How To Make Powerful Boss Stat Blocks In DND

There comes a time when every Dungeons & Dragons party has to face off against a boss. Call it their ‘big bad,’ or their ‘endgame,’ but designing a memorable adversary for your party to contend with is essential to any adventure. But, if you’re customizing your boss for the end of an arc or even for the end of a campaign, there’s a lot to consider.

What kinds of stats do you need to create for a boss? How do you make sure this enemy is balanced and well-suited to take on your party? This guide has you covered. Here’s everything you need to know to create boss stat blocks.

What Kind Of Creature Is Your Boss?

Before diving headfirst into stats, you should first consider what kind of creature you’re throwing in your party’s way. This will impact the entirety of their stat block, and what kind of special abilities you might want to give them.

While there are a lot of different types of creatures in Dungeons & Dragons, we can break these down into two basic groups.

Once you’ve determined what kind of creature your boss is, jot down some basic characteristics for them. Use these questions as jumping-off points.

• What Do They Look Like? – Take note of elements of the boss’s appearance so that you can accurately describe them to your party.
• What Other Creatures Do They Resemble? – If you want to make a custom vampire stat block, you can look at other stat blocks for vampires as inspiration.
• How Do They Fight? – Does this boss fight with a sword and shield, or through spells and wits? Whatever the answer, take note to help determine their abilities later on.

How To Tailor Your Boss To Your Party

Now that you’ve got a basic idea of what your boss is like, there’s one more step to consider before building the stat block. You want to make sure you tailor this boss to the abilities of your party. Consider the following and take note of your answers.

Once you’ve considered the above, you’ll want to keep this list handy as you build your stat block. It’s important to make sure the party doesn’t feel like their abilities won’t work against this boss, it’s also essential to make sure they don’t have any abilities that might end the fight too quickly.

How To Build Your Stat Block

Basic Boss Stats

Now, it’s time to start building your stat block. First, let’s start with these basic elements.

Next, you’ll want to consider some secondary attributes your boss might have. These can include things like the following.

• Damage Resistances – Consider, based on their creature type and your party’s abilities, if your boss may be resistant to certain types of damage.
• Senses – Magical beings may have attributes like Darkvision or Truesight which can aid them in combat.
• Languages – This is especially important for monsters. Can they speak common or other languages? Communication and languages in combat may prove important.
• Saving Throws – Beyond just their basic ability scores, consider whether your boss is proficient in certain saving throws. For example, a wizard will likely be proficient in Intelligence saving throws, which can be important in combating other spells.

Even though it’s a good idea to tailor things like Saving Throws or Resistances to your party, make sure it still makes narrative sense. For example, an Undead creature should not be resistant to radiant damage

Balance Your Boss Stat Block

Once you have some basic stats jotted down, it’s time to check that they’re balanced. The main things you’ll want to balance are things like Armor Class, Hit Points, and Saving Throws. Consider the table below and questions when balancing these attributes.

How To Create Special Abilities For Your Boss

Create Boss Features

Now that you have your basic stat block figured out, it’s time to consider special and unique abilities for your boss! These can be singular features and traits that you design, or you can borrow them from other stat blocks. Here are some basic ones to consider.

• Healing – Can your boss regenerate health in between rounds of combat? Consider this feature if your boss is greatly outnumbered by your party.
• Legendary Resistances – Typically, some powerful creatures can use three legendary resistances to succeed on saving throws they would otherwise fail. This is helpful for avoiding annoying spells like Hold Creature.
• Legendary Actions – These are actions your boss can take after another player’s turn, but before their own. This greatly increases the boss’s action economy against larger parties.
• Spellcasting – Can your boss cast spells? If so, make sure to make note of how many spell slots they have and what spells they have prepared during the encounter.
• Vulnerabilities – Sentient vegetation might be vulnerable to to things like fire damage! This can be an important element in making sure a creature feels balanced and narratively cohesive.

When using Legendary Resistances and Actions, make sure this rule set is run above the table. Don’t conceal these rules from players, or they may feel like you’re cheating them from their success. Explain what these are and how they work in combat if necessary.

Create Boss Actions

Once you have their special abilities mapped out, create a stat block that details their basic action economy. These are things like attacks (outside of spell casting), unarmed strikes, or any features they can employ that are unique to their creature type. Here are some examples.

• Attack/Multiattack – Fierce warriors might be able to attack more than once on their turn.
• Charm or Fear Effects – Some monsters can charm enemies at will without using a spell, or let out a piercing shriek that strikes fear into the hearts of their adversaries.
• Summon Spawn – Backup is always helpful! Sometimes creatures like vampires can summon their vampire spawn to aid them in combat.

Create Lair Actions

Lastly, if your party is fighting this boss in their lair, consider creating lair actions for them. These are environmental effects that happen on initiative count 20, or upon the use of an action by the boss themselves. Here are some examples of lair actions.

• Lava Flow – A fire dragon’s volcanic lair erupts with lava every round, meaning players must dodge the incoming flows everytime the mountain quakes with anger.
• Antimagic Field – An archmage’s tower is equipped with an antimagic charm that dispels active magic effects every round, resetting the encounter.
• Healing Orb – A zombie king has possession of a healing orb in their lair that heals his allies for 20 HP every round until it is destroyed.

Sample Stat Block

With all this in mind, let’s take a look at a sample stat block. For this boss archetype, here are our notes answering the above questions regarding creature type and party abilities.

1. Kind Of Creature – Our creature is a humanoid archmage decrepit from old age. As an archmage, they can cast spells and have advantage on saves to resist magic, as they are adept in Arcana.
2. Party Size – Our party has six adventurers, all level eight, meaning they have the advantage on action economy. We’ll give our archmage Legendary Actions to increase their economy.
3. Party Abilities – Some members of the party can cast Banishment. We’ll also give our archmage three Legendary Resistances to avoid combat ending too early.

Now, let’s take a look at the sample stat block. As the archmage is meant to be extremely powerful, we’ve made him somewhat difficult to hit, and helped balance out his action economy with some special features. If you follow along with this example, you’ll be creating fantastic boss stat blocks in no time!