Bosses

The bosses of Pascal's Wager are the 18 scripted fights of the story: eight chapter finales, a handful of optional duels and three bosses of the DLC chapter. This page lists all of them and explains the rules they share. Almost every boss follows the same pattern: a first phase with its basic move set, and a second, much more dangerous phase that begins when you turn Lunatic, not when the boss reaches some health value. The exceptions (a boss that counts hammer charges, one with three health bars, one that starts in phase 2) are noted below and on each boss page.

All boss fights#

Health is the base health of the first journey (see New Game Plus for the later loops). "P2" means the second phase.

Chapters and regions are in Chapters and Maps. Boss 9 is the odd one out: he is the only entry in the list that is a roaming field enemy (he is not flagged as a boss in the data).

Elite enemies#

Besides the story bosses, five enemy types are built like small bosses and appear many times: the Tentacle Monster, the Butcher, the Boar Man, the Little Giant (23 of them in chapter 7 alone) and the DLC Noble Knight. They are listed on their own pages and under Enemies.

How boss fights work#

Boss mode and the phase change#

A boss fight runs in "boss mode". While it is on, the game checks each update whether the boss is still at its starting grade and whether your hero is Lunatic (sanity at or below half of your maximum, see Sanity). If both are true, it starts the phase change: time slows, the screen fades to black for 2 s, and the boss is switched to its grade 2 stats and move set (controllerstorymode.lua:2253-2262, 2870-2882; animalbase.lua:1497-1567). Because the check uses your sanity, the phase change is controlled by how much sanity your hits cost you, not by how much health the boss has left.

• Grade 2 stats. The second row of ES_StoryMonsterProperty normally adds a block of defence and resistance: +30 physical defence on the Maddened Ascetic, +120 on Fused Sprenger, +80 on the Holy Father, +100 on Jenny, +200 on the Usurper and +150 on Proxy Higgins (his third stage). The First Fallen: Handel gets +100 attack and +100 defence instead. Edith has only one grade row, so her stats never change.
• The 50% heal. If the boss row has BossFinal 1 in ES_StoryMonster, the change heals it up to at least 50% of its maximum health: when the boss is below half it gains the difference (animalbase.lua:1535-1543). Flagged: the Maddened Ascetic (chapter 1), Holy Father, Jenny, Edith, Fused Sprenger, Proxy Higgins, the Usurper and The First Fallen: Handel. The First Messenger is flagged too but changes stage by her own rule. Not flagged: Elmar, Rosen Cavalier Patrick, Frollo, both Elena duels, the Ascetic rematch, Guderian and the Treasure Thieves. Terror Obsession's story row is not flagged; his challenge and Arcade rows are, but his script replaces the phase change and has no heal step.
• Thresholds. Bosses have a grade threshold of 1 by default, so the Lunatic check fires once. Elmar, Rosen Cavalier Patrick, Frollo, both Elena duels, Guderian and the Treasure Thieves return 0 while they start at grade 1, so the check can never pass and being Lunatic never changes those fights (hero20012.lua:57-59, hero20017.lua:61-63, hero20028.lua:48-50, hero20039.lua:45-47, hero20054.lua:45-47, hero20055.lua:301-303). Two bosses move the threshold instead: Proxy Higgins uses GradeCall (2), so Lunatic promotes him from his second to his third stage (hero20040.lua:221-223), and The First Messenger uses GradeSan + 1 (4), so Lunatic never promotes her and her stages follow her Health (hero10006.lua:218-220).

Sanity cost and sanity reward#

Every hit you land removes sanity from you: SanDamage x (health removed / maximum health). A boss with SanDamage 100 costs you exactly the percentage of its health that you remove. Killing a chapter boss with SanKill 200 refills your sanity and removes the Lunatic lock (see Sanity).

Bosses with a larger SanDamage reach their second phase earlier. Sanity restored by Consumables delays it. The kill refill (SanKill 200) exists only for the four bosses marked 200 above; the later bosses give none.

Levels and journeys#

Each boss has four levels in ES_StoryMonster, one per journey of New Game Plus (New Game Plus enemy scaling#What a level does to a stat). Health, attack and defence come from the hero's attributes at that level plus the grade row of ES_StoryMonsterProperty (see Attributes). Growth from journey 1 to journey 4:

The jump between the first and second journey is the largest one for every boss with a normal level curve. The attack column is the physical attack of the first phase; the boss pages give every phase.

Rewards#

Most chapter bosses give no item drop from their normal drop table. What they give instead is a one-time kill flag that moves the story on, a sanity drop (a 40% chance of a few Anthozoan Bones) when you are not at Normal sanity, and, for the later bosses, guaranteed items (Immundus Diamond, Blackwater Crystal, Sanctus Bell and others). The optional duels give the bone items and story trophies. Details are on each page; trophy materials are explained in Trophies.

Reading the move tables#

All boss pages share one format, taken from the game's skill tables (ES_SkillData):

• Move: the internal skill name without the Skill prefix. For many bosses it is the button sequence the AI "presses": L Light, H Heavy, S Special, O Option, P hold (long press), D a jump or dash, N a second variant. A trailing number is the stance or phase of the move (1 = phase 1, 2 = phase 2 or transformed). #102 and similar are reactions (dodge, parry, backstab).
• Phase: P1 or P2 when the move is only used in one phase. Empty means any phase.
• AI: range in metres, cone angle, chance per decision and cooldown, taken from the boss's AI file. These are what a player sees as "he only does this from far away".
• Damage tables: attack = the boss's attack x BaseRate / 1000 + the move's flat power, shown as the strongest hit of the move before your defence. Guard break values of 150 or more are heavy; 999 is unblockable.
• Hazards ("tricks"): ground effects and projectile impacts that use a separate damage formula (see Damage formula), usually a fixed number per journey.

Hidden mechanics#

• The phase change is player-driven. A boss does not change at a health threshold; it changes when your sanity falls, which is why a bigger SanDamage means an earlier phase 2 and why Consumables that restore sanity can hold a boss in phase 1.
• The 50% heal can undo your work. If the boss is below half health when you turn Lunatic, it is topped up to half; above half nothing is lost. From 100 sanity you turn Lunatic after removing 56% (Maddened Ascetic) or 59% (Holy Father) of its health, so these two have 44% and 41% left and the heal gives back 6 and 9 points. Jenny sits exactly on the line, and Fused Sprenger, Proxy Higgins and the Usurper are still above half. Restoring sanity during the fight lets you deal more damage before the change, which makes the heal bigger; sanity lost by other means makes it smaller.
• Not every boss counts sanity. Terror Obsession counts hammer charges, the First Messenger counts health bars, Proxy Higgins uses summons for its second stage, and the Maddened Ascetic rematch starts directly in phase 2.
• Several bosses have a second life through a weak point or a hidden counter: Edith needs both hands destroyed before she can be executed (x36 execution damage), Fused Sprenger has a glowing weak point with its own hidden health pool, and Terror Obsession ends in an instant-kill circle once his hammer has been charged eight times.
• Two fights end with an instant kill, and one skips your survival. Terror Obsession's black circle (eight hammer charges) and Proxy Higgins's staff chant (below 20% Health, ten seconds long) set your Health to 0 whatever your defence. The First Messenger's dashes and drags are flagged to skip the protection that leaves you alive at 1 Health (Damage formula#9. Rounding, shields and death).
• Level 1 does not mean easy. Terror Obsession is level 1 at every journey, yet his ground hazards deal a fixed 1,000 to 1,500 damage that no level curve touches.
• The same hero can be reused. The Maddened Ascetic fought in chapter 7 is hero 20007, the same model as chapter 1, with a separate story monster row (7010) and different stats.

Sources#

• Grade threshold overrides: luascript/logic/player/hero20012.lua:57-59, hero20017.lua:61-63, hero20028.lua:48-50, hero20039.lua:45-47, hero20054.lua:45-47, hero20055.lua:301-303; moved thresholds hero20040.lua:221-223 (Higgins, GradeCall), hero10006.lua:218-220 (Messenger); default animalbase.lua:1621-1623; start grade animalbase.lua:48.
• BossFinal 1 in ES_StoryMonster (kit ids 29, 69, 110, 222, 298, 379, 492, 570, 670, and the challenge and Arcade rows of Terror Obsession); BossFinal 0 for kit ids 76, 175, 226, 376, 418, 449, 500, 660, 662. Heal: animalbase.lua:1535-1543. SanDamage and SanKill for every row: ES_StoryMonster.
• reports/bosses_and_enemies.md (overview table, "Reading the move tables"); reports/data/boss_moves.json.
• ES_StoryMonster and ES_StoryMonsterProperty for each boss (levels, SanDamage, SanKill, BossFinal, drop ids); the per-boss pages list the exact rows.
• Phase change and heal: luascript/controller/controllerstorymode.lua:1096-1112, 2253-2262, 2870-2882; luascript/logic/player/animalbase.lua:1497-1567, 1621-1623.
• Sanity thresholds: Sanity (Lunatic at or below half of the maximum).
• Boss health of bosses 10 to 18 is quoted from their own pages.