There's a lot of things I want to say today thanks to listening to some podcasts, but these things would just result in me bitching, and in the spirit of being positive and junk I'm avoiding that.
*************
No instead today I want to talk around the idea of Boss generation for the game CRYPTS!
So for this weekend's playtest I want to create two bosses. The first is a duo team, The Demon Seed and Nanny, the second is The Butcher.
Today I'd like to talk about how I've been going about creating Bosses.
For me, boss creation is done in the exact same way as normal beasty creation. The first step is always coming up with a theme, be it an example of a model that you love, or perhaps just a concept idea.
Both bosses I am currently working on are examples of these.
1). The Demon Seed & Nursey
These two are models that have rules based around the models.
The first is a model that I picked up at this year's Salute, called the Little Lord and the second is of course one of my favourite models, the Weaver Widdow.
Now I don't think I need to explain their boss names, and instead should go into the remit of what you should expect from these characters.
The Demon Seed
Now this dude is such a characterful model, but more so than anything he is a baby in a carriage. Yes he is evil with tentacles, but still a baby in a carriage none the less, his abilities need to represent this, so for him you should expect a tentacle attack, but he would not have any +modifiers on this attack, because he's a writhing baby, not an accurate attacker.
Next we have his baby-ness, so he needs a PBAoE (Person Based Area of Effect) which originates from himself, this would be called something like Damned Crying, it's a magical attack that does damage only on a critical hit (which would result either brain brushing or damage to your ear drums) but most importantly reduces the number of GA (General Actions) available to you.
So here we already have a model that puts out a crying AoE and hits with tentacles.
So onwards with Nursey. She is simple, she's the protector for the Demon Seed, but how does she do that? Well for starters she has a parasol, so she gets a melee attack based on that, nothing major, but with an auto taunt thrown in to grab attention.
Her game mechanic is to protect, so she needs armour, her model is that of a monstrous bug woman, so she can reduce incoming damage by 1, but she is also a nanny, so needs something else to reflect that...
This brings us to her magic attack, Bag of Infinite Horrors, where for 1GA she can reach into her bag and try and bring something out, it may be a feather duster, it may be a medical doll that heals all Posse members within X" for 1 HP, or it might be an Imp or Giant Spider!
So now we have the Seed and Nanny, but how are they tied together? Currently we're looking at what is essentially 2 separate models who have a loose tie in theme.
This is where you bring in an idea often seen in MMOs such as WoW: Enrage!
Enrage: Demon Seed
If Nursey is killed while The Demon Seed is in play, The Demon Seed gains the Enrage effect.
- When enraged damage from tentacle attacks, and Damned Crying is increased.
Enrage: Nursey
If The Demon Seed is killed while Nursey is still in play, Nursey gains the Enraged effect.
- When Enraged, Nursey's Toughness and Armour is increased.
*********
So what does this leave you with? You have a duo boss team who play off each other with their abilities, one protecting the other who is not very strong but can semi tank, while the other puts out a semi amount of damage through its tentacles, but also limits your GA available, but in order to bring them down effectively you want to try and lower their HP at the same time, as when they die they become a lot stronger, and having them enraged for a long time is not good.
*********
So there we go, an example of a boss pair, but also the organic growth of where their attacks and spells would come from and how further ideas/suggestions can be expanded on.
I trust you enjoyed this glimpse behind the CRYPTS curtain, and until next time, stay safe and I'll see you Cryptside!
- Your friendly neighbourhood Doctor Loxley
No comments:
Post a Comment