BCZ Retrospective XXVI: New Boss Capstones

BCG games where the whole PC Squad takes on a solo Superboss ended up being way more common than I expected, and Capstones are the only mechanic that lets Bosses keep up with 3+ PCs of a PL higher than 1 right out of the gate. They still need a little bit of help from things like additional Grunts, going for PLs 6 and above, or Component Rivals to combine with, but of these three options the only one that doesn't involve the creation of additional NPCs is going for a higher PL and granting them more Capstones.

With only 6 Capstones in the core rules, that's going to get repetitive fast. Fight a Boss with Energy Drain or Possession once and it's a challenging, different encounter from the norm. Fight a Boss with Energy Drain and Possession every Operation... And it's going to cross the line into being an annoying experience.

In BCZ I tried to add just enough Capstones to improve variety while including more GM advice and premade Grunt/Rival builds meant for accompanying Bosses without stealing the spotlight from them.

While the system is clearly not meant for a constant stream of 4v1 boss fights (or 3v1, 5v1, etc), I think that all the additions should be enough to run 10-15 operations that manage to stay fresh the whole way. What if you want more than 20? Probably not going to happen. The system is clearly not meant for Boss rushes and it can only be stretched so much.

Anyway, on to the capstones themselves!

All Becomes Dust
This ability is meant to represent some kind of entropic energy-draining aura, so in hindsight it should've also created Anti-Air versions of the Withering and Extreme Terrain to go with the default Anti-Ground ones. That would've made it way more powerful, yes, but it costs a ton of Energy to hit multiple PCs and touching a sniper with it is just plain unrealistic. Maybe I could tweak the Energy cost to rebalance the stronger version around it. Anyway, other than that slight flavor fail, I think it's a pretty solid Capstone that forces PCs to stay away or get wrecked, which is how I think close quarters Capstones should work.

My Final Masterpiece
The best and most known example I can think of for this ability is the third Lavos fight from Crono Trigger, but I'm sure you've seen this idea executed in other games as well. One interesting difference from the way this kind of Boss usually goes in BCG from videogames is that, while you'd think that the ability encourages aggressive Bosses protected by a tanky Grunt, it actually works better if you create a glass cannon Grunt and use the Boss to buff and heal them constantly. Without even trying to get creative, it is trivial to make a unit with Might 10 that spams a Hyper Launcher with You are in my Sights and gets resurrected every time you bring it down. If you focus the Boss, the Grunt gets more buffs and if you focus the Grunt it gets revived anyway! I think it makes more sense in-world for the big bad to beef up their pet and let it do the carrying, even if that isn't how the trope usually goes.

The Ultimate Shield
Grunts and Rivals are expected to have Active Defenses, but Bosses don't have those. This can end up making builds that rely on abilities that ignore Active Defenses (instead of attack bonuses) weaker than usual, so I opted to make Boss Upgrades like Adaptive Morphology and Afterimages count as Active Defenses. As I've already said, one of the problems with the Active Defenses that Bosses get is that they're only active after they've already taken a beating... And they're only at their best when they're near death. The Ultimate Shield solves this problem by being a Capstone and thus being active for the entire fight, making barrier-piercing attacks that much more valuable. I may have gone overboard, honestly, because +10 Defense is kind of a lot to punch through the old fashioned way. It's one of the most effective and easy to use Capstones in the game, forcing PCs to either ignore barriers or cause direct Damage if they want to win.

Tyrant of Lost Souls
Lastly, we have I Accept your Offering but as a passive ability. Usually the best way to deal with a Boss and its minions is to ignore the tanky Boss until you've dealt with the massed firepower of its allies. This punishes PCs that ignore the Boss with a bunch of free Damage. It is also one of the few abilities in the game that references Power Ratings directly, as it is the one variable that gives me (and GMs) the most control over how hard PCs get punished for ignoring the Boss. You set the number down and it never changes, no matter what happens in the middle of the Operation.

How effective is it, though? Well, assuming a Squad of 4 PCs of PL5, with two of them being equivalent to a Boss, that leaves a Power Rating of 24 to be distributed around other Grunts, Rivals and Bosses. Does 24 free Damage hurt a PL5 PC? Yes, but it's probably not punishing enough to force all of them to change their strategy, and a single PC with Threshold 7 can facetank it. Should the effect be 2x Power Rating? Power Rating + Tension? Well, either of these risks making the Boss undefeatable unless the PCs focus fire them immediately... But that's kind of the point, isn't it? And yet, arguably the ability is better off being too weak than too strong. See, a version that is too strong would force PCs to play exactly one way to beat the Boss, while the current and weaker version gives them a choice, and helps preserve a sense of agency. It's a complicated issue, basically, so I'm not going to call it a success but I don't think it is a total failure either.

And That's All For Now

And that's it, not just for Bosses but also all of Chapter 1! Woo! I hope that was enlightening. It certainly helped me take notice of a few issues that I hadn't noticed before. They say that you don't really understand something until you can explain it, and that is something I agree with.

I'm going to take a break from the weekly posts for a while. I may do Chapter 2 later, but I want to talk about some other things first. I'll be back with something substantial in the near future, hopefully before the end of the month.

Gimmick Out