I am a sucker for Dark Souls 2's Pursuer. Something about the unwavering determination of that guy and the way he appeared at the most unexpected places gave me the chills, and I wanted to do that to my players too... also a great design!
the only problem with all of this video is that as dm, there's never anything stoling the dm from saying screw the rules i'm in charge. a generic set of instructions feels like the only way to fail at a game that should be based on the creativity of the players... even if those generic instructions are good.
Well its not a video game boss but I used Vizzini from the Princess Bride Movie. Had the players working for him for quite a few session, until they figured out the connection, rewatched the movie and realized that they were the bad guys, albeit unwittingly. The disappointed Goliath barbarian sat on Vizzini's head (he was a gnome) and that was that, no saving throws, no uber tough resistances, just a smart mouth gnome with a big head.
I’ve tried to take notes from some of my favourite bosses from quite a weird source, Noita. Taking the initial confusion you would have fighting it’s bosses, while also feeling confidence in being able to take enough to learn their moves and weaknesses to make it a push and pull between my players and the enemies.
I used Innocence from FFXIV as an inspiration for the encounter with the BBEG god the players were going up against. I had tiles that would either drop into the void, explode, or do nothing, (foreshadowed by the tiles at the start of the round so the players have time to react), along with villain moves like shared fates (all healing AND damage is shared between two chained characters, unless they move far enough apart.) And then he had moves that were ttrpg versions of Innocence's moves, which used wing blades in a circular sweeping aoe with holes in it, so that was one legendary action. They loved that fight. It took a couple of sessions to finish, but they loved it. It was pretty close to a TPK until they realized they were in a space where they can change the rules... which they did, and came out ahead.
My prefered alteration to legendary resistances is to change its timing, instead of being immediately it triggers at the end of the monster's turn and targets specific effects. So say an ancient dragon can shake of the charmed, frightened, stunned, and paralyzed conditions, automatically at the end of its turn. That gives the players until the end of the dragon's turn to make use of the condition and the effect still uses up one of the dragon's turns.
I love the idea of Legendary Resistance costing the boss a chunk of their hit points. Another idea I am considering is half effects. Any condition has a weaker version. If a boss throws up Legendary Resistance, they instead receive a weaker version of the effect.
What I’ve done in the past is that a legendary resistance will lower one of their stats. Say that rely on charisma, so they have a charisma of 24. Every time they use one, it dies down by 2 points.
Instead of just half effects to a blanket resistance, I personally would keep it lore/thematicly tied. Example : Liches are lore wise unkillable as long as their phylactery is intact so LR would out right negate certain effects like power word kill, or can give them 1 health point remaining after an attack should kill them equal to the number of LRs for that encounter. If they run out of LRs the party has a "time limit" to find and destroy the phylactery before the Lich comes back with a new/resurrected body to start a fresh encounter. This adds stakes to a fight that feel right from a narrative perspective while turning BS mechanics into justified OP mechanics.
I actually think this is a really cool idea. As a DM for a group that really enjoys puzzles, I've gotten an overwhelmingly positive consensus on running fights that can be won by solving a puzzle instead of just the traditional whack em till they die. I had one where the party, instead of taking on a warforged colossus head on, split into 2 teams, 1 where they tried to bring a smaller one online to fight the boss, and another that went inside the boss itself and slowly take it down, which I mechanically showed by it getting debuffed over time (blinded by smoke from burning oil, or losing an arm to attack with, etc) Another fun one was based off rhythm games where I had a trio of enemies all use 1 health pool and take 6 actions (I had each action correspond to a different thing, like make 1 attack, move a little, defend by adding +1 to its AC, or make a magic attack, etc) and the objective was to have the party mimic its movement. If it attacked-attacked, moved, magic attacked, moved, defended, then the fighter was able to attack twice, and move, fulfilling 3 of the requirements in one turn, etc. In fulfilling these requirements, they each got a small buff for the round to help them win faster. I also kept the options for fulfilling the pattern pretty lenient, so a rogue using the disengage bonus action could accomplish the "defend" part pretty easy. Was it cheesy yes, but everyone had fun, and that's what matters most
An important note to make, is that Legendary Resistance says "Can", not "Does". "Why would a monster ever choose not to use its legendary resistances?" I hear you ask. Well, that's wrapped up in why LR doesn't have any flavor. In the narrative, it is supposed to be indistinct from the monster shrugging off the CC effect because it's got a god damned +15 to its save. In that sense, the DM shouldn't even *tell* the players when the monster uses one of it's LRs; they should simply act like the monster made its save. What I'm saying is that LR isn't a tactical resource for the monster to use; It's a tool that gives the DM permission to fudge a few rolls so the monster doesn't get lamed out by a couple bad rolls on turn 1 or 2, which isn't really fun for anybody. But, it also still gives you permission to let that clutch hold monster through IF it's going to make the table cheer, which just making the monster immune to paralysis doesn't allow for. Although, this is the kind of thing that might require a step out of the game to shift the player's expectations; experienced players know that LRs are a thing, and will probably be expecting to have to play around them, so they won't even bother with any of their best CC effects until they're sure they've burned the LRs; so then not telling them when a monster's used an LR will kind of leave them in a lurch; and of course, this will also require an amount of trust from your players that you WILL let a clutch CC effect slide, even if the monster still has LRs left.
Love this - I’ve been playing with multi-phase combats for a while as well as mixing in some of Colville’s concepts. Legendary Resistances has always sort of been a weird concept that I’ve only been able to sloppily meld into narrative
I'm not gonna lie, I didn't realize how new a channel this was when I first watched this video. You've got a lot of polish and great ideas. Here's hoping you keep making more great content!
Pollars of eternity 2 did something similar with resistance. They split debuff spells into 3 tier effects by their over power. A T3 strength debuff can be resisted diwn to a T2 effect and so on. Even if the effect was a "critical hit" (extended effect time or damage) it would apply it's T2 effect in its place. Giving us the best of both worlds. Of course, this was exchanged by letting other debuffs of different categories (dex, int, etc) apply in full.
This video is basically more condensed version of Mathew Colville's video on how to use 4e combat mechanics in 5e, since 4e has all of the examples you gave already built in to the system. Losing those neat boss encounter savers was part of the baby that Wotc threw out with the bathwater when disowning the unique greatness of 4e.
4e definitely had a lot of inspired ancillary rules and abilities to make encounters and enemies feel truly unique. I highly agree with your point here.
what I want to try is connect legendary resistances and legendary actions. As the boss keeps losing legendary resistances, it can take fewer legendary actions. Maybe not for a 1-1 ratio. But it should still give casters a reason to fire off imporant and debilitating spells, and give the bosses a choice. Do I eat the blindness and rely on my +19 to hit to negate the disadvantage, or do I make sure that I can kill the lowHP fighter in front of me at the cost of making the rest of the fight more difficult for myself? EDIT: I see you have also thought of something similar
good way to better legendary resistence, but the basic isn't bad. Why i am a fighter, paladin or barbarian if we have a caster who can win the final boss with one slot and luck? Legendary resistance make the game fair to everyone make something about the boss. I really think some caster who only have "hit kill" spells is a bad caster, and boss isn't use legendary resistance against every think only because he have. Caster already op they don't need be 100% better option.
@@tacticstonk4740 Yeah, this is the reason why Legendary Resistance is kind of necessary past 6th-10th level, and at higher levels, Legendary Resistance is mostly not enough. Thank gods Banishment is likely to be nerfed, but I still worry about encounter ending spells sneaking into the OneDnD Player's Handbook.
My thoughts on Crowd Control: The game was designed to have multiple encounters per day, like previously with dungeon crawling, but the storytelling evolved to have on average two encounters per day. So during most of the game, the casters can "cheese" the very few encounters that happen because everyone want the story to go on instead of fighting for 3 hours until something happens
There's also a lot of well-intentioned advice around designing adventures so that they have "enough counters" to "wear down" the PCs, but that honestly ends up making some adventures a slog. Ideally an adventure should have so much cool and compelling content that the players *want* to try to go for stretch goals, and *want* to try to do things that are risky. "Using up resources" or "wearing down the PCs" are the complete wrong framing when you're trying to design adventures that are FUN.
"And bosses in video games rarely come back as lackeys", then proceeds to show Elden Ring where 60-80% of the bosses you encounter early in the game show up later as lackeys...
I mean, it wouldn't be so bad if most high level control spells didn't outright suck. The example of hold monster is a 5th level, single target, concentration spell with a save and if failed it gets to make more saves. I'd rather cast transmute rock or synaptic static, they at least have seccondary effects that go through lr.
And let's not forget WALL OF FORCE. You still have plenty of options if you know how to build your character. I feel like legendary resistance works just fine in the context of the system with simplicity at it's core.
On the other hand, hold monster - if it lands - allows people to just absolutely melt that foe with no counterplay possible until that save is landed. The alternatives here have significantly less powerful effects or don't allow allies to attack that monster
@@rednidedni3875 well yes, but except for wall of force which deletes at least one enemy from the encounter for 10 min with no save, they are not concentration. Hold monster doesn't just compete with 5th level spells it competes with all concentration spells.
@@amancealexis7360 Wall of force is concentration, only Forcecage isn't - and yeah, that one is drastically stronger. I agree wall of force is overall better due to locking out whole groups of foes at once, but hold monster does have utility - and excels in the exact situations you'd find Legendary Resistances in
Omg, you're another one of those amazing channels that do precious work and put it out on the internet for free! Thanks, YT algorithms, and thank you a lot! Keep it up! ❤
That's why I like the 4 degrees of success (and the incapacitation trait) Pathfinder 2e has. Big buff monster means that it's likely they only get the minor version of the CC spell.
Unless you play by the rules as written and every save that isn't a critical failure by a higher level monster is considered a success, basically turning it around to being the same save of suck issue as 5E all over again anyway.
Where is this rule? Are you thinking of incapacitation? Because that's not quite how incapacitation works. First it only applies to spells with the incapacitation trait, and then only if the target is twice the spell's level, and then it just bumps the success up one step. And since many spells have negative effects for the target even on a success, the spells are still useful. Also, the incapacitation trait is great because it applies to PCs also, who are going to be targets of it far more than any single creature the GM throws at the party. It also applies to other effects, like a ghouls' paralysis, which are notorious for wiping parties.
The struggle I find with the way Pathfinder 2e does it, is enemy bosses are so significantly more likely to make their saves through the whole duration of the fight, that nobody even bothers to try using their big spells because the chance of success is just so small... We've faced bosses now that could crit succeed their good save on a 14, and their bad one on an 18... With math like that, it usually winds up playing like they just have perma legendary resistance so nobody feels its worth it to burn high powered resources on high powered enemies because they'll just succeed anyway. As a bit of an anecdotal example: I'm playing in a Blood Lords game rn, and the difference in experience between me as a Fighter and our Witch is insane - I'm having a great time swinging my Greatpick around, hitting for 25-ish dmg on a normal hit and critting for 66 dmg on around an 18-20, sometimes even around a 17... Our Witch is having a miserable time when she sees a 5 on the DMs dice roll for the boss and hears "and that's a success, she takes half damage for a total of 9 dmg from your fireball."
I have often designed boss battles in a similar fashion to MMO raid bosses, most specifically Guild Wars 2. I find that many raid mechanics tend to keep characters moving. Additionally, they also need to consider the possible threats and/or opportunities the environment provides. Thank you for the great video. You have gained a subscriber.
Did we forget that Dark Souls Bosses were a thing? They all end up minions after all... Also I've had a fix for Legendary Risstance since I first read it; Legendary Resistance is limited to a number of times per day. The wizard gets so many spells, the barbarian gets so many rages, and the boss gets a number of "Uh, no, I don't do that" bulls*** cards. And I find that one per 10 CR works pretty well. Still, glad someone is trying to help fix this busted mechanc.
Not sure how much i like Caster sympathetic videos. Spells are extremely strong and and a lot of the examples in this video were pretty oversimplified, if you're fighting a boss for example, why would the entire party be focused on banishing the boss? your goal would be to kill it not send it away. With how well spells dominate outside of boss monsters (Both in Utility, CC, and Damage) its only fair that there be extra precautions against Boss monsters. Y'know, THE BOSS. There are much bigger problems then trying to insinuate that casters are weak especially when compared to martials, let alone fighters. I understand the point or LR being unfun but its a simple solution to a simple game, even when it is its bane. For example i think martials should be given a plethora of new tools in combat even if it makes the classes much more complicated then just taking the attack action every turn.
It seems you've missed the point just a smidge by the sound of it. This video is saying that LRs disincentivise *control* casters in particular in a way that isn't fun for the players and presents ways that make bosses harder to control but that don't just make players choose between control (i.e. wasting turns) or buffing/damage (i.e. being actually useful).
@@FreedomIII Honestly, I do think we need to disincentivize control casting anyways, because it's far too powerful and certain control spells just remove an enemy from the fight, which is extremely bad game design if you want combat to not last 1 round or less. Then again, I believe spellcasting needs nerfs in general.
@@sharmakefarah2064 Crowd control is a vital tactical resource for any combat sustem. Revamping control magic in a way that steers away from the "this enemy is effectively removed from combat for x turns" effects that are, like you said, overpowered? Yeah, definitely, even as someone who mostly plays mages, I'd support that. Removing control entirely? That's using dynamite to get rid of spiders ┐(´д｀)┌
@@FreedomIII Yeah, the best way to handle control spellcasting in the OneDnD Player's Handbook or a house rule is to nerf spells that entirely remove actions on one saving throw like Hypnotic Pattern and Banishment, and focus more on spells like Slow that don't entirely take enemies out of the fight. Slow, while still a bit too powerful, could actually be a healthy form of control as it doesn't entirely remove an enemy's action economy, which allows bosses to exist. Control casting is a valid archetype in DnD, it just needs nerfs to avoid making it way better than anything else. So I agree with you here.
I stopped using legendary resistances when my players started meta-game planning for them. In exchange, I ramped up the amount of lair actions baddies could use, and gave them bonus actions and reactions. :)
My DM asked why I had stopped using Bane (I had removed it from my spell list some time ago). My response was "why would I have and use the spell when it never worked against anything I needed it to work on (because of legendary resistances)?" This was when I was told that by burning legendary resistances I was also reducing the number of legendary actions the boss could do. This was news to me but I have never played a standard 5e campaign before.
@@jennaphantom7969 That... is also not part of standard 5e. Legendary actions and Resistances are totally separate. If that was part of the game, then that was a house rule that the DM never explained to you and thus you could not be reasonably expected to know
Legendary resistances are a choice the DM can make. They're fundamentally impossible to meta-game, because if you try the DM will just choose not to use them.
That meta-game planning for legendary resistances is where the players can actually have fun with them! It becomes a play to cast less important spells to break down the resistances and get your bigger spells off, which is exactly the kind of engagement you want in a fight like that
Awesome awesome awesome! This is the exact kind of thoughtful changes/discussion I've been looking for! Something I've been experimenting recently with is treating LRs as not so much an instant success vs save effects, but a save against death (Sort of like "Chromatic Wrath" or "Platinum Brilliance" on the Aspects of Tiamat/Bahamut from Fizban's). If my players manage to beat the boss, well now it can burn 1 LR and it stands back up, and if I planned ahead well enough then now it can have some new moves or traits for phase 2. The issue I just ran into was that it felt like it favoured the Control oriented PCs more than the Damage oriented ones in a less fun way(control PCs just needed to get lucky to phase a boss, where as damage ones needed to do x amount of damage that they probably won't do in 1 turn), but these alternative resistances(esp. the costly ones) seem like an awesome dynamic way to handle this issue!
Yeah, if you have a 4 person party, ideally you want each player to feel like they've contributed about 25% of the fight, even if their contributions take very different forms. I tried to design those alternatives with that in mind, but it's a tough problem for sure
I think there are some great ideas in here for general encounter design, and some good ideas for boss fights as well. However, I do think the reason why legendary resistance exists the way it does, is because of the types of affects and conditions that can happen in 5e. There are affects and conditions that basically end combat or cause the bbeg to not be able to do anything. Which makes the fight too easy, too quick, or boring. If any of theses "fixes" still allow those affects to happen... then the problem problem hasn't been fixed. If the player is excited about using that affect or causing that condition, but the "fix" blocks that from happening... they will still be disappointed. An example from the video is a stun affect turning into damage. When a player wants to use a stun condition, that is what they want. And they want it not just because it makes it easier to do damage to the target, but because the target can't do anything back. Sure more damage is better than nothing... but also I find it immersion breaking to explain there spell or feature that applies a condition now simply does damage. (On the note of legendary resistance not having flavor... as written yes, but I can easily come up with flavorful descriptions for legendary resistance use). Another example is the idea of stages for replacing legendary resistance. That after the party were to use a game breaking affect or condition, it ends that stage or fraction of the encounter... that sounds like ignoring the affect and going back to combat with extra steps. There are many cool ideas for encounter design in this video, but removing legendary resistance and replacing them with these options may not fix the real issue. My advice. 1. Tell your players about legendary resistance out of game and explain why it is in the game and how using certain spells, affects, and conditions can ruin the fun of a challenging encounter. Especially explain how broken spells affect the fun on martial Characters. Communication is key. If players can't understand good team work and fair gameplay... you shouldn't play with them. 2. Prepare narrative descriptions of legendary resistance so it fits the encounter and becomes interesting. 3. Keep legendary resistance as is but give it a plenty upon use. Maybe using the resistance causes it to vulnerable to one type of damage for the next round, or they get disadvantage on thier next attack, or you the DM can have there be a lesser version of the affect or condition? Stun could instead cause them to burn a legendary action and half movement speed rather than the monster not being able to do anything at all.
I suppose my only issue with your suggestions for "Costly Resistances" is that 1) The monsters are stated and given a CR based on the understanding that they have Legendary resistances that they don't need to spend anything to use. I would suggest dropping the CR of any creature you apply Costly Resistances to as they are not performing at their intended capacity. 2) Almost all of these things could be handled "behind the screen" by the DM as the explanation for how legendary resistances work anyway. For instance: when having Strahd do his legendary resistances I actually described something similar to what Spooky Bad Person did. It had no actual effect on his hit points but my players had no way of knowing that. How often should players know exactly how much health a boss has anyway?
As you work through this, think about implementing targeted strikes. Allow Martials to declare what they’re hitting for additional effects (disarming, taking about someone’s wings, break their kneecaps). This’ll give Martials some less powerful control effects, but theirs are tied to an attack instead of a save, thus making them more reliable.
The "passive threat" is essentially the "lair actions" many bosses have. I like the rest of your critiques and ideas on this for sure though. Just sent the vid to my GM.
I honestly don't mind legendary resistance as it is, even as a player It gives me the sense of how powerful the enemy is. Plus of you're fighting gods and liches it's kinda fitting. I get that It takes away from the caster but I only play casters and honestly in 5e being a spellcaster Is kinda broken with how much stuff you can do. Me and another player are Always doing spell combos that my master never sees coming, so I'm glad he can have a bit of fun with legendary resistances honestly (this was not to criticize your video, I enjoyed watching, just wanted to share another pov)
Casters can stand a little nerf. Had one boss fight where someone whipped up a setup to insta gimped a boss immediately and wound up causing a lot of drama including from other players who were like "Um...we kinda sorta would like to get to play too Mr Glory Hound!"
Problem is DMs in my opinion. If casters get to enter every fight with all of their spell slots, then casters become too strong. If combat encounters don't make players think, then they might not be that interesting anyway. My group fought its way through a goblin cave. We reach a point where we're a bit banged up, and the group decides to back track out of the cave, set some traps, and attempt a short rest. The DM gives it to us. We go back into the cave, and find the boss goblin in the middle alone. Apparently the DM planned for them to call minions in on their first turn. They never got a first turn, the second turn of the combat I cast sleep. So the question is, what were the goblins doing that entire time we rested? They could have been setting up traps or preparing an ambush, or just fleeing. The DM started to change their approach after that.
@@kamikeserpentail3778 "If casters get to enter every fight with all of their spell slots, then casters become too strong." I'm sorry what? The only caster where that's a thing is warlocks and that's counterbalanced by the fact that they have very few slots at all. Everyone else only gets slots back on a long rest which are VERY cleared stated to be once a day only.
I really like this idea, although I don’t agree that the combo of magic resistance and legendary resistance being a problem. The way it was described in the video is that it is problematic because the spellcasters of the group feel they have been walled by this creature. But I don’t think that is necessarily a bad thing, as long as EVERY creature doesn’t have this combo. In most cases, the martial classes are the ones who are outgunned. They don’t get to deal as much damage as an optimized damage spellcaster. They don’t have many (if any) control options to end the battle in one turn like a control spellcaster. So having the occasional boss where the spellcasters are struggling and the martials get to shine doesn’t seem like a bad thing to me. Obviously, there are a lot of examples of DMs who would start throwing this combo on every monster, and that is just an example of a bad DM, because then the spellcaster never feels rewarded for how he built his character. But as it is, it is rare for a martial to feel rewarded, because the game is stacked against them. I support throwing in the combo occasionally to boost up martials and make them somewhat worthwhile for something.
3-4 rounds? most fun!? hmmm maybe its because we have a party that has been playing for close to 20 years but our funnest ones are the ones that take around 10-12 turns. The ones that force you to break out the trump cards you never thought would see the light of day. and at the end of the fight your still sweating because your 1 minute buffs you never thought would run out in a combat are about to reach their breaking point
Pathfinder 2e has a nice approach for them. Most spells aren't save or suck, but the few powerful ones that really suck when you get hit by them have a mechanic where they more or less just whiff against bosses. So you can still screw over lesser foes beautifully, but can't use that to get rid of bosses easily. (And most control spells have some lesser effect on Non-critical successful saves but that's another story)
I was playing a theurge wizard, and we were getting up there, around level 13. Past the point of things, i just stopped trying to control, it wasn't worth it with my economy of spells. I could as you very very rightly put into matters see the odds, and the chances, and it was either better to save my spells for something that just was a fight ender like a wall spell (Force/Stone.) or just use a damaging cantrip. I still to this day hate LR's with such a passion because it shuts down an avenue of play that enables the martials to dominate foes. And LR's really felt like a bad holdover from 4e that folks would just stunlock a special end time encounter because if it got a turn, players were hosed..
I haven't played much dnd, but played other systems. And multi-Phase bosses are really fun to do, it's just a bit hard to make them fit in many situations. Passive threats are also a great thing that I used a lot of times, and the other 2 ideas are great, I'm definitely using them on my bosses.
I feel like the idea that some high CR monsters are insurmountable by a party of 4 wizards is not an inherently bad thing… you see how it takes the wizard party 20+ turns to win? Well it still take the fighter party like 3-5 turns, which is why the part has both a fighter and a wizard… not all obstacles should be able to be overcome with Magic, just like the fighter with a sword can’t fight a beholder or a dragon. A wizard shouldn’t really be able to control/shut down an immortal super demon.
Save of Suck spells being made stronger is not what the game needs. Casters are already way ahead of martials at practically everything, especially if you build them right, so them becoming stronger is unhealthy for the game. The only way to make that save or suck fix idea work is to also made the failed saving throw effect far weaker than an encounter ending effect.
IDK if I managed to convey this properly, but no you shouldn't just give those souped up spells to your players, the book specifically tells you it's a bad idea. We instead give you about a dozen ways for players to gain access to one or two of the variants from the book, usually at some sort of a cost (on page 5, which is in the free preview). That way you as the DM keep control over the power creep that the supplement would otherwise introduce. The video uses the example of the Gem of Reliable Spell, a magic item which lets you trade an attunement slot for one variant spell. The reason we opted to do things this way instead of nerfing the effect on a failed saving throw, is that, well... Players don't like nerfs, even if they get something in return. We figured the supplement would be more likely to actually see some play if we did it like this. If we were designing 5e from scratch, we'd probably use the approach you're talking about, but all we can do here is add onto what WotC has made, which can sometimes make things a bit awkward like that.
I'm gunna be DMing my first ever game in the following weeks. Your videos, and channels like yours, are amazing and I love the work you and the community does. ...And not just because you put out free info. Keep up the great work. ♥
I'd say my one criticism would be that the price for Legendary Bad Persons with 3 Legendary Actions should be 2 actions instead of all 3, since it only covers a single affliction at a time if for no other reason. ...On that note, I've always felt like more statblocks should be designed around a more variable number of Legendary Actions to spend. Like ones with 5 LAs but a less significant Multiattack so that most of its economy is reactionary in nature and other such dynamics.
This is such a cool option! I love the multi armed boss losing arms, the passive damages even when they miss a turn, etc! I will definitely be getting your books!
Honestly this reminds me a lot of how JRPGs use these debuff and controls abilities. A good majority of the time the player isn’t going to waist their resources on them for basic encounters because they can be dealt with easily and they’re not gonna use them on bosses because they’re immune to EVERYTHING. So the game just has all these dump skills lying in the characters’ skill lists and never get used because the devs literally shot themselves in the foot making these unique abilities worthless. I enjoy a good JRPG when standard encounters have more depth to them and bosses can be inflicted with status effects.
Octopath Traveler (one of his examples) does a good job with this. Aside from the "break" mechanic shown, which stuns a target for 1 full turn and makes them take increased damage, bosses have increased resistances but not outright immunity to most status effects. I've had status effects absolutely save my tush during boss battles by diverting one or two hits, allowing me to stabilise what was otherwise a deathly disadvantageous combat situation.
Just stumbled upon this video from "the algorithm", where has this been all my life!?! So many of my dm ideas are ripped from video games, it almost feels like this channel was made specifically for me. That "multi-armed bad guy" variant that you suggest for hydras? I literally did that exact mechanic on my hydra boss just this week! Oh man I'm gonna enjoy bingeing these. :3 xxx
this is quite possibly the first time I've watched a video with a gimmick-y hook like this... and actually agreed. A very good essay! I'm checking out the "Legendary Resistance Alternatives" right now.
for once i don't agree with you I've been a DM for 6+ years with at least 30 different people (had like 3 groups at the same time for a couple of years and currently on a 2 year long campaign) and i have used Legendary Resistances PLENTY of times and they are absolutely necessary for high level important fights Players want to use the extremely strong spells to cheese and end the fight fast but than be bored if they succeed, it's like they don't really know what they want Legendary resistances become a part of the strategy, they know very strong enemies have them (a good DM shows them they exist, like a pendant with 3 lights or special part of the monster body that detach) so they have to strategize to burn them while the martial heroes protect the casters; or they just ignore those and go for full damage it's a pivotal part of a boss combat and it's the DM job to translate the ability into something that's explained storywise Obvious if the DM sais "He failed the roll but he just succeds" it's boring but "It seems that the spell takes hold for a moment but the monster shrugs, a light on the pendant flickers and turns off, the monster watches you with a grin while the spell has no effect" you see how that changes A LOT High level characters are already extremely strong as they are, nerfing the monsters is not the solution and, LR, as a mechanic works perfectly The numbers you said about mosters with MR and LR are fine, if a high level team decides to focus on trying to use CC spells on an enemy that has extremely high resistances it's just bad tactics...high level heroes should know how to fight; the DM on the other hand shouldn't make every single fight a monster with LM+MR on a team that focuses on CC; that's not a rules issue but a DM against Players issue
My dm gives every single big battle legendary resistance and legendary actions. We have fought 3 creatures back to back with no rest in between. We are level 3...
I like your ideas to up a boss encounter. Would a simple fix to legendary resistance be to make them a reaction? Or maybe it just gives a +5 to the save so even if the monster rolls low it fails? Maybe both? I would like to know how the math changes with these changes. And I would love some more video focusing on boss building. Thank you.
Thank you! Legendary Resistances as a reaction would probably not have the intended effect: mathematically, it encourages the players to have as many casters as possible. Say for example that the boss fails a save if it rolls 5 or less, and it needs to fail twice in a single round for the encounter to end: 1 caster: 0% chance to happen 2 casters: ~6% chance to happen each round 3 casters: ~15% chance to happen each round 4 casters: ~25% chance to happen each round etc... Most parties probably only have 1 to 3 casters focusing on saves, so a reaction is probably not enough of a cost by itself in my opinion. It might be a different story if the boss also uses reactions for something else - then the opportunity cost would be a bit higher, and it miiiight just be worth it for the players.
Great breakdown and solutions. I remember how bad it felt playing a crowd control-style warlock in a previous campaign; whenever it got to a boss monster, the only reliable choice I had was the eldritch blast machine gun. As a DM now I usually try to mitigate this a little by not having bosses alone and including some more minor, but still credible threats that present as good targets for controls. These will definitely give some more flexibility for when a solo boss is the better choice. Cheers!
but aren't caster already extreme op in the game with their ability to like end the encounter in 1-2 rounds? don't get me wrong: legendary resistance sounds awful, but about the other options: legendary resistance leads to dmg - if I want to deal dmg, I would use dmg spells, I use debuffs to weaken the boss or reducing certain abilities, like actions - so that would only work, if the boss has legendary action (who is on it self are not so good system) multi-phase-boss - ok, it can work, but... now I need to think for like every boss or even stronger enemy/mini boss a second or third phase and even if it have like 2 phases for a stronger enemy: he will get 1 turn, with luck 2 before the caster used 2 spells to defeat him, if he has only that legendary resistance are destructible object - can work, but then the question is: why only debuffs work on that thing or the thing is like with multi phase bosses, should I give every mini boss or strong enemy, who shouldn't die in the first or second round like a totem or so, so it can tank 1-2 spells? the octopath version is at least quite good, but the thing is: how would debuff trigger these weakness, sounds more a solution for martials or for like making a extrem resilient monster, but with weaknesses passive effects - I could see certain spell work, but not all debuffs, and the thing is still: how does debuffs only effect it or why should even be all passiv effects be removable with spells passive effects or destructible objects could work the best from the options for mini bosses, but how do you make it work, that it doesn't nerf the martials too much, but gives the caster still a reason to cast debuffs on him or remove it
So I had a boss encounter last night with a Lv 10 Monk. He kept stun locking the boss using Stunning Strike. The almost never got a turn. Spent a whole time hyping him up too. Tasha's has made the players even more powerful but I think the Monsters have yet to catch up. I think legendary resistances do have a place but maybe only in certain instances.
I have played both as a DM and as a player and legendary resistance hasn't really been a problem. I feel like casters shouldn't just pick control spell only, they need damage spells too. Just like they can't just take fire spells, they need other damage types too. Bosses rarely use legendary resistance to resist a lightning bolt. There are a lot of monsters that can still be controlled by crowd control spells. Also when the casters use damage spells against a boss, martials and casters both take down the same "health bar".
Coming from earlier editions, legendary resistances, along with everything suddenly needing concentration, kinda kills some of my favorite caster types. Now, I don't think it's overly a bad thing, and most boss type monsters back in the day would have immunities to various effects anyways - but not everything generally, so you could still do something even if the best effects cant work. Cant paralyze then entangle or drop them in a pit. And even if debuffs were out of the question because something resisted magic (which would also take damage off the table) - you could instead toss out multiple buffs to help out. Or maybe shape the battlefield or use something like grease or a summoned monster to contribute rather than just blasting, which I find boring.
The worst thing about 5e is that say I play a wizard, and I meet a wizard boss, I will never, even when I am double his level, be able to do the things he does. Legendary anything puts the boss outside of the normal universe and that stinks.
I feel like some of this is just putting more work on the dms yet again. The whole point of the design team is to make it possible for us to run a game or adventure with as few obstacles as possible. These spells need to be reworked as well as the monsters, otherwise there will continue to be a DM shortage. The CR and balance should come as advertised.
This is terrific. I love it, especially letting villains lose a limb instead of failing a save. I'd use that with most heavy-duty monsters; once per day, instead of dying, it loses a limb or tail or suffers a huge scar.
i banish the boss ok. really?? yes. as you open a portal to hell, the pit fiend claws at the floor but its massive weight causes the large bricks to crack and slip. the pitfiend is flung into the portal but it latches on the border of the portal as it tries to close i cast fireball to knock it in the pitfiend loses its grasp and is flung into the portal as it closes the party proceeds to loot everyone, roll perception please ohno, we all rolled low as you loot the chest and rummage through all the glitter and gold, you finaly notice a sound. you turn around and see a large hand about to clench onto your head, reaching out from a portal linked to hell. the pitfiend managed to claw its way back in and managed to grab your head. roll initiative
This channel seems to me as the mechanical pendant of the pointy hat channel, that is more lore and roleplay focus. Even the little one eyed avatar to represent the youtuber ! By the way, great video, i hope you will see the growth your channel is worth of !
As opposed to? What options exist that both feel interactive and aren't likened to video games by modern audiences? I don't believe it is immersion breaking to have more interactive features, especially not when compared to legendary resistance. Think about real life biology. Some lizards have the ability to detach their tails as a defence mechanism. Imagine a boss working similarly. It sacrifices something to resist your attack. In other cases, the boss may have powerful relics or parts of its body aiding in its combat. Instead of being able to constrain the boss entirely as one unit, you have to choose which aspects you want to take down first. It brings in strategy and thought that would otherwise only exist when fighting a group of enemies.
Wrong. Only a certain subset of players couldn't wrap their heads around the new direction, the real crash-and-burn issue of 4e was lack of a proper OGL and a VTT. People like videogames, and the people who stayed behind did so because, well.. It's pretty natural that a fair amount of people will stick to the familiar than wholly new directions
D2r hell difficulty mobs that are immune to physical and ice are not fun. But there are immunity breaking items now. So yeah good video and good point.
You are not wasting a turn when the boss uses a legendary resistance. You've burned one of the boss's most limited resources. He gets 3 to 5, your party has many spell slots. The Action economy is always in your favour You also talk about the right way to attack a monster with legendary resistances- damage solves. If your character has specialized in save-or-suck spells and has decided not to diversify by grabbing spells like Fireball, that means you won't get to shine in that particular encounter, but that also means you have been really good against enemies that don't have legendary resistances (the vast majority of them) I agree that legendary resistances have no flavour. However, I also think that, compared to other systems, DND 5e as a whole lacks flavour and unique mechanics for each monster, so that does not bother me that much Spellcasters may stop using single target save or suck spells, but Forcecage, Reverse Gravity, Synaptic Static, Sickening Radiance, Hypnotic Pattern, Binding Ice, Web are powerful spells no matter the tier of play. The role of a spellcaster should shift from single target shutdown to multiple target shutdown, with some exceptions (a 10th level Evocation Wizard with 1 level in Hexblade Warlock can melt single targets without the Shield spell by simply spamming Magic Missile)
I absolutely love giving my bosses a sort of "charging" effect, some resource that charges every turn that they can spend on various things. In most cases, they can spend some of that resource to cancel a magical effect on theirself, or as a reaction to do it preventatively, but A) It eats at their action economy because they used either their reaction or they had to use part of their turn to do it. B) It eats at the resource itself, something that when fully charged typically lets them unleash a powerful attack. And C) It's something the player's know about, since the resource charging is something they can always see. Either a dragon charging magical energy in its neck, when it's at full charge they unleash their breath weapon, but they can spend a portion of the charge to cancel something magically affecting them or breath upon a wall of force to dispel it, for example. I love this video and all the ideas in it as well, super happy I watched cause now it feels like there's a million different ways to pull this off without legendary resistance.
One thing I tried was to give them a reaction to succeed the saving throw instead of a number of LR's per day, so they can only use the resistance once per round. That way they don't just run out, but a well-coordinated combo between 2 or 3 characters can break through their defenses. It also means that they can't make as many opportunity attacks on melee fighters.
I think you _can_ kind of blame the character for choosing certain options and then not working vs certain enemies though. Like maybe you think it's not valid in the case of mind control or crowd control (but why?), but there's surely other cases where you wouldn't expect them to be able to deal with the opponent well if only using a very narrow strategy, no? Like a caster that casts _only_ fire magic shouldn't be expected to beat something with complete fire immunity (short of certain exceptions such as if they can get around it; which I'd prefer to ignore for example purposes), or someone who specializes in illusions shouldn't be expected to deal with blind or truesight opponents well. That's not to say that I'm supporting LR though. I play Pathfinder and they don't exist. Did the current/in-question edition of D&D remove stuff like immunities to mind-affecting, stuns, poisons, elements, etc.? Regardless, I do think a lot of these alternatives to LR sound really good. It's just maybe a bit more work to use than the cookie-cutter LR.
Fire damage does get criticized a bit, in 5e, for being the damage type most monsters are immune to after poison: it's ineffective against about 10% of monsters. For comparison, about 60% of monsters above Challenge Rating 15 have Legendary Resistances. I think that difference in abundance might be why the community is much more vocal about them than about damage immunities. If it's a one-off thing, then the player can be okay because they'll get to be cool again during the next boss fight. But if it's systematic, that next cool moment never comes. To paraphrase an entire 1 hour GDC talk by Josh Sawyer, narrative designer on Fallout New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity, if you tell a player there is a "wrong" answer, and they chose that answer not because they thought is was right but because it fit the character they had envisioned, you're telling them their character is invalid. And in a game that's about player expression, that is very dangerous. In that way, to me, Legendary Resistances are an issue of player expression, not really game balance or game difficulty. The game is offering players the choice to fill a control caster niche, and then pulling the rug from under them. But yeah Pathfinder 2e had the foresight to do degrees of success in all of its spells from the get-go, so it doesn't have that issue, thankfully
been dming 5e for a couple years now, and boy have I HATED legendary resistances. I have used them no more than 5 times in this campaign of about 2 years, all of which were because the party has been "cheesing" my fights too much. My party is gonna likely face off against this arc's BBEG next session and it has legendary resistances and I've been trying to figure out ways to avoid having to use them. I've already looked through the doc and used your creations as inspiration and put together my own ability. Wont go into detail yet in case someone from my party sees this comment >.>
Wow that's awesome! Excluding the multi level boss fight, I never used any of this techniques, but they are very smart. This video definitely comes into my D&D advanced techniques playlist.
13th Age has a great mechanic to fix this issue, the escalation die. Each round the escalation die increases from zero to a maximum of 6, and is a bonus to hit for the players. If you start with an even (or worse) chance you will wait a few rounds til your chances improve before trying to land that haymaker you can only throw very infrequently. For dnd this “to hit” for magic that isn’t AC based would likely be represented by an increase in spell save DC.
Subscribed immediately after watching this. As a fledgling DM, Legendary Resistances are something I've been wary of, but also I wanted some ways to make early-to-mid boss fights more interesting. Great analysis and very interesting solution. Looking forward to see more~
Well, there are some control spells that are used specifically because they have no saving throw (e.g. Wall of Force). This can act as a counter towards some bosses that would otherwise use Legendary Resistances, but don't have the tools to counter that specific tool (e.g. Misty Step, Disintegrate).
I think a big problem with bosses in general is that the bbeg can die from really random things, which is just like real life. Bbeg's aren't really much stronger than the heroes, they aren't an epic finally to a story, but just some malicious dude that has been successful at being bad up until this point. The tyrant plotting to murder his brother the king is not someone that should be an epic battle. Sneaking into his castle to place a dirk in his back is the exciting "battle" conclusion, not placing the knife in his back. Video game bosses have poisoned the well of thought about how a simulation fantasy world should play out. Take sauron from the Lotr trilogy, the epic battle is just a distraction from Frodo plopping the ring in the lava of mount doom, and many movie stories, or real life stories have no villian. An adventure has never needed boss battles to be fun and exciting. The point of a role playing game is to make decisions as someone else who lives in a fantasy universe. Boss battles have nothing to do with RPG's and are a crutch which is to heavily used to add tension to a scene. For the RPG to be truely fun, the bbeg needs to have higher odds of defeating the heroes. Success tastes much better after struggle and multiple failures.
The well might have been poisoned from the start here tbh - video games have largely inherited their concept of a boss battles from D&D in the first place. All they did was take the concept, run with it, and push it further than D&D ever managed to. But I generally agree with all of that. What I think has been my most successful boss battle in D&D so far has been when I got Lancelot trying to kill King Arthur, while also trying to pin the regicide on the party so he could usurp the throne and make his affair with Guenivere official. Lancelot didn't have to kill the players, just the king - and the players didn't have to kill Lancelot, just bring the king to a more public place where Lancelot would not be able to kill all of the witnesses to his coup. Having each side of this boss battle go after something other than just hit points made it so much more fun. ...But on a purely mechanical level, that fight still ended up needing some sort of a legendary resistance equivalent for Lancelot, otherwise that cool story would have been nullified by bad game mechanics.
The problem here is simply that casters are stronger than martials, which is why legendary resistances and magic resistances exist in high level play right at the point where martials feel completely outpaced. By making a whole bunch of ways to allow spellcasters to get their effects off at no cost, you're just further reinforcing the idea that martial classes are weak and never have a chance to shine at what they do, which is consistently outputting damage that an enemy can't shrug off. The actual balance issue with legendary resistance is that they don't scale with party composition. A creature with 3 legendary resistance might blow through their lot after 2 turns against a party of 3-4 casters, but will likely never get used up against a party with only 1. This combined with a DM that metagames leads to situations where a monster is somehow selectively shrugging off either every spell it fails against when there's only 1 caster, but picks and chooses the players strongest spells if they fail if dealing with multiple casters. The fact is that control casters should be understood as save or suck casters, as they always have. You want to do a spell that ends a fight, you accept that your spells are all or nothing. If you don't like that, you play blaster casters or you use spells that have effects even on successful saves. If you're going to reinvent the entire anti-caster mechanic so your players don't have to feel bad because they didn't get to do something cool every turn, then I hope you're ready to completely reinvent martial classes too.
Yeah, I agree. I appreciate the intent of this guy's video, but I feel like he's missing the forest for the trees here, and I pretty heavily disagree with the idea of making DnD MORE like a video game, it needs to move away from that design, because DnD is NOT a video game. There are a lot of video games that try to be TTRPGs (and fail), but that doesn't mean TTRPGs should participate in playing copy cat back. Legendary resistances are a symptom of much larger design issues - 1. Casters, and spellcasting, broadly speaking, are too powerful 2. The game is inundated with "save or suck" spells that are completely degenerate and only serve to polarize the DM and players. When a player lands one of these high value save or suck spells, the group rejoices and the DM suffers (not always, but it can happen when an encounter is planned far ahead and meticulously crafted), when they fail it the DM gets to have a real combat encounter, and the players suffer and feel like they wasted their turn doing nothing. 3.metagaming is damn near required to interact it with it in a mechanically impactful way from the players, which is antithetical to the point of DnD. In the DM's case it is LITERALLY mandatory, which is part of the reason it feels so bad. It's the DM Vetoing you, but with a mechanic written into the rules so as to give them leeway in designing encounters for a wide spectrum of players with different levels of power and investment. Nobody gives a shit about legendary saves when they're used to halve spell damage, or avoid being shoved by a maneuver or other combat ability, but they kick and scream and piss and shit when it's their big 5th level slot that doesn't do shit on a successful save. There are a lot of ways you can mitigate these issues, and some of them aren't even that hard. Simple and effective conveyance is a great way to clue your party in on legendary resistances and how they interact mechanically in a combat encounter so that metagaming isn't required. Maybe the big bad lich has 3 evil floating souls around him that disappear as he loses his legendary resistances. There are a lot of avenues you could take to alleviate that issue, which immediately makes it more engaging to the players. When it's not something you're forced to blindly stumble into it, it can become a minigame of managing resources, which can actually make for really memorable combats and help to keep players engaged and thinking strategically. It also sort of kills two birds with one stone, because if the players are treating it as a game of leveraging resources until the perfect opportunity arises to use their big spells, they're not just firing off these save or suck style spells recklessly and thus, are getting less butthurt about it failing due to the information being clear. You could also take the direct control route and just make these save or suck spells more balanced if that's more to your players' liking. Lastly, casters and spellcasting being too powerful is a tricky one to handle. The approach to this one should be handled case by case depending on what kind of setting you're wanting to play in. You can take the direct route of balancing it (likely nerfing in specific circumstances), but if it doesn't break your setting too much, my favorite way to handle this is simply fighting fire with fire. "Oh, you have hold person and counterspell? we got that too down at the ol' fuck you DM Emporium!" I certainly understand not wanting to put casters or magic in EVERY encounter, but I found this method to be pretty effective for diversifying my encounters and keeping things even between more magic oriented (aka more powerful) parties. I WHOLEHEARTEDLY agree with your take about Martials, and it's something I actively put into practice in my campaigns. Martials are just weaker after casters reach a certain echelon of power, and I'm pretty aggressive with extra powers and magical item distribution to those classes because of that. (don't worry, I make 'em earn that shit, and I don't leave out my caster players either! 🤣) So far I've been able to keep my martials in line with the casters pretty decently while also giving them some nice avenues of strategy not afforded to their caster counterparts thanks to their usually reliable front lining ability. The downside to basically ALL of these solutions is that they require a LOT of legwork from the DM, but I'm happy to do it.
I was really sceptical based on the video name, which sounded too cheesy, but you’ve convinced me. I like this system and I’ll give it a try. Oh, also liked and subscribed 😊
You kinda glossed over stuff that bypasses legendary resistance like Maze, Forcecage, etc. Is it because these spells dont actually end the fight? Because neither does banishment half the time. Other than that, great analysis! Legitimately. I agree mages largely don't bother with control spells (that offer a save) at a high level because legendary resistance punishes it.
Yeah, those are kind of the next step in the arms race. There just isn't a great way to deal with those besides just... Completely re-writing them from scratch, which was a bit too much for this one video to tackle. Not just because it'd be a ton of work, but also because as a RU-vidr, I can only get away with deviating from 5e so much before people start asking if I even like 5e in the first place. Which I do - I love 5e - but those spells are one hundred percent banned at my table. Thanks for the comment!
I once used the Dancer Boss from DS3 in a D&D 5e One-Shot. So far it remains as the best, and most fun boss I have ever run as a DM. I got the 5e Stats for the Dancer from Dungeon Dad on RU-vid.
I really appreciated the different perspectives and sources of inspiration compiled in this video. I designed and ran an encounter a while after watching this where my players were fighting a modified version of Yeenoghu who was being empowered by a gnoll shaman, and every time he failed a saving throw the shaman could choose to sacrifice a basic gnoll bozo and let him succeed instead (or it diverted the effect to one of them). Ended up working out really well, the players enjoyed their spells having an impact on the battle in a high-tier encounter even when they didn't work, it made sense with the atmosphere, and it left me with the flexibility to decide what spells were worth taking a lackey taking the hit to avoid.
Great ideas. I'll have to check out the book. Here's another idea... Control Resistance: this monster has a number of levels of Control Resistance equal to it's Hit Dice. Successful control spells (those that the monster fails it's save - if any - against) subtract one level of Control Resistance per level of the spell used. Control spells against which the monster successfully makes its save (again, if a saving throw is allowed) have no effect. So long as the monster has any levels of Control Resistance, such spells have no effect even if the monster fails its save (other than eliminating levels of Control Resistance). I include all "save or suck" spells in the "control" category. (There's probably a better name for it.) You can also do something similar with Magic Resistance, having it degrade each time it successfully blocks a spell.
I've seen a number of suggestions to fix legendary resistances and they all end up being too complicated. Suggestion: allow the legendary resistance to do either A) what it already does, B) do something that blocks all damage for a single physical or spell attack. C) half damage, etc. For the entire round as a reaction. D) deflect an attack to another player/NPC, and retaliate. E) End a spell/effect that it failed a save on, early. These suggestions are, do what fits that round interchangeably. Using these techniques, combat with a "boss" can speed up but also become more interesting.
You just earned a sub! I love the idea of looking at video games for tabletop design ideas. Too many tabletop gamers sneer at video games without realizing that the best design ideas transcend the medium they originate from.
This is a very neat concept. Something that I thought about is "distracting from resistances", like two casters working in tandem to split the boss's attention and so make them more susceptible to the control effect. I haven't thought more about this, so if anyone had input please let me know!
I loved the ideas you brought to the table and am looking forward to implement them - maybe in a hub and spokes fps dungeon? Great video, as always! Although PF2e already has the incapacitation and level interaction to solve that specific problem, I think I will tweak (or even remove it) to play around and see what my players think of it. Thanks for the video, and I'll see you in the next one! Great job as always!
Absolutely amazing video. I hope to see more content where you improve on the flaws of 5e mechanics by incorporating logic from video games or other media
As the party's token control mage for the last 5 years with every boss being more or less immune to my spells since they average around +9 to Wis saves, Legemdary Resistance, and something like 90% of spells targeting Dex/Con/Wis, I appreciate this both for quality content and on principle
Have you ever tried just choosing some alternate spells, stunning breaks most encounters and trust me, if a boss encounter gets stunlocke, very few people are happy
@@tacticstonk4740 It's not about stuns, since the only spells I can think of that stun are Raulathim's Psychic Lance at 4th level and Power Word Stun at 7th or 8th and most non-schmuck enemies are immune to paralysis. Slow barely works since it's a 6 target spell with a 1 in 10 chance of sticking for more than half a round when everything and their mother has a +7 or higher in Wis saves, Banishment can sometimes buy a couple rounds when the BBEG has mobs but almost never does because Magic Resist, and everything else is "pick your flavor of squishy fighter replacement". Crowd Control spells are next to useless in 5e because on average the mage spends the first 4 rounds trying to get a spell to take hold, and entire fights if there's Magic or Legendary Resistance involved. It's not a problem of "all the spells are too strong or too weak", it's a problem of "almost all the spells target Wisdom so everything has a high Wisdom and control mages can't buy time like they should be able to outside of niche circumstances"
"You almost never find a video game boss that reappears as a lackey." Bowser in Lost Levels Birdo in SMB2 Aquamentis, Digdogger, Dodongo, Manhandla, Gohma, and Gleeok in Zelda Rebonak in Zelda 2 Most metroidvania Castlevania bosses Giant mimigas in Cave Story Much of the Streets of Rage bosses Much of the Double Dragon bosses Various Capcom non-Final Fight bosses Barons of Hell in Doom Many many many Final Fantasy bosses
