Climactic Final Battle vs. System Mechanics
BoomerMy 4E D&D gaming group, which includes Roo and the Commodore, is finally coming to the end of the Heroic Tier this Labor Day Weekend. If this campaign were a trilogy, and it is, this would be the dramatic ending of the first book, which leaves the reader, or player satisfied with the ending, but hungering for a little more. I've got to conclude the first first "book", but also set up the next "book".
For most stories, this is the moment that screams "climax". I won't bore you with the details of the campaign, but a brief outline may be worthwhile. For the entire campaign to this point, the party has been wrongly accused of crimes against the church and hunted by the church or it's agents. They've been a kind of A-Team, staying on the move, and slowly uncovering a world-altering conspiracy, and confronting various agents of the church and other groups. Now, they've secured evidence that can vindicate them. At the same time, many threads of a tangled web of story are converging and it's time to confront the spider that spins the web.
Ever seen Ladyhawke? the DaVinci Code? or Angels and Demons? That's sort of what I'm aiming for. But there's a problem:
System Mechanics.
When a writer or director tells a story, they control the pace in a very direct way, by literally controlling the pace of information delivery. A writer may transition from multi-page descriptive passages to single-line action-oriented sentences. You catch my drift?
In gaming, it's similar. The now classic scenario is the big boss fight followed by the cinematic. I've always felt that the purpose of the cinematic is to augment the story behind the game by providing a better venue for the story. Usually, the boss fight is a a tough, complex, on-your-toes confrontation that demands total focus and rewards you with both victory and the cinematic conclusion. In World of Warcraft, boss fights, if you do them at the appropriate level, come at the end of the instance and every member of the team has to be ready, focused, and capable, executing their role simultaneously with their team members. It's a real thrill to experience great team work, and I think it's one of the principal draws of the game.
But how do you do that in D&D? Especially in 4th Edition?
I'm going for the boss-fight moment. I'm going for the awesome feeling of teamwork. I'm looking for intensity that keeps every player glued to the table in rapt attention. Even assuming that the players are really interested in the story and looking forward to the conclusion, which is possible, the game works against me.
I have to work within a turn-based system. And it's not particularly quick at combat resolution. Most groups regularly spend 1-2 hours on a single combat. While a single player may spend only a 2 minutes on their turn, that means every other player is waiting at least 10 minutes for their 2 minutes of glory.
The system is designed to give the players lots of "toys" in the form of encounter and daily powers, and players want to use them. And that means the players need to have about 5-6 rounds of play to get a chance to do so.
And I, the DM, get only 1 turn per round.
And none of the play is adjudicated by computer...which would speed things up.
Some of these problems were addressed in my post "The Trouble with Solo Monsters", but I'm planning a more complex (multi-opponent confrontation) encounter, so most of those ideas are useless here.
Here are some of my possible methods:
1) Speed up the combat resolution process - this is an entire column by itself. It requires all the players to be paying attention, ready to execute their turns. This can end up feeling pretty robotic though.
2) Giorraionn beirt bothar ("Two shorten the road") - If you know the irish tale of "How the Son of The Gobhaun Saor Shortened the Road", you've got the point here. Getting more storytelling and description into the combat might make the whole thing more lively and interesting and FEEL shorter, but it probably will also ACTUALLY make it take LONGER
3) Create triggered events - borrowed from solos, damaging or otherwise affecting players who are not in the hotseat may keep them focused
4) Delegate - giving other players combat management tasks may keep them focused, but may also distract them for the mood and the story
5) Shorten the combat - this would work directly against the system design, but if I make shorter-lived, harder hitting bad guys there will be fewer rounds of combat, and thus a shorter combat. The major beef with this option is that it ALSO cuts down on the player's opportunity to DO STUFF and make an awesome combat story.
6) Take him down without a fight - The players may elect to avoid combat altogether, if they can find a way to beat the villain without a combat confrontation. This is an option that provides plenty of storytelling, but it sort of flies in the face of the spirit of the game, right?
7) Use an alternate combat resolution system- use a method other than 4E mechanics to adjudicate combat...like D.R.E.A.D. which uses Jenga....or something else
So, that's where I'm stuck. I'm wracking my brain to come up up with an AWESOME conclusion to the story. I have had the story laid out since the start of the campaign, but wrestling the mechanics, especially for combat, has been a bear.
So...clan mates...can you help me? I need your ideas and your feedback and your thoughts on the above.
Well, I have a feeling that a few of the forum guys might be able to help.
It may sound awkward, but I suppose combining 1) and 3) may at least be able to help. Set a time limit, and, if you haven't reached a full round of combat, a random triggered event happens, be it an automated attack, isolating one member of the players party, or something along those lines. It would force people to pay attention, plan how to use their attacks strategically, and create a sense of tension and awe for your boss.
2) would probably only work if you divide the boss fight into stages, and treat each as a seperate combat. I say that so you can stretch it out over seperate sessions, since that may be the only way to fit it in.
I wouldn't suggest 4) or 5) - if this is meant to be an epic ending for a story, then distracting players, or just trying to make it over and done with would seriously detract from that feeling.
6) could be an interesting way around the problem, but be careful. If you choose this road, and one player goes off script, your whole plan could be ruined. It would require a lot of fore-thought.
And whilst 7) is probably going to be the fairest and most adaptable of your ideas, unless you already know of a system that will suit your needs perfectly, thnik about how much planning you're going to have to put into creating a balanced system, implementing it, and explaining it to all the players.
Bear in mind these are just my opinions, but I hope they help.
Young-Blood, you are totally on my wavelength on this one.
You've given me an idea - tying real world time to game events--and just now I remember having used that on the party early in the campaign for a crushing trap (SW trash compactor style) to great effect. I'll have to ponder that some more.
As to 6), you're right, I'd have to be prepared for a combat anyways, in case the whole thing gets derailed. My players are used to a sandbox, so the likelihood is high.
Prerolling, averages, and rewarding juicy description.
I'd recommend 3 changes. First, allocate a minute per turn or so. However, strongly recommend to your players to pre-roll attacks. Allow players to do average damage if they want to (and calculate that initially.) The trick is, if they describe their attacks in character during their minute, they get a bonus (maybe CA on the next attack or equivalent). Just give the monster defenses to the players so that they can determine hit or miss. Then, all the vocalization is in character, and the mechanics happen behind the scenes. Leaders and controllers take the most time, usually, because of coordination.
Is a thought, at least.
I would try taking ques from other games for something like this. You can make combat faster in a sense, prmote teamwork, and have story and game mechanics in it as well.
You could try creating areas in the room that might give your casters increased damage or improve their hit bonus. While this does lower the boss's HP more, it also leaves your wizard open for whatever attack the boss has. Tiy could do this for melee strikers too and it would focus the defender to keep the mob moving from node to node. It might be a good idea if you want to use this to have your boss have some sort of push back to get casters or whoever off their bonus nodes.
Drop a piano on him. Ok, not literaly a piano. Try describing a situation in which one character, probably the defender, workd the mob into a special area. While another character, probably a striker, hits a switch or cuts a rope or something, and something drops on the boss, This can deal damage or trap them for a turn.
The inverse of the my first suggestion, maybe you could make a spot on the map that makes the boss weak, and he might lose his damage reduction or become weak against a type of attack. Again, the boss should have a push back so he can get a way from the node weaking him. You could set up a few of these nodes on the map, and have the party move him around as the nodes become "active." The boss can be pushed to one node and be weakened to fire on it, once he pushes the party back it turns the node off. Then when you move him to the next node he is weak against ice. Repeat until dead, or maybe till a "triger event."
If i think of more I'll post again.
One option, and for me this work fine, is create a challenge for the players in the way of reach their goal. My english is not that good, but I'll try.
In my climax moment, the players are in a situation that is near complicated as is the situation you quote. They need to get a man full of resources and political power, who think the Pcs are dead. They look in a way to find a gap in the habbitus of the target, and for a couple of days, they had many trouble and emotion to mantain their "dead" status active and set a ambush.
I was really surprised by how this works fine for the players and it was really fun. But thew point I wanna reach, is the fact that the target guy was not so weak as they thought, and in the way of kill him in one shot, they failed and this result in an climax of various split battles for the players to be able to not let the target escape. The simple fact of the need of rush, made the players act in quick thinking and made they put a lot of effort in they battle. That made the climax so hot and the players really excited, without a final battle itself, but with a small individual battles against important soldiers of the target, that they well know and also hate by circunstances of the story.
Of course, it was the end of a "book of the trilogy", but in the "end of trilogy" I wasn't able to escape form the traditional battle, and it wasn't so good as the other ending.
It's a silly way, of course, there others ways much better than mine, like the ones from the members here. But I want to share it, maybe someone thinks this way fit to his/her table.
[Sorry. The english wasn't good. I know. :(]