7 Cheapest Bosses in Fighting Game history

[Kim Foster]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDEIxwtVJx4

Anyone want to try make character sheets for these dudes? The closer to
book legal you can get the more evil an optimizer you are.  :)

[AstonWildsteel]

Make a character sheet as normal and give them a Technique to make their muscles explode with sheer cheapness.

Alternatively cheese the system by giving every single move the "Cheap" Liability.

Perfectly book legal-brokeness that will never be approved by GMs unless it's a Final/Secret Boss :P

[Kim Foster]

More seriously, a small  source book with optional rules for making
'cheap' (but not totally broken) characters for those moments they're
needed (like end Bosses meant to face entire PC groups) could be
interesting. Or are the guidelines for PL 8+ enough in everyone's
experience?

[Alejo Gabriel Marello]

Kim, I thought on that same concept: a sourcebook for bosses, with optional rules and ready-to-play NPCs.

On Thu, Mar 1, 2018 at 6:14 PM, Kim Foster <kkmf...@gmail.com> wrote:

More seriously, a small  source book with optional rules for making 'cheap' (but not totally broken) characters for those moments they're needed (like end Bosses meant to face entire PC groups) could be interesting. Or are the guidelines for PL 8+ enough in everyone's experience?

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[David Yellope]

Ok, now you got my creative juices flowing:

Fight Round 2: DLC: BOSS FIGHT!

On the Fight! Mailing list, we had a discussion over "Cheap" boss fights. You know the ones, the ones that usually leave you grumbling and trying not to throw your controller into the wall as you restart the fight for the 30th time. It's completely unfair, you spend most of the rounds beating up helpless foes, and then all of a sudden, you get to the end, and that difficulty curve becomes a wall.  You know what I mean, fighters that are immune to techniques that you may have used throughout the game, or in some extreme cases, literally "read your mind" (ok, read your joystick inputs to counter a move before you can even get it off). But we still do it, why? Well, one is the near masochistic nature of gamers to keep throwing themselves at the wall until they find the right way to get over it. The other reason is because.. well.. then you have bragging rights.

I'll use a non-fighting game example for this. In that popular MMO (you know the one I'm talking about right? The one with the orcs and the humans and the.. yeah, you got it), early in the levelling process, there was a wandering boss who would randomly travel across a dark forest. His aggro range was incredibly long, and it seemed like every time you were caught up in a tough fight, well, here would come "that guy" to smack you and take you down in two hits while I screamed in rage. I became almost paranoid, whenever I got a new character in that area I would be constantly looking around for "that guy". It became tradition, any time my high-level heroes were in that area, even though I wouldn't get any benefit to doing it, I would hunt that wandering boss down, just for revenge and to prevent him from bushwacking others.

In most genres, they tell you to avoid making one dimensional bosses... that a villain is still "The Hero of his own story". In fighting games, that rule can go out the window. Usually Fighting Game Bosses are pretty one dimensional. They want SOMETHING, and they are willing to do anything necessary to get it.

Some want worldly power.

Some want fighting potential.

Some want immortality.

Some want fame, glory and all that goes with it.

But the thing that makes a Hero a Hero, and a Villain a Villain, is that for a hero the Ends don't justify the means. For a villain, the ENDS are the Means.

This is not to say that villains are all cackling world-threatening baddies (not that there's anything wrong with that). It's a matter of how far would you go to get what your desire.  Looking for the fabled Fountain of Youth didn't make Ponce de Leon a villain, according to myth, it was the steps he was supposedly willing to take to find it that crossed that line.

Let's take the prototypical example of a martial artist who wants to unlock the ultimate secrets of his style, to become an invincible fighter. Sounds like your average fighting game contender right?

Now let's say that he discovers that to unlock these secrets, he needs to "sell his soul", either in a figurative sense (tapping into powers that warp the body and soul), or in some cases quite literally. A Hero might be tempted, but knows some prices should not be paid. A villain? Any sacrifice is really no sacrifice to them, because there is no price they will not pay, to themselves, or others to get what they desire.

Not all Villains are lost. Some have made bad decisions in the past, and are paying for them now, seemingly foreclosing on options for the future. Others are driven by personal goals. In those cases, the line between villain and hero can blur. Someone who is after the man who killed his family is surely a hero, right? They're not a hero however if they're willing to cross moral lines, to sacrifice others without a second thought, or to betray that which they hold dear.

Boss Fight! has suggestions on creating new villains for your players to Fight! Some of them will sound adversarial. For example, a proper Villain may be designed from the ground up to specifically take away the character's usual fighting style, or have perks that heroes may not normally have. To a point, that's actually a good thing. You want your villains to bring your players out of their comfort zone, because a hero who doesn't need that little bit extra to defeat his enemy really isn't being heroic. The idea is to remember that you're working WITH your players, not against them. But sometimes it's just nice to make em sweat, isn't it? To look at your boss and say "How the heck am I supposed to beat THAT guy?" 

Indulge in that,because here's the thing about being a villain.

It's fun to be one. 

Practice your knowing smile and evil laughter. Because remember how I said Villains find the ends are the means? Well, the means are here in this book. The ends is to create an opponent that your players and characters will remember for years to come)  Practice things like saying "Those who oppose me will be destroyed.", and your evil laughter.

Because if you can translate the rules and concepts in this book to making the Bosses and Villains of your Fight game memorable, they won't be calling your Boss Fights cheap.

They'll be calling them Epic.

[David Yellope]

By the way, a fresh Fozzie No-Point to anyone who can guess who I am talking about  above;) (I'll give you a hint: you'll find this character in Duskwood)

[Alejo Gabriel Marello]

Really nice introduction for the book :)

[David Yellope]

Here's some of the classifications for Bosses that I came up with.  This has NOT been playtested, so doing any of these can unbalance your fights. Please use with caution, and needless to say, the GM has say on what Boss abilities are allowed in a game :)

Create bosses like you would normal fighters, but the creation differs depending on the modifiers you select for your Boss. 

Overpowered (1-3 levels): All characters are fairly balanced in their main stats, so that somewhere, someway, they have a "hole" in their game to go with any of their strengths. Overpowered Bosses don't play by these rules necessarily. For each level of Overpowered, raise one of their stats one level (to a maximum of 2, and no stat can be Overpowered more than once).

Power Charge (1-2): These fighters are constantly charging their super moves, which makes them a pain to fight. They earn one extra point of Super Energy per round.

Minions, To Me (1-2): Once or twice per fight, the Boss summons his minions (flunkies, supernatural minions, etcetera). Pause the timer at the point the current point, and the other fighter has to defeat a Thug Group to continue the Fight!, Once the thugs have been dispatched, the fight resumes as normal Cruel GM's will let the boss regain FS and/or Life Bar while this happens.

"Mind Reader" (1-2): This boss basically has the ability under certain circumstances to abort their attack to instantly respond to a move being done to them. Once (or twice) per fight, they may nullify all effects of a successful attack against them (that includes damage, knocked down etcetera). 

Here's some negative abilities for Bosses to counteract the Positive 

Taunt: This boss is so confident of his victory, that he will spend turns taunting his opponent "You Suck" "Your fighting skills are weak" etcetera. Each 2 rounds that they do NOT taunt the opponent (a full turn action), they take a -1 penalty to their rolls (cumulative): All penalties disappear once the Boss has successfully taunted the opponent.

Glass Cannon: Sure, this boss is ultra tough, but should you ever break through... A boss with this quality takes double life bar damage from any attacks while stunned.

Calling Their Shot: Whenever a boss is about to use their super move, they "call their shot" by announcing they will do so. This usually gives a split second for the other fighter to do SOMETHING. If a Boss with this quality gains initiative, and announces the use of the Super Move, the player may reroll his initiative and/or his control. They must accept the new result. They may add Fighting Spirit to this roll as normal. If the player's new initative is higher, they seize control of the round, and may do something before the attack goes off (for example, Move away, or perhaps launch their super move of their own first)

[Christopher Peter]

Yeah, no: Alejo's not allowed to write it. ;)

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[David Yellope]

Two other abilities I thought of:

Cheap (1 to 2) A boss like this has tons of moves that are more powerful then anything normal characters can do. When creating moves, the final control cost and level of the move is reduced by 1-2 (for example, a L5 Special Move on a Boss with Cheap-1, would only be an L4 move)

This is not even my final form!

Ok, now we're getting to the REALLY cheap here.. Create two versions of the character, one at the normal power level and one at PL+1 level. To defeat the boss, you must defeat both his forms. This transformation does take some time, give the player a couple chaces to regain LifeBar/Fighting Spirit/etcetera. It's recommended that you don't give the boss any further features, we're trying to make a fight epic, not have the players throw dice/pencils/books/food at us!

It's

[Christopher Peter]

Great! Who wants to write it? :)

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[Christopher Peter]

Really nice intro, Fozzie.  So, really: who wants to write it?

As for Kim's original idea (trying to make any of those 7 as Fight characters), some would be easier than others.

Making a decent Rugal would be pretty simple.

Jinpachi and Alpha-152 would be a pain to make, just because they are from 3D fighting games.

Bison's super Psycho Crusher is very easy to make.

Eyedol...I dunno.  I haven't tried to do any KI conversions.  Not sure if it would be tough or not.

Shao Khan wouldn't be too difficult.  I thought they overplayed his difficulty; I certainly didn't think he was #1 in cheap.

Gill is my #1 on this list.  His special Super is pretty much the definition of "broken."

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[Christopher Peter]

These are some interesting ideas, Fozzie.

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[Doresh]

The idea of building a boss like some kind of puzzle sounds interesting.

And though it's not anywhere close to cheap, I've been pondering about little combat hack to allow bosses to handle entire groups without being overpowered in a 1-on-1 duel (kinda like how monsters in sentai shows tend to work)

The basic idea is to simply give bosses an extra turn after each of their opponent's turns. Sorta like an automatic Response that doesn't actually affect the opponent's defense.

Naturally, any attacks done on these extra turns should be required to target the opponent who triggered this "Boss Response".

[Christopher Peter]

If anyone playtests this idea of Doresh's, let me know.  I'd certainly be interested in including something like this in 2nd edition.

FWIW, in my own experience, the action economy is slightly less of a problem in Fight! than it is in other RPGs, at least in 2-on-1.  4-on-1 would probably require extra actions.

However, Hit Stun is the killer.  You might consider making your Boss immune to Hit Stun entirely.

[David Yellope]

That definitely could be a boss ability if we were going with what we did before. 

On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 10:03 AM, 'Christopher Peter' via FIGHT! The Fighting Game RPG <figh...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

If anyone playtests this idea of Doresh's, let me know.  I'd certainly be interested in including something like this in 2nd edition.

FWIW, in my own experience, the action economy is slightly less of a problem in Fight! than it is in other RPGs, at least in 2-on-1.  4-on-1 would probably require extra actions.

However, Hit Stun is the killer.  You might consider making your Boss immune to Hit Stun entirely.

On Friday, March 16, 2018, 2:49:06 PM EDT, Doresh <evildoresh-4758@pages.plusgoogle.com> wrote:

The idea of building a boss like some kind of puzzle sounds interesting.

And though it's not anywhere close to cheap, I've been pondering about little combat hack to allow bosses to handle entire groups without being overpowered in a 1-on-1 duel (kinda like how monsters in sentai shows tend to work)

The basic idea is to simply give bosses an extra turn after each of their opponent's turns. Sorta like an automatic Response that doesn't actually affect the opponent's defense.

Naturally, any attacks done on these extra turns should be required to target the opponent who triggered this "Boss Response".

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[Christopher Peter]

Is this something actually being written? :)

On Thursday, March 22, 2018, 10:09:22 AM EDT, David Yellope <sirf...@gmail.com> wrote:

That definitely could be a boss ability if we were going with what we did before. 

On Thu, Mar 22, 2018 at 10:03 AM, 'Christopher Peter' via FIGHT! The Fighting Game RPG <figh...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

If anyone playtests this idea of Doresh's, let me know.  I'd certainly be interested in including something like this in 2nd edition.

FWIW, in my own experience, the action economy is slightly less of a problem in Fight! than it is in other RPGs, at least in 2-on-1.  4-on-1 would probably require extra actions.

However, Hit Stun is the killer.  You might consider making your Boss immune to Hit Stun entirely.

On Friday, March 16, 2018, 2:49:06 PM EDT, Doresh <evildoresh-4758@pages. plusgoogle.com> wrote:

The idea of building a boss like some kind of puzzle sounds interesting.

And though it's not anywhere close to cheap, I've been pondering about little combat hack to allow bosses to handle entire groups without being overpowered in a 1-on-1 duel (kinda like how monsters in sentai shows tend to work)

The basic idea is to simply give bosses an extra turn after each of their opponent's turns. Sorta like an automatic Response that doesn't actually affect the opponent's defense.

Naturally, any attacks done on these extra turns should be required to target the opponent who triggered this "Boss Response".

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[David Yellope]

I'm working on it! :P

Although I'm not as great in creating the cheapo bosses :)

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[Doresh]

My main ideas for avoiding hit stun combos of doom is to make it so that Hit Stun only affects the Boss' next potential action, or to take a more Beat 'em Up approach and give him temporal Hit Stun immunity after each Hit Stun, with the immunity probably being a certain number of hits relative to the number of opponents.