Hi! Sorry if this is a repeat thread so I'll try to be specific to my campaign.
The short of it is that I created a boss who is the leader of a faction and I used character sheets and rolls as if I was creating a regular PC. This boss is a level 14 Barbarian Battlerager and a level 2 Fighter, total 16 and has 2 magic items (Belt of Dwarvenkind and a homebrewed Longsword, akin to a Longsword +2). I thought about this for a bit on how the encounter should go because only one of the PC's has a real beef with this guy, but I decided to let the whole party fight him together. However, storytelling-wise, it makes the most sense to delve into this particular PC's backstory (thus confronting this boss) earlier in the campaign. I don't want the fight to be heavily one sided (whether it's the PC's or the boss) and I am having trouble determining at which level the fight would be winnable but also a challenge. My party consists of 4-5 players.
I know there isn't a formula to determine this exactly and if it turns out the fight is lopsided one way or the other, I can figure out a way to stop the fight or have people retreat and try again down the road. If anyone has any experience with making a high level NPC fight alone against a party, I would appreciate any advice on proper level differences or any advice in general.
DMG pg 274-276 should help you out. If you don't have it, give the following: AC, hp, prof bonus (+5), attack bonus, average damage over three rounds (assume rage), and their Save DC for any offensive effects. Can make final tweaks from Battlerager from there.
The party will get 6-7 actions a round to the Battlerager's 2 attacks (with a 4 action Nova with Action Surge), Battlerager will be pumping out 1d10+8(str+rage)+2 per hit, plus an additional 3d10 per critical, plus 3 points per time he is hit in melee. That gets us on average; 12 points for regular hits, 2 points for the criticals, so 56+28+28 for the attacks and another 24 points for being hit in melee, for an average of 46 points per round. 12+13d12+2d10+60 gives us 150 hit points rage gives common resistance so worth 225. AC will be minimum of 17.
That gives us a baseline of defensive CR of 13, offensive CR of 11. So would be a Medium encounter for a 12th level party, Hard Encounter for 9-11, and Deadly for 9 or less, based upon the imperfect information and way the DMG does things. Yes 9 is on there twice, because it really is dependent on your party. The Barbarian will drop most characters with less than 50 hp in the Nova round, and will then drop a character every other round, on average. Depending on the party, either run him solo at level 7 or 8, or give him some followers/minions at level 10-12. Note, there are quite a few 4th level spells which will disable/negate the Battlerager quite easily, even while raging. So it would be best to not have much foreshadowing of the encounter happening so the party has their "general" spell allotment versus their "boss" spell allotment.
There are quite a few second level spells that will solve the battlerager. Hold person, for example. In general solo bosses without legendary actions and resistances don't work very well.
There are quite a few second level spells that will solve the battlerager. Hold person, for example. In general solo bosses without legendary actions and resistances don't work very well.
So the homebrew sword has one charge of counterspell in it that can be used once a day. Would it be broken to give the boss a chance to recover the use of the spell at the start of each of his turns?
I’d say that wouldn’t be OK unless when the party loots the sword it works the same for them. And if it worked that way for the party, I’d call that broken.
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Hi! Sorry if this is a repeat thread so I'll try to be specific to my campaign.
The short of it is that I created a boss who is the leader of a faction and I used character sheets and rolls as if I was creating a regular PC. This boss is a level 14 Barbarian Battlerager and a level 2 Fighter, total 16 and has 2 magic items (Belt of Dwarvenkind and a homebrewed Longsword, akin to a Longsword +2). I thought about this for a bit on how the encounter should go because only one of the PC's has a real beef with this guy, but I decided to let the whole party fight him together. However, storytelling-wise, it makes the most sense to delve into this particular PC's backstory (thus confronting this boss) earlier in the campaign. I don't want the fight to be heavily one sided (whether it's the PC's or the boss) and I am having trouble determining at which level the fight would be winnable but also a challenge. My party consists of 4-5 players.
I know there isn't a formula to determine this exactly and if it turns out the fight is lopsided one way or the other, I can figure out a way to stop the fight or have people retreat and try again down the road. If anyone has any experience with making a high level NPC fight alone against a party, I would appreciate any advice on proper level differences or any advice in general.
Thanks!
DMG pg 274-276 should help you out. If you don't have it, give the following: AC, hp, prof bonus (+5), attack bonus, average damage over three rounds (assume rage), and their Save DC for any offensive effects. Can make final tweaks from Battlerager from there.
The party will get 6-7 actions a round to the Battlerager's 2 attacks (with a 4 action Nova with Action Surge), Battlerager will be pumping out 1d10+8(str+rage)+2 per hit, plus an additional 3d10 per critical, plus 3 points per time he is hit in melee. That gets us on average; 12 points for regular hits, 2 points for the criticals, so 56+28+28 for the attacks and another 24 points for being hit in melee, for an average of 46 points per round. 12+13d12+2d10+60 gives us 150 hit points rage gives common resistance so worth 225. AC will be minimum of 17.
That gives us a baseline of defensive CR of 13, offensive CR of 11. So would be a Medium encounter for a 12th level party, Hard Encounter for 9-11, and Deadly for 9 or less, based upon the imperfect information and way the DMG does things. Yes 9 is on there twice, because it really is dependent on your party. The Barbarian will drop most characters with less than 50 hp in the Nova round, and will then drop a character every other round, on average. Depending on the party, either run him solo at level 7 or 8, or give him some followers/minions at level 10-12. Note, there are quite a few 4th level spells which will disable/negate the Battlerager quite easily, even while raging. So it would be best to not have much foreshadowing of the encounter happening so the party has their "general" spell allotment versus their "boss" spell allotment.
There are quite a few second level spells that will solve the battlerager. Hold person, for example. In general solo bosses without legendary actions and resistances don't work very well.
Thank you so much for your detailed answer! I spent a few days looking it over and it helped me out a lot.
So the homebrew sword has one charge of counterspell in it that can be used once a day. Would it be broken to give the boss a chance to recover the use of the spell at the start of each of his turns?
I’d say that wouldn’t be OK unless when the party loots the sword it works the same for them. And if it worked that way for the party, I’d call that broken.