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Add stuff to the scene that's not just damage. Stuff that splits their attention and requires some strategic thinking.
- Mooks are doing a ritual that will have bad results if it's completed in two rounds.
- Mooks flee to sound the alarm/get reinforcements
- innocent hostages are at risk
- some of them are fake hostages and will attack if "rescued"
- some of them are actually innocent, but are dominated/acting against their will
- any number of gimmicks that force people into smaller groups.
- the boss is tangible only to one player at a time. Like that time in bg2 when I cast time stop and everything stopped except my wizard, and the demogorgon.
- the boss is split into X parts that need to be killed at the same time , in separate rooms.
Also, playing Mage and Fate most recently it's been really refreshing not having any of these DND problems.
This, this, this.
Also I often find inspiration in mechanics from MMOs, RPGs, and boss fight games like Elden Ring.
- Shifting damage resistances based on HP phases or whoever crit it last
- Phases where the boss takes no damage and the players have to do individual actions around the room before N turns or the boss heals
- Forced side battles where one or more players need to kill a mook in another room before returning to battle
- Shields that go down when players step on specific pressure plates, ensuring they're in range of my dmg
- Capture the Flag style McGuffin delivery to kill the boss
- Boss is fleeing through a dungeon at ~1 room per 3 turns and the party has to complete room objectives to reopen doors/keep up with him/keep LoS.
- Boss has resistances to all damage until hit with N conditions when those resistances drop for N turns
Gotta ask which mage you playing. Ascension feels really good imo, the health being the same for basically all mortals means combat, when it has to happen, is fast and lethal, with whoever had the foresight and prep time coming out on top. Not to mention things are not meant to be fully balanced, things are meant to be as strong as they are not to be punching bags for players.
I was playing Mage: The Awakening 2nd edition. I really like it but it's not super popular, so finding players is hard.
It sounds like it has the same way of modeling health. Adults have 5 + stamina health boxes. So your average person is 7, the strongest mortal in the world is 10. You have a pretty good idea that if you do nail that guy with a rifle shot, he's not getting up.
DND especially was frustrating to me when it was like "ok a veteran soldier... Does he have 10 HP? 20? 50? One attack? Two?". There's like no way to reliably reason from the narrative to the rules.
Awakening is essentially a different version of Ascension, so you've got the basic Idea of how it plays, although i think it's a bit more lethal and straight combat is more discouraged.
Playing a point buy system with character creation that is the same between NPCs and PCs really does let you have a better connection to the world. You can reasonably guess or study it logic out things about other people in the world.