This week we once again take a closer look at an area of the rules which has improved during the playtest process. Some of the most important aspects of any story are its climaxes, the big one toward the end and the smaller ones along the way. For a tabletop roleplaying game, like Realm of Runes, these climaxes can take many forms. One of the most common, though, is through particularly intense combat against foes that have been teased and built up over the course of a story arc.
It is often incredibly disappointing for everyone involved when such combats do not live up to the hype. Worse, the risk of a potent encounter turning into a flop becomes higher as the party grows in level. More powerful characters have more tricks at their disposal, and clever players might find personal and party-wide combos that allow a party to punch well above its weight class. It can be difficult to properly challenge very high level parties, even with potent bosses.
A reliable way of increasing the challenge of an encounter is to have the party be outnumbered. Many boss encounters, especially at later levels, are likely to flood the field with additional opposition. Even if only a small subset of these additional combatants are truly dangerous, an action economy disadvantage will always make things feel that much more dire for a party of characters. This tends to be a more balanced way of increasing a challenge than simply inflating the level of the biggest bad. Level inflation has many unintended consequences that may tip the scales of fate too strongly.
But not all foes make sense to be accompanied by a host of minions. Some are naturally inclined to be loners, found exclusively in remote corners of the world. Others are too feral to get along with any other potential allies, unable to distinguish friend from foe. Some monsters are Cryptids, unique and mythical entities that are so rare as to strain credulity if they were to appear with a retinue. It is for these sorts of encounters that Epic Monster rules come into play.
Epic Monsters are gifted with a few special Epic Abilities designed to help solo bosses avoid becoming quickly overwhelmed by prepared parties. These abilities are typically defensive in nature, as the goal is to ensure that the Epic Monster is able to survive long enough to act several times in a combat. Most of these abilities also are designed to scale up with the party size. In this way, Epic Monsters are able to stand toe-to-toe with even over-sized parties, hold their own, and make the experience memorable.
These Epic Abilities are presented in the Monster Creation chapter of the core rules. A GM can sprinkle those they feel are most appropriate into an encounter that needs to be especially intense. This can be done at a GM's discretion, although care should be taken not to over-do it, as many Epic Abilities become even stronger when paired with others. In the Menagerie line of rules supplements, many boss-type monsters are already designed with Epic Abilities chosen and active. Most Epic Monsters in the Menagerie only have one or two Epic Abilities, though some especially dangerous creatures, like dragons and titans, have more than others. True dragons are always Epic Monsters, even when freshly hatched, and accrue more Epic Abilities each time they advance in age category. Let's take follow a true dragon's growth, and the Epic Abilities it gains as it grows in power.
Wyrmling dragons are just babies, but they are still Epic. These smallest dragons are still the size of a fully-grown human, and are dangerous foes already. The first Epic Ability a baby dragon begins with is Epic Hit Points. After the GM calculates the dragon's Hit Points based on its level, that total is then multiplied by the number of party members in the encounter. Minions like animal companions and familiars are not counted for this purpose, but the end result is an inflated Hit Point total that will likely cause a fight with even heavily offensive parties to last for a few extra turns.
Juvenile dragons are the next stage in development, and they retain their younger stage's Epic Hit Points. At this age category, the dragon unlocks its next Epic Ability, Epic Resilience. This ability bolsters an Epic Monster's saving throws, allowing it to use its reactions to treat a failed save as a success instead. The number of reactions this costs a monster varies with the difficulty category of its saving throw. As a Juvenile dragon, its best saves are based on a Hard DC, which costs both of its reactions. As the dragon gets older, though, it will gain access to even more reactions, and eventually even saves that are based on an Incredible DC, and only take one of its reactions to bolster this way.
When a Dragon reaches Adolescent, the middle stage of its development, it gains the Epic Damage Reduction ability. This ability causes a monster to gain resistance to all damage that it is not already immune to, except for un-typed damage, which can never be resisted. This blanket resistance even applies to damage types that the dragon is weak to, although since the value of a weakness and resistance are equal by default, this still makes using a monster's weakness more effective than otherwise. This Epic Ability can combo well with its Epic Resilience from earlier, as it can use its reactions to pass otherwise failed saves, reducing the base damage before the resistance takes care of most of the rest of it.
The Adult category of dragon is one of the most fearsome monsters in the Menagerie, and this is reflected and amplified by its newfound Epic Initiative ability. With Epic Initiative, a monster rolls initiative as normal, but the result is only used to determine the first time it acts in combat. Following its first turn, its next turn is always after two party members have acted. Parties can still manipulate this somewhat, especially since those what delay their turn to a new initiative count do not count for triggering the monster's next turn. Adult dragons can use this ability to simply act more times in the same space of time to use their other potent abilities more frequent, as its pool of reactions refreshes more frequently, it can attack and use its breath weapon more frequently, and many harmful conditions that reduce themselves over time will reduce at the end of every one of these extra turns. Perhaps most importantly, however, this ability can never cause the monster to take consecutive turns in combat, ensuring that the party has its chances to act and react before it acts again.
The oldest age category a true dragon can reach is Ancient, and these dragons add one last Epic Ability to its suite: Epic Invulnerability. This ability prevents its immunities and resistances from being circumvented by (almost) any means. This ensures that the Ancient dragon is always reducing all damage it takes that it isn't weak to, and makes dealing with an ancient dragon difficult for even the most prepared parties. A combat with an Ancient dragon will almost certainly last for several rounds of combat, and will definitely be a memorable experience.
Epic Monsters are an effective tool in a GM's kit for making solo encounters still work for high-level and well-prepared parties. While they should be generally used somewhat sparingly, so as not to devalue the effects, encountering an Epic Monster is an epic experience worthy of a story's climactic moments. Next week we'll introduce the very last Class Exemplar, the Wizard!
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