currently in the middle of trying to balance the final boss of my 20th level campaign and having some difficulty. I've run encounters for 20th level parties before and they've gone alright but I think this one could be tough to balance because of the scenario + other circumstances. To clarify I'm not necessarily looking for abilities and mechanics but more ideas or concepts which I can flesh out (although feel free to give suggestions of abilities of course).
The party (4 characters):
- Battlemaster Fighter
- Life Cleric 17/ Sorcerer 3
- Divination Wizard
- Soulknife Rouge and Psionic Fighter
The party is definitely not optimised in any sense but do have some very powerful magic items (each has a custom item the most powerful of which is certainly more powerful than most legendary items in the dmg).
The villain they are fighting is a Mind Flayer Archmage.
Here are the main problems I am having:
1. The final confrontation will likely happen with the mind flayer and his army of thralls attacking the city and so he won't be in his lair. Therefore no lair actions and its harder to come up with environmental affects (which I typically like to use to help balance out action economy)
2. The party are allied with some very powerful NPCs (including a solar and an ancient dragon). I don't want them to overshadow the players in any way but they would definitely help in the fight given the story.
3. His DCs are going to be insanely high even without magic items (he has a +10 int which even if I cap prof bonus to +6 gives him a DC of 24 without any magic items). Admittedly the severity of this depends on what spells he is casting (a DC 24 dex save against fireball is very different from a DC24 wis save against dominate person)
Any advice would be greatly appreciated I have about a month or two before the encounter to finish planning but I really don't want it to be anticlimactic.
For 1, if there’s no lair actions, just use extra targets. You just need to break up the action economy and give the PCs something to attack besides the bad guy. It doesn’t even have to be a creature. Maybe the mind flayer has some artifact pulsing with psychic energy — it just does damage every round. No save, just damage, whatever is appropriate for level 20. Not a lot, enough to be annoying and mildly dangerous, and make them think they need to take the thing out.
For 2, the solar and dragon help by fighting off the army of thralls somewhere off camera.
For 3. That’s why it will be a tough fight. The mind flayer dominates one of them. Ok, but it can only do 1, because it’s concentration. And the only PCs know to try and hit the thing hard to break that concentration. Or dispel magic. Or damage the dominated character to allow it another save attempt. Or any of the many things that can end the charmed condition. And really a DC 24 at level 20 isn’t crazy. Characters can easily have a +11 to at least some saves at that point. And they’ll have advantage since it’s in a fight. Now, a mind flayer will be smart enough to try and dominate the one of the fighters rather than the cleric, but still, that part shouldn’t be a huge challenge.
Spells aren't usually a problem for a level 20 party with a Wizard and a Cleric, The main problem I foresee is Mind Blast since there's only a handful of spells that help with the Stunned condition which are exclusively Cleric spells and Clerics are very vulnerable to Mind Blast. Plus Mind Blast is AoE and is not a spell/concentration so if the BBEG Mind Blasts with a DC 24, and hits the Cleric and the Fighter they are basically stuck for the entire combat which is very anti-climatic and boring for those players. So IMO, you need to have the Solar bless the party with some sort of resistance / immunity to Mind Blast before the fight.
Just because the BBEG isn't in his lair doesn't mean you can't give him lair actions. I mean, for giggity shmiggity he's up against a party of 20th level characters AND a solar AND an ancient dragon! Give the poor guy lair actions at the every least. Let him show up riding one of those Nazgul dragon things. Hell, give him the gott dang Wand of Orcus. He's gonna need it!
When you're designing a BBEG to go up against a party that powerful, you have to overclock him. Otherwise your EG won't feel very B or B. Just say that he's SOOOO evil that he generates a field of evil around him, like his "lair" is just wherever he happens to be. So let's say that's a 150 foot radius. Within that area all healing is halved, Death Saving Throws are at disadvantage, and the BBEG cannot be surprised. Also, he can use a bonus action to teleport himself to any space within that 150 feet. And he's got a few hundred followers helping him. Some of them fight, some of them are just crowd control and resource drains. Maybe as a reaction to being hit by an attack he can force the attacker to make a DC 20 Intelligence save or be blinded until the end of their next turn. And maybe at Initiative count of 20 he can generate a 20 foot radius field of darkness somewhere within his range that does 10d10 necrotic damage to anyone inside it who fails a wicked high saving throw. Oh, and he can fly. Just cuz. And maybe if you deal damage to him with a spell and he saves and takes only half damage, the caster takes the other half of the damage! That'll peev your casters. Maybe at Initiative count Zero he summons three Arcane Tentacles anywhere within his range that are 20 feet long and do both bludgeoning and psychic damage to anyone they hit. And let's say his Mind Blast doesn't just do psychic damage in a 40 foot radius and maybe stuns people, it also knocks them back 20 feet and prone if they fail a Strength save. Oh, and he isn't just immune to psychic damage, any psychic damage dealt to him actually heals him! And any time a PC drops to zero hit points, the BBEG heals a bit then too.
It's a 20th level party. Throw the bloody kitchen sink at them! If you build a fight that feels fair, they're gonna steamroller your BBEG in two rounds. You have to build a fight that is intentionally unfair. The only chance your BBEG has of lasting even 5 rounds is for you to build a fight that has you questioning your own judgment. If you don't think, "I don't know, maybe this is too much", at least five times in your preparations, you're just handing the party and easy win. Seriously.
Thanks Guys realised I posted this then went of to Birmingham for the Games Expo and didn't check for a while. I've definitely got some ideas from this and will get back to drafting.
Hey everyone,
currently in the middle of trying to balance the final boss of my 20th level campaign and having some difficulty. I've run encounters for 20th level parties before and they've gone alright but I think this one could be tough to balance because of the scenario + other circumstances. To clarify I'm not necessarily looking for abilities and mechanics but more ideas or concepts which I can flesh out (although feel free to give suggestions of abilities of course).
The party (4 characters):
- Battlemaster Fighter
- Life Cleric 17/ Sorcerer 3
- Divination Wizard
- Soulknife Rouge and Psionic Fighter
The party is definitely not optimised in any sense but do have some very powerful magic items (each has a custom item the most powerful of which is certainly more powerful than most legendary items in the dmg).
The villain they are fighting is a Mind Flayer Archmage.
Here are the main problems I am having:
1. The final confrontation will likely happen with the mind flayer and his army of thralls attacking the city and so he won't be in his lair. Therefore no lair actions and its harder to come up with environmental affects (which I typically like to use to help balance out action economy)
2. The party are allied with some very powerful NPCs (including a solar and an ancient dragon). I don't want them to overshadow the players in any way but they would definitely help in the fight given the story.
3. His DCs are going to be insanely high even without magic items (he has a +10 int which even if I cap prof bonus to +6 gives him a DC of 24 without any magic items). Admittedly the severity of this depends on what spells he is casting (a DC 24 dex save against fireball is very different from a DC24 wis save against dominate person)
Any advice would be greatly appreciated I have about a month or two before the encounter to finish planning but I really don't want it to be anticlimactic.
For 1, if there’s no lair actions, just use extra targets. You just need to break up the action economy and give the PCs something to attack besides the bad guy. It doesn’t even have to be a creature. Maybe the mind flayer has some artifact pulsing with psychic energy — it just does damage every round. No save, just damage, whatever is appropriate for level 20. Not a lot, enough to be annoying and mildly dangerous, and make them think they need to take the thing out.
For 2, the solar and dragon help by fighting off the army of thralls somewhere off camera.
For 3. That’s why it will be a tough fight. The mind flayer dominates one of them. Ok, but it can only do 1, because it’s concentration. And the only PCs know to try and hit the thing hard to break that concentration. Or dispel magic. Or damage the dominated character to allow it another save attempt. Or any of the many things that can end the charmed condition. And really a DC 24 at level 20 isn’t crazy. Characters can easily have a +11 to at least some saves at that point. And they’ll have advantage since it’s in a fight. Now, a mind flayer will be smart enough to try and dominate the one of the fighters rather than the cleric, but still, that part shouldn’t be a huge challenge.
I would suggest killing one of the NPC allies early in the fight; nothing says "scary bad guy" like, say, just deleting a solar.
Spells aren't usually a problem for a level 20 party with a Wizard and a Cleric, The main problem I foresee is Mind Blast since there's only a handful of spells that help with the Stunned condition which are exclusively Cleric spells and Clerics are very vulnerable to Mind Blast. Plus Mind Blast is AoE and is not a spell/concentration so if the BBEG Mind Blasts with a DC 24, and hits the Cleric and the Fighter they are basically stuck for the entire combat which is very anti-climatic and boring for those players. So IMO, you need to have the Solar bless the party with some sort of resistance / immunity to Mind Blast before the fight.
Just because the BBEG isn't in his lair doesn't mean you can't give him lair actions. I mean, for giggity shmiggity he's up against a party of 20th level characters AND a solar AND an ancient dragon! Give the poor guy lair actions at the every least. Let him show up riding one of those Nazgul dragon things. Hell, give him the gott dang Wand of Orcus. He's gonna need it!
When you're designing a BBEG to go up against a party that powerful, you have to overclock him. Otherwise your EG won't feel very B or B. Just say that he's SOOOO evil that he generates a field of evil around him, like his "lair" is just wherever he happens to be. So let's say that's a 150 foot radius. Within that area all healing is halved, Death Saving Throws are at disadvantage, and the BBEG cannot be surprised. Also, he can use a bonus action to teleport himself to any space within that 150 feet. And he's got a few hundred followers helping him. Some of them fight, some of them are just crowd control and resource drains. Maybe as a reaction to being hit by an attack he can force the attacker to make a DC 20 Intelligence save or be blinded until the end of their next turn. And maybe at Initiative count of 20 he can generate a 20 foot radius field of darkness somewhere within his range that does 10d10 necrotic damage to anyone inside it who fails a wicked high saving throw. Oh, and he can fly. Just cuz. And maybe if you deal damage to him with a spell and he saves and takes only half damage, the caster takes the other half of the damage! That'll peev your casters. Maybe at Initiative count Zero he summons three Arcane Tentacles anywhere within his range that are 20 feet long and do both bludgeoning and psychic damage to anyone they hit. And let's say his Mind Blast doesn't just do psychic damage in a 40 foot radius and maybe stuns people, it also knocks them back 20 feet and prone if they fail a Strength save. Oh, and he isn't just immune to psychic damage, any psychic damage dealt to him actually heals him! And any time a PC drops to zero hit points, the BBEG heals a bit then too.
It's a 20th level party. Throw the bloody kitchen sink at them! If you build a fight that feels fair, they're gonna steamroller your BBEG in two rounds. You have to build a fight that is intentionally unfair. The only chance your BBEG has of lasting even 5 rounds is for you to build a fight that has you questioning your own judgment. If you don't think, "I don't know, maybe this is too much", at least five times in your preparations, you're just handing the party and easy win. Seriously.
Anzio Faro. Protector Aasimar light cleric. Lvl 18.
Viktor Gavriil. White dragonborn grave cleric. Lvl 20.
Ikram Sahir ibn-Malik al-Sayyid Ra'ad. Brass dragonborn draconic sorcerer Lvl 9. Fire elemental devil.
Wrangler of cats.
Thanks Guys realised I posted this then went of to Birmingham for the Games Expo and didn't check for a while. I've definitely got some ideas from this and will get back to drafting.
I find your setup super interesting, especially with the Mind Flayer out of his comfort zone.