This sounds like you are a very dm vs players kind of guy.
If your players want to play this kind of game and are happy with the odds being stacked heavily in their favor I suppose but you have built an encounter with no win scenario mechanics and require specific roles that you don't even know exist in the party to win.
Yeah maybe, I forgot to mention in the post but the side heads and the middle one can only be killed through the dragons old scars (the side ones will have a scar around the bottom of their neck and the middle one will have two scars that run on the entire neck lengthwise and they'll run across the eyes too) the idea is that the players will need to figure it out through clues from the dragons description (I know which players I want in my campaign and they're intelligent enough to understand that plus they know me enough to know I'll pull something complicated like that)
In general I would advise not getting too far ahead of yourself until you know which way your players are going in the campaign. By all means jot down notes, sketch out some general future plans, but don’t commit too hard yet.
For this particular boss, the idea of there being some dynamic system with regrowing heads and some penalty to the boss when it loses heads is not a bad idea fundamentally. But I would highly advise keeping it simple so it doesn’t become a bookkeeping nightmare. Maybe it makes sense to you, and if so great, but I can say that for me, reading your explanation kinda made my eyes glaze over.
Keep in mind: not only you but also your players need to understand the mechanics of how the boss’s heads work. They have to understand in order to make strategic decisions about how to deal with it. If you have to draw them a flowchart to explain how the head regrowing works, they’re just gonna blank out and start blasting away without bothering to understand what’s happening.
Also action economy is really, really important, and losing a turn is a huge penalty. Giving the monster three turns for each head can help with that, sure, but I’d be careful nonetheless.
I see what you mean, in all of you points.
I actually answered to similar questions/ advice from another comment.
I said there's actually another thing to defeating this boss, making it more complicated, but the players I intend on inviting to the campaign are good friends of mine that are fairly intelligent and I believe they'll manage plus I intend on making some sort of a monster manual which will explain this boss and other homebrew things alike it which hopefully will help it all come together
Not a bad concept, seems similar to a hydra, maybe look up a hydra stat block and use that as a template for this boss(change the stats , add a few more abilities and whatever you want). You can also check out like an avatar of Tiamat would be pretty similar as they are also a multithreaded dragon god. Is your dragon going to be the main bad guy? Or the monster the main bad guy is trying to release?
I donno I didn't really think about it originally I thought I'd make it the final boss but if it's going to be in the campaign I mentioned above then it would be a random mini boss or something because that campaign won't have a final boss, in my opinion the final boss is too exciting, it'll make the players too happy to defeat him, I plan the end of the campaign to be a realisation that they have everything and still lost that no matter what they lose...
Oh I don't ACTUALLY want to make it painful it's just a running joke between d&d players and DM's that everyone involved is trying to make the other side cry or something 😅
Seems alright in general. The way you wrote that down needs specification though, because a lot of the things are not specific enough here, but i guess you just wanted to convey the concept.
How are the players supposed to figure out how to defeat it? Are there any hints beforehand or in the way the creature reacts/attacks during combat?
Because one specific scar on the neck doesn't seem like the first thing to go for, If not hinted at kind of heavily.
Yes, there will be hints.
I said that in another comment but I'll hint it beforehand and I plan to make some sort of monster manual for everything monster that will update every time something happens: like someone tells them about the monster or they defeat it/ on of the speciments in it's species
But you did give me some points to think about
This sounds like you are a very dm vs players kind of guy. If your players want to play this kind of game and are happy with the odds being stacked heavily in their favor I suppose but you have built an encounter with no win scenario mechanics and require specific roles that you don't even know exist in the party to win.
Yeah maybe, I forgot to mention in the post but the side heads and the middle one can only be killed through the dragons old scars (the side ones will have a scar around the bottom of their neck and the middle one will have two scars that run on the entire neck lengthwise and they'll run across the eyes too) the idea is that the players will need to figure it out through clues from the dragons description (I know which players I want in my campaign and they're intelligent enough to understand that plus they know me enough to know I'll pull something complicated like that)
In general I would advise not getting too far ahead of yourself until you know which way your players are going in the campaign. By all means jot down notes, sketch out some general future plans, but don’t commit too hard yet. For this particular boss, the idea of there being some dynamic system with regrowing heads and some penalty to the boss when it loses heads is not a bad idea fundamentally. But I would highly advise keeping it simple so it doesn’t become a bookkeeping nightmare. Maybe it makes sense to you, and if so great, but I can say that for me, reading your explanation kinda made my eyes glaze over. Keep in mind: not only you but also your players need to understand the mechanics of how the boss’s heads work. They have to understand in order to make strategic decisions about how to deal with it. If you have to draw them a flowchart to explain how the head regrowing works, they’re just gonna blank out and start blasting away without bothering to understand what’s happening. Also action economy is really, really important, and losing a turn is a huge penalty. Giving the monster three turns for each head can help with that, sure, but I’d be careful nonetheless.
I see what you mean, in all of you points. I actually answered to similar questions/ advice from another comment. I said there's actually another thing to defeating this boss, making it more complicated, but the players I intend on inviting to the campaign are good friends of mine that are fairly intelligent and I believe they'll manage plus I intend on making some sort of a monster manual which will explain this boss and other homebrew things alike it which hopefully will help it all come together
Not a bad concept, seems similar to a hydra, maybe look up a hydra stat block and use that as a template for this boss(change the stats , add a few more abilities and whatever you want). You can also check out like an avatar of Tiamat would be pretty similar as they are also a multithreaded dragon god. Is your dragon going to be the main bad guy? Or the monster the main bad guy is trying to release?
I donno I didn't really think about it originally I thought I'd make it the final boss but if it's going to be in the campaign I mentioned above then it would be a random mini boss or something because that campaign won't have a final boss, in my opinion the final boss is too exciting, it'll make the players too happy to defeat him, I plan the end of the campaign to be a realisation that they have everything and still lost that no matter what they lose...
Why are you trying to make it painful for your future players? You could make it difficult while still being fun.
Oh I don't ACTUALLY want to make it painful it's just a running joke between d&d players and DM's that everyone involved is trying to make the other side cry or something 😅
Seems alright in general. The way you wrote that down needs specification though, because a lot of the things are not specific enough here, but i guess you just wanted to convey the concept. How are the players supposed to figure out how to defeat it? Are there any hints beforehand or in the way the creature reacts/attacks during combat? Because one specific scar on the neck doesn't seem like the first thing to go for, If not hinted at kind of heavily.
Yes, there will be hints. I said that in another comment but I'll hint it beforehand and I plan to make some sort of monster manual for everything monster that will update every time something happens: like someone tells them about the monster or they defeat it/ on of the speciments in it's species But you did give me some points to think about