Heldrak

You roar your rage once more to the uncaring cavern roof. Stupid gods! Stupid programmers! Stupid fucking adventurers!

You’re a Heldrak, a mighty being of mixed demonic and draconic blood. You’re about three metres tall, three and a half including your wings. You have iron-hard scales, a mastery of fire, and metal magic, a lethal skill with the enchanted broadsword you carry and use like a simple one-handed blade, flight provided by the aforementioned wings, and the ability to breathe fire.

You’ve got an incredibly detail sprite, from the intricate runic etching on your sword to the individual scratches on your blood-red scales. You can see every detail on your massive leathery wings, your reptilian tail (ending in a spade-like tip), your spiralling, metal-studded horns, your fanged maw, and your flame-and-shadows aura effect, whenever you pull up your character screen.

You’re one of the most powerful monsters in your dungeon, the miniboss adventurers face before confronting the ultimate boss: Vortrak, Reaper of Souls.

So what do the developers do?

They put you beneath a giant barrel of holy water.

Never mind that it makes the fight brutally one-sided. Never mind that there’s no reason for a barrel of holy water to be there. Never mind that it makes a complete mockery of the days spent designing you, your stats, your appearance, your everything.

We can’t possibly challenge the adventurers. We can’t possibly put them in a situation where it might be hard, where the monster might win, where they have to use their brains.

Just put a giant AoE effect of his primary weakness right over his head, ready to be dropped on him by any adventurers with a ranger amongst them... or a mage... or a gunslinger... or a rogue... or anything capable of hitting a rope at range or sneaking up and cutting it, really.

You sigh, and pull your stat screen open for what’s got to be the thousandth time.

Heldrak (MINIBOSS) (DEMON) (DRAGON)

Level: 30

Health: 3000

Mana: 240

Physical Attack: 280

Ranged Attack: 200 (Ironbolt)

Immunities: Fire, Infernal

Resistances: Shadow, Physical

Weaknesses: Holy, Water

Equipment:

Broadsword of Black Iron: +50 Physical attack (included in statistics), ignores 50% of magical armour, and inflicts Soul Bleed on a critical hit. Two-handed.

Abilities:

Draconic Scales: Material attacks deal 60%-100 damage.

Large size: The Heldrak towers above its human foes. It may use two-handed weapons one-handed, but ranged attacks receive a bonus to-hit, and it may not fight through small tunnels.

Flight: The Heldrak may fly.

Spells/Skills:

Ironbolt: Deals 200 Physical damage to a target. Costs 60 Mana.

Skin of Iron: Provides magic armour that makes Material attacks deal 60%-100 damage. Lasts for 20 seconds, does not stack with other armour. Costs 90 Mana.

Firebolt: Deals 160 Fire damage to a target. Costs 60 Mana.

Ring of Fire: Summons a cloak of fire around the Heldrak, dealing 60 Fire damage per second to anyone in range, for twenty seconds or until extinguished. Costs 90 Mana.

Life Drain: Deals 120 damage to a target, and heals the Heldrak for the amount done. Costs 60 Mana.

Life Drain (Area): Deals 120 damage, splashing, and heals the Heldrak for the amount done. Costs 120 Mana.

Vicious Cycle: “Hell doesn’t fight fair.” Physical attacks inflict Stun (1s duration per 100 damage dealt). This duration is added to any existing effect. It has +30 Physical damage per second of effect remaining against targets who are stunned. Duration 20 seconds, Costs 242 Mana.

Hail of Blows: Calling upon its training, the Heldrak launches into a series of blows that hit far faster than should be possible with such a large sword. Next time it attacks, it makes four attacks rather than one. 30 second cooldown period.

Fire Breath: “Infernal AND Draconic heritage.” The Heldrak breathes fire, making a cone attack that deals 140 Fire damage to anyone it hits. This cone can be blocked. 60 second cooldown period.

Impressive... except for the weaknesses. For some reason, a tidal wave of water wasn’t a material attack, so your scales did nothing about it, and it hit both your weak spots, thereby dealing x4 the normal damage and nearly killing you in a single hit.

And Vicious Cycle! That was quite possibly the ultimate insult. Someone must have come up with it, implemented it, and then realised it was incredibly powerful. So they bumped up the cost, and left it just out of your reach.

The only thing that could possibly trump it was Skin of Iron. 90 Mana, to have EXACTLY the same effect as your scales, not stacking with them. What a waste of data.

Or the fact that despite being a miniboss, you don’t even rate a name. You don’t even want a title, like the final boss, just for someone to spend five minutes with a good random name generator and your data file.

Or... actually, there’s quite a few things you’ve got complaints about.

A bell rings out, alerting you that there’s a party of heroes coming. You sigh, before straightening up and readying your sword. This is what you hate most about your existence – the developers lavish attention on you: your appearance, your stats, your placement, hell they even gave you an imp bell-ringer to let you know when heroes are coming – and then they just leave you to die.

The party emerges from the tunnel that leads to your home, and you snarl, twirling your sword as you prepare for a fight. You’re not going down today, or at least not without a fight, and maybe some sweet, sweet XP...