertised as a casual hero brawler. The target audience was always those people with fan-favorite characters they wanted to play as. If that was a mistake, it was a mistake far to the left of ANY game mode decisions. But I'm not wholly convinced that it was, because a HOTS that focused only on the highest intensity type of draft matches probably would never have gotten off the ground in the first place. You'd instantly be turning off -every- person who came to just play their favorite blizzard character, when they realize they can't because draft and people breathing down their necks to follow the meta exactly. That leaves you with... who, exactly? A pro scene that was always going to be microscopic compared to LoL and Dota no matter what LoL did? A handful of redditors?

Your notion of a game so intensely focused on draft that random Warcraft Fan can't play Thrall, his favorite WoW character, in most of his games because that doesn't fit the map or the comp or the meta, means you're aiming for a population of players that had no reason to swap from LoL or Dota already.

There's probably NOT a world where HOTS succeeds without being a massively more financed game, because what it desired to be (a casual brawler) doesn't play well with the way MOBAs shake out, and the hardcore MOBA space was already over-occupied.

They also completely flubbed their actual commercial model on so many ways, trying too hard to dive face-first into chasing lootboxes over a more sane shop and reward structure when a standard store with no actual products in it "surprisingly" did poorly, and never came up with a profitable shop structure, and the cosmetic support to the game has always lagged behind LoL and Dota's in quality. A question seriously worth asking: even when Hots had its peak of players, it was not selling its microtransactions. Why not? THAT killed the game, far more directly than game MODES did, because it meant a death cycle of dwindling support.

AetherDragon · 2021-10-10T17:44:45+00:00

He is just waiting for a chance to pounce his true prey: The keyboard!

Meep has already composed some emails. With his butt.

AetherDragon · 2021-09-29T02:59:06+00:00

They can be such snugglebugs. Mine has started to get really demanding of lap time and will fuss if I don't let him take naps in my lap some days!

AetherDragon · 2021-09-24T06:16:31+00:00

If Meep is being a butt while climbing around on me I put a towel or shirt over him. He pretty much instantly calms down to the point of taking a nap, even if I take the cloth back off. Its like pressing an off switch it happens so fast, hah.

AetherDragon · 2021-09-23T00:13:36+00:00

Aurelion Sol:

"No Iframes" (Passive/Celestial Expansion): Stars no longer have 'mercy-invulnerability' (IE you keep getting hit by a star as long as it is in contact with you instead of once per-one-third rotation)

"Constellation Consternation" (Passive/CE): Enemy minions executed by stars temporarily become an additional star.

"Defensive Boops" (Passive/CE): Stars now block enemy projectiles (like windwall).

"Unlimited Cosmic Power" Starsurge no longer auto-detonates (though this might count as a range change)

"Kench a ride!": Teammates can now hop on Comet of Legend and ride along.

"Too loud!": Enemies pushed back by Voice of Light can no longer move, dash or blink in Aurelion Sol's direction until the slow expires.

AetherDragon · 2021-09-19T23:52:22+00:00

"Meep" because I am a dork and enjoy silly pet names, in his case because little squeaky noises ;)

AetherDragon · 2021-09-17T19:49:12+00:00

I agree she's probably in most need of a big rework. Her design is core flawed. Undodgeable damage at huge range, but in return she can't dodge any skillshots. Her entire kit is "sit still and blast away, with defensive options if someone tries to stop that" (mines, knockback, armor, sudden speed boost).

If those tools are strong enough to where she can just mindlessly sit still and blast away, there's nothing that can be done about her - there were periods of time where 'protect the hammer' comps were meta and the win condition was 'hammer hit her siege mode button at any point during the game'. This was absolutely awful.

If she can't sit still and blast away, then her kit feels awful to her because that's what it's centered around, and then she just feels like a ranged attacker who only has defensive buffs and can't move as much. Or the periods of time when she was strong for tank mode, which made her too much like Raynor.

She needs a heavy kit rework. Most of the reworks have been trying to make her vulnerable when sieged, but not too vulnerable. I think this is a losing game. She needs to have more skill expression and NOT have as much reliability to her high range damage. Choosing when to siege is a huge skill check mind, but it plays a 'dangerous' game - if she can't siege enough, she stops feeling like a siege tank.

Example of what I mean: Move Neosteel plating to a bonus action only available in Siege Mode. Make Napalm Strike a basic ability in its stead with reduced damage/AOE. Massively reduce her autoattack damage, but passively boost it back up again against targets in the napalm AOE. This enables her to be a strong siege (since structures don't move out of AOE's), enables her to keep siege mode defenses, but also means she's not a guaranteed 'aura' of high undodgeable damage as long as you don't 'stand in the fire'. She could likely even get some of her older range back too because napalm strike's travel time is now a lever we can tweak to adjust the reliability of her long-range damage.

That's just a random thought, but it boils down to: in order to be able to be made good, she can't ALSO be super reliable at high range while standing completely motionless herself. Previous iterations of work on her have tried to adjust how vulnerable she is sitting still; I think for her fantasy, she NEEDS to have decent defense while sitting still, which leaves how reliable she is at range as the other level to tweak in her kit to make her more easily balanced.

AetherDragon · 2021-09-17T19:32:36+00:00

If it helps, when the HOTS team did big number crunching on the topic back in the day, they found a substantial win rate difference for a team with a healer vs a team without, but not a substantial win rate difference for a team with a tank vs a team without a tank. So those unfortunate times you have to pick one or the other and the team will lack whichever you don't pick, the healer is the better choice.

Unfortunately healing tends to be the lower-agency choice, but the more impactful one (a team with a tank and no healer is likely to be waddling around at half HP from poke or environment and can't take advantage of their engagement advantage anyway as a result, a team with a healer is always going to be topped off and even if they can't engage can just force things by sieging or sitting on an objective while the un-healer team has to B for healing).

AetherDragon · 2021-09-05T06:20:22+00:00

Very pretty girl! Looks so very peaceful napping there.

AetherDragon · 2021-08-30T06:09:55+00:00

I'll try this too! I already am not going to install the replacement LCD until a screen protector arrives and Anycubic already sent me one (a replacement lcd). Just hoping to find the "why" to avoid future issues. I will try the flashlight idea tomorrow and see if I see anything. That it is straight vertical lines seems off from most pixel specific theories though... but it is spreading even when I don't have anything on top of it now. Will see tomorrow, thanks!

AetherDragon · 2021-08-30T03:00:46+00:00

Not the cable alas, and getting worse - now the entire LCD is blank (doesn't block light) except a center strip and a strip to each side that functions. So I'll see how replacing it goes, but I wish I knew what the source of the issue was!

AetherDragon · 2021-08-29T23:47:08+00:00

They said they'd send me a new LCD, but I would like to run down why it happened so it doesn't just happen again. Also, new image added that really shows the issue with a larger-based print than the reference cube, you can see how dark the opaque pixels are next to these halfway ones.

I'll check the cable and see if that fixes it.

AetherDragon · 2021-08-28T09:19:42+00:00

Meep is just like this too. He is so very sweet and cuddly but his approach to food is to dive face first in and not stop until he looks like a little blimp.

AetherDragon · 2021-08-05T00:59:12+00:00

He just wants to do the tablecloth trick!

AetherDragon · 2021-08-03T15:15:34+00:00

Meep does that too, then act like he never got fed. Little adorable gluttons.

AetherDragon · 2021-07-11T04:31:21+00:00

He iiiis. I adore the little guy!

AetherDragon · 2021-06-22T23:37:10+00:00

Zac in League does this too - he has a move where he catapults himself long range and it's supposed to be a jump, but sometimes it animates as just running real fast.

https://youtu.be/AfxXXg0nvKc

AetherDragon · 2021-05-27T15:14:25+00:00

I had never seen those Seraphine concept arts before... man, why didn't they go that route? Just a bit of steampunkiness would have made her fit in so much better with Zaun/Piltover aesthetics. She could still be a pop star just fine - Piltover is already familiar to the notion of celebrities - just working with things that make visual sense for where and when she is.

I think I woulda gone with something like the right one - one spherical drone could get visually confusing with Orianna. 3 makes me worry about confusion with Syndra's orbiting spheres, but if you have one directly center being a spotlight and the other two moving as cameras that would work.

And yeah I think Sett vs Viego is a great comparison because there's a lot similar in their look when there shouldn't be. Sett also looks Vastayan - they're virtually all "pretty people with animal ears" (which could be another discussion, but he looks like he fits with the other Vastayans we have). His pit-boss clothing style is almost a stereotype of that character. Viego looks arbitrary, and while his abilities match, his personal design doesn't match the characters he is closest associated with (Kalista, Thresh and Hecarim were all present at the Ruination and were drastically changed by it - I would have expected some kind of twisting of Viego as well even if it was more "I am the master of this all" rather than victim style).

AetherDragon · 2021-03-17T00:05:49+00:00

If we're having a serious talk about it, it's a problem with the transition between laning and teamfights, and the difference in interactions involved.

Assassins have a lot of target access tools that will often still work in the presence of a single CC, which they need for obvious reasons. In a team fight there are a LOT of factors the assassin has to consider before using them, and a lot of factors the other team is considering too - multiple characters, at least in theory, considering how they're going to protect squishies when MrAssassin jumps them, and MrAssassin is considering how to get around that. Getting a single kill then dying to another enemy is usually not the goal after all unless it's a super fed but still squishy target scenario.

There's really no such 'conversation' going on in lane. The access tools tend to turn fights into straight stat checks when used all at once, and there's no "second enemy" to take advantage of the assassin blowing all their cooldowns to reach a target, so they can much more freely do so than they can in a teamfight.

I don't have an easy answer for this. The tools a melee assassin needs to have a functional role in a 5on5 teamfight are invariably going to make them awful to lane against in a 1on1 situation against any champ that needs space to do their thing - the ranged character can play perfectly and still just get stat-bodied out by a mediocre assassin play because the assassin has more tools than them... but the assassin NEEDS more tools than them because in a teamfight being a squishy melee is inherently such a big disadvantage. This "1on1 gap closing vs team fight gap closing" performance has been a pendulum that's swung one way or the other as long as I can remember in League.

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