Dungeon Design Tips: Antagonist Action Economy (Never Fight Just One BBEG)

Every Game Master has been in this situation. The party has been working their way closer and closer to a final confrontation with a powerful enemy. They've bested their traps, they've slain their minions, and now it is time for an epic clash! But when the dice hit the table, the antagonist you spent so much time building up and preparing is roundly stomped into the pavement, left beaten, broken, and defeated in a matter of a few rounds (or sometimes less).

While there are a lot of factors that can go into this kind of defeat, one of the common threads between most of the stories you hear GMs tell is that they were running a 4-on-1 combat... and that's a losing scenario for most monsters!

No matter how powerful you think they are.

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The Problem

The idea of the party facing down a single creature in battle, their combined strengths necessary to overpower it, is an iconic image. Whether it's a lich lord, a full-sized red dragon, or some other adversary, so many of us have been raised on this setup (both in games as well as in films, comic books, etc.) that we just assume that's the way things are supposed to be.

The problem is the numbers of your action economy just don't add up.

Now, for folks who aren't familiar with the term action economy, it's just a fancy way of saying the amount of stuff you can do on a single turn. For example, let's say you're facing down a necromancer lich. They are a potent foe with a nasty template, a slew of immunities, and a bunch of dire powers to draw on... but generally speaking, they can only use one of those abilities on their turn. So if the lich wants to cast a spell, they'd better make sure it counts... because the party wizard and cleric also get to cast a spell, and that's on top of having to deal with the angry barbarian charging straight at the lich, and the paladin who isn't far behind him!

Oh balls...

Typically the big bosses of the dungeon have fat sacks of hit points, a bunch of pre-cast buffs, monstrous templates, and enough magic items to help them become a threat to an entire party worth of adventurers... the problem is that they need to dodge every bullet the party fires, metaphorically speaking. If the party manages to land a status effect, to slow the enemy, to instantly counter their spells or abilities, etc., then no matter how powerful they're supposed to be it's going to be Good Night Gracie in a big damn hurry.

And while this can make the party feel like big time badasses, it can also make what should be a climactic battle feel... well, anticlimactic. And while I've talked about cover and firing lines, combining traps with combat, and even getting rid of doors in this series, I'd say this week's solution is one that will solve more than half of all the problems that Game Masters deal with.

In short, stop giving your players a single target to gang up on.

The Solution

Give your antagonists backup. That's it... that's the solution.

Whether your lich lord has a cadre of bodyguards to defend their person, or your fallen paladin is backed up by a conjurer and a sniper, the idea is that you are breaking up the laser focus of your party, and giving everyone a dance partner.

If the lich has an undead champion to guard their person, now the party members have to weigh the pros and cons of dividing their attention. Does the barbarian engage the undead black knight, hoping to keep him busy while the paladin closes with the necromancer? Or do the melee bruisers both double team the bodyguard, hoping to take him out quickly while the spellcasters attempt to contain the lich?

Forcing your players to make these decisions means they have a wider array of options, and they have to sometimes get creative with their strategies and tactics. For example, with multiple targets on different ends of the battlefield, would the wizard get more use out of spells that put a wall of iron between the party and the black knight instead of directly attacking the lich? With multiple enemies, does the cleric choose to buff the brawler going toe-to-toe with the bodyguard, keeping him in the fight longer so the paladin doesn't end up having to fight a two-front battle?

And the more antagonists you put on the board, the more choices your players are going to have to make. Not only that, but you are going to have more strategic options, and you won't have to focus so much on making any single antagonist powerful enough to face down the entire party on their own.

This is actually where we get into The Anti-Party, which can best be summarized as the Legion of Doom to your party's Justice League. If you have an evenly-matched party of antagonists with similar abilities, now your players have to get really creative in order to make sure they are able to best their foes.

The important thing to remember here is that when you add multiple enemies, you should be diluting the power of the Big Bad and spreading it around. It also allows you to have boss antagonists who aren't either extremely powerful monsters (dragons, demiliches, etc.), powerful spell casters, or some combination of the two. For example, if you want to challenge your party with a bandit lord, you could have them as a decently high-level ranger, in an area that's full of traps they've set to give themselves an advantage. However, you could also give them half a dozen henchmen, or some kind of tamed monster threat to sic on the players. So rather than the entire party versus a single ranger, they have to deal with his arrows, his traps, but also the two dozen ghouls he's released from their cages, and his two bodyguards who are also taking pot shots at the party.

The more targets there are on the field, the wider the array of tactics the party will have to make use of in order to be successful. For example, does the evoker create a wall of fire to hold back the ghouls, buying their companions a precious round or two before the undead monsters close? Or do they sling spells back at the archers, trusting the front line fighters to hold the line? Does the barbarian's great spear come in handy due to its reach, and does the fighter stick close with them, using their shield to grant their companion additional protection from the rain of arrows above?

With so many additional moving parts, a battle becomes an actual battle, instead of a grudge match against one enemy. Not only that, but you have more things you can do as the Game Master than options that feel like dirty tricks, or which could permanently cripple player characters (rendering them permanently blind, giving them debilitating curses or diseases, destroying their enchanted gear, etc.). While you shouldn't make every fight with a boss (or mini boss) into the Battle of Helm's Deep, ask yourself why the head of an entire assassins guild, a feared bandit lord, or the head of a dark cult is standing alone against an entire hit squad coming for them... then ask who they would keep around just to make sure it's a fair fight.

Also, if you haven't watched any of my series Discussions of Darkness, check out episode 25 below, Don't Overuse The Game's Big Bads. Because if you're no longer trying to have just 1 antagonist taking on the whole party, it throws the party's plans into chaos because they now have to deal with a wider array of challenges coming at their faces.

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