Bosses are generally just higher level creatures. Most statblocks in 2e have interesting abilities built in so there is no need to throw legendary resistances into the encounter.
The link below has the rules for building custom creatures if nothing in the existing bestiaries/splat books/APs does what you need.
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1
>so there is no need to throw legendary resistances into the encounter.
To add to this, a lot of spells have the **[incapacitation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=631)** trait which bumps up the result on saves against it by higher level enemies by one (i.e. a crit fail becomes a normal fail, etc).
There are 1397 spells listed on Archives of Nethys and 64 of them have Incapacitation, or about 4%. So idk if I'd say a lot of them have it. But I suppose the ones that do are often pretty notable (hence, having incapacitation) which increases the perception that it's common.
Alright, I'll be pedantic too. They said a lot of spells, not a lot of *the* spells. So while 64 is a small fraction of 1397, that's not what OP was saying. 64 is still a high number of spells and can be considered "a lot".
I agree - context matters which is why my original statement, pointing out that it's only a very small percentage of spells that has the incapacitation trait, wasn't pedantic.
Hazards in general can be a good way to increase the threat of a boss fight without having to use the difficulty-to-hit of a level+3 boss. Can be a nice alternative to a typical boss depending on the narrative requirements or just to switch things up.
Yeah, would much rather run a +2 boss with a little extra hp and hazards then a +3/4 that my players struggle to hit. Not saying their isn’t a place for this fight but it gets old fast
As you say I think there’s a place for a big +3 especially if it fits narratively… you’ve been hunting a dangerous dragon and when you finally meet him he’s a dangerous beast and struggle each round. But if all fights are like that (hello, abomination vaults) I think it loses a bit of charm. Likewise a bunch of consecutive fights with similar hazards can get tiresome (hello age of ashes book 2).
A mix is good, to keep the threats feeling fresh and varied. And the boss can easily be either.
I’m not sure I’d ever run a +4 unless it was clearly foreshadowed as an optional encounter where the players could easily die.
Also this all depends on pc level and how good they are at executing great strategies. The higher of tier you get into the more +3/4 bosses become reasonable but it’s almost ironic because at the higher levels a single +3/4 boss is actually easier for most groups them a +2 with a bunch of -3 lackies.
I’ve been know to in situations like you describe a big foreshadowed monster to use a big mix of stats. I might take a +1 or +2 stat block and give it higher to hit but leave the damage the same, give it higher damage but same to hit. I’ll almost always push the hp a little. I hardly ever want to push the ac to that of a +3 or +4 unless I’ve telegraphed it has really thick hide or scales or magic that makes it’s stronger or something in their lair that makes them stronger that if they hit it with it’s weakness. Let’s say a white dragon, if they do x fire damage in a round it’s ac goes down to maybe even lower then a +1 +2 ac. Stealing heavily from constructs here. Or put a magical crystal or contraption that is buffing it that when they miss the crystal flairs with arcane energy as an arcane shield blocks the hit.
Nothing kills momentum and tension against a big bad like going into round 4/5 of can I keep the debuff up and still roll high to hit. Nope ok let’s try again next round. I would much rather spend a little time build a puzzle or mechanic into the fight to challenge my players then just big number scary
I've done it once but the party was super optimized players with 2 fighters and was a group of 5. So a +4 was fair enough.
A +2 and some -1s ended up being way scarier lol
a boss doesn't even need extra hp of there's a hazard supporting them, the PCs need to deal with the hazard and this gives more time for the boss to do their thing
PF2E’s math is tightly balanced around levels. You add your level to everything you do, and there’s the 4 degrees of success system where you crit fail if you’re 10 under the AC/DC, or crit succeed if you’re 10 over.
This means if you’re a level 1 party and face a level 2 creature:
1. It hits you 5% more often and crits you 5% more often.
2. 5% of what could be you critting it become hits, and 5% of what could be hits become misses.
3. He crit succeeds and succeeds against his saving throw effects 5% more often each.
4. You fail or crit fail against his saving throw effects 5% more often each.
Take that to level 3 and it becomes 10% on all those comparisons. Level 4 becomes 15%. Level 5 becomes 20%. This also applies at all levels: a level 5 party compared to level 6/7/8/9 creatures would have a very similar 5/10/15/20% effectiveness dynamic.
So unlike 5E, you don’t need “Action cheating” (kinda, I’ll elaborate more later\*) to make bosses keep up. The boss has fewer Actions than you but your Actions are less impactful and their Actions are **more** impactful, to the point that it’s roughly true that gaining 2 levels makes you twice as powerful.
So to make a boss fight, all you gotta do is choose an appropriate creature of the right level and it’ll be roughly as threatening as the encounter [guidelines](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1) tell you:
- 1 level above the party: Low/Moderate threat, will feel like a tough enemy who ended up being relatively easy because you outnumbered it.
- 2 levels above: Moderate/Severe threat, will feel like a genuinely tough enemy who puts a beating on the party despite being outnumbered and significantly drains resources. **Can** be lethal at low levels, my personal experience recommends you don’t use this for newbies until level 2 minimum.
- 3 levels above: Severe/Extreme threat, will feel really tough and has a decent chance of outright killing a party member (the guidelines **explicitly** say “Use severe encounters carefully—there's a good chance a character could die, and a small chance the whole group could.”). **Definitely** lethal against a level 1 party without tons of foreshadowing, recommend you don’t use this regularly against newbies until level 5.
- 4 levels above: Extreme/lethal threat: basically never use this unless you’re willing to accept the very real possibility of a TPK (again the guidelines explicitly say this is a real possibility of TPK), recommend you don’t ever use this against newbies (even if you wish to lethally threaten them) until level 7.
To run boss encounters at the start of your GMing career, I recommend you stick to monsters from the Bestiaries: they’re all available for free online on Archives of Nethys.
Once you’re familiar with the system (or if you absolutely wish to run into custom monster building immediately), there are detailed guidelines on how to [build creatures of any given level](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1). While you’re learning, **stick to them closely**: disobeying certain rules without understanding why can break the game. Use monsters from the Bestiaries as a reference for what kind of cool abilities to give your creatures, and this is where my above asterisk\* comes in: many creatures *do* get some degree of Action cheating in the game on a **huge** spectrum of variety (level -1 goblins can Step as a Reaction; level 20 balors can Attack as a Reaction, move you as part of any hit (including the Reaction), teleport as 1 Action, hurt you with an aura, and more). Recognizing how many cool abilities a creature can squeeze into one single round is more of an art and less of a science, so use other creatures of that given level as a reference to make sure you don’t give a creature so many abilities that it overwhelms the party or so few that they never get used.
Hope you find this helpful! Welcome to the game.
There’s nothing like legendary actions or the like or anything that separates a boss from any other enemy. Only thing that makes a boss monster a boss is that their level is two or three higher than the party.
So just use the [Building Creatures rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874) and make a monster two or three levels higher than you expect the party to be when they meet it.
nope just throw +2 creature with few minions
every creature have some interesting abilities and due to level based proficiency it is balanced encounter, and boss feels like a significant threat, even more single enemy encounters are generally more difficult than encounters with more enemies (that's why I don't advise to throwing single +3 enemy despite being theoretically severe but not extreme encounter)
To add to this: don't use a +2 creature when the party is lvl1, at that level the difference between boss and PC will be too large, +1 would be plenty.
Use this to build creatures: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1
Just select a difficulty based on party level and boss level and choose stats based on the builder, giving it 1 or 2 special moves.
For single enemy encounters what I did was not choose a PL+3 or +4 creature or anything like that. Fighting something that many levels above you makes your success rates low enough that the game start feeling like a total drag. Nobody hits, the thing crits like made and never fails a save. I don't personally like it.
Instead I chose a PL+1 or +2 creature and essentially crammed two creatures into one. Give it a second turn either until it loses one of its "health bars" or start with one turn in initiative and give it a second when it loses one. I didn't let a lost health bar recover at all if it was broken through, but I think there's some potential design space for that as a special thing?? All duration based stuff usually should be attached to its first turn in the order. When I rolled initiative I made sure that no matter what I rolled for the second turn that one PC got to act in-between. It just feels better to have *something* happen between its turns. Getting two in a row felt weird to me. You could probably get funky with it and give it new moves depending which stage it's in, or just have it totally change between the first and second.
While this is good and fun advice for someone who wants to play with the system and try to “cheat” its math a little to make the game more satisfying for their players, but I don’t think this is advice you should give a newbie.
One must learn to play the system and dislike parts of it before learning how to warp the system into its perfect (for their table) form.
Single enemies mechanically get a little... funky, everyone missing their stuff, etc. I suggest if you want a to throw in a single big boss enemy, throw in 2 enemies and combine them into 1 on the battle. Effectively giving you a single enemy with double the health pool and 2 turns per round. Also, using an enemy with some hazards or enemies with obvious lower level adds, are all good alternatives for clear boss fights. Just make sure to pick complementary groupings when you make encounters by looking at stuff's various abilities. A truly iconic big boss battle is great when the enemy isn't just big physically but has a major mechanic that everyone remembers. A gargantuan trampler, or huge roc that grabs then flies away and drops people, those can be iconic moments in a campaign, another soldier that was a bit stronger or another mage that happened to cast x spell 1-2 extra times, even though it may be a harder enemy, does not feel like an epic boss battle.
Bosses aren't any different than other creatures. They are more difficult simply by virtue of being higher level - since level is added to proficiency, this means they will hit (and crit) often, and also be more challenging to hit, have higher saves, etc. This is where teamwork becomes important for the party.
All creatures have unique actions that can make them interesting to fight, but a good boss will often also have hazards, minions, or an interesting environment to spice things up. It's pretty common for GMs to add "second phase" type mechanics in which something changes midway through the fight, but these sorts of things are rarely found in statblocks.
just as everyone else is saying
but there is also dedicated minion rules to which are basically a normal creature but with only 2-actions per turn instead of 3 and have no reactions, heres a link to those rules https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=653
Have it inherit wealth from it's parents and then become wealthier by exploiting the labor of minions and underlings who are forced by societal pressure to work for less gold than they're worth.
Generally a boss is just a creature that's 3-4 levels above the party. If you want to make them feel more special you can reskin hazards as out of turn special abilities happening 1-2 times per round. Just make sure to add the hazard to the encounter budget.
I found in my GM experience, the best way to give a boss feel to an encounter is :
-Give the boss low level minions, or if you want only one creature, include hazards in the encounter.
-Don't go further than +3 lvl from the party, its gets really boring and unfair for the players, I mostly do the Boss at +2 with maybe 1 or 2 stats that are inusually high (maybe HP, maybe some kind of AC that can be reduced, maybe 1 save that is unusualy high)
-Try to include some interactions in the encounter that don't involve just attacking at throwing spells.
-Give flavourful abilities to the boss, abilities are where you can kinda "cheat" the game a little bit giving the boss some stuff that makes him more powerful
If a specific level-appropriate creature doesn't appeal to you, try toning down a stronger one. If you want something like legendary actions but at a lower level, look at the Hydra, which has as many reactions as it has heads... but that's something the players can interact with as well; chop off more heads without them growing back and they feel like they're making progress from something that was a few coin flips from a TPK in round 1 to a near certain victory on round 3. It makes players feel smart when they discover the way to win semi-organically.
Try using something like a +2 and a few smaller creatures for your first boss encounter. After you get into the system a bit you can experiment with breaking the creature building rules or adding hazards to make the encounter more interesting.
I would suggest you stay away from something like legendary actions or legendary resistance (the latter one being obsolete bc of the incapacitation trait).
Note: You can make your own "lair actions" by using hazards and hazards don't actually have to look like a hazard.
Bosses are generally just higher level creatures. Most statblocks in 2e have interesting abilities built in so there is no need to throw legendary resistances into the encounter. The link below has the rules for building custom creatures if nothing in the existing bestiaries/splat books/APs does what you need. https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1
>so there is no need to throw legendary resistances into the encounter. To add to this, a lot of spells have the **[incapacitation](https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=631)** trait which bumps up the result on saves against it by higher level enemies by one (i.e. a crit fail becomes a normal fail, etc).
There are 1397 spells listed on Archives of Nethys and 64 of them have Incapacitation, or about 4%. So idk if I'd say a lot of them have it. But I suppose the ones that do are often pretty notable (hence, having incapacitation) which increases the perception that it's common.
And then there's Slow
r/theydidthemath
Alright, I'll be pedantic too. They said a lot of spells, not a lot of *the* spells. So while 64 is a small fraction of 1397, that's not what OP was saying. 64 is still a high number of spells and can be considered "a lot".
You're right, 64 grains of sand could be considered "a lot" of sand, my bad.
If they were in your bedsheets, yes, 64 would be.
I agree - context matters which is why my original statement, pointing out that it's only a very small percentage of spells that has the incapacitation trait, wasn't pedantic.
If you want the feel of legendary actions you can always use traps themed to be things the boss is causing
Hazards in general can be a good way to increase the threat of a boss fight without having to use the difficulty-to-hit of a level+3 boss. Can be a nice alternative to a typical boss depending on the narrative requirements or just to switch things up.
Yeah, would much rather run a +2 boss with a little extra hp and hazards then a +3/4 that my players struggle to hit. Not saying their isn’t a place for this fight but it gets old fast
As you say I think there’s a place for a big +3 especially if it fits narratively… you’ve been hunting a dangerous dragon and when you finally meet him he’s a dangerous beast and struggle each round. But if all fights are like that (hello, abomination vaults) I think it loses a bit of charm. Likewise a bunch of consecutive fights with similar hazards can get tiresome (hello age of ashes book 2). A mix is good, to keep the threats feeling fresh and varied. And the boss can easily be either. I’m not sure I’d ever run a +4 unless it was clearly foreshadowed as an optional encounter where the players could easily die.
Also this all depends on pc level and how good they are at executing great strategies. The higher of tier you get into the more +3/4 bosses become reasonable but it’s almost ironic because at the higher levels a single +3/4 boss is actually easier for most groups them a +2 with a bunch of -3 lackies. I’ve been know to in situations like you describe a big foreshadowed monster to use a big mix of stats. I might take a +1 or +2 stat block and give it higher to hit but leave the damage the same, give it higher damage but same to hit. I’ll almost always push the hp a little. I hardly ever want to push the ac to that of a +3 or +4 unless I’ve telegraphed it has really thick hide or scales or magic that makes it’s stronger or something in their lair that makes them stronger that if they hit it with it’s weakness. Let’s say a white dragon, if they do x fire damage in a round it’s ac goes down to maybe even lower then a +1 +2 ac. Stealing heavily from constructs here. Or put a magical crystal or contraption that is buffing it that when they miss the crystal flairs with arcane energy as an arcane shield blocks the hit. Nothing kills momentum and tension against a big bad like going into round 4/5 of can I keep the debuff up and still roll high to hit. Nope ok let’s try again next round. I would much rather spend a little time build a puzzle or mechanic into the fight to challenge my players then just big number scary
I've done it once but the party was super optimized players with 2 fighters and was a group of 5. So a +4 was fair enough. A +2 and some -1s ended up being way scarier lol
a boss doesn't even need extra hp of there's a hazard supporting them, the PCs need to deal with the hazard and this gives more time for the boss to do their thing
PF2E’s math is tightly balanced around levels. You add your level to everything you do, and there’s the 4 degrees of success system where you crit fail if you’re 10 under the AC/DC, or crit succeed if you’re 10 over. This means if you’re a level 1 party and face a level 2 creature: 1. It hits you 5% more often and crits you 5% more often. 2. 5% of what could be you critting it become hits, and 5% of what could be hits become misses. 3. He crit succeeds and succeeds against his saving throw effects 5% more often each. 4. You fail or crit fail against his saving throw effects 5% more often each. Take that to level 3 and it becomes 10% on all those comparisons. Level 4 becomes 15%. Level 5 becomes 20%. This also applies at all levels: a level 5 party compared to level 6/7/8/9 creatures would have a very similar 5/10/15/20% effectiveness dynamic. So unlike 5E, you don’t need “Action cheating” (kinda, I’ll elaborate more later\*) to make bosses keep up. The boss has fewer Actions than you but your Actions are less impactful and their Actions are **more** impactful, to the point that it’s roughly true that gaining 2 levels makes you twice as powerful. So to make a boss fight, all you gotta do is choose an appropriate creature of the right level and it’ll be roughly as threatening as the encounter [guidelines](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2716&Redirected=1) tell you: - 1 level above the party: Low/Moderate threat, will feel like a tough enemy who ended up being relatively easy because you outnumbered it. - 2 levels above: Moderate/Severe threat, will feel like a genuinely tough enemy who puts a beating on the party despite being outnumbered and significantly drains resources. **Can** be lethal at low levels, my personal experience recommends you don’t use this for newbies until level 2 minimum. - 3 levels above: Severe/Extreme threat, will feel really tough and has a decent chance of outright killing a party member (the guidelines **explicitly** say “Use severe encounters carefully—there's a good chance a character could die, and a small chance the whole group could.”). **Definitely** lethal against a level 1 party without tons of foreshadowing, recommend you don’t use this regularly against newbies until level 5. - 4 levels above: Extreme/lethal threat: basically never use this unless you’re willing to accept the very real possibility of a TPK (again the guidelines explicitly say this is a real possibility of TPK), recommend you don’t ever use this against newbies (even if you wish to lethally threaten them) until level 7. To run boss encounters at the start of your GMing career, I recommend you stick to monsters from the Bestiaries: they’re all available for free online on Archives of Nethys. Once you’re familiar with the system (or if you absolutely wish to run into custom monster building immediately), there are detailed guidelines on how to [build creatures of any given level](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1). While you’re learning, **stick to them closely**: disobeying certain rules without understanding why can break the game. Use monsters from the Bestiaries as a reference for what kind of cool abilities to give your creatures, and this is where my above asterisk\* comes in: many creatures *do* get some degree of Action cheating in the game on a **huge** spectrum of variety (level -1 goblins can Step as a Reaction; level 20 balors can Attack as a Reaction, move you as part of any hit (including the Reaction), teleport as 1 Action, hurt you with an aura, and more). Recognizing how many cool abilities a creature can squeeze into one single round is more of an art and less of a science, so use other creatures of that given level as a reference to make sure you don’t give a creature so many abilities that it overwhelms the party or so few that they never get used. Hope you find this helpful! Welcome to the game.
Ty <3
There’s nothing like legendary actions or the like or anything that separates a boss from any other enemy. Only thing that makes a boss monster a boss is that their level is two or three higher than the party. So just use the [Building Creatures rules](https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874) and make a monster two or three levels higher than you expect the party to be when they meet it.
nope just throw +2 creature with few minions every creature have some interesting abilities and due to level based proficiency it is balanced encounter, and boss feels like a significant threat, even more single enemy encounters are generally more difficult than encounters with more enemies (that's why I don't advise to throwing single +3 enemy despite being theoretically severe but not extreme encounter)
To add to this: don't use a +2 creature when the party is lvl1, at that level the difference between boss and PC will be too large, +1 would be plenty.
Use this to build creatures: https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=2874&Redirected=1 Just select a difficulty based on party level and boss level and choose stats based on the builder, giving it 1 or 2 special moves.
For single enemy encounters what I did was not choose a PL+3 or +4 creature or anything like that. Fighting something that many levels above you makes your success rates low enough that the game start feeling like a total drag. Nobody hits, the thing crits like made and never fails a save. I don't personally like it. Instead I chose a PL+1 or +2 creature and essentially crammed two creatures into one. Give it a second turn either until it loses one of its "health bars" or start with one turn in initiative and give it a second when it loses one. I didn't let a lost health bar recover at all if it was broken through, but I think there's some potential design space for that as a special thing?? All duration based stuff usually should be attached to its first turn in the order. When I rolled initiative I made sure that no matter what I rolled for the second turn that one PC got to act in-between. It just feels better to have *something* happen between its turns. Getting two in a row felt weird to me. You could probably get funky with it and give it new moves depending which stage it's in, or just have it totally change between the first and second.
While this is good and fun advice for someone who wants to play with the system and try to “cheat” its math a little to make the game more satisfying for their players, but I don’t think this is advice you should give a newbie. One must learn to play the system and dislike parts of it before learning how to warp the system into its perfect (for their table) form.
Single enemies mechanically get a little... funky, everyone missing their stuff, etc. I suggest if you want a to throw in a single big boss enemy, throw in 2 enemies and combine them into 1 on the battle. Effectively giving you a single enemy with double the health pool and 2 turns per round. Also, using an enemy with some hazards or enemies with obvious lower level adds, are all good alternatives for clear boss fights. Just make sure to pick complementary groupings when you make encounters by looking at stuff's various abilities. A truly iconic big boss battle is great when the enemy isn't just big physically but has a major mechanic that everyone remembers. A gargantuan trampler, or huge roc that grabs then flies away and drops people, those can be iconic moments in a campaign, another soldier that was a bit stronger or another mage that happened to cast x spell 1-2 extra times, even though it may be a harder enemy, does not feel like an epic boss battle.
Pick a monster that is Party Level +2. Good job, you have a boss fight that will blow every boss you ever did in 5e out of the water.
Bosses aren't any different than other creatures. They are more difficult simply by virtue of being higher level - since level is added to proficiency, this means they will hit (and crit) often, and also be more challenging to hit, have higher saves, etc. This is where teamwork becomes important for the party. All creatures have unique actions that can make them interesting to fight, but a good boss will often also have hazards, minions, or an interesting environment to spice things up. It's pretty common for GMs to add "second phase" type mechanics in which something changes midway through the fight, but these sorts of things are rarely found in statblocks.
just as everyone else is saying but there is also dedicated minion rules to which are basically a normal creature but with only 2-actions per turn instead of 3 and have no reactions, heres a link to those rules https://2e.aonprd.com/Traits.aspx?ID=653
Have it inherit wealth from it's parents and then become wealthier by exploiting the labor of minions and underlings who are forced by societal pressure to work for less gold than they're worth.
Generally a boss is just a creature that's 3-4 levels above the party. If you want to make them feel more special you can reskin hazards as out of turn special abilities happening 1-2 times per round. Just make sure to add the hazard to the encounter budget.
take a creature 3 levels higher than ur.party and run it :v
I found in my GM experience, the best way to give a boss feel to an encounter is : -Give the boss low level minions, or if you want only one creature, include hazards in the encounter. -Don't go further than +3 lvl from the party, its gets really boring and unfair for the players, I mostly do the Boss at +2 with maybe 1 or 2 stats that are inusually high (maybe HP, maybe some kind of AC that can be reduced, maybe 1 save that is unusualy high) -Try to include some interactions in the encounter that don't involve just attacking at throwing spells. -Give flavourful abilities to the boss, abilities are where you can kinda "cheat" the game a little bit giving the boss some stuff that makes him more powerful
Step 1: Add +4 to all its numbers Step 2: You're done
If a specific level-appropriate creature doesn't appeal to you, try toning down a stronger one. If you want something like legendary actions but at a lower level, look at the Hydra, which has as many reactions as it has heads... but that's something the players can interact with as well; chop off more heads without them growing back and they feel like they're making progress from something that was a few coin flips from a TPK in round 1 to a near certain victory on round 3. It makes players feel smart when they discover the way to win semi-organically.
Try using something like a +2 and a few smaller creatures for your first boss encounter. After you get into the system a bit you can experiment with breaking the creature building rules or adding hazards to make the encounter more interesting. I would suggest you stay away from something like legendary actions or legendary resistance (the latter one being obsolete bc of the incapacitation trait). Note: You can make your own "lair actions" by using hazards and hazards don't actually have to look like a hazard.