How To: Multi-Phase Boss Fights - Auril the Frostmaiden
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 3 окт 2024
- In this week's episode Ellie, Jarred, and Will take a look at doing a multi-phase boss fight using Auril from Icewind Dale as a template! An interesting approach to the multiple form fight with an amazing arc from beginning to end.
bardly: Your Own Personal Minstrel (use code MnM50 for 50% off 3 months!) - bardly.io
Support the show: monstersandmul...
Intro music by @Thisisbardcore. / thisisbardcore
Find us and the Podcast version: linktr.ee/Mons...
![OsamaSon - ik what you did last summer [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4DIQDnu3mr4/mqdefault.jpg)
The reason she has blind sight is that enemies behind wall spells or fog effects or blindness spells aren't actually countered by true sight
Her blizzard thing would make her blind if she didn't have blind sight
Ahh okay that makes perfect sense!
I didn't realize that a heavily obscured area blocks truesight
I once did a four-phase boss fight with an Iron Golem as the base, and each subsequent fight represented more and more armor being torn off.
- Iron Golem
- Fire Elemental Myrmidon (cracks in armor reveal fiery insides)
- Young remorhaz (arms and legs cut off, only vicious spine and head remaining)
- Fire snake + flameskull (decapitated but each independent part still fighting on.)
It represented descending levels of difficulty, but as PCs' resources and HP got low, it continued to be a tense fight.
With regards to the ice-storm that she has in her first form damaging her, I have her the cold absorption feature that her snow golems have, so she can theoretically heal from the damage overall, but only a small amount (offset by the bludgeoning)
She definitely works for the Nagpa
I’m unfamiliar with the adventure but what I can glean from the stat block is she is meant to get the first turn. Maybe she negotiates with the party given her very high face skills, but she does NOT get jumped. She has incredible wisdom which is arguably harder to play than high intelligence. She is not going to make mistakes. Immortality is nice, inconvenience is not. Detect thoughts and her inability to be surprised says to me that she will go first.
Her first form is built to stall. She plays spacing to learn her opponents abilities, her profile is tailored to it. Ice Storm forces the party to struggle to approach her especially in melee. Teleport and flight are powerful tools to get away but it would make sense for her to not utilize them until the frontline actually gets past the difficult terrain. Her lack of defense won’t matter if they never reach her. You can’t sleep on that save DC, its ridiculous.
Second phase the mephits are meant to die in close combat, and Auril stands to benefit staying close to enemy casters to avoid aoe fire damage. Ice Flurry could be worth it if she is surrounded.
Much of that still applies in third phase. She still stands to benefit surrounded by as many enemies as possible. And She is less likely to take thunder damage from a shatter or thunderwave.
Overall realistically the party should have cold resistance via spells or at least some form of fire damage. If they’ve chosen to be ignorant to any of the obvious signs about the cold theme that’s largely on them.
I really like ice mephits for the fact they blow up, ice you have a bunch of them at low hp or if you are using like minion mechanic then you can really get a nice chain of tiny explosions going.
The chain can be so brutal. But yeah it's really fun when the difficulty comes from killing them at a good distance
Played this today, my ranger had the laser rifle from the Id Ascendancy Illithid ship, Gloomstalker attacked 3 times, hit twice and dealt 74 damage (3d8 Radiant *2 for vulnerable *2 for attacks, if he'd crit 3 times he could have done 9d8*2*2 for 36d8 + 30 if sharpshooter).
While I like Auril's first form's art the most, I would say that Auril actually works in the second form as a solo boss.
Hard to argue. Form one feels like it's just a delay tactic
i just have to leave this here.
*spoilers ahead for the main story of rime of the frost maiden*
my party and i, composed of a druid, a barbarian, a fighter, and a artificer. just about everyone else had some form of awoken companion due to druids backstory. we just got to the part of the metal dragon, about to rampage though 10 towns. party lured it and pinned it, ending its life like the blizzard blocked out the sun. we all rested next to the now dead dragon while our artificer was examining its body. our druid happened to notice the time, and saw the frostmaiden on her nightly round. on a whim, he slung a stone at her mount out of the air with a near perfect roll. our dm, ever enthused about our antics, allowed us to begin fighting her (well before we should of) and that was her mistake.
just about every pc and companion, but me, had picked up the feat sentinel. every time she moved, it proc-ed. she was surrounded on all side, pinned in place by very angry wolves, humans, and a warforged. what did i do....i chucked building debris at her because i couldn't get close enough to hit. by the time we noticed, we hant not just pased her, but nearly single phased her whole transformation. she made one attack that entire combat, and never lived long enough to see any damage happen.
my barbarian now wears a peice of her crystal form, in a small jar, on a necklace. multiclassed as a paladin with faith TO the frostmaiden, using her as a holy focus.
our dm isnt very rules as written heavy, and played along to our whims due to them being quite the adventure.
My idea for "legendary initiative" was to use Legendary Actions rather than LRs. Say they can add +3 to their Initiative for each LA spent.
Also when you were talking about defensive options for her I was kinda surprised she didn't have something akin to Tomb of Levistus for Warlocks. Get like a big pool of Temp HP, maybe a special action that lets her recover some normal HP while inside it, and then the ice breaks and the fight resumes. She probably doesn't need that though since extending each phase on its own probably isn't super important
Ooo I really like that. With it just being the LA it obviously resets. And it 'punishes' the boss for rolling poorly so it doesn't totally take away the randomness
What a tough one.
I wonder if 10lv party can take this one.
Honestly I think they could.
Phase 1 should last like, 1 round. From there, it's a bit tough but with magic items and such they would be alright.
It'd be a great fight though!
My party of three lvl 9 characters had no problem! We had fairly experienced players with well-built characters, though.
34:50 lesser restoration
This final fight was such a fun one with a party I was in. It was such a climatic finish to a long dungeon crawl and after everything it gave way to many badass moments. Like my cleric casting holy weapon on the fighter's weapon and her one rounding her first form and the warlock shredding her summoned minons with one spell.
The final blow on her last form was something I'll never forget, the wizard enlarging himself and grappling her (high intellegence low wisdom and a serious death wish) and beginning to drag her to the Ythryn Mythallar. He pushed her to the edge, to which she finally manadged to knock him down. To which the sorcerer came in with Bigby's hand and just gave her that final extra push. She was the first BBEG I ever fought and the first campaign I finished and I don't think I'll ever forget that rush and shock when she just kept on coming back for more.
That sounds amazing. The rush of a big fight like that is something incomparable to anything else.
wow this was good, but i couldnt actually watch it
Why couldn't you watch it?
Edit: Ha never mind, just realized you were probably referencing the spoiler warning at the beginning.
re: the multi-phase fight: could the DM be dropping lore about Auril being spotted in various forms beforehand? Just aside mentions - clever players may put it together, they may not, but they were technically warned
That's a really good way to handle that for sure.
It could be it's own specific quest just finding out about each of the forms so they know how to prepare and DON'T use the wrong type of damage.
Not even 15 seconds in and I can tell I am going to like you all
Hope that continued past the 15 seconds! Thanks for checking us out
Great video! Y’all should do Strahd.
That's a great idea
Everybody wants to do Strahd.
@@SamFinklestein ayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy