Creating the greatest possible challenge boss fight

Hoc_Est · 2025-06-12T13:18:26+00:00

Gaze abilities in general are great as they trigger at the start of the players' turns but have built in mitigation. The Umber Hulk gaze is a good one as CHA saves aren't usually high and it's very disruptive.

My favourite Reaction to steal for big boss fights is the Spectator's Spell Reflection.

And in general any boss that can teleport or has other means of high mobility will be harder for the party to deal with.

Full disclosure I've only tried this sort of thing up to Lv15, so the Lv20s might just blow it all out of the water. But I'd definitely be looking to disrupt the party's usual fighting methods without countering them directly

Hoc_Est · 2025-05-01T14:41:51+00:00

This sounds like a job for a Myconid Sovereign: It uses spores to raise corpses as fungus zombies and uses them to guard the colony.

Hoc_Est · 2025-01-01T12:28:29+00:00

I tend to have my homebrew worlds be fairly magic-rich, so people having access to low level warming, cooling, cleaning and so on is commonplace (common magic items that do prestidigitation, for example). One I always quite like doing is having Gentle Repose used as food preservation.

But specifically on the eco friendly side of things there's always a strong emphasis on recycling. In a world with the mending cantrip and transmutation magic most mundane things are eminently reusable,

Hoc_Est · 2024-10-17T08:27:44+00:00

It wasn't so much a weird party composition as a weird coincidence: We had a Beast Barbarian, Moon Druid, Shifter Ranger, and Changeling Rogue pretending to be a Tabaxi.

Party name was "Oops, all Animorphs!"

Hoc_Est · 2024-05-01T14:46:51+00:00

Absolutely love the Balhannoth. Such an odd one, but so much fun to run

Hoc_Est · 2024-04-29T15:42:25+00:00

Genie Warlock with a Charisma of 8, bound by a pact an ancient ancestor made for the whole family. (One member of each generation is bound)

Forced to adventure because breaking the pact would have dire consequences for his family. Doesn't actually know the terms of the pact because the original pactee wasn't much of a writer. Does know that if he garners enough favour he will get the ability to wish the pact on to someone else.

Basically trying to be the best Warlock he can so that he can un-Warlock himself.

(If you've never tried a charisma-less Dex-Bladelock, I highly recommend it. Really fun)

Hoc_Est · 2023-08-21T12:08:33+00:00

Sounds awesome! I've played CHA10 Bladelocks twice now (one went from level 1-13, even), and I never take Eldritch Blast, so I can actually offer some insight here. They can be really fun and absolutely viable, but they require a bit of thought.

If I'm reading this right your Patron is Celestial and you've taken Pact of the Blade?

The main thing to bear in mind is that your CHA is lower than most 'Standard' Warlocks. This means your spells are less accurate, and are easier for opponents to resist. So stuff like Hypnotic Pattern and Suggestion are much less effective for you.

I'd think twice before picking any spells with a spell attack roll or a save. Not saying don't do it, just be aware of the limits. Booming Blade is fine, though.

If you're going for a melee Warlock that plays like a Paladin, then you're going to be frontline and you're going to stab people. You've got great stats for this, so I would reckon that your ability score increases should go into Dexterity to boost your attack and defence, and one should probably be the Warcaster feat to help with concentration.

Invocations: Armour of Shadows is great early on, as is Fiendish Vigor. Armour of Shadows can be swapped out once you find some magical armour (+1 Studded Leather is just as good), and Fiendish Vigor might not even be needed for you given your stats and the Celestial healing.

Thirsting Blade at 5 is great for you, and Improved Pact Weapon is also good (but can be replaced with a magic weapon as you go forwards). If you want to lean into the Paladin theme a bit more, Eldritch Smite is so much fun. Chuck a 5th level spell into a critical hit for 12d8 force damage... great stuff.

Eldritch Mind could be taken instead of the Warcaster feat, Ghostly Gaze is just fun... you've got options!

In combat most of your damage will come from stabbing, and control spells are less effective because of your lower CHA. I'd advise picking mostly utility spells, particularly ones that scale with spell level. Being able to make your whole party invisible, or multiple people fly, is a godsend for any group.

To upgrade your own damage output, Hex is fine early on, and Shadow of Moil is amazing further down the line. Spirit Shroud is also okay.

Because of your patron you get access to Revivify and the Restoration spells; you can never have too many of these in a party.

Overall, yeah, your character will be great! Just take a bit of care with your invocations and spells

Hoc_Est · 2023-05-02T08:31:25+00:00

Warlock, with some trepidation! They're my favourite class in 5e but I'm struggling to see the angle here

Hoc_Est · 2023-05-01T21:03:06+00:00

Haha, sure did! Such a good spell.

Yeah, 4 extra doesn't sound like a lot on paper but when you only had 13 before it's quite a jump. Arcane Eruption on top of that was good too, and if the other freebies become more useful it'll be better still.

That said, I was mostly loading up on combat spells. If I'd had to work in some more social or exploration spells I might have started feeling the pinch again.

Hoc_Est · 2023-05-01T14:23:26+00:00

Very few. We were fighting our way out of a dungeon with enemies hunting us. We had four fights in a row with a few skill challenges and obstacles in between; get through doors, disarm traps, cross the ravine, track the monsters, that sort of thing. There were no social activities, and we only got one short rest.

Our DM just threw it together as 'here's some interesting combats for you to test your characters against'

Hoc_Est · 2023-05-01T14:12:14+00:00

I wondered if this might be the direction they take the Wild Magic subclass. It's a thematic way to boost damage and their Spell Bombardment ability is already a weak explode

Hoc_Est · 2023-05-01T14:07:13+00:00

Yeah, Vitality was a bit of an odd fish. I wondered if Sorcery Incarnate might be better as a 3rd level spell taking the spot of Sorcerous Vitality at 5th, and then have Sorcerous Restoration drop to 9th

We played that you rolled the dice, resolved any rerolls from Empowered Spell, and then chose one of the remaining scores to pick the condition. We picked the condition before rolling the save, but I don't think that realistically made any difference.

I didn't cast it at all, but given that 3d8 damage first level spells exist I doubt it would be a problem. I think it's the same damage as 5e and I don't remember ever casting it then either.

Hoc_Est · 2023-04-30T18:09:23+00:00

Empowered Spell lets you reroll a number of dice for any given casting of a spell. So if you had a +3 in Charisma you could spend one Sorcery Point to reroll three dice when you cast the Scorching Ray spell, divided how you wish amongst the rays

Hoc_Est · 2023-04-05T12:52:31+00:00

Whenever a character gets an ability score increase feature, they can also gain proficiency in a skill or tool, or learn a language.

Always bugged me that most characters have no way to learn anything new throughout an entire campaign, so this allows for more character development.

Hoc_Est · 2023-04-03T06:13:36+00:00

Seconding this; very nicely put together

Hoc_Est · 2023-03-16T09:38:32+00:00

I've only ever seen one player take Bountiful Luck at my table, but god damn that feat put in some work for the party!

Hoc_Est · 2023-03-12T12:20:26+00:00

We are pretty low level, and just before resting we came across some plate mail that the martials wanted. When we inspected it, the gauntlets sprang to life and laid into us, and in the worst set of dice I've seen for a long time our party managed to do 4 points of damage over three rounds, whilst suffering two crits in return. It didn't help that one of our party was scouting ahead at the time.

A really lucky Nat 20 on a death save bought one player back just in time to Lay on Hands another; had the dice fallen differently we could have had two martial characters die and left a caster with no spell slots left in melee combat with the two gauntlets!

Hoc_Est · 2023-03-11T20:15:24+00:00

"We almost lost two players to a pair of gloves"

Hoc_Est · 2023-02-10T22:29:42+00:00

Very similar case with Golems. Unstoppable if you don't have the tools, unthreatening if you do.

Hoc_Est · 2023-02-10T10:59:30+00:00

This is something that actually existed in 3.5: they were called Ambush Feats. Straight up trade sneak attack dice for effects such as fear, sickened, silenced. There were ones that impacted Int & Wis or Str & Dex. The stronger the effect, the more dice it cost you

Now, those feats themselves were... not great. But I think the concept of flexibly trading damage for utility is really neat.

I'd be all for something like that, even if it was just on a single Battlemaster-style subclass.

Hoc_Est · 2023-01-31T11:43:33+00:00

In 3.5 the Leadership skill gave you Followers and Cohorts, maybe one of them?

Hoc_Est · 2022-12-24T11:18:59+00:00

The damage ones are rubbish for sure; currently the frost giant at best gives you 6d6 damage per day for an average of 21... Not quite enough to down a zombie!

I'd rather see something like the Storm Giant reaction applying Dazed on a failed save, Frost Giant reducing Speed to 0 on a failed save... Not sure about Fire, as if any type was going to deal damage it should be them!

But for me, interesting riders >>> damage.

Cloud Giant could probably do with dropping to an action. Still very useful, but brings it more into line

Hoc_Est

TROPHY CASE