Adventure Path: if players do none of these optional tasks before fighting the boss, he's Severe difficulty. With 1, he's Moderate, with 2, Low, with 3, Trivial. Me: tries to imagine a group of players that knows a boss fight is coming up and just skips the story mechanics to debuff it 🤨🤔
I get that APs kinda have to be written for.... the lowest common denominator.... But if I'm writing this, it's 100% balanced as Extreme++ > Extreme+ > Extreme > Severe, with the fight only *possible* if you do all the setup correctly Otherwise literally what's the point
I ran a bit of Cataclysm of Kang in Marvel Multiverse. Opening adventure has a bunch of "if the heroes don't respond to this old man being beaten in the streets," and I was both flabbergasted and entertained. "Heroes," mind. If anyone *should* respond, it's them.
Based on stories i hear some players really do just start a printed adventure to *dick around*, much like starting some silly BG3 playthrough I don't play and basically have never played in a group like that so this is really wild to me though
if my players wanna beat Zurugal the Corruptor, the demon they've heard about for 10 sessions, they sure as hell are gonna take it seriously, do every side objective to weaken him, and still expect a tough-as-nails boss fight at the end. Anything else is just wasted potential