Hiya, new DM here. Im trying to get a rough draft for the end of my home brewed campaign in place and TLDR, my players will be fighting a cult leader and the god they summoned. Im trying to figure out the best way to make the god work combat wise. Should I home brew a character for it or is there a monster/creature that would work? Ideally, my players will be lvl 20 or at least almost there by the time this final fight happens.
I have two short pieces of advice for this scenario. The first is unsolicited, but it may save you some heartache down the road:
Don't plan out a campaign that spans 20 levels in any kind of detail.
Plan for the beginning, and after that, only plan for your next game. Broad strokes are fine, and a high level view of your campaign arc is helpful for consistency, but your players will absolutely make choices you couldn't possibly anticipate. Plan for your next game, one at a time, and you'll be just fine. Some of my favorite writing advice from E.L. Doctorow applies here: "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
The second is advice for the question you actually asked. Do not let your players kill a god. A god is vast, unknowable, powerful beyond imagination. The second you give it a statblock it ceases to be any of those things. The mystery, the unknown, that's where your players imaginations will run wild, and that's what you want. My advice is to have them fight an avatar of the god, or even a botched incarnation. Then you can give the players the satisfaction of victory while maintaining the feeling of confronting something so far beyond their strength.
"Wow, we barely beat the avatar of that god, imagine how bad it would have been if it had been completely awakened!"
You also have the option to make the god a set-piece. This is a fun way to make the god interact with the combat without actually being present. A power that threatens the players via the environment and can only be quelled by disrupting/defeating the cultist leader? That can be a blast.
That's just how I would do it though, there are tons of other ways to handle the same things that can be just as fun. Good luck!
Never build a character as an enemy. Always build a monster. Characters don't play the same; they're way more brittle, but do more damage. The CR balance calculations, iffy though they be, are designed for characters on one side, monsters on the other. You can build from scratch, or modify an existing monster, or use it unchanged but for chrome, or just use it as-is.
You definitely don't need to be building an encounter for level 20 now. By the time you get to that point, you will be far more experienced at balancing encounters, particularly for the party you're running for, than you are now. Also, it may never happen.
I also agree with the prior posts - perhaps with one slight alternate view.
I plan my campaigns in arcs - so broad strokes levels 1-7 then 8-15 then 15 - 20 planning a fun challenging session for a l17 group is way harder than for a level 5 group.
Other thought - I would not let a group at level 20 kill a god. They aren't strong enough. An Epic group at the pinnacle of their power as a close to level 30 maybe but still iffy.
As others have stated make it a botched summon a demon that fooled the cult into thinking its a god - a powerful demon but still just a demon. That is much more in line sort of raw power level IMO. Even a minor demi god perhaps but no way is a l20 group killing a god. In the context of the way most folks power balance those sorts of campaigns.
I'll build on jl8e's parting advice: You don't need a stat block until right before the party will fight the monster.
Especially for a new DM, you will continually be learning how combat runs with your particular group of players. There's a bit of a learning curve as you grow accustomed to the party's abilities, hardiness, strategies, and preferences, and that learning curve changes with each tier of play. There's no point building out an enemy intended for a level 20 group when the players are nowhere near that. SO much can happen in the interim - characters can die, multiclass, get crazy magic items, players can drop the campaign, etc. Not to mention just getting used to how game-altering and trivializing high level spells can be. If you make the stat block now, I guarantee you'll need to change it later anyway. Why waste the effort?
All you need is an idea of where the campaign could go, and what possible threats might exist. Your players might follow the plot straight to the BBEG, or they might spin the narrative into something totally unexpected because of their in-game choices. Or, like in my case, you might decide to end the campaign early because you want to move on to something new. My two cents: take it slow, adjust to your players, and keep an open mind.
Hiya, new DM here. Im trying to get a rough draft for the end of my home brewed campaign in place and TLDR, my players will be fighting a cult leader and the god they summoned. Im trying to figure out the best way to make the god work combat wise. Should I home brew a character for it or is there a monster/creature that would work? Ideally, my players will be lvl 20 or at least almost there by the time this final fight happens.
Hiya, new DM here. Im trying to get a rough draft for the end of my home brewed campaign in place and TLDR, my players will be fighting a cult leader and the god they summoned. Im trying to figure out the best way to make the god work combat wise. Should I home brew a character for it or is there a monster/creature that would work? Ideally, my players will be lvl 20 or at least almost there by the time this final fight happens.
Orcus or Vecna are good examples.
I second this. Orcus is a popular bbeg for a reason.
Hiya, new DM here. Im trying to get a rough draft for the end of my home brewed campaign in place and TLDR, my players will be fighting a cult leader and the god they summoned. Im trying to figure out the best way to make the god work combat wise. Should I home brew a character for it or is there a monster/creature that would work? Ideally, my players will be lvl 20 or at least almost there by the time this final fight happens.
Beyond what others have mentioned, a combat where the entire objective is just "kill it" is not going to be interesting / climatic at level 20. It honestly doesn't feel that epic to just punch a monster's face until they die. Especially for a god-tier creature. A god-tier enemy shouldn't be killable by dealing damage to it, it should need to be tricked or trapped or weakened by specific poison or restrained by special chains or some combination there of.
Hiya, new DM here. Im trying to get a rough draft for the end of my home brewed campaign in place and TLDR, my players will be fighting a cult leader and the god they summoned. Im trying to figure out the best way to make the god work combat wise. Should I home brew a character for it or is there a monster/creature that would work? Ideally, my players will be lvl 20 or at least almost there by the time this final fight happens.
Beyond what others have mentioned, a combat where the entire objective is just "kill it" is not going to be interesting / climatic at level 20. It honestly doesn't feel that epic to just punch a monster's face until they die. Especially for a god-tier creature. A god-tier enemy shouldn't be killable by dealing damage to it, it should need to be tricked or trapped or weakened by specific poison or restrained by special chains or some combination there of.
To build on this, it's probably better for the party to stop the summoning, not clean up after it. Have the final fight be with the powerful cult leader and their lieutenants/minions/lesser monsters, and on the cult's home turf (lair actions etc). If the god actually gets summoned, the party's failed
Alternately, you could borrow the broad strokes of the end of Critical Role campaign 1 (Vox Machina). The party can't stop the summoning, but they can do something that will immediately imprison the summoned god, or banish it back from whence it came. In which case the final fight is still party vs cult and on the cult's home turf, but now the party is playing defense and not offense as they try to complete their counter-ritual or whatever
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Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock) Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric) Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue) Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Hiya, new DM here. Im trying to get a rough draft for the end of my home brewed campaign in place and TLDR, my players will be fighting a cult leader and the god they summoned. Im trying to figure out the best way to make the god work combat wise. Should I home brew a character for it or is there a monster/creature that would work? Ideally, my players will be lvl 20 or at least almost there by the time this final fight happens.
I have two short pieces of advice for this scenario. The first is unsolicited, but it may save you some heartache down the road:
Don't plan out a campaign that spans 20 levels in any kind of detail.
Plan for the beginning, and after that, only plan for your next game. Broad strokes are fine, and a high level view of your campaign arc is helpful for consistency, but your players will absolutely make choices you couldn't possibly anticipate. Plan for your next game, one at a time, and you'll be just fine. Some of my favorite writing advice from E.L. Doctorow applies here: "Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way."
The second is advice for the question you actually asked. Do not let your players kill a god. A god is vast, unknowable, powerful beyond imagination. The second you give it a statblock it ceases to be any of those things. The mystery, the unknown, that's where your players imaginations will run wild, and that's what you want. My advice is to have them fight an avatar of the god, or even a botched incarnation. Then you can give the players the satisfaction of victory while maintaining the feeling of confronting something so far beyond their strength.
"Wow, we barely beat the avatar of that god, imagine how bad it would have been if it had been completely awakened!"
You also have the option to make the god a set-piece. This is a fun way to make the god interact with the combat without actually being present. A power that threatens the players via the environment and can only be quelled by disrupting/defeating the cultist leader? That can be a blast.
That's just how I would do it though, there are tons of other ways to handle the same things that can be just as fun. Good luck!
I agree with what has already been said.
Also:
I also agree with the prior posts - perhaps with one slight alternate view.
I plan my campaigns in arcs - so broad strokes levels 1-7 then 8-15 then 15 - 20 planning a fun challenging session for a l17 group is way harder than for a level 5 group.
Other thought - I would not let a group at level 20 kill a god. They aren't strong enough. An Epic group at the pinnacle of their power as a close to level 30 maybe but still iffy.
As others have stated make it a botched summon a demon that fooled the cult into thinking its a god - a powerful demon but still just a demon. That is much more in line sort of raw power level IMO. Even a minor demi god perhaps but no way is a l20 group killing a god. In the context of the way most folks power balance those sorts of campaigns.
I'll build on jl8e's parting advice: You don't need a stat block until right before the party will fight the monster.
Especially for a new DM, you will continually be learning how combat runs with your particular group of players. There's a bit of a learning curve as you grow accustomed to the party's abilities, hardiness, strategies, and preferences, and that learning curve changes with each tier of play. There's no point building out an enemy intended for a level 20 group when the players are nowhere near that. SO much can happen in the interim - characters can die, multiclass, get crazy magic items, players can drop the campaign, etc. Not to mention just getting used to how game-altering and trivializing high level spells can be. If you make the stat block now, I guarantee you'll need to change it later anyway. Why waste the effort?
All you need is an idea of where the campaign could go, and what possible threats might exist. Your players might follow the plot straight to the BBEG, or they might spin the narrative into something totally unexpected because of their in-game choices. Or, like in my case, you might decide to end the campaign early because you want to move on to something new. My two cents: take it slow, adjust to your players, and keep an open mind.
Orcus or Vecna are good examples.
I second this. Orcus is a popular bbeg for a reason.
Beyond what others have mentioned, a combat where the entire objective is just "kill it" is not going to be interesting / climatic at level 20. It honestly doesn't feel that epic to just punch a monster's face until they die. Especially for a god-tier creature. A god-tier enemy shouldn't be killable by dealing damage to it, it should need to be tricked or trapped or weakened by specific poison or restrained by special chains or some combination there of.
To build on this, it's probably better for the party to stop the summoning, not clean up after it. Have the final fight be with the powerful cult leader and their lieutenants/minions/lesser monsters, and on the cult's home turf (lair actions etc). If the god actually gets summoned, the party's failed
Alternately, you could borrow the broad strokes of the end of Critical Role campaign 1 (Vox Machina). The party can't stop the summoning, but they can do something that will immediately imprison the summoned god, or banish it back from whence it came. In which case the final fight is still party vs cult and on the cult's home turf, but now the party is playing defense and not offense as they try to complete their counter-ritual or whatever
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
woagh lots of great advice and ideas here, thanks everyone :3