BCZ Retrospective XXIV: New Boss Upgrades

BCG's Boss Upgrades were a good way to make fights more dynamic than the usual TRPG fashion where people blow their best powers at the beginning then clean up from there. At least on paper, mostly. The execution of Boss Upgrades had some issues. In particular, many of them could only trigger their effects after getting a Turn when they had already lost at least one Level of Threshold. Depending on the Initiative order and the rest of their kit, they may or may not explode violently without ever getting to use the defensive abilities that are supposed to keep them alive.

To help alleviate this issue, BCZ has Boss Upgrades with more instantaneous effects and offensive buffs, guaranteeing that Bosses will at least take out one of the PCs even if they can't withstand the focus fire of 2+ units targeting them. The last time I did this, I kept count of the number of defensive abilities that could come online too late to matter (The total was 5). I'll do the same this time. Let's jump in!

Aura of Dark Majesty
This amounts to autocasting 6 Genre Powers. Of these 6, 5 can do Damage to PCs, and Your Fate is Sealed stops healing to potentially doom the targeted PC to an imminent explosive fate. The Upgrade needs a decent amount of Systems (because it uses Die for Me!) and the effects only happen once, so it's not very good against Squads with long-term survivability. Fortunately, the allure of glass cannons is so strong in the system that this won't be the case for most GMs, making it a fairly effective Upgrade. Fun Fact: Your Fate is Sealed was Crush the Insect once upon a time. Looking back, I still think that it is a lot more fitting... Just a lot less fair to play against too.

Caustic Touch
PCs get tons of Upgrades that encourage them to build around the use of specific Weapons. Bosses didn't really have that... Not until the expansion, at least. I tried to pick effects that would be universally useful and were more interesting than a simple bonus to Might/extra Damage. If the effects were also things that Boss Weapons in BCG couldn't already do, that was a bonus. This Upgrade was co-designed at the same time as the Boss Weapons in BCZ to help make them compatible with each other. The effects are very powerful and getting hit by something like Tentacle Lash or Magic Bullet when this is at Level 4 will wreck multiple PCs. All in all, it's pretty great!

Overheating Field
The least harmful part of Electromagnetic Detonator, but weaponized in an area so large that it is potentially devastating. The passive Damage is in the PC's control, and they could simply choose to not spend any Energy, but if they do then it is going to add up fast. I think this went straight from its first version to print without any changes. It's... Largely okay, really. Not a lot more to say about it.

Portable Battlefield
It is a somewhat common trope that the heroes sometimes fight a monster that draws them into a zone that is under their control. At first its area of effect also counted as Extreme Terrain... But that was way too good, so it got nerfed to Difficult + Defensive Terrain only instead. The end result is that it is kind of weak. Flavorful - but weak. Now don't get me wrong, a +4 to Defense to the Boss and all of its Grunt buddies at Level 4 can be brutally effective... Except for the part where all the NPCs must bunch up and make themselves super vulnerable to Blasts and Bursts. Delayed Defensive Upgrade Count: 1. On top of all its problems, its likely that the Grunts will die long before the Boss hits Level 3-4. Sheesh, I should've put more thought into this one.

Power of Despair
The Beam-based counterpart to Caustic Touch. The idea with this one is that it lets the Boss mix and match Beam Weapons of different Boost values however they see fit, plus it also provides a viable sink for Behold my True Power. The first Turn or two (or however long until you hit Threshold Level 2) may be a little awkward as you're probably going to have trouble utilizing your Weapons and Powers effectively, but after that the Boss is a total murderbeast. Delayed Defensive Upgrade Count: 2. The Defense bonus counts as an Active Defense, so there's plenty of counterplay options against this, but because it's half an offensive buff and half a defensive buff it does not suffer from coming online in the middle of battle like Adaptive Morphology or Afterimages do.

Rules of Nature
The last of the six Boss Upgrades in BCZ is specifically designed for single-target specialists that overpower the PCs taking them out one at a time. The debuff + buff combo is strong, and the autodamage + healing even gives the Boss an element of inevitability that makes it trivial to overpower PCs in a 1v1 situation. Delayed Defensive Upgrade Count: 3. Much like Power of Despair, this isn't entirely a defensive Upgrade, so there's a lower risk of a single round of focus fire removing most of the value this Upgrade could grant.

So while BCG has 5 Upgrades that are supposedly there to help Bosses survive attacks from the PCs, BCZ has 3. None of these three of them are purely defensive. Also, except for Portable Battlefield, all of BCZ's Boss Upgrades have very direct and impactful effects. I'd say that 5 of 6 is a good score and that BCZ makes it a lot easier for Bosses to keep up with 2 PCs.

Next: New Boss Weapons.

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