It can be difficult finding information about lvl 20 combat so I wanted to put this out there for anyone else as a reference point. I want to help the community look forward to level 20 combat and to personally dial it in to a place where it truly does feel like the pinnacle of player skill and power. I'll use this post to share my experiences and lessons learned with level 20 combat.
Experience #1
Overall a satisfying and epic encounter for everyone!
4 Player Characters
20 Fighter - Eldritch Knight
20 Ranger - Monster Hunter
20 Sorcerer - Draconic Bloodline
20 Cleric - Grave Domain
Average AC 22 (without buffs like Shield + Haste)
4 NPC Enemies
Tarrasque +1 (+1 to Hit, Damage, Save DC, 845HP)
Roc +1 (+1 to Hit, Damage, Save DC, 372HP)
Behir +1 (+1 to Hit, Damage, Save DC, 252HP)
Aeorian Absorber +1 (+1 to Hit, Damage, Save DC, 257HP)
Average AC 18
4.5 hours to get through 8 rounds of combat
At the end of Round 2 the Roc and Absorber were below 50% HP
Player items allowed
1 Legendary (orange)
1 Very rare (purple)
2 Rare (blue)
Unlimited Uncommon (green)
Summary
The Tarrasque did ~98% of ALL the damage to the players
He did about 950 HP worth of actual damage total (even factoring in damage immunities and resistances on many hits)
The other creatures ended up just being distractions since they couldn't even really hit the players to do damage
By round 2 I planned to bump the Tarrasque +1 up to his Max HP of 990, but due to not having enough time in the night I left him at 845HP instead
If we had more time and I set the Tarrasque +1 to 990HP there probably would have been at least 1 player death likely more even.
No player deaths
1 player got to 0HP, failed 2 death saves and was healed
2 others got down to ~20% of their HP at the lowest
1 player didn't go below ~50% at his lowest
The Cleric's Divine Intervention was KEY in their survival
The Cleric and Ranger were both in the belly of the Tarrasque being digested. The cleric was on his final round before the Acid damage would have killed him. He used divine intervention to be released from the Tarrasque and heal all of his team to full HP and It worked!
I gave the players lots of prep time
They used a Heroes Feast right before combat
Some used Freedom of Movement right before combat
The Sorc used Mage Armor before combat and drank a Potion of Invulnerability
One of the players made a good Arcana/Nature check on round 1 to recall that the Tarrasque is totally unaffected by certain spells and can even reflect them back. This really helped them out.
One comment. Mage Armor doesn’t stack with a Draconic Sorcerer’s natural AC. Both of those give a base AC, not a bonus to AC so the character should have picked one or the other instead of having the two stack.
Background
It can be difficult finding information about lvl 20 combat so I wanted to put this out there for anyone else as a reference point. I want to help the community look forward to level 20 combat and to personally dial it in to a place where it truly does feel like the pinnacle of player skill and power. I'll use this post to share my experiences and lessons learned with level 20 combat.
Experience #1
Summary
That sounds like it was a lot of fun!
One comment. Mage Armor doesn’t stack with a Draconic Sorcerer’s natural AC. Both of those give a base AC, not a bonus to AC so the character should have picked one or the other instead of having the two stack.
Professional computer geek
Very Good to know! Will definitely keep this in mind!