Framing a Kung Fu Campaign

I've long been a big fan of kung fu movies, but only recently started dabbling in the core texts by reading a translation of The Legend of the Condor Heroes. This has prompted me to think about how these stories might be captured in a long-term RPG campaign. (I've written previously about the structure of kung fu movies and made observations about translating the structure into RPGs. This post continues that thread; read it first if you haven't yet.)

Here is some cool tech from other games that I think would serve as a solid basis for a kung-fu campaign. 

Loresheets in Legends of the Wulin

When you talk about kung fu games, someone usually brings up Legends of the Wulin. When you talk about Legends of the Wulin, someone usually brings up loresheets. 

What is a loresheet? Here's how the book introduces the term:

"A Loresheet ... is a focused description of one setting element including specific purchasable ways a character can be tied to it. [Characters who have a Loresheet] have knowledge and insight in to the setting element it describes, whether through study or personal experience, and that the setting element is somehow tied into her history. ... It might come with a free bonus, but the major thing is that it unlocks the ability to spend Destiny on story or character options that tie you to that setting aspect. You might find yourself suddenly (and retroactively) revealed as the last scion of a dying bloodline, marry into a war between families, and get the chance to forge a new and lasting peace. In essence, these options both tie you to the setting and allow you to exercise an amount of influence over the story."

Loresheets appeared throughout the book in dedicated pages describing factions (like on the right page) or just in boxed text (like on the left page):

Loresheets have purchasable mechanical boons. These boons can be simple ("I have a reputation with this sect. I have a +5 reaction bonus with them") or more mechanical ("I know this sect's Dragon Fist Form and can use it in combat"). Loresheets share a lot of conceptual space with playbooks in this way: a tightly-bound list of advancement options that are coupled with the setting and define the trajectory of your character's story. 

You can purchase loresheet boons using XP during character creation or during play. 

Interestingly, players can spend an XP-like resource called "deeds" to purchase loresheet boons for other players. That means if a fellow player thinks it would be interesting for your character's story to become aligned with the events described on a particular loresheet, they can spend their deed to make that happen for you.

How I might use this:

I'm firmly in the "no homework" camp when it comes players--I can't be disappointed that nobody read my 20 page homebrew setting document if there's no 20 page homebrew setting document. 

That said, do you know how to get players to read your setting material? If there are character stats embedded in it. A spoon full of sugar (character building crunch) makes the medicine (lore) go down.

I think it's vital for games with rich settings to not have generic abilities that you mix and match like GURPs or Mutants & Mastermind. If you have a level in warlock, it's because you literally have a pact with a devil--an NPC that shows up sometimes during game. If you have the Dragon Subduing Palm, it's because you met Count Seven the Beggar King who taught you the technique over three days. These abilities should be rooted in the fiction.

Also, the best lore is hidden interwoven into the book itself, into the random table entries, into the equipment lists, into the suggested names.

Myths in Mythic Bastionland

One of the touted benefits of Wulin's loresheets is they condense the setting to a manageable level. The loresheets the players select are canon; everything else isn't true (yet). That's a one way to keep the homework overhead from becoming too crazy!

Another game that presents many options but only focuses on a few is Mythic Bastionland. In that game, there are 72 knights and 72 myths. A knight and a myth shares a spread like this:

On the left you have a PC: their abilities, their mentor (the seer), their items, and a small flavorful random table. On the right you have the myth--some NPCs, a sequence of omens that happens as the myth grows in power, and the stats of the titular myth itself.

A campaign of Mythic Bastionland doesn't dump all 72 knights and myths onto a single map and say "Go." The players roam the land and begin uncovering the omens of the 1+ myths the GM introduces, playing through them in a series of scenes.

How I might use this:

I like how entire campaigns are contained in a single page of a myth. It creates a great pattern to follow.

I could never match Chris McDowall's sparsity in prose, but I feel like there could be two sides to an entry--one player facing and one GM facing. 

Player facing: Rumors about a "myth": a faction, an event, a person. Also, the boons you get if you ally with them: a new PC to put into your stable, training from an NPC in sectarian kung fu techniques, a special weapon. 

GM facing: The encounter that the players have when they travel to this location: the essential conflict of the "myth." A training manual stolen, a rebel leader hidden in the region, a secret identity to be revealed. 

Advancement in Old School Stylish 

Old School Stylish reimagines the OSE rules as a class-less system. It takes OSE class abilities, spells, and items and breaks them into atomic pieces, then lets you gain them piece by piece by learning them from mentors, reading secret scrolls, and meditating in special spaces. 

In some ways, it takes a paradigm that is familiar to players of magic-users in old-school games and turns it up to 11. Now, all abilities are scavenged and found through play instead of instantly gained on certain wealth accumulation scores.

How I might use this:

Leveling up in my ideal kung fu campaign would be linked to NPCs, factions, and travel. Combine the player rumor/GM encounter pattern from the previous entry and place them physically on a map. Instead of investing character resources (XP into loresheets), players invest game play time by traveling to locations on the map to achieve the same thing. 

The rumors feel important here. If they encounter a villain with a kung fu style they can't beat, they can read through the setting document to find a technique that would be strong against his defenses. Then, they can travel there and acquire that resource. "I've heard that on Mount Wulin, there's a swordsmaster whose blade can cut even adamant skin. Let's go there!"

Time Pressures in the Dark Crystal Adventure Game

The premise of The Dark Crystal Adventure Game is that the players have 99 days before an unspecified disaster. In that time, they need to gather the seven seeds from the seven world trees scattered around the map.

As time goes on, the disaster--the Darkening--wreaks havoc on the setting. Things get worse. Locations that were once friendly and hospitable become ruined and poisonous. 

I ran this for several weeks this year and it was an ambitious premise for a book--an entire campaign setting contained in two-page spreads. 

How I might use this:

One can imagine several framing devices for a kung fu game: two factions training a pair of boys from infancy to coming-of-age (Condor Heroes), gathering the 108 bandits for a rebellion (Water Margin), and so on. 

Define a time period--say a year--and let the players move around the sandbox during that time. The rumors give them informed choices about where they want to go, the distances and training times are the resources they're spending. Then, at the end of the time period, there's a culminating event that they've been preparing for, and they put together everything they learned over the course of the campaign. 

Could I combine these techniques together into an undefeatable style? We'll see!

Kung-fu Training Minigame

As I said in my previous post, I've been watching a lot of kung fu movies. A core feature of these movies is a training scene. The hero goes from nursing their bruised knuckles to smashing through stone walls. Importantly, there are frequently multiple training scenes. 36 Chambers of Shaolin is essentially one long training scene sequence.

Because training scenes are an important part of the genre, they seem important to gameify. Saying "Okay, you go off and train for a few months and we're back" seems insufficient. 

But how can you make doing 100 pushups, reciting 100 sutras, or carrying 100 jugs of water interesting?

From Kill 6 Billion Demons

Honing Your Skills vs Learning New Skills

When training, you can hone your skills or learn new skills. 

Honing your skills allows you to improve your HP, master a new technique from your main style, etc.

However, you can only do so much training on your own. You must have a teacher to learn new skills. 

Teachers include:

• Kung fu masters
• Kung fu manuals
• Sparring partners
• Schools and monasteries 
• Weirder things, like surviving poison to learn Five-Venoms style

Traveling to find a teacher who can teach you the right technique to overcome the villain is a major point of the game.

(Old-School Stylish has a lot of good ideas about what this looks like.)

Training Montage

The 36th Chamber of Shaolin

Once per session (often at the end), you may declare that you're training. If you currently have a teacher, the GM will tell you 1-3 exercises they have assigned you. 

For example:

• Pulling nails from posts with your bare hands
• Catching thrown tofu without splattering it
• Catching flies with chopsticks
• Watching light bouncing off a mirror without turning your head
• Pulling a laden cart up and down a mountain

Roll 5d6. You must keep at least one die, but may keep more. Your goal is to get the lowest value possible.

Threes are worth zero points. All other numbers are face value. 

• If you keep a 4, 5, or 6, narrate a failure.
• If you keep a 1 or 2, narrate a near success.
• If you keep a 3, narrate an a-ha moment.

The GM will give you a 1-3 points of focus based on your description (see below).

Reroll the remaining dice and repeat the procedure, keeping at least one die and narrating a description until no dice remain. 

Sum the total value of the kept dice. 

• If the total value of your training montage is equal to or less than your focus, the montage is successful. 
• If you are training by yourself, hone one of your skills. If you are training with a teacher, learn a new skill.
• Reset your current focus to 0.
• If the total value of your training montage is greater than your focus, you do not learn anything new. You are bruised and exhausted.
• Note down your total focus. Focus persists between training montages until your succeed.

Example:

The player rolls a 3-3-6-5-2 on their first turn. They keep both 3s. They also choose (but don't have to) to keep the 2. They roll the last two remaining dice and get 3-5. They keep the 3. They roll the last die. It's a 4. They must keep it as it is the final die. Their dice are now 3-3-2-3-4. Total score for that montage is 2+4 = 6.

Focus

When you try to learn a new technique, you begin with a focus of 0. The GM awards a player 1-3 points of focus for each narration during the training montage. Focus persists between training sessions until a training montage is successful.

1 point: The GM awards 1 point of focus for evocative descriptions of training. 
Example: "I struggle to smash all the hanging water jugs with my head, getting a bloody nose."

2 points: The GM awards 2 points of focus for descriptions that interact with the environment in some notable fashion, taking advantage of the scenery they've provided. 
Example: "As the Sick God continues throwing slices of tofu, I actually catch one this time without mashing it. Then another. Then another. The Sick God looks impressed and begins throwing the slices faster. I quickly run out of hands with which to catch the slices. I catch one in my mouth and my eyes bulge and cross."

3 points: When a player's narration causes the entire table gasps in awe, bursts into applause, or collapses into laughter, the GM should award 3 points of focus. 
Example: "As Ah-Biao and I spar atop the raised poles, I no longer need to look down and think about my footwork--I simply glide across them, like I'm skating across a pond in winter. As I fall back against his assault, he delivers an unexpected kick. I sail backwards, and would be knocked outside of the sparring ring, but I swing my saber in a lazy arc and cut a section from one of the red poles. I kick off of it in mid-air and land back in the ring, ready to continue."

Design Notes

The goal is to incorporate training scenes into a kung fu RPG in a way that emulates classic grindhouse kung fu movies but is also fun. Fun is derived from choices. 

There two main choices delivered by this system: 1) There's a small strategy in the minigame about when to take a low roll and when to reroll 2) The creative exercise of narrating interesting, pleasing scenes set by the constraints of the GM. These are minor but I hope they deliver a nice experience. 

Here are some other things that appeal to me about this system:

• The minigame is derived from Threes, a dice game my friends and I play while drinking. It's fun without being complex or demanding.
• The minigame is also super fast. Without narration, a single turn takes about a minute. With 4-5 narration beats, I anticipate this minigame taking about 5 minutes. This feels like the right training-to-play ratio for a standard RPG session. 
• The focus system is borrowed from Exalted's stunt system. It is a fun system that works when you get your head around it.
• Because training happens every session, players should be gaining new skills every session or so. Leveling up is fun and is very genre appropriate.

This needs playtesting, but I think there's something appealing here.

Meditating on the White Lotus

Sometimes I make kung fu posts. I've started using the `kung-fu` label to aggregate them. Click on this label to read my other mutterings on this subject.

I've been watching Shaw Brothers films at the gym this summer. If you're unfamiliar, Shaw Brothers was a prolific Hong Kong production company that produced grindhouse kung fu films. Basically, all the audio samples from Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) were from these films. 

> Frog style is incredibly strong and immune to nearly any weapon.

I like some of the films more than I like others, but almost all of them have something that made me say "Ha ha neat." Almost all of them have something gameable. 

In this post, I'm going to step through the Shaw Brothers' film Clan of the White Lotus beat by beat. Heavy spoilers warning, obviously. When there's something gameable, I'll riff. 

This is a purely creative exercise. Maybe it will be interesting to you, too!

Clan of the White Lotus

I selected Clan of the White Lotus (titled Fists of the White Lotus in the original North American release) because it is standard Shaw Bros. fare. It is fun without being brilliant. It is third in a series of multi-generational revenge films concerning Pai Mei's betrayal of the Shaolin temple. (You might remember Pai Mei from the Kill Bill series.) It is basically a remake of the first film in this series.

Plot: A wronged martial artist trains tirelessly to carry out a plan of revenge against a martial arts master. In the background, political turmoil that undoubtedly has 70s Hong Kong implications that I do not understand. After leveling up, the wronged martial artist kills his rival. He says "I did it!" The credits roll. 

Cast: Here's a list of the characters to reference while reading this blog post in case any of the names are confusing.

• Priest White Lotus - The main villain, brother of Pai Mei
• Wen-Ting - The main character
• Ah-Biao - The Shaolin fighter from the first film, murdered by Priest White Lotus
• Mei-Hsiao - Ah-Biao's wife
• Ko Chin-Chung - Governor of the region, nephew of Priest White Lotus

Intro Credits

The intro credits recap the battle from the first film in the series, Executioners of Shaolin, where two Shaolin monks join forces to defeat the villainous Pai Mei.

Gaming Observation: Designed for Small Tables

The traditional arc of these stories almost always has one hero facing off against one evil master and their horde. There are often minor characters, usually a love interest, a comedic character, and a good martial arts master. These would not make particularly interesting player characters. (Executioners of Shaolin is unusual in that there were two main characters.)

An RPG based on this paradigm would work well if designed intentionally for 1 player hero and 1 GM. Perhaps these two players trade roles--perhaps after every act or after every campaign. 

Rules for dual-heroes or, much more rarely, ensemble casts would be optional.

Act 1

The Shaolin clan is released from prison, following the events of the last movies. This includes Ah-Biao, who defeated Pai Mei. Ah-Biao has been lamed in prison. He returns home to his wife, Mei-Hsiao, and protégé, Wen-Ting.

The governor of the region and member of the White Lotus clan, Ko Chin-Chung, perceives the Shaolin as rebels to the Qing Dynasty. He asks his uncle, head of the White Lotus Clan (simply named "White Lotus Chief" or "Priest White Lotus" in my translation) to help kill the released Shaolin prisoners. Priest White Lotus agrees because he was brother to Pai Mei and wants revenge on Ah-Biao.

The White Lotus ambush and kill the freed rebels. Ah-Biao, because he was injured in prison, is killed. Wen-Ting is defeated by Priest White Lotus, but escapes with Mei-Hsiao.

Gaming Observation: Campaign conventions

The main loop of D&D is "Go into dungeon. Fight monsters. Take treasure. Spend treasure in city." The main loop of a kung fu game is "Watch master get killed by villain. Train. Find counter to villain's style. Defeat villain." This campaign structure can be used sequentially, ad nauseum, with different villains coming to revenge old ones and old heroes dying as inciting incidents.

Act 2

Wen-Ting and Mei-Hsiao go stay with Mei-Hsiao's brother, the buffoonish Cheng. He works making paper mannequins. 

Wen-Ting trains with Cheng to perfect his Tiger Crane style. Cheng is not a good martial artist, but Wen-Ting has to practice on somebody. This is a comedic sequence.

Gaming Observation: Level ups are fun

In a kung fu game, you should level up after every session. This level up can be spent either in training (to learn new skills) or during combats to represent a-ha moments (perfecting the skills you already have). 

Converting "White Lotus" into a campaign arc, imagine every act as one session. Wen-Ting goes from student to master over the course of 4. This implies that max level is 4.

Wen-Ting goes to the temple of the White Lotus to confront Priest White Lotus, cutting a swath through his minions to find him. Wen-Ting and the governor Ko Chin-Chung spar before Priest White Lotus joins the battle.

Gaming Observation: Mooks, Mini-bosses, and Bosses

There are three levels of enemies. 

• Mooks are your acolytes, your ninjas, your guardsmen--faceless, nameless characters. They exist to die in droves. 
• Mini-bosses are named characters with strong kung fu. They are worthy foes. They exist to give the player hero someone to defeat while perfecting their skills.
• Bosses are the main villains of the campaign. Defeating them is the goal of the game.

Priest White Lotus has two powerful defensive abilities:

• Light body, so strong attacks generate wind that simply pushes him away
• Strong internal qi, so he can shrug off any attack that does hit

Priest White Lotus explains that he maintains these powers through a restful ritual on this day, the day of the Dragon Boat Festival. Priest White Lotus easily defeats Wen-Ting again. Wen-Ting escapes.

Gaming Observation: Defeat isn't death

When a player hero is defeated in combat, they do not die. Instead, they escape and are given a complication. Overcoming the complication frames the next session and moves the story beats on.

Complications include:

• Injuries
• Trailing spies
• Captured friends
• Burned home bases

Fighting the master villain is important because you learn what their powers are. Finding techniques that can defeat these powers is the main thrust of the game.

Act 3

Wen-Ting is followed by two incognito White Lotus members. Realizing he's being trailed, he gives them a slip through clever role-play in a tea house. 

Mei-Hsiao gives birth to Ah-Biao's son. Wen-Ting continues to train. Observing the way Cheng's paper mannequins are blown by the storm's wind, Mei-Hsiao has a revelation about how Priest White Lotus dodges.

Mei-Hsiao teaches Wen-Ting a woman's style of kung fu--less power, more grace. To train him in this, Wen-Ting does women's work such as embroidery and taking care of the new baby. (Mastering this style causes Wen-Ting to act effeminately, talking in falsetto and affecting a feminine style. This rules.)

Gaming Observation: Style combinations

The boss is undefeated because nobody knows how to get past their kung fu. Players spend their levels to learn kung fu techniques that, when combined, directly counter the villain's kung fu. 

A kung fu style can probably be abstracted down to a single technique--a defensive strategy, an attack, etc. The game should provide rules for combining styles, allowing players to create brand new techniques. 

Feeling confident in his Embroidery/Tiger Crane style, Wen-Ting returns to challenge Priest White Lotus again. Wen-Ting first (barely) defeats the chief's two swordsman bodyguards. 

Wen-Ting can now manage to strike Priest White Lotus but cannot injure him. Priest White Lotus is then revealed to have a potent attack move: 100-pace Strike. After hit with this strike, you can only walk 100 pages before dying. 

Wen-Ting, staggering from the temple, takes 99 steps and is found by Cheng.

Act 4

Cheng takes Wen-Ting back to the paper mannequin shop. The owner of the paper mannequin shop is revealed to be a doctor and also a rebel sympathetic to the Shaolin cause. The owner uses acupuncture to cure Wen-Ting. 

Wen-Ting reads the owner's acupuncture book and realizes that, using internal kung-fu, White Lotus Priest has moved his vital area (which my translation just called [Mumbling], inexplicably). Wen-Ting specifically arms himself with new weapons for his next confrontation.

Gaming Observation: New weapons

Villains tend to be static. Heroes are dynamic. When a hero changes their approach or gets a new weapon, this should provide them a meaningful bonus to the next encounter. There should be a system where players and GMs negotiate over the strategy of new weapons, with players solving problems through a broad selection of tools.

Wen-Ting returns to challenge the White Lotus Priest one last time. He returns again on the day of the Dragon Boat Festival, one year since his first challenge. 

Using a three-section staff, Wen-Ting solidly defeats the two sword-wielding bodyguards. 

Then, using embroidery pins, Wen-Ting stabs White Lotus Priest's body in his acupuncture points, finally defeating him.

He says "I won!" The credits roll.

Gaming Observation: Combat flow

Sometimes heroes get hit and are knocked back into another room. Sometimes you can tell they have taken a Bad Hit because some blood is coming from their mouth. After the hero has blood coming of their mouth, they can be given a Very Bad Hit that takes them out. Sometimes, when you think the Very Bad Hit is coming, the hero recovers instead.

Instead of tracking HP, player heroes and worthy foes have essentially three states:

• Balanced
• Staggered 
• Taken out

You can't be taken out until you're staggered, first. The rules in REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE simulate these states well, and I'm still pretty proud of them.

Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting

I had an idea for a combat system while out for a jog. I've also been rereading Kill 6 Billion Demons. I sat down and barfed this out.

REACH HEAVEN THROUGH VIOLENCE

This is obviously unfinished and a first draft. There are no character creation rules, as such. You can test it out by giving everybody any 3 techniques they want and seeing what happens. 

I think there's something salvagable here. I'd love some feedback. 

Three Bad Kung Fu Ideas

The Sword-Breaker King Arts

Manse made a post a while ago about special martial techniques and they tickled me.

I had an (unusually awesome) kung fu dream concerning a shadowy Robin Hood-like guy named the Sword-Breaker King. I wrote it up as a lark. Sorry not sorry for the weeb content.

No idea if this is balanced. Probably not.

1. Shield Arm - Your hands and forearms become steely hard and impervious to pain. You gain DR X to weapon attacks, where X equals the highest level technique in the Sword Breaker King Arts. You do not benefit from DR from unarmed attacks, as they employ a variety of chokes, nerve punches, and grapples that don't necessarily benefit from your shield arm training. You do gain this DR when you do things like reach into fires or try and hold open a falling portcullis: any damage centered on your arms is absorbed.

2. Step on Shields and Spears - You can automatically disengage or move past a foe holding ground if they are wielding a weapon. Using this technique, students of this art can walk on spear tips and easily move across the battlefield unchallenged, targeting generals and champions.

From the unparalleled Kill Six Billion Demons

3. Sword Snatching Grip - If your damage reduction completely negates the damage a weapon attack would do to you, you may automatically disarm your opponent.

4. Wild Boar's Gore - If your opponent misses a weapon attack against you, you may apply their attack roll against another foe with which you are engaged.

5. Iron Rain Technique - Make an attack roll against a foe. If you hit, you may automatically sunder an opponent's weapon or shield instead of doing damage. Everyone engaged with you must Save vs. Dragon Breath or take 1d6 damage from the exploding shards of the weapon.

Alternate HP system

Reach Heaven Through Violence

Since I'm here and thinking about combat subsystems, here's an alternate HP system that I've been gnawing on for kung-fu-type games.

You have two states: solid and staggered.

• If you are solid, you are alert and have good footing. You are aggressive.
• If you are staggered, you are knocked off balance or disadvantaged. You are vulnerable. 

Keep a coin next to your character sheet. If it's heads up, you're solid. If it's tails up, you're staggered. (You might be flipping this a lot during the flow of combat.)

• If  you are solid and an opponent hits and would damage you, don't roll any damage. You become staggered.
• If you are staggered and an opponent hits you, your opponent rolls their damage dice and you roll your HD. 
• Your HD is determined by your class: magic-users d4, cleric and thief d6, fighter d8.
• If your opponent rolls higher than you, you are taken out. You fall, gasping and clinging to life. 
• If you roll higher than your opponent, you're safe (for now). If you roll 4+ on your HD, you return to solid at the beginning of your next turn.
• You can spend your turn to catch your breath and instantly return to solid. 

Example:
The knight Blackthorn is engaged with a two assassins.

• Round 1: 
• Blackthorn acts first and makes an attack against Assassin 1 and succeeds. Assassin 1 is now staggered. 
• Both assassins make an attack against Blackthorn and only Assassin 1 succeeds. Blackthorn is now staggered. 
• Round 2:
• The assassins gain initiative. Both assassins make an attack against Blackthorn and both succeed. This could be it for our hero!
• Assassin 1 rolls his damage dice (1d6) vs Blackthorn's HD (1d8). The assassin rolls 5, but Blackthorn rolls a 6! Blackthorn is safe for now and will become solid at the beginning of his next turn since he rolled 4+.
• Assassin 2 rolls his damage dice (1d6) vs Blackthorn's HD (1d8). Both the assassin and Blackthorn roll a 4. Because the assassin has to roll higher to take out Blackthorn, Blackthorn survives the attack (by the skin of his teeth).
• Blackthorn becomes solid. Blackthorn makes an attack against Assassin 1 and succeeds. 
• Blackthorn rolls his damage dice (1d6) vs the assassin's HD (1d6). Blackthorn rolls a 4 and the assassin rolls a 1. Blackthorn takes out Assassin 1.

The idea behind this system is to simulate having your opponent on the ropes to make a finishing move. I have no idea how this would actually work at the table.

Another Alternate HP System

Skull of Ys Mara

Forget all that shit I just said about not having HP. 

When you and a minion are in the same combat area, add your minion's HP to your own as temporary hit points. 

When you or your minion is attacked, you can choose to direct the damage to your HP or your temporary hit points. If your minion would take enough damage to die, he dies and the rollover carries on to your HP.  Alternately, you can choose to always take the damage to your own HP. HP never rolls over from master to minion. 

Essentially, this creates scenes where you or your minions leap to defend each other. Have real BUCKYYYY NOOOO scenes.

Example:

O Hashiin the Unwashed is surrounded by six of his bloody acolytes, each with 2HP. This gives him 12 temporary hit points as long as he's near his acolytes. 

Because he is a cruel master, you must defeat each of his acolytes before you can meaningfully defeat him.