Boss (5e Template)

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Boss

If you want your protagonists to fight a singular, challenging enemy that can dish out damage and not be felled in a single round of combat, here's a template for you. It can be applied to existing creatures, or on completely new creatures. Please put a Category: Boss tag on all creatures made using this template so that they may appear on this page.

Prerequisite

A creature qualifies for this template if it has at least 20 hit points on average.

Statistics

Abilities. All ability scores of 10 or more increase by 2, to a maximum of 30.

(Optional) Hit Die. If the creature already has a lot of hit die, it may be reduced slightly. Keep in mind that with Bloodied Resistance, its hit die are effectively doubled.

Traits

Boss Fight. At the start of combat, the creature rolls twice for initiative, taking two turns per round of combat. At the start of each round, the creature must reroll for initiative once and replace one of its turns with the new result.

Bloodied Resistance. Upon taking damage that would reduce the creature to 0 hit points or lower, the creature returns to full hit points, and the creature immediately ends all negative conditions on itself. Once this feature activates, it cannot activate again until the creature takes a long rest. This effect can occur even when taking normally lethal damage, such as from power word kill

(Optional) Tactics Change. When Bloodied Resistance activates, the creature alters its fighting style in some way.

(Optional) Brutish. The creature adds an extra die of damage to attacks it makes.

Actions

(Optional) Resist The creature ends one condition on itself. On bosses with CR of 10 or lower, this should not be included, or be given Recharge (6).

(Optional) Multiattack. The creature makes two attacks.

Boss Actions

The boss can take 1 boss action, choosing from the options below. Only one boss action option can be used at a time and only at the end of another creature's turn. The boss regains its spent boss action at the start of the round.

The creature gains any number of Boss Actions (with examples below), as appropriate.

Attack. The creature may move 10 feet and make a single weapon attack

Summon. The creature summons a number of appropriate creatures. This action can be performed twice, and a third time when Bloodied Resistance activates.

Cast Spell. The creature casts a spell it knows. This action can be performed twice, and a third time when Bloodied Resistance activates.

CR Calculation

The CR needs recalculating as both the creatures hit points and damage per round increase by more than twice as much.

Elite Boss

Elite Bosses are an acceptable variant for large or high level parties.

An Elite boss can be created by changing the following:

Boss Fight. The creature now rolls for initiative three times at the start of combat, instead of two. It continues to only reroll for initiative once per round.

Bloodied Resistance. Can now activate twice.

Hit Die. Will most definitely need to be lowered.

Creatures that use this Template

Name	CR	Type
5e Boss Preload
Berserker GUTs		Undead
Cinder	10	beast
Cursed Tree	4	plant
La'raad the Divinity-Devourer	18	Monstrosity
Sutario	20	undead

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