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Balancing a boss fight for an Eloquence Bard! (self.dnd)

submitted 1 year ago by Psymonkee to c/dnd

13 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hey,

I'm running Call of the Netherdeep for a party and have some potential final boss cheesing I need help with. Members of The Inevitable should leave now!

I have been looking at the final boss fight and it tries to have the players talk the boss down for damage/debuffs and finally surrender in different phases. These are set at increasing DC's of 15/17/19 for the 3 stages.

The tricky part is I have an Eloquence Bard in the party and at level 8 his minimum floor for a persuasion roll is 22 😬

How do I play this or alter this to make it more challenging? Obvious strategy would be to attack/silence the bard after hearing their silver tongue the first time.

I could just up the DC's but that feels like I'm diminishing the player choices and restricting other players from joining in the efforts?

Ideas/thoughts welcome!

One possible solution would be to have the boss require each player to pass a persuasion check at some time?

Individual party member bonuses for Persausion are: 0/+2/+5/+7/+12 (min roll 10, min persuasion 22 😬 ).

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[–] Psymonkee 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The player in question has been very diplomatic in resolving situations and has appealed to enemies sensibilities in the past. Could simply use that as a jumping off point and 'preview' of the boss fight I guess?

[–] phrankygee 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This particular end-boss seems very specifically designed to be “rescued” instead of killed outright. I don’t think it will feel like a letdown at all to play it out like the book recommends. It starts out as a raging monster, and gradually comes back to its senses.

Imagine you are the Avengers, and the Hulk is the end boss. The goal isn’t to kill the Hulk, the goal is to survive him long enough to get Bruce Banner back. Part of the team has to distract him and keep him from killing Natasha while she tells him that the “Sun’s getting real low…”

It doesn’t matter that one of you has the guaranteed soothing words to calm him down, you still have to survive and coordinate to even get him to listen.

[–] Psymonkee 2 points 1 year ago

Very fair analysis, I'll bear that in mind!