I’m writing my first dnd campaign and have 5 friends who are going to play through it all. Without going into too much detail, the story consists of a world where an ancient evil is being awakened by its three servants and an evil cult that disguises themselves as a humanitarian organisation and happy go lucky religion. The three servants will each be bosses and once defeated they will release an essence that slowly awakens the ancient evil old god, a Cthulhu inspired creature. All the essences released by the three servants will go to the leader of the cult and he will absorb them as grow powerful enough to open a portal that will slowly let the old god enter into the mortal realm.
the thing I need help with is making the final boss encounter. I know it’s not something I’ll need to worry about for a long time, but I just like to be prepared. I’m thinking the last battle will be a race to defeat the cult leader before he can fully summon the old god into the world and if all goes to plan, they will defeat the cult leader and close the portal stopping the emergence of the god and saving the world. I’m just not sure what to do for last battle, do I make the cult leader become a large monster or something? I want it to be a good hard battle but if it’s just a guy who’s a wizard or a warlock or something, it may not be a very climactic battle?
One suggestion; try to tell this final encounter as a story to yourself. What story beats would you like to happen during this battle? Is it going to be full-on action from statr to finish, or are there going to be pauses and lulls in the action? If so, what and why? A villainous monologue? A change of setting (something collapsing mid-battle, enabling a new battlefield for instance)? What about the environment surrounding the battle? Is anything else happening that requires the players' attention (maybe saving someone before it is too late, or preventing something else from happening at the same time)? Is the final boss going to have more forms or phases like in many computer games - what and how many? Will each form have different short terms goals? Different powers? Suddenly having legendary resistances or lair actions?
My suggestion would be to make the most of the summoning ritual itself, rather than the cult leader having weird powers or be some crazy monster, use the ritual itself to justify changes to the battle. And remember the final battle doesn't need to be against one singular monster, or even one singular battle. Consider: what is required to perform the ritual? What are the stages of progression of the ritual? How does each stage affect the world in such a way that the party knows the ritual has progressed? What can the players do to slow down the ritual? What do they have to do to reverse it? In line with this the old god could start to be able to act upon the world as the ritual progresses towards completion.
How do the essences affect the leader? Do they change his abilities? his appearance? both? It's your world do whatever you think is cool and dramatic.
I feel like if you plan for cosmic horror Cthulhu you can't have that be the final boss because you can't describe Cthulhu can you. A minor warlock boss fight would be underwhelming as well. So you'd have to combine the two. As someone who has done this kind of thing before here's how I would do it:
1. First getting to the leader and the summoning itself. Have it be that they have to sprint down a path with multiple obstacles and minor cultists that attempt to stop them.
2. I would have the cult leader not be actively in combat have him be engaged in the ritual and fight cultists. The cult leader is in a special trance and won't be affected by their attacks. The cultists may have done some sort of tethering ritual to make it so that when the leader takes damage they take the damage instead. You can have this going until a certain amount of time has past or enough cultists have been killed.
3.Then you can see the tentacles coming out of the ground or portal. Each of these can be their own monster and have one attack. I would have the Cultist Leader fight as well, and have him be more difficult than the three servant boss fights
4. Right before the cultist dies, he reveals that the characters were the ones actually doing the ritual as his essence combined with the three servants begins to awaken the old god. then you can have more tentacles come and reanimate the leader like a puppet. Characters may notice that three spots in the arena are glowing with the essence of the servants making the portal open wider. That would give them two options, kill the likely difficult reanimated cult leader. Or survive the encounter enough to close the portal on the god.
Of course this is just how I've done this kind of thing in the past. Who am I to say what you should or shouldn't do in your campaign. You final encounter could be different depending on the story and the pacing of the campaign. After all, the combat is just a vessel for the story. Once you've figured out how the story is going to go, then you can think about how you want to make your final boss. Also, in general, In D&D things can change completely. So never prepare too ahead in time.
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"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."
There a many good approaches here in terms of creating a boss encounter that the others are bringing up. However, since you are creating a campaign and it sounds like you haven't had your first session yet I would slow down a bit on working out the final battle. The reason I say this is because the story can go in a number of different directions depending on how the players decide to act. The players might want to seek allies to help them fight against the cult, which buys the cultists more time to progress. Maybe they decide to spare the cultist servants and tie them up with rope, questioning them for information (and thus also not releasing the essence). The point is it's a bit tricky to design a final battle this early in the process.
If you're up for it, I'd recommend focusing on the main villain for now, which sounds like it's the cult leader. Who are they? What is their goal and why? How do they plan to achieve this? And lastly, what are they willing and not willing to do to achieve this?
Knowing the answers to these questions can help you a lot in building the campaign as you go, since you have a better grasp of how the villain reacts to the players. This can also help you figure out the final battle when you want to create that. Is the villain willing to risk their own life to accomplish their goal? If not, think about how that impacts what they do in a combat scenario. Do they attempt to keep the players at range using their environment or spells? Do they risk other servants lives to protect themselves? Is there a situation where they might try to escape somehow and the battle evolves into a chase sequence?
I hope this makes sense and is of help to you. Best of luck with your campaign and have fun with it!
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I’m writing my first dnd campaign and have 5 friends who are going to play through it all. Without going into too much detail, the story consists of a world where an ancient evil is being awakened by its three servants and an evil cult that disguises themselves as a humanitarian organisation and happy go lucky religion. The three servants will each be bosses and once defeated they will release an essence that slowly awakens the ancient evil old god, a Cthulhu inspired creature. All the essences released by the three servants will go to the leader of the cult and he will absorb them as grow powerful enough to open a portal that will slowly let the old god enter into the mortal realm.
the thing I need help with is making the final boss encounter. I know it’s not something I’ll need to worry about for a long time, but I just like to be prepared. I’m thinking the last battle will be a race to defeat the cult leader before he can fully summon the old god into the world and if all goes to plan, they will defeat the cult leader and close the portal stopping the emergence of the god and saving the world. I’m just not sure what to do for last battle, do I make the cult leader become a large monster or something? I want it to be a good hard battle but if it’s just a guy who’s a wizard or a warlock or something, it may not be a very climactic battle?
any criticism or advice is welcome
One suggestion; try to tell this final encounter as a story to yourself. What story beats would you like to happen during this battle? Is it going to be full-on action from statr to finish, or are there going to be pauses and lulls in the action? If so, what and why? A villainous monologue? A change of setting (something collapsing mid-battle, enabling a new battlefield for instance)? What about the environment surrounding the battle? Is anything else happening that requires the players' attention (maybe saving someone before it is too late, or preventing something else from happening at the same time)? Is the final boss going to have more forms or phases like in many computer games - what and how many? Will each form have different short terms goals? Different powers? Suddenly having legendary resistances or lair actions?
Tell the story. Make it epic. <3
My suggestion would be to make the most of the summoning ritual itself, rather than the cult leader having weird powers or be some crazy monster, use the ritual itself to justify changes to the battle. And remember the final battle doesn't need to be against one singular monster, or even one singular battle. Consider: what is required to perform the ritual? What are the stages of progression of the ritual? How does each stage affect the world in such a way that the party knows the ritual has progressed? What can the players do to slow down the ritual? What do they have to do to reverse it? In line with this the old god could start to be able to act upon the world as the ritual progresses towards completion.
How do the essences affect the leader? Do they change his abilities? his appearance? both? It's your world do whatever you think is cool and dramatic.
I'd avoid solo monster so along with the cult leader the living portal could also fight , or have other creatures come out of it to fight
Some elemental evil vapor vould steam out of the portal too, affecting everyone in weird way.
I feel like if you plan for cosmic horror Cthulhu you can't have that be the final boss because you can't describe Cthulhu can you. A minor warlock boss fight would be underwhelming as well. So you'd have to combine the two. As someone who has done this kind of thing before here's how I would do it:
1. First getting to the leader and the summoning itself. Have it be that they have to sprint down a path with multiple obstacles and minor cultists that attempt to stop them.
2. I would have the cult leader not be actively in combat have him be engaged in the ritual and fight cultists. The cult leader is in a special trance and won't be affected by their attacks. The cultists may have done some sort of tethering ritual to make it so that when the leader takes damage they take the damage instead. You can have this going until a certain amount of time has past or enough cultists have been killed.
3.Then you can see the tentacles coming out of the ground or portal. Each of these can be their own monster and have one attack. I would have the Cultist Leader fight as well, and have him be more difficult than the three servant boss fights
4. Right before the cultist dies, he reveals that the characters were the ones actually doing the ritual as his essence combined with the three servants begins to awaken the old god. then you can have more tentacles come and reanimate the leader like a puppet. Characters may notice that three spots in the arena are glowing with the essence of the servants making the portal open wider. That would give them two options, kill the likely difficult reanimated cult leader. Or survive the encounter enough to close the portal on the god.
Of course this is just how I've done this kind of thing in the past. Who am I to say what you should or shouldn't do in your campaign. You final encounter could be different depending on the story and the pacing of the campaign. After all, the combat is just a vessel for the story. Once you've figured out how the story is going to go, then you can think about how you want to make your final boss. Also, in general, In D&D things can change completely. So never prepare too ahead in time.
"Uh, I have Illusory Script. I think I can read that."
There a many good approaches here in terms of creating a boss encounter that the others are bringing up. However, since you are creating a campaign and it sounds like you haven't had your first session yet I would slow down a bit on working out the final battle. The reason I say this is because the story can go in a number of different directions depending on how the players decide to act. The players might want to seek allies to help them fight against the cult, which buys the cultists more time to progress. Maybe they decide to spare the cultist servants and tie them up with rope, questioning them for information (and thus also not releasing the essence). The point is it's a bit tricky to design a final battle this early in the process.
If you're up for it, I'd recommend focusing on the main villain for now, which sounds like it's the cult leader. Who are they? What is their goal and why? How do they plan to achieve this? And lastly, what are they willing and not willing to do to achieve this?
Knowing the answers to these questions can help you a lot in building the campaign as you go, since you have a better grasp of how the villain reacts to the players. This can also help you figure out the final battle when you want to create that. Is the villain willing to risk their own life to accomplish their goal? If not, think about how that impacts what they do in a combat scenario. Do they attempt to keep the players at range using their environment or spells? Do they risk other servants lives to protect themselves? Is there a situation where they might try to escape somehow and the battle evolves into a chase sequence?
I hope this makes sense and is of help to you. Best of luck with your campaign and have fun with it!