I am running a campaign at the moment which has run from level 3 and will reach level 20 by the time the characters fight the BBEG. I have been editing the stats for him and making changes and think I am doing fine with his stats on their own but normally for boss fights I like to include dynamic environments with cool lair actions etc. However, I have a small problem - the fight will almost certainly not occur in his lair instead it will likely occur with him attacking the capital city of the largest continent in my world (where my players are mostly based). My question is, does anyone have any ideas or experience on how I could make this fights environment cool. The gist of the story is that the BBEG (a mind flayer archmage) has mass mind controlled large numbers of innocent citizens and soldiers from across the world and he is forcing them along with his army of mind flayers and other thralls to march on the capital. Any ideas on how to make lair actions/mythic form ideas etc are welcome and would be appreciated as I am a bit stuck.
I think this is where Mythic actions really come into play like you briefly mentioned. Once you reach certain thresholds, you get an all new set of toys to play with so like the poster previous to me suggested, use various settings and move in between during each phase of the mythic fight. Maybe on the siege of the capital city, the use mass mind control to turn the local soldiers into more thralls against the populace and the party has to protect the civies. Then as part of a future phase after reaching 0hp, just plane shift to a volatile environment and have them use that associated element more often. So the archmage could shift to the frostfell and use that associated element more and take extra damage from fire. Or make it seem like he's trying to merge that plane into the Material Plane and things start to warp and become strange so you can stay at that capital city. But whatever plane he's using will alter his resistances and vulnerability to keep the players on their toes while also playing up the capabilities of a mindflayer arch mage.
I don’t think a range of bonus actions will help much. That will give the BBEG more options on their turn, lair actions effectively give the boss more turns to help with the action economy. I’d suggest the BBEG has begun the process of turning the city he’s attacking into his lair. Like he’s placed artifacts or statues or whatever the plot dictates around the city, and they give him powers like his lair would. You could even treat the things like creatures in their own right. They have an initiative count, and when their turn comes up they do something. It can even be as simple as they do some small amount of damage, like 2d6 or something (aura style, the PCs just take it, no save or attack), or create an anti magic field. My DM had one that would just cast counterspell (only 1/round, but it’s enough to make you want to wreck the thing.) Something they’ll feel over time so they need to decide to attack the BBEG or the items. That helps spread their actions around so they don’t focus fire on the BBEG and just melt him in a round.
The first thing that comes to mind if you want to make a dynamic and cool environment is to make the environment dynamic and cool, which is to say;
1) have multiple things in the environment players can interact with that will cause changes to the battlefield. (random example, have a big building that's about to collapse due to unrelated damage. The party can take actions to collapse the building entirely, maybe blocking off the battlefield or doing damage to an enemy or something)
2) Have NPCs that maybe run through the fight or can be brought in for a temporary boost (random example, maybe there are healers with potions on the sidelines and the players can use their action to bring out healers that will distribute some potions to downed party members)
3) Plan out a chase sequence that will take up the middle of the fight. So you have fight #1 which is a standard combat, then you have a chase sequence where either the BBEG runs to a prepared defensive position or the players have to run as fight #2, then fight #3 is a another more standard combat but now in a brand new and hyper-cool location. Check out the DMG for chase rules
Think about having multiple goals for the players to accomplish during the fight. If the city is being invaded, they might have to man the defenses, help evacuate key areas, thwart enemy strategies, AND THEN have to deal with the main boss.
I would probably look at scenes in books, movies, tv shows, games and so on and pick a favorite. The New York fight in Avengers or the Airport fight in Captain America: Civil War.
As it sounds like the big bad has a bunch of people being mind controlled, maybe have the group try to not hurt/kill the people being mind controlled. Perhaps trying to stop the mind flayer from the finishing touch of another high ranking individual and or having a light snack.
Isn't this basically the end of BG3? Try looking there for inspiration
Does your Mindflayer have it's own Nautiloid? Right there you have some aerial support your mind flayer could call down as a sort of lair or environment action so long as the battle is taking place outside.
In the end really depends on the location you set the battle and what sort of infrastructure, traps and defences are likely to be in the area, is it using the cities own defences to it's advantage or is it setting it's own traps?
You said BBEG is a mind flayer Archmage with an army of mind controlled thralls but how does it exert control over so many thralls at once and at what range can it control them from? Unless you give your mind flayer special abilities outside the norm of a regular mind flayer a mind flayer can only really dominate one person at a time without the assistance of magical items like slave collars or something, maybe it needs a network of psionic processing units to exert control over it's army with each psionic processing unit being able to control a certain amount of thralls, perhaps the players are vastly outnumbered by these thralls and in order to turn the tide they need to destroy these units to free the thralls weakening the mind flayer's army and bolstering their own?
There is plenty you could do but it really depends on how you interpret mind flayer lore and abilities and what sort of experience you want to give the players.
Hey everyone,
I am running a campaign at the moment which has run from level 3 and will reach level 20 by the time the characters fight the BBEG. I have been editing the stats for him and making changes and think I am doing fine with his stats on their own but normally for boss fights I like to include dynamic environments with cool lair actions etc. However, I have a small problem - the fight will almost certainly not occur in his lair instead it will likely occur with him attacking the capital city of the largest continent in my world (where my players are mostly based). My question is, does anyone have any ideas or experience on how I could make this fights environment cool. The gist of the story is that the BBEG (a mind flayer archmage) has mass mind controlled large numbers of innocent citizens and soldiers from across the world and he is forcing them along with his army of mind flayers and other thralls to march on the capital. Any ideas on how to make lair actions/mythic form ideas etc are welcome and would be appreciated as I am a bit stuck.
Instead of lair actions, just give him a range of Bonus Actions.
You could run the fight in 3 phases - city walls, city streets, palace, with a different map for each.
I think this is where Mythic actions really come into play like you briefly mentioned. Once you reach certain thresholds, you get an all new set of toys to play with so like the poster previous to me suggested, use various settings and move in between during each phase of the mythic fight. Maybe on the siege of the capital city, the use mass mind control to turn the local soldiers into more thralls against the populace and the party has to protect the civies. Then as part of a future phase after reaching 0hp, just plane shift to a volatile environment and have them use that associated element more often. So the archmage could shift to the frostfell and use that associated element more and take extra damage from fire. Or make it seem like he's trying to merge that plane into the Material Plane and things start to warp and become strange so you can stay at that capital city. But whatever plane he's using will alter his resistances and vulnerability to keep the players on their toes while also playing up the capabilities of a mindflayer arch mage.
I don’t think a range of bonus actions will help much. That will give the BBEG more options on their turn, lair actions effectively give the boss more turns to help with the action economy.
I’d suggest the BBEG has begun the process of turning the city he’s attacking into his lair. Like he’s placed artifacts or statues or whatever the plot dictates around the city, and they give him powers like his lair would. You could even treat the things like creatures in their own right. They have an initiative count, and when their turn comes up they do something. It can even be as simple as they do some small amount of damage, like 2d6 or something (aura style, the PCs just take it, no save or attack), or create an anti magic field. My DM had one that would just cast counterspell (only 1/round, but it’s enough to make you want to wreck the thing.) Something they’ll feel over time so they need to decide to attack the BBEG or the items. That helps spread their actions around so they don’t focus fire on the BBEG and just melt him in a round.
The first thing that comes to mind if you want to make a dynamic and cool environment is to make the environment dynamic and cool, which is to say;
1) have multiple things in the environment players can interact with that will cause changes to the battlefield. (random example, have a big building that's about to collapse due to unrelated damage. The party can take actions to collapse the building entirely, maybe blocking off the battlefield or doing damage to an enemy or something)
2) Have NPCs that maybe run through the fight or can be brought in for a temporary boost (random example, maybe there are healers with potions on the sidelines and the players can use their action to bring out healers that will distribute some potions to downed party members)
3) Plan out a chase sequence that will take up the middle of the fight. So you have fight #1 which is a standard combat, then you have a chase sequence where either the BBEG runs to a prepared defensive position or the players have to run as fight #2, then fight #3 is a another more standard combat but now in a brand new and hyper-cool location. Check out the DMG for chase rules
Just some thoughts. :) Have fun!
Think about having multiple goals for the players to accomplish during the fight. If the city is being invaded, they might have to man the defenses, help evacuate key areas, thwart enemy strategies, AND THEN have to deal with the main boss.
I would probably look at scenes in books, movies, tv shows, games and so on and pick a favorite. The New York fight in Avengers or the Airport fight in Captain America: Civil War.
As it sounds like the big bad has a bunch of people being mind controlled, maybe have the group try to not hurt/kill the people being mind controlled. Perhaps trying to stop the mind flayer from the finishing touch of another high ranking individual and or having a light snack.
Isn't this basically the end of BG3? Try looking there for inspiration
Does your Mindflayer have it's own Nautiloid? Right there you have some aerial support your mind flayer could call down as a sort of lair or environment action so long as the battle is taking place outside.
In the end really depends on the location you set the battle and what sort of infrastructure, traps and defences are likely to be in the area, is it using the cities own defences to it's advantage or is it setting it's own traps?
You said BBEG is a mind flayer Archmage with an army of mind controlled thralls but how does it exert control over so many thralls at once and at what range can it control them from? Unless you give your mind flayer special abilities outside the norm of a regular mind flayer a mind flayer can only really dominate one person at a time without the assistance of magical items like slave collars or something, maybe it needs a network of psionic processing units to exert control over it's army with each psionic processing unit being able to control a certain amount of thralls, perhaps the players are vastly outnumbered by these thralls and in order to turn the tide they need to destroy these units to free the thralls weakening the mind flayer's army and bolstering their own?
There is plenty you could do but it really depends on how you interpret mind flayer lore and abilities and what sort of experience you want to give the players.
Possibly thats a good shout I've not got around to finishing the game yet but I will try to if that is the end of it. I'll have a look thanks