Alternative Consequences for Losing Boss Battles

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My students love boss battles but many of the weaker students refuse to participate because they are afraid of falling battle and being punished, which is a great shame as they could use the assessment style of boss battles for practice.

I think it would be brilliant if losing a boss battle had alternative consequences, like if you hp drops to zero, you do not fall in battle, but rather you do not only lose a chance to not gain the xp/gp from the boss, but could lose that xp. Students would be more willing to participate if that was the case instead of a punishment.

Otherwise we are giving the impression that not answering questions correctly and being deemed less intelligent deserves a consequence/punishment equal to misbehaviours in class. Which I feel strongly against, learners must not be punished for getting something wrong, otherwise they prefer to not even try.

There should either be no consequence for losing all hp in boss battles (Only loss of chance to gain the reward) or loss of XP/GP or game master's choice.

Now I know we could work around this by simply cancelling the punishment, restoring the student's hp and simply minus the points ourselves, but that is a very long and difficult work around method. I think this is a feature worth considering or discussing.

2 comments
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Hi Dan, 

This is a really good observation, I'll transfer this to our development team!

One way to solve the problem of students who do not want to participate in fear of getting an answer wrong would be to set up your Boss battles to be answered by teams.

Boss battles answered by whole teams instead of individuals allows stronger students in each team to help students who are uncertain of the answer and this way everyone could feel good and learn in the process.

Thank you for putting it through.


I do not believe your suggestion is an answer because while teams work on occasions, often you only have one student answering and others staying quiet. It is often necessary to have one on one assessments and then many students who are weak, who are the ones who need the practice become to afraid to do it and instead in a team battle they simply stay quiet and let the stronger students answer, defeating the point.

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