Ideas for Enemies and Bosses

Have you ever wanted to make up new ideas for enemies, but end up getting stumped on exactly what they will be? Well, that's me right now! I plan to have a somewhat modern, semi futuristic fantasy setting that's also in harmony with nature (Like cities and towns alongside forests and mountains and whatnot. Think any Pokemon game!) And yet, not only making these Battlers is going to be a huge chore, but sometimes I get stuck with exactly WHAT those creatures will be!

So do you folks do if you run into this kind of rut, if ever? What sort of setting do you plan your RPG to be, and what's in it?

I always do. My default monster go to is usually a dragon but you can only have so many dragons (unless it's a dragon game).

I find that it's a bit easier to take a break and go look at various media in a similar theme/setting and go from there. As most of my games are fantasy, that leaves me with a lot of things to get ideas from. Monster manuals from things like D&D, Pathfinder or any other paper rpg can give some ideas.

Right now, I'm working on Starshard which is a fantasy with a few bits of steampunk (think SNES Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger for a rough idea of setting) so most of my monsters right now are fantasy based. I've got a few mimic creatures, an Ifrit-Bull like thing and now I'm working on a stone/earth-giant but got a lot more to do. It's always fun to make up monsters for games once you get unstuck.

I don't really have this problem. I tend to start with a "monster concept" and assign the sprite last.

I go into my combat system knowing what my players can do at any given time. This makes it easy to think up ways to mess with the players. That my goal, mess with my players. Trick them, make them think, make them come up with strategies.

So, early in my game, I need to teach my players about "Poison". But, they only have 1 Accessory Slot. They can either make themselves immune to Poison L1 or Poison L2. But, early in the game, the difference in levels may not matter. However, enemies will cast both Poisons on a player. This teaches players to bring Antidotes or.... To equip a "Relic" which has a huge downside to being equipped for immunity to all Poison. That's not even the last of it. The bosses of my "Teach Poison Mechanics to the Player" area do terrible things. If you hit them with a Fire attack, they have counter attacks. One of those things is a "Bile" move that puts Poison L1 and Poison L2 on the entire party. This also happens once when the monster reaches 35% Health remaining. Another is a "Tentacle Sweep" that happens when you inflict a state on the Bosses. It's an attack that hits everyone. Oh, barely any "full party hit" moves exist in my game. So, one that hits everyone is a big deal.

I like inviting Counter Play.

I also like just annoying my players. I have another monster, a "Fire Elemental" type. If you hit it with any Water attack, it immediately counters with, "Hot Steam" that hits everyone and deals significant damage.

I think a lot of "not getting stuck" is just knowing what your players can do at any given time. What do they have access to? How can you counter that? What can you do to mess with them? To keep them from spamming "Attack" or their best Magic abilities? What can you do to shatter their notions on how battle is supposed to go?

It helps you come up with interesting creatures. It doesn't so much matter what they are or what they look like. Come up with the mechanics first, then just select something appropriate to what you've made as a monster.

I had the same problem a while ago. Though I didn't take the "gameplay" approach.
I've looked through as many fantasy creatures I could find, from all kinds of media to get ideas.
When I found something interesting, I would note down the first things that came to my mind, look away from it, try to remember how it looked from these notes (and my memory is not the best ^^°) and then I'd write out ideas for the monsters habitat, appearance, behavior, etc.
That way, I've been able to gather a lot of monsters in a pretty short amount of time. Though sometimes I'm worried they might look too much like the monsters I got the idea from...

Anyway, this might be a good way to create monsters that are more fleshed out than the standard RPG enemies.

I have a bigger issue with having too many boss ideas to the point I have to cut out ideas so there's not too many of them, lol.
How I come up with ideas is either through a unique story I have in mind for them (like the guardian of a certain place, then make their skills line up with the theme of that place, or making bosses more advanced versions of regular encounters in that area).

Ooh, that's an interesting way to think about it.

I plan to have a number of enemies to come by. Humans, animals, human-like animals, machines and constructs, as well as the occasional mythical critter and hybrid. I don't like using the term "Monster" because it suggests every creature is evil and wants your head just because! I want to make it where, while you DO fight stuff for money and experience, it's not just senseless slaughter for the sake of being a hero.

My approach is opposite from Tai_MT, since I have limited resources on monster/enemy sprites, and I can't make one (and don't plan to learn to make one), I'm looking at my available assets first. Which one that would suit best with the current stages, pick out, look at the look of the battler, think what kind of moves you would think comes from such enemy. Then try to associate them with the player skill/move has to troll them.

For example I found a pretty normal looking slime, I put it on the mid game (since slime early game is too old). Messes it with hue, found a cyan looking slime, this reminds me of magic / mana, so why not name it Ether Slime? Since it's magic related, let see what can I do with it to troll players. Maybe, this slime will have a high repel chance against magic attack, maybe one of their attack actually drains out player's energy, or maybe it also inflict Mana leak for DoT damage to their Mana. Oh maybe, it has a dispel wave where it would dispel all party buff instantly. Not particularly dangerous, but can get annoying if u don't kill it first.

I have an early game slime named "Cyan Slime". It is also magical. However, it's purpose is to teach you about your stats. :D Namely, it does the same Magic move all the other slimes do... but it hits 4x as hard, to teach you about the "Magic" and "Magic Defense" stats.

I just think it's funny we came up with the same concept for a slime. I just use mine to teach something basic, and you're using yours to mess with players. :D

Usually I try to come up with a boss that is fitting for the area I just designed. If none comes to mind, then see if I can put a human boss. Maybe a treasure hunter thinks you just stole the treasure from here, and wants to take it from you one way or the other? Or maybe your ex just showed up and they are MAD! That's just two ideas that came up as I wrote it.

If a human boss doesn't work, then I try to come up with an interesting fantasy monster that is believable where you are. For example in one part of my game you go through a damp cave, so I made the boss of that cave a group of giant mushrooms. After all, no one says a boss has to fight alone right? You can give the player a challenging battle just by giving them 6 - 8 monsters to face instead.

Ah, cool! So if not using a singular Big Boss, it's replaced by a bunch of extra-strong "Normal" enemies. Or maybe said enemies possessing a special perk or skill that's not seen from the rest of their kind, which throws the player off guard. That's so elaborate, I like it!

Now lately gotten a few ideas of creatures I want to make, I can't wait to see how they turn out!

Right! Or maybe just the same monsters they have been fighting all dungeon even, just paired up in a way they have never seen before. Or maybe all dungeon they have been fighting monsters in 2 - 3's, but the boss is 7 of them, which is tough if they don't have a good area of effect skill yet.

Though once your party gets skills which hit all enemies it gets a tad harder, but you can still do the same idea. I have one dungeon where the boss has monsters which all absorb one element. But each one absorbs a different one. So if you just go AOE crazy you're going to heal something and you gotta think. And the thing is, the player has been fighting those monsters all dungeon, so by now if they've been paying attention they should know which ones absorb which element.

You can do the same thing with magic reflect too, though because that can get really mean I don't do that one as often.