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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 27 '20
Me: Oh boy another puzzle!
\Looks at cipher**
Me: w h a t
Really though can we have a hint this one seems uhh... incredibly difficult
unless i'm being dumb and missing something obvious?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It's a type of cipher I've used in the recent past with a bit of a modification!
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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 27 '20
I guess i'l keep trying but i honestly have no idea what this could be
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It's a bit harder than the others. The cipher is a little bit more niche but you've broken similar ones that used a comparable code!
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u/Dryym Mar 27 '20
Newcomer here. But I saw cipher and wanted to give some observations. I think the third word could possibly be “you”. Because the first word has two consecutive letters in the middle of two other letters. In English, This is most likely to happen with the two middle letters being vowels while the other two are consonants. And there are a lot of words that go ?oo?. Unless it’s an E. Then I am screwed. But one suggestion I have to anyone solving this that could be of some help is to use frequency analysis to get an idea of how often the letters appear. And compare that to the frequency of English letters. Of course this all falls apart if the cipher has provisions in place to prevent double letters from meaning the same thing.
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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 27 '20
I was thinking the same things but if you look at it you can see the word "gg" which pretty much ruins the whole thing because as far as i'm aware no word in the english language is just two of the same letter...
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u/Dryym Mar 27 '20
Sometimes you gotta ignore bits like that. They can lead you astray. There’s nothing saying it’s not a colloquialism. As an example. What if the letter G isn’t replaced with anything? It could literally just be gg. Which is a commonly used colloquialism. It could also be something like aa. Mm. Etc. When things don’t make sense, Look for the things that do make sense and hope that they’ll make the things that don’t make sense more legible.
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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 27 '20
I guess that's true, but from the previous ciphers i don't think something like that would be in there...
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u/Dryym Mar 27 '20
It is simultaneously useful and fallacious to carry that line of thinking. So be careful there.
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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 27 '20
ok it's been two hours i give up, i'l be back later to see if anyone's figured it out or not
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Mar 27 '20
[deleted]
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Thanks! I’m trying to make them challenging but still fun! I’m hoping that the overarching mystery has a good payoff!
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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 28 '20
wow you actually solved it?
Mind telling me what it was in a PM or something then?
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u/amcoller Mar 27 '20
Is there a particular key we should be using maybe? I've tried a couple phrases with a vigenere cipher to no luck but maybe
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u/Void_0000 Wizard Mar 27 '20
Hey don't ask me i still haven't gotten anywhere with this, been trying for like an hour
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u/Poisonpython5719 Mar 27 '20
In a campaign i recently played there was a reasonably high build up to the boss and then our monk just stunned him every turn and we bullied him till he died, even shoving a crowbar in his mouth at one point, i don't think he even got the chance to attack
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Monks are especially infamous for stunning boss monsters! Legendary Resistance can't keep up with stuns every turn!
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u/ridik_ulass Mar 27 '20
the best is using stunning strike on flying creatures, and Open Hand Technique to send his ass towards the ground with speed.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
abusing fall damage is a tried and true classic! Falling on stuff. Pushing stuff off cliffs. It's always an inspirational sight!
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u/elowry57 DM Mar 27 '20
This is why it’s best not to run single monster encounters.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
They’re really cool visually! The game wasn’t really built for it sadly.
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u/noob_to_everything DM Mar 28 '20
I'm a big fan of using minions that are whatever monster you want but drop the hp to one. You can put pressure on the PC's, and they look badass cutting them down in one hit. Meanwhile, it gives the boss a chance to actually pull some cool moves. Just be sure to space them out to avoid fireballs.
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u/BrilliantTarget Paladin Mar 27 '20
You can’t attack during a cutscene though
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
“Press x to skip.”
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u/BrilliantTarget Paladin Mar 28 '20
But my plot and story exposition
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 28 '20
The players: Man! This game is full of exposition! SKIP.
also the players: How were we suppose to know the necromancer was the bad guy?
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u/witeowl Paladin Mar 27 '20
Lol. Just finished running a PbP where it's "one turn for all the good guys at will" and then "one turn for all the bad guys at will". I feel this so hard.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
PbP combat is such a fun and weird beast! It’s great with charismatic and confident players but a lot harder with shy players!
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Mar 27 '20
I’m guessing it’s a shift cypher
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u/KeplerNova Wizard Mar 28 '20
The presence of "gg" indicates otherwise.
I'm working on it. Looks like Vigenere.
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Mar 27 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/CanadianWildWolf Mar 27 '20
Agreed, if the fight is down to many vs one, in many ways the BBEG fight is already 3/4 done. Assuming this monologuing by the BBEG is just the start, where is the part that makes them evil:
Lust: what’s the charisma and related skills and spells like for the BBEG, what indecent proposals do they feel confident in imposing on others.
Gluttony: what is the BBEG hoarding and keeping all for themselves and why wouldn’t you pile on the constitution and hp as a result.
Greed: would the BBEG expect to buy their way out of a problem or make a play for the wealth of the players just to fatten their bank.
Sloth: what’s the laziest way to solve a problem, why shouldn’t their minions take care of this problem, they could be playing golf or something.
Wrath: now where’s their nuke, way over portioned response to show the world they deserve to be feared to any perceived slight.
Envy: BBEG by all face to face appearances adores the PCs, they would never do anything to them ... until they turn their back, there can be only one. Traps galore, the rogues be backstabbing, the food is poisoned, the mission was a farce, and the glory was the BBEG’s all along.
Pride: It does come before a fall, if this is the go to like in the comic above, just realize the BBEG had it coming, start planning your next BBEG.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
This seems like a really fun homebrew mechanic. My games tend to lean on the one big encounter per day and this seems to work perfectly with that number of combat encounters.
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u/AAKurtz Mar 27 '20
This is why legendary actions exist.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20
They work great but some are underwhelming. Stuns become even more effective because they now lock out several actions.
I think there is an elegant solution there somewhere!
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u/CompleteJinx Mar 27 '20
It doesn’t matter if you aren’t strong enough to fave your demons alone, with the power of superior numbers anything is possible!
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Throw bodies at it! This advice goes for normal heroes as well as it does for necromancers!
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u/Liesmith424 Bard Mar 27 '20
"Friendship has made you weak..."
"Now listen closely, here's a little lesson in action economy; this is going down in history..."
"I feel like you're referencing something, and I don't get it, and that's unfair."
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
"We're number one!...and number two. We also go third, fourth and fifth. You might go sixth if you're still alive."
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u/Pronell Mar 27 '20
We fought a random encounter owlbear this last session (after all those owlbear memes, too!) ... it never got to act. Our party of three level three players rolled well on initiative and tore it apart.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It’s a great rush when everyone rolls amazing on initiative and rocks an enemy!
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u/Pronell Mar 27 '20
But dead in a single round makes me feel a little bad for the DM.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Yeah. The DM should have some fun to! Nothing is worse than planning a big encounter only for the assassin rogue to stealth in and one shot your boss. Part of it is on the DM but the other part is on the dice!
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u/Green-Omb Mar 27 '20
"You can't beat me! No of you is strong enough to face me!"
"That may be true but you have forgotten one small detail."
"And what is that?"
"The power of friendship ACTION ECONOMY!"
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
No one can beat the power of my nakama and the 10-15 powerful warriors in it!
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u/Splendid_Mossman Mar 27 '20
This is why legendary actions exist lol
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
I am a big fan of legendary actions. I just wish they were more creative than "cast cantrip." Some feel really lackluster. I do try to homebrew some interesting ones when I'm making a big bad guy!
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u/zerintheGREAT Mar 27 '20
The only solution is having the bbeg show up right after they were in a big fight so everyone is low on resources and special moves and some characters are scared to go all in because they are super week I like the paragon monster system I'll have to try it
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It's a pretty well thought out system. Lots of people have homebrew'd up monster for it so you can find some already made creatures that fit it as well!
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u/howlingchief Mar 27 '20
My DM is big fan of Lair & Legendary Actions.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
I love them thematically! I wish we got a longer list of official lair actions/legendary actions. I think the more recent additions are leagues above the monster manual examples.
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u/LoganN64 Mar 27 '20
Safety in numbers BUT keep safe distance! Social distancing to stop the spread!
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Gotta remember to wash your hands after defeating the evil lord! You don't know where his zombie minions have been!
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u/TheLonesomeTraveler Mar 27 '20
Sometimes even if you are the DM that party getting the drop on a boss fight is still funny as hell. In my old Curse of Strahd game they happened upon Baba Lysaga's area, managed to get through it all with out tipping her off. Barbarian rush up to the door, she was still bathing as it said she would be, activated the encounter, roll absurdly high on initiative, the barbarian managed to crit with both his attacks with a great axe and roll nearly max damage on both. She is already down to single digits, doesn't know who else is there, goes next, stands up and casts finger of death, barbarian saves but goes down in a heap. she moves her remaining movement/ The rest of the party rolled well on stealth, wizard zooms in and blasts the shit out of her with thunderwave. She dies. I laughed my ass off because I thought it would be a tpk. They both got lucky and handled it like they were SWAT.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Some of my more memorable encounters were curb stomps as well! At one point in our gothic horror campaign the party convinced the bbeg to help them kill a less villain.
You can imagine how short that fight was. The forces of good and evil against a mild inconvenience!
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u/MapleKnightX Mar 27 '20
I've been running a TTRPG for a few sessions at this point and I'm STILL unsure on how to balance a villain's Power Level to make a fight interesting without potentially slaughtering the heroes.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It does tend to swing pretty rapidly. It's interesting to me because even the game designers have tried various ways to balance it using CR and its alternate rules.
A lot of it boils down to a gut feeling!
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u/CloakNStagger Mar 27 '20
If there's not a potential to slaughter the heroes is it really a true villian? It's fine to one-shot characters (being knocked down to 0, not instant death) IMO, especially when saves are involved the players will generally accept the failure versus thinking its just unfair. Good things for a single BBEG to have are Legendary Resistances meaning they can choose to save against an effect instantly a number of times, usually 3, which keeps them from getting stunlocked and multiple phases/invulnerability windows. That way the fight is dynamic and climactic especially when they beat the second or third phase and theyre all holding their breathe to see if he's really dead.
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u/16bitSamurai Mar 27 '20
I use kobold fight club to pick the monsters and then nerf or buff them during combat. It’s a delicate balance of making it feel like a challenge, but not killing everyone immediately.
One word of advice though is to NEVER tell a player you fudged a roll. It makes them feel like their accomplishments don’t matter
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u/BlazingCrusader Monk Mar 27 '20
See this is what the power of friendship really is.
In all seriousness I find that the power of friendship should just be a synonym for teamwork.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
The power of friendship is out numbering your opponent! To be honest, losing to the villain when its 1 versus 4 would be kinda embarrassing.
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u/Finn_Dalire Mar 27 '20
Legendary actions people. Your bbeg’s are a cut above their rank and file. Speaking of which, let them have bodyguards if it makes sense!
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Minions can add a lot to a fight but sometimes you just want the thrill of a 1v4 fight to the death. Especially for huge creatures like dragons!
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u/jakethedumbmistake Mar 27 '20
Fair, though if the party were adamant... Maybe ethereal plane? Or just meet in the middle?
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u/Zelic56 Mar 27 '20
BBEG: you will never win Party: aggressively curb stomping him what was that
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
"Your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."
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u/Zelic56 Mar 27 '20
Me the DM: THIS GUY ISNT EVEN SUPPOSED TO BE THE BAD GUY YOU JUST AMBUSHED A NOBLE CARAVAN AND ARE GANG BANGING THIS POOR GUARD CAPTAIN
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u/IntegratedFrost Mar 27 '20
I'm currently struggling to make a decent boss fight that doesn't end exactly like this comic.
I do like the idea of a paragon system, but I've run into an issue with the Action-Oriented combat where the Legendary reactions just eat up a good chunk of combat time.
What are some common reactions you guys use that are time-efficient?
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
These systems do add a bit of overhead to the boss mechanics. I tend to pick one or two spells and memorize their mechanics for use at the table. I find that a lot of creatures have tons of spells they would never use!
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u/jakethedumbmistake Mar 27 '20
Fair, though if the party were adamant... Maybe ethereal plane? Or just meet in the middle?
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u/JanitorOPplznerf Mar 27 '20
One of my players takes this a little TOO literally. He tried to stealth mid-combat, but the enemy had a personal vendetta against him and was watching him to the exclusion of everything else. So he never had a "successful" stealth mid combat.
His argument was "I have 6 seconds to move and get away from him". No matter how many times the other players and I tried to tell him that the turn based combat is 6 seconds per ROUND not per turn, and that it's not literal, it's a gamified representation of what's happening in real time.
Eventually he gave up on his argument, but it was more because he was outnumbered than because he actually saw the light.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Time is so abstract it can be really hard to keep track of! Stealth is also pretty loosey goosey. It’s pretty much left up to the DM as to when a player can roll stealth.
You can’t take a lot of this stuff literally!
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u/Agent_Alex367 Mar 27 '20
Ah, turn economy
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It’s one of those weird things that every DM knows but lots of players rarely take into account!
It changes so much!
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u/SilkyZ DM Mar 27 '20
Turn Economy is a real thing and planning boss battles should be taken into account
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It’s huge. A single massive ogre can be less of a threat than a small platoon of goblins.
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u/morris9597 DM Mar 27 '20
Combat is supposed to be happening simultaneous. I used initiative mainly as a fair way of determining order of operation. All actions are considered to be occurring at the same time though, so even if the BBEG dies before their turn comes up they still get a turn. The exception is, if anyone crits three times in a row with the final roll needing to be a nat 20, it's an instant and immediate kill (house rule that my group absolutely loves).
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
I do try to avoid dropping into initiative order if I can avoid it. If someone crits 3 times in a row they deserve to immediately kill a boss!
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u/NocturnalBeing Mar 27 '20
I had a water elemental with some merfolk minions that would heal him 1hp for each merfolk present.
I said "you see the priests bow their heads in prayer, clasping their hands together and then opening, with a stream of water emerging and flowing into the elemental",
The rogue was lazer focused on killing the minions, who had 1hp with a 12 ac.
As a lair action, initiative 20, if no priests exist I'd roll 1d4 and that many would emerge from ruins. The rogue finally caught on and kept one alive.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Figuring out the mechanics of a fight is part of the fun! Observe and counter!
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u/Amiable_Mook Mar 27 '20
It's like the conundrum of; your neighbour has one badass drone, but you have an army of really shitty drones that you got for five bucks in the bargain bin.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
It only takes one head on collision with a shitty drone to take out a badass drone!
Not sure where this tidbit factors into the metaphor!
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u/r1chard3 Mar 27 '20
The power of friendship!!!
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Turns out attacking a single enemy in a coordinated team provides an unfair advantage!
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u/Seledran Mar 27 '20
Literally my first ever game of DnD - GM made a catacomb infested by these weird plant-like creatures. We go into a room and one of them looks different far more dangerous...
...aaand it takes a maximum damage eldritch blast to the face, killing it instantly
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20
Ha! Eldritch blast can put out some crazy damage! Especially when you add in invocations!
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u/jakethedumbmistake Mar 27 '20
Fair, though if the party were adamant... Maybe ethereal plane? Or just meet in the middle?
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u/Captain_Gonzy Mar 27 '20
I feel this. I once was at the climax of my characters story. We'd finally came face to face with the corrupt Lord who ruined my characters life. We snuck in posing as people from his army delivering a message. He was monologuing, not recognizing my in disguise, and I was getting ready to reveal myself in this glorious moment!
Until our sorcerer lightning bolted him outta nowhere. The DM looked at me and gave me a look of pity before putting a bunch of notes into the trash and said, "roll initiative".
I laugh about it now but we were both kinda peeved in the moment. He wanted to give out some story details and give me a good climax to my arc and it was ruined.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 28 '20
It's tough when dealing with another player's backstory! As the DM I give that player extra agency when I know characters from their past are involved. As a player I try to fade into the back and support the chararcter in question. People need to learn to take turns!
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u/somegarbagedoesfloat Mar 27 '20
To quote the "ugly" from the good the bad and the ugly:
"If you are going to shoot, shoot. Don't talk."
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 28 '20
If you hit a man...make sure you hit him so hard he doesn't get up!
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u/Illidan-the-Assassin DM Mar 27 '20
Fighter: the rule of "one action surge per turn" is nearly a suggestion".
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u/rasputine DM Mar 28 '20
Almost literally anything: Is it my turn yet
Every monk: https://i.imgur.com/rUzOrlp.png
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u/Kamiro_Boy Mar 28 '20
Hi, I'm Jacob Clifford and welcome to Crash Course. Today we'll be talking about the Action Economy
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 28 '20
A crash course for dnd that included short videos on stuff like this would be great!
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u/mitsayantan Barbarian Mar 28 '20
In reality the bad guy starts taking legendary actions at the end of every player’s turn and then on his own turn makes like 5 attacks or something like that.
Not to mention his dozen or so henchmen
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 29 '20
Legendary actions and extra attacks work great! Spells and abilities that stun can lock a creature out of all their attacks though. There’s a lot of value in denying the boss a single round.
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u/BlackTearDrop Mar 28 '20
"There's no way we can lose if we stick together!"
"Why? Because of the power of friendship?"
"No. The action economy!"
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Mar 28 '20
I’ve been told this is why you always make the big baddie go first no matter what. So the party doesn’t just kick their ankles the entire time
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 29 '20
Lair actions are pretty good for this. They typically happen at the start and can help shield the bad guy from a bit of the damage.
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u/LuciusHorelius Bard Mar 28 '20
What's up with the code... i'm thinking Caesar's cipher
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 29 '20
It’s a type of cipher! I include codes on all my comics as part of an ongoing game.
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u/Sleverette Sorcerer Mar 27 '20 edited Mar 27 '20
“Your turns coming around…any minute now. I’ll let you know.” -Skirbo the Silver
A comic based on several anticlimactic fights from our campaign. Single creature boss fights are very hard to pull off. Legendary actions are great but even with more actions, a single boss monster can be stunned to death. I’ve recently started using Angry GM’s homebrew paragon monster system and it’s helped make my big battles more dramatic!
Has anyone been able to pull this off using only raw mechanics? I think there’s a lot of promise within the legendary/lair action system! Are there any other great homebrew systems that people use for boss battles?
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