The thread about Dragon Delves and its lack of higher level encounters was making me wonder: what would a level 20 boss fight actually look like? My current campaign is only up to level 13, and of course it's only one set of PCs, so I've never actually run one at that level.
As I can see it, there are four basic challenges
Having enough damage to keep up with the durability of level 20 PCs. Some modeling suggests effective HP in the 150-300 range per PC depending on build details, and healing does exist, so a tough but winnable 3 round fight for five PCs should probably involve a boss doing around 300 dpr (before PC saves and defenses).
Having enough durability to survive the damage output of level 20 PCs for the desired duration.
Having the ability to keep up with potential buffs, such as potions of giant strength or invulnerability -- either a significant power increase, or buff negation.
Having the ability to deal with all the ways PCs can render damage and durability irrelevant, such as high mobility and long ranges, force effects, and so on.
Other than Sul Khatesh, who is kind of broken because someone didn't notice that the combination of antimagic field and immunity to nonmagical weapons = immunity to weapons, I can't think of any monsters that manage (1) and (2), let alone all four.
The thing I've learned from others and some of my lower level part members is you have to lean into the aspects of the boss that you want to lean into.
For example a trickster type boss would be constantly setting traps around the battle field, disappearing, summoning marionettes or other things to get pressure off of itself, and discouraging outright nuking by using some sort of teleportation legendary action to dodge damage over 40 in one instance or something similar. Lots of gimmicky feelings done in a way where it conveys intelligence and planning is necessary to beat the boss. Give patterns to the attacks or teleportation so the players can adjust.
For behemoth type enemies give more legendary action economy and potentially lair actions that discourage the prayer circle of death(surrounding the enemy and mauling it to death) tail sweep that's going to devastate an area at the end of a round, give lots more movement and special areas that can be attacked to give more reward to movement and observation of the foe. Also maybe remove opportunity attacks when moving away from a foe and add it for entering it's area if the creature is gargantuan or larger.
I'm kinda clueless on mages sorry. Big nuke go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Liches on the other hand, you'll need more than a cleric to heal you if I design a lich boss fight. B.S phylactory fakes traps or even paradoxes like making another lich their phylactory to make a loophole where you need to fight two liches at once and kill them within one round of another or they start regenerating. Make them slightly squishy but able to move after any turn and cast spells as a reaction with tons of custom area effect spells and manipulation of their prowess over the forces of life and death. Make them try to whittle the entire party down slowly before Mass Word of Killing (sorry if that's the incorrect name).
Overall lean into the aspect and make the enemies feel like themselves. Krakens attack and push away all enemies before devastating them with it's shear physical size, liches play smart and attempt to destroy enemies slowly without putting themselves in danger or are highly cocky because of where their phylactory is hidden, knights attempt to single a single enemy and bounce between defense and attack highly effectively, and elementals embody pure destruction and sweeping elemental devastation.
In tier 4, a lot depends on the party, the players knowledge and the character's equipment. In general, existing monsters can be used as a baseline with the DM modifying as needed to get the sort of challenge they are looking for. However, even then, most of the monsters have gaps or weaknesses that can be exploited by knowledgeable players.
One common gap with high level spell caster opponents is the inability to deal with grappling. When I played Tomb of Annihilation, one of the characters grappled Acererak and placed him prone next to the paladin who used smite and similar to take them down in one or two rounds. Acererak could likely have fled successfully using Dimension Door or similar but they were dead in two rounds after a very lucky combat round where the paladin landed two critical hits.
Sul Khatesh has the same issue. If they retreated into an anti-magic area they can be grappled and dragged out. Legendary saving throws don't help with this though the Maddening Secrets feature and spells could provide options (the effectiveness of the spells could depend strongly on the party composition and resources)
However, an even bigger issue, as with many of the high level opponents in the 2014 books is that they are not immune to stun. A level 20 monk with +2 DC item could have a stun DC of 21 or higher (8+6 prof +6 stat (assuming tome) +2 = 22). With a +12 con this means that on a roll of 9 or less Sul Khatesh fails. with 4 attacks ... it is quite possible that the monk could burn off all the legendary resists in the first round and can stun lock Sul Khatesh for the time needed to take them down. (my game had a level 20 monk and they were awesome at shutting down opponents ... and the party wasn't even very "optimized").
Anyway, a fun level 20 encounter involves more than one opponent, legendary actions, lair actions, environment effects that either the players or the creatures can use to their benefit. It also involves a mixture of spellcasters and strong melee/ranged opponents. Any group that over specializes ... eg. melee OR ranged OR spellcaster .. can often be more easily defeated by a party that recognizes the weaknesses and can exploit them.
One thing to try and avoid ... because it isn't much fun for the player ... is more than one creature that targets a significant weakness. In a less optimized party, or less experienced players, the fighter or barbarian might not take resilient wisdom .. or they might not stay close to a paladin or they ignore equipment that increases their saves or other party members didn't take Circle of Power (for advantage on saves vs spells). In this case, wisdom based save spells could potentially take out the barbarian/fighter for the entire encounter. (eg with Sul Khatesh - such a character can likely never pass the DC26 wisdom save from Hold Monster or Mass Suggestion).
On the other hand, the DM would likely have recognized this weakness in the character many levels earlier and set up situations where this was exploited so that the player (and character) recognizes that there is something they should try and fix. Which could lead to the character and the party developing techniques to reduce the impact of such spells on the specific character.
I'll agree with a lot of what the others have said. I do have some experience in planning final battles against 20th level characters and am about to do so in a few weeks for the group I'm dming at the moment so I've been getting back into the swing of what to do with high level encounters lately. First of all it will massively depend on your number of PCs, strength of build, quality and quantity of magic items, synergies with each other and general understanding + desire to play smartly in difficult encounters. A level 20 party which consists of 4 non-multiclassed non-optimised characters with few magic items vs a party of 7 veteran players with optimised builds and powerful magic items is going to give a very different experience. I'll try to respond to each of your points in turn.
Having enough damage to keep up with the durability of level 20 PCs. Some modeling suggests effective HP in the 150-300 range per PC depending on build details, and healing does exist, so a tough but winnable 3 round fight for five PCs should probably involve a boss doing around 300 dpr (before PC saves and defenses).
This is a massive issue for sure. The range you're dealing with sounds about right and unless your party is healer less its likely your going to increase that by somewhere around 80 healing to the party as a whole whenever the healer really wants (5th level mass cure wounds would do 78 for a party of 4) not to mention if the healer is a cleric or a druid then Mass heal basically acts as a phase 2 for the party. There are several ways you can deal with this such as increasing the bosses damage or improving the bosses targeting. If your boss has nova damage then novaing down the healer can make for an interesting dynamic where the party is trying to get the healer up and protect them to prevent the boss from taking them down again. Instead you can just increase the damage of the boss. A winnable 3 round fight is something I'm unsure about, personally I would want my boss fight to last longer than 3 rounds but maybe thats not an opinion shared widely. One of my faviourite ways to increase damage is something I've stolen from Mark Hulmes: a concept he uses in many fights called "stacks" which are basically representing the growing energy of the boss around a creature (flavoured differently for each boss) but it allows the bosses damage to increase over time. Overall, for this I would say having high dpr is important for sure (I tend to give 5 legendary actions to 20th level bosses + lair actions plus their turn) and maybe throw in a few minions (possibly even the old 4e minions - creatures with low cr given 1 hit point thrown into the fight).
Having enough durability to survive the damage output of level 20 PCs for the desired duration.
There are a few solutions to this one although it is a problem for sure. I would say a key thing is to avoid allowing players to freely fight the boss with all their resources and be able to do basically whatever they want on their turns. It makes it much tougher to balance. A key thing to do is to try to start turning the action economy away from the players which can be done in a couple of ways. One I'm really enjoying in testing my current boss is having legendary actions or lair actions which force players to use turn resources (actions or bonus actions or reactions) to avoid conditions or limits them in what they can do on their turn. As a general rule I don't like stunned and paralysed or charmed conditions at high level fights for the reason David mentioned with high DCs it is very difficult/impossible for some PCs to save out which creates a feel bad sometimes. As my bbeg is a mind flayer I gave players a warning sign about the charmed condition particularly and they have come up with plans to help avoid being charm locked for the fight etc. However I'm a big fan of the dazed condition (a player can only take one of an action bonus action or move on their turn and can't take reactions) or restrained which forces players to use an action to break free from. That gives your boss improved survivability without having to increase hit points if that makes sense although this does work better for mages than other types of bbegs who I don't have as much experience designing.
Having the ability to keep up with potential buffs, such as potions of giant strength or invulnerability -- either a significant power increase, or buff negation.
Few ways around this one for sure. Depending on how far in advance you are looking you can avoid giving players too many overpowered buff effects. Alternatively allow the boss to be buffed. If he's a spellcaster have him cast foresight on himself from a scroll before combat, have him have a contingency, if he's not a spellcaster give him some spellcasting minions who can cast fire shield or armour of agathys etc on him before combat begins. If the party is drinking a potion of invulnerability you can either have the boss do the same or have him have an ability which allows them to ignore resistance that sort of thing.
Having the ability to deal with all the ways PCs can render damage and durability irrelevant, such as high mobility and long ranges, force effects, and so on.
this is a crucial one. I always give bosses some form of movement as a legendary action + legendary resistances which help ignore some of these effects. Another thing you can consider doing is giving them some way to fly whether it be a mount a spellcaster or innate flying speed but this is crucial for sure.
Other than Sul Khatesh, who is kind of broken because someone didn't notice that the combination of antimagic field and immunity to nonmagical weapons = immunity to weapons, I can't think of any monsters that manage (1) and (2), let alone all four.
I think I'd agree on this as well I don't think that there are any official monsters suited to taking on a party of level 20 characters optimised or no so if you get there I would almost certainly design your own. You can take inspiration from them obviously but you'd have to give most of them a pretty significant buff to get them to where they need to be.
what would a level 20 boss fight actually look like?
I could post my latest version of the stat block if that would be helpful in any way? It's certainly far from perfect and I'm still balancing it but if it's helpful I'm happy to.
A winnable 3 round fight is something I'm unsure about, personally I would want my boss fight to last longer than 3 rounds but maybe thats not an opinion shared widely.
I chose 3 rounds because that's what 5e considers standard and because standard monsters really are tuned that way, and there's enough stuff going on in a higher level fight that each round takes a really long time. A mythic or two stage boss where each phase is expected to last two rounds is another option.
If you haven't seen it, look at the last lair from Lairs of Etharis. It is very challenging I think, as there is more than just the boss to figure out, there are 4 other minions and effects to deal with. And since the actual boss is a massive dragon, as soon as it takes off it's going to be harder for the players, and it can't die until other things happen.
- 4 minions with legendary actions that can't die until their island is dealt with
- the islands are all up high in the sky so if you can't fly, and you fall, you're gone
- the islands are spread apart, even dashing makes it hard to reach another island in one turn (except you monk, we know)
- the boss has a 90ft cone that deals an AVERAGE of 90 damage (45 cold, 45 necrotic) with a very high save (23 CON iirc)
- lair affects of course that also make things difficult, including adding exhaustion levels (also in the bosses aoe cone attack)
- each island has a specific sequence of actions needed to take to nullify it, taking at least 1 round depending on dice rolls
And more. It's brutal. Oh, and technically even if you do kill the boss, story-wise they resurrect back at their true lair sometime later. Read it over, it's a well done encounter once you figure a couple of small things out.
In addition, the DM controls the pace. A few low/medium level but high quantity encounters can slowly bleed a party. That results in the players being handicap. It allows a lower CR boss, to still be viable.
Let the boss be seen and attack for one round with those early encounter then retreat, it will play mind games with the players and their sense of urgency.
I can only speak for myself, but it will often vary on the set up or the campaign. The previous adventure I was running for two groups was a multi-stage show down with several scions of deities.
Previous to that, it wasn't a Boss battle at all - it was having the party make a big choice. They knew that even though the leader of an enemy force was dead, their acolytes would keep coming. The party's choice was effectively: wipe out/imprison/occupy the entire enemy settlement; or to eliminate the settlement's resources; or perhaps even walk away having claimed victory knowing that the enemy force would rise again.
One other campaign I have developed is literally just an massive squad of fiends all standing between the party and the one big fiend who's the boss. The only way to stop the big boss fiend is to get through the following in waves but the same adventuring day:
Ten CR 1/2 fiends per player character
Five CR 2 fiends per player character
Three CR 6 fiends per player character
Two CR 10 fiends per player and the final CR 25 Boss
The structure of my Level 20 encounters is as varied as the stories. It will also depend very strongly on what style the players have requested and have responded to. If the party want a major challenge then that's what they'll get. If the party want a moustache twirling villain, that's what they'll get. It really does all depend on a boggling variety of factors.
I have not yet reached the heights of level 20, but I can say that at level 13, boss-fights are becoming increasingly about "Know Thy Foe". A party which runs in without any research, even at level 20, should basically be rebuffed (however violently you choose).
For me, the high-level boss fight is all about the slow grow. My party hasn't even met the BBEG yet - they know him from stories, they have read about him and found him laced into myths and legends. He hasn't just been waiting at the end of a dungeon for them. When they fight him, they know that they will be in a life-or-death scenario before they even begin. And, thanks to their diligence and research, they have found some little weaknesses which they hope to exploit. The fight itself should be swingy - either the party are prepared to take him down, or they aren't - and it should hinge on player agency when it happens (he won't jump out of the bushes when they start a long rest, for example). I have the BBEG doing terrible things in the world, and he knows about them, but they need to decide when they will try to take him down or the world will keep suffering. To him, they are beneath him - and that is what makes them a real threat.
Regarding mechanics, I would make the fight part of a sequence of events, making the party choose between fighting him or saving the nuns and kittens from the charging death ray. making them split up within the area is great for theatrics ("you go save the nuns, I'll take the kittens") and then having the boss initially disregard them is great for the power trip if they do manage to take him down. Using the environment to make the party think and adapt their plans is a must - "your banishment spell seems to be sucked into the weird urn thing in the middle..." - but be extremely careful to never tailor against the players (note that this is subtly different to the BBEG tailoring against the party, which can happen if they have the relevant information).
Other than that, I would say that any good lvl 20 boss needs to be along the lines of:
- 1st encounter, BBEG gets away - 2nd encounter - BBEG retaliates - possibly against the party's family or friends, to stoke up the hate. - 3rd encounter - BBEG is defeated - 4th Encounter - BBEG reappears, is finally defeated for reals this time.
The thread about Dragon Delves and its lack of higher level encounters was making me wonder: what would a level 20 boss fight actually look like? My current campaign is only up to level 13, and of course it's only one set of PCs, so I've never actually run one at that level.
As I can see it, there are four basic challenges
Other than Sul Khatesh, who is kind of broken because someone didn't notice that the combination of antimagic field and immunity to nonmagical weapons = immunity to weapons, I can't think of any monsters that manage (1) and (2), let alone all four.
The thing I've learned from others and some of my lower level part members is you have to lean into the aspects of the boss that you want to lean into.
For example a trickster type boss would be constantly setting traps around the battle field, disappearing, summoning marionettes or other things to get pressure off of itself, and discouraging outright nuking by using some sort of teleportation legendary action to dodge damage over 40 in one instance or something similar. Lots of gimmicky feelings done in a way where it conveys intelligence and planning is necessary to beat the boss. Give patterns to the attacks or teleportation so the players can adjust.
For behemoth type enemies give more legendary action economy and potentially lair actions that discourage the prayer circle of death(surrounding the enemy and mauling it to death) tail sweep that's going to devastate an area at the end of a round, give lots more movement and special areas that can be attacked to give more reward to movement and observation of the foe. Also maybe remove opportunity attacks when moving away from a foe and add it for entering it's area if the creature is gargantuan or larger.
I'm kinda clueless on mages sorry. Big nuke go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
Liches on the other hand, you'll need more than a cleric to heal you if I design a lich boss fight. B.S phylactory fakes traps or even paradoxes like making another lich their phylactory to make a loophole where you need to fight two liches at once and kill them within one round of another or they start regenerating. Make them slightly squishy but able to move after any turn and cast spells as a reaction with tons of custom area effect spells and manipulation of their prowess over the forces of life and death. Make them try to whittle the entire party down slowly before Mass Word of Killing (sorry if that's the incorrect name).
Overall lean into the aspect and make the enemies feel like themselves. Krakens attack and push away all enemies before devastating them with it's shear physical size, liches play smart and attempt to destroy enemies slowly without putting themselves in danger or are highly cocky because of where their phylactory is hidden, knights attempt to single a single enemy and bounce between defense and attack highly effectively, and elementals embody pure destruction and sweeping elemental devastation.
Hope this helped.
"I have advantage on dex saving throws what could go wrong?"
In tier 4, a lot depends on the party, the players knowledge and the character's equipment. In general, existing monsters can be used as a baseline with the DM modifying as needed to get the sort of challenge they are looking for. However, even then, most of the monsters have gaps or weaknesses that can be exploited by knowledgeable players.
One common gap with high level spell caster opponents is the inability to deal with grappling. When I played Tomb of Annihilation, one of the characters grappled Acererak and placed him prone next to the paladin who used smite and similar to take them down in one or two rounds. Acererak could likely have fled successfully using Dimension Door or similar but they were dead in two rounds after a very lucky combat round where the paladin landed two critical hits.
Sul Khatesh has the same issue. If they retreated into an anti-magic area they can be grappled and dragged out. Legendary saving throws don't help with this though the Maddening Secrets feature and spells could provide options (the effectiveness of the spells could depend strongly on the party composition and resources)
However, an even bigger issue, as with many of the high level opponents in the 2014 books is that they are not immune to stun. A level 20 monk with +2 DC item could have a stun DC of 21 or higher (8+6 prof +6 stat (assuming tome) +2 = 22). With a +12 con this means that on a roll of 9 or less Sul Khatesh fails. with 4 attacks ... it is quite possible that the monk could burn off all the legendary resists in the first round and can stun lock Sul Khatesh for the time needed to take them down. (my game had a level 20 monk and they were awesome at shutting down opponents ... and the party wasn't even very "optimized").
Anyway, a fun level 20 encounter involves more than one opponent, legendary actions, lair actions, environment effects that either the players or the creatures can use to their benefit. It also involves a mixture of spellcasters and strong melee/ranged opponents. Any group that over specializes ... eg. melee OR ranged OR spellcaster .. can often be more easily defeated by a party that recognizes the weaknesses and can exploit them.
One thing to try and avoid ... because it isn't much fun for the player ... is more than one creature that targets a significant weakness. In a less optimized party, or less experienced players, the fighter or barbarian might not take resilient wisdom .. or they might not stay close to a paladin or they ignore equipment that increases their saves or other party members didn't take Circle of Power (for advantage on saves vs spells). In this case, wisdom based save spells could potentially take out the barbarian/fighter for the entire encounter. (eg with Sul Khatesh - such a character can likely never pass the DC26 wisdom save from Hold Monster or Mass Suggestion).
On the other hand, the DM would likely have recognized this weakness in the character many levels earlier and set up situations where this was exploited so that the player (and character) recognizes that there is something they should try and fix. Which could lead to the character and the party developing techniques to reduce the impact of such spells on the specific character.
I'll agree with a lot of what the others have said. I do have some experience in planning final battles against 20th level characters and am about to do so in a few weeks for the group I'm dming at the moment so I've been getting back into the swing of what to do with high level encounters lately. First of all it will massively depend on your number of PCs, strength of build, quality and quantity of magic items, synergies with each other and general understanding + desire to play smartly in difficult encounters. A level 20 party which consists of 4 non-multiclassed non-optimised characters with few magic items vs a party of 7 veteran players with optimised builds and powerful magic items is going to give a very different experience. I'll try to respond to each of your points in turn.
This is a massive issue for sure. The range you're dealing with sounds about right and unless your party is healer less its likely your going to increase that by somewhere around 80 healing to the party as a whole whenever the healer really wants (5th level mass cure wounds would do 78 for a party of 4) not to mention if the healer is a cleric or a druid then Mass heal basically acts as a phase 2 for the party. There are several ways you can deal with this such as increasing the bosses damage or improving the bosses targeting. If your boss has nova damage then novaing down the healer can make for an interesting dynamic where the party is trying to get the healer up and protect them to prevent the boss from taking them down again. Instead you can just increase the damage of the boss. A winnable 3 round fight is something I'm unsure about, personally I would want my boss fight to last longer than 3 rounds but maybe thats not an opinion shared widely. One of my faviourite ways to increase damage is something I've stolen from Mark Hulmes: a concept he uses in many fights called "stacks" which are basically representing the growing energy of the boss around a creature (flavoured differently for each boss) but it allows the bosses damage to increase over time. Overall, for this I would say having high dpr is important for sure (I tend to give 5 legendary actions to 20th level bosses + lair actions plus their turn) and maybe throw in a few minions (possibly even the old 4e minions - creatures with low cr given 1 hit point thrown into the fight).
There are a few solutions to this one although it is a problem for sure. I would say a key thing is to avoid allowing players to freely fight the boss with all their resources and be able to do basically whatever they want on their turns. It makes it much tougher to balance. A key thing to do is to try to start turning the action economy away from the players which can be done in a couple of ways. One I'm really enjoying in testing my current boss is having legendary actions or lair actions which force players to use turn resources (actions or bonus actions or reactions) to avoid conditions or limits them in what they can do on their turn. As a general rule I don't like stunned and paralysed or charmed conditions at high level fights for the reason David mentioned with high DCs it is very difficult/impossible for some PCs to save out which creates a feel bad sometimes. As my bbeg is a mind flayer I gave players a warning sign about the charmed condition particularly and they have come up with plans to help avoid being charm locked for the fight etc. However I'm a big fan of the dazed condition (a player can only take one of an action bonus action or move on their turn and can't take reactions) or restrained which forces players to use an action to break free from. That gives your boss improved survivability without having to increase hit points if that makes sense although this does work better for mages than other types of bbegs who I don't have as much experience designing.
Few ways around this one for sure. Depending on how far in advance you are looking you can avoid giving players too many overpowered buff effects. Alternatively allow the boss to be buffed. If he's a spellcaster have him cast foresight on himself from a scroll before combat, have him have a contingency, if he's not a spellcaster give him some spellcasting minions who can cast fire shield or armour of agathys etc on him before combat begins. If the party is drinking a potion of invulnerability you can either have the boss do the same or have him have an ability which allows them to ignore resistance that sort of thing.
this is a crucial one. I always give bosses some form of movement as a legendary action + legendary resistances which help ignore some of these effects. Another thing you can consider doing is giving them some way to fly whether it be a mount a spellcaster or innate flying speed but this is crucial for sure.
I think I'd agree on this as well I don't think that there are any official monsters suited to taking on a party of level 20 characters optimised or no so if you get there I would almost certainly design your own. You can take inspiration from them obviously but you'd have to give most of them a pretty significant buff to get them to where they need to be.
I could post my latest version of the stat block if that would be helpful in any way? It's certainly far from perfect and I'm still balancing it but if it's helpful I'm happy to.
I chose 3 rounds because that's what 5e considers standard and because standard monsters really are tuned that way, and there's enough stuff going on in a higher level fight that each round takes a really long time. A mythic or two stage boss where each phase is expected to last two rounds is another option.
If you haven't seen it, look at the last lair from Lairs of Etharis. It is very challenging I think, as there is more than just the boss to figure out, there are 4 other minions and effects to deal with. And since the actual boss is a massive dragon, as soon as it takes off it's going to be harder for the players, and it can't die until other things happen.
- 4 minions with legendary actions that can't die until their island is dealt with
- the islands are all up high in the sky so if you can't fly, and you fall, you're gone
- the islands are spread apart, even dashing makes it hard to reach another island in one turn (except you monk, we know)
- the boss has a 90ft cone that deals an AVERAGE of 90 damage (45 cold, 45 necrotic) with a very high save (23 CON iirc)
- lair affects of course that also make things difficult, including adding exhaustion levels (also in the bosses aoe cone attack)
- each island has a specific sequence of actions needed to take to nullify it, taking at least 1 round depending on dice rolls
And more. It's brutal. Oh, and technically even if you do kill the boss, story-wise they resurrect back at their true lair sometime later. Read it over, it's a well done encounter once you figure a couple of small things out.
Henchmen is what allows you to cover the gap.
In addition, the DM controls the pace. A few low/medium level but high quantity encounters can slowly bleed a party. That results in the players being handicap. It allows a lower CR boss, to still be viable.
Let the boss be seen and attack for one round with those early encounter then retreat, it will play mind games with the players and their sense of urgency.
I can only speak for myself, but it will often vary on the set up or the campaign. The previous adventure I was running for two groups was a multi-stage show down with several scions of deities.
Previous to that, it wasn't a Boss battle at all - it was having the party make a big choice. They knew that even though the leader of an enemy force was dead, their acolytes would keep coming. The party's choice was effectively: wipe out/imprison/occupy the entire enemy settlement; or to eliminate the settlement's resources; or perhaps even walk away having claimed victory knowing that the enemy force would rise again.
One other campaign I have developed is literally just an massive squad of fiends all standing between the party and the one big fiend who's the boss. The only way to stop the big boss fiend is to get through the following in waves but the same adventuring day:
The structure of my Level 20 encounters is as varied as the stories. It will also depend very strongly on what style the players have requested and have responded to. If the party want a major challenge then that's what they'll get. If the party want a moustache twirling villain, that's what they'll get. It really does all depend on a boggling variety of factors.
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I have not yet reached the heights of level 20, but I can say that at level 13, boss-fights are becoming increasingly about "Know Thy Foe". A party which runs in without any research, even at level 20, should basically be rebuffed (however violently you choose).
For me, the high-level boss fight is all about the slow grow. My party hasn't even met the BBEG yet - they know him from stories, they have read about him and found him laced into myths and legends. He hasn't just been waiting at the end of a dungeon for them. When they fight him, they know that they will be in a life-or-death scenario before they even begin. And, thanks to their diligence and research, they have found some little weaknesses which they hope to exploit. The fight itself should be swingy - either the party are prepared to take him down, or they aren't - and it should hinge on player agency when it happens (he won't jump out of the bushes when they start a long rest, for example). I have the BBEG doing terrible things in the world, and he knows about them, but they need to decide when they will try to take him down or the world will keep suffering. To him, they are beneath him - and that is what makes them a real threat.
Regarding mechanics, I would make the fight part of a sequence of events, making the party choose between fighting him or saving the nuns and kittens from the charging death ray. making them split up within the area is great for theatrics ("you go save the nuns, I'll take the kittens") and then having the boss initially disregard them is great for the power trip if they do manage to take him down. Using the environment to make the party think and adapt their plans is a must - "your banishment spell seems to be sucked into the weird urn thing in the middle..." - but be extremely careful to never tailor against the players (note that this is subtly different to the BBEG tailoring against the party, which can happen if they have the relevant information).
Other than that, I would say that any good lvl 20 boss needs to be along the lines of:
- 1st encounter, BBEG gets away
- 2nd encounter - BBEG retaliates - possibly against the party's family or friends, to stoke up the hate.
- 3rd encounter - BBEG is defeated
- 4th Encounter - BBEG reappears, is finally defeated for reals this time.
Make your Artificer work with any other class with 174 Multiclassing Feats for your Artificer Multiclass Character!
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DrivethruRPG Releases on This Thread - latest release: My Character is a Werewolf: balanced rules for Lycanthropy!
I have started discussing/reviewing 3rd party D&D content on Substack - stay tuned for semi-regular posts!