I'm a semi-experienced DM, homebrewing an online adventure of 4+ years. At long last, I'm beginning the game stat development of my BBEG, and I'm having trouble on it.
My main question is, what challenge rating should a BBEG be, to sufficiently challenge a 9-player adventuring group of level-13 characters?
Secondly, what type of damage and status effects should I make my BBEG (and/or his lair) primarily use in the final boss fight, specifically when considering the 9 13th-level characters? Would medium-level area-of-effects be more balanced? Or effects that target individual player-characters instead?
I'd recommend against having it just be a single baddie against nine players - especially if that's the only fight happening that day. Give them henchmen or followers, have traps and other combats and things to drain the players of resources before the fight.
A party of nine players is wildly going to swing in the direction of the party, just by action economy alone (unless you even that playing field).
That aside, you should know what kind of bbeg it is much more so than we do. Why are you asking us what it's damage will be? Do you know what kind of enemy it is? Is it a humanoid, a monster, a spellcaster, a dragon?
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I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
My main question is, what challenge rating should a BBEG be, to sufficiently challenge a 9-player adventuring group of level-13 characters?
Well in excess of 30, but the way CR is calculated doesn't work well for large parties.
If you want a 3 round encounter (and with 9 PCs, even that will take forever to resolve) you need to give it enough hit points to survive that long. Real DPR of a level 13 is probably around 40, so 40 x 9 x 3 = 1,080 hp.
To feel like a legitimate threat, you should probably drop 3 PCs a turn; you can reduce that to 2 if it's going to outright kill targets. At level 13, that's a real dpr of about 300 and a base of probably 400. Area damage should be somewhat higher since it's generally less efficiently applied.
At that number of players, it's mandatory that it can shrug off status effects, though you might give people a sense of progress by making it not entirely free to do so.
A reasonable way to achieve the right numbers would be to take a CR 30 mythic such as aspect of tiamat and give it two initiative scores (say, 20 and 10), with it acting (and regenerating legendary actions) at both.
Thanks, these are some super insightful tips. I've never heard of giving a monster 2 initiative scores before, that's a smart way to give the BBEG more action opportunities. Thanks again for the help.
Thanks, these are some super insightful tips. I've never heard of giving a monster 2 initiative scores before, that's a smart way to give the BBEG more action opportunities. Thanks again for the help.
It's something they did regularly on 4th edition solos, but I've never seen it in 5e. It's a useful concept though.
I would note that the numbers I give are heavily variable based on the characters, I have no information on how strong your PCs actually are. 5e has some pretty major scaling issues at higher levels, particularly with large numbers of characters, but to feel challenging without a TPK generally requires either a lot of modeling, or just outright cheating.
Hello everybody,
I'm a semi-experienced DM, homebrewing an online adventure of 4+ years. At long last, I'm beginning the game stat development of my BBEG, and I'm having trouble on it.
My main question is, what challenge rating should a BBEG be, to sufficiently challenge a 9-player adventuring group of level-13 characters?
Secondly, what type of damage and status effects should I make my BBEG (and/or his lair) primarily use in the final boss fight, specifically when considering the 9 13th-level characters? Would medium-level area-of-effects be more balanced? Or effects that target individual player-characters instead?
I appreciate any help I can get.
I'd recommend against having it just be a single baddie against nine players - especially if that's the only fight happening that day. Give them henchmen or followers, have traps and other combats and things to drain the players of resources before the fight.
A party of nine players is wildly going to swing in the direction of the party, just by action economy alone (unless you even that playing field).
That aside, you should know what kind of bbeg it is much more so than we do. Why are you asking us what it's damage will be? Do you know what kind of enemy it is? Is it a humanoid, a monster, a spellcaster, a dragon?
I know what you're thinking: "In that flurry of blows, did he use all his ki points, or save one?" Well, are ya feeling lucky, punk?
Well in excess of 30, but the way CR is calculated doesn't work well for large parties.
If you want a 3 round encounter (and with 9 PCs, even that will take forever to resolve) you need to give it enough hit points to survive that long. Real DPR of a level 13 is probably around 40, so 40 x 9 x 3 = 1,080 hp.
To feel like a legitimate threat, you should probably drop 3 PCs a turn; you can reduce that to 2 if it's going to outright kill targets. At level 13, that's a real dpr of about 300 and a base of probably 400. Area damage should be somewhat higher since it's generally less efficiently applied.
At that number of players, it's mandatory that it can shrug off status effects, though you might give people a sense of progress by making it not entirely free to do so.
A reasonable way to achieve the right numbers would be to take a CR 30 mythic such as aspect of tiamat and give it two initiative scores (say, 20 and 10), with it acting (and regenerating legendary actions) at both.
Thanks, these are some super insightful tips. I've never heard of giving a monster 2 initiative scores before, that's a smart way to give the BBEG more action opportunities. Thanks again for the help.
It's something they did regularly on 4th edition solos, but I've never seen it in 5e. It's a useful concept though.
I would note that the numbers I give are heavily variable based on the characters, I have no information on how strong your PCs actually are. 5e has some pretty major scaling issues at higher levels, particularly with large numbers of characters, but to feel challenging without a TPK generally requires either a lot of modeling, or just outright cheating.