Hello everyone. Yesterday, on a whim, I suggested to my group that they all play level 20 characters for a huge one-shot combat. Everyone seemed to like the idea, so it was decided that our next session will be 7 level 20s versus the biggest monsters I can come up with. (For anyone keeping track, this is a different group than the one in my previous post.)
Which leads me to my point: are there any monsters, or hordes of monsters, that would make for a fun battle in this situation? Has anyone else attempted something like this? The highest I’ve ever DM’d to is 6th level, so I’m totally out of my league here. Any advice would be appreciated.
There's no standard monster that would be an interesting fight for 7xlevel 20, at least if they're fresh, but you can always just use multiple monsters. In general I would use the encounter building rules in XGTE, and then if you want it to be a single brawl, double it (so treat party size as 14). Demons or devils have a good variety of high CR options, or you could use a mix of undead, such as a Lich with an allied Death Knight and Adult Blue Dracolich.
To make it interesting, I would look to give them enemies to defeat in several places, with time constraints to do so, and a variety of different enemy types.
For example: The enemies are trying to destroy the city. Nice simple concept, an easy goal - kill them before they do so.
Make it a mining city, which mines adamantine. The city is over the top of a honeycomb of mines, and someone has worked out that there is one key weakness which, if destroyed, would collapse the city.
There's also a dam which, if burst, would destroy the city.
There's also a mountain which, if caused to avalanche, would destroy the city.
There's also a tower in the city which is harnessing power from the plane of fire to give the city rudimentary electricity. If the protective glyphs are destroyed, then the city would be destroyed.
Then have a purple worm go for the mines, slowed by the adamantine in the rock, to give them a battle underground.
Have a horde of enemies trying to pull down the dam, to give their area-of-effect spells a time to shine.
Have a powerful creature (or several) try to dislodge the mountain on top of the city.
Have stealthy infiltrators attempting to destroy the warding glyphs and release the plane of fire on the city.
4 things to deal with, which will hit within minutes of each other - give them sending stones so they can get updates on what's going on.
Then have a big boss fight, when they've spent all their spell slots, against whoever is controlling all this.
Then have a twist that the city is bad, which is why they wanted it destroyed in the first place!
I think a staggered encounter would be a good idea. They would fight one group of monsters, then, when they begin to move on, have another group of monsters move in on them, and keep doing more waves. Each wave will drain their resources because they can't take rests in between, and then do a boss fight at the end (lich, dragon, powerful fiend, etc.). You should probably also do themed monsters, to keep the consistency and not make it seem like a bunch of random monsters charging to their deaths.
You can make the battlefield more dynamic by adding traps, different levels, hazards, antimagic fields, and the like. This can add some fun by forcing them to use creative tactics and also drain a few hit points.
IN a deep canyon, coming face-to-face with the legion of Evil, headed to town. Waves of "fodder" middling CR (8-20 maybe) demons/devils, mixed with some Undead for spice. Followed by more elite, skilled soldiers, CR 10-14, who are followed by Commanders of the Legion CR 15+ and if it looks like they are still kicking, with some spunk left, DA BOSS, a Homebrewed warlord of your choosing, complete with Legendary powers, spells, insane melee stats and all.
Epic, Hollywood style battle, where the 7 biggest bada** heroes in the Realm make a stand and save the world!
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Talk to your Players.Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I think that a “tour” through the four elemental planes to recover four pieces of a magical artifact would be a great challenge. Have each of the pieces be in the possession of one of the four Princes of Elemental Evil, complete with their servants and guards.
I would note that an advantage of waves of monsters is that the players don't know how many waves there are, so you can just keep spawning them until it feels like a good challenge (yes, this is a bit of a cheat, but cheating is an important part of the DMs toolbox).
Portals of some sort are a good option, though it's a good idea to make them move, otherwise the PCs will do something like throw a Prismatic Wall across the entrance.
Hello everyone. Yesterday, on a whim, I suggested to my group that they all play level 20 characters for a huge one-shot combat. Everyone seemed to like the idea, so it was decided that our next session will be 7 level 20s versus the biggest monsters I can come up with. (For anyone keeping track, this is a different group than the one in my previous post.)
Which leads me to my point: are there any monsters, or hordes of monsters, that would make for a fun battle in this situation? Has anyone else attempted something like this? The highest I’ve ever DM’d to is 6th level, so I’m totally out of my league here. Any advice would be appreciated.
There's no standard monster that would be an interesting fight for 7xlevel 20, at least if they're fresh, but you can always just use multiple monsters. In general I would use the encounter building rules in XGTE, and then if you want it to be a single brawl, double it (so treat party size as 14). Demons or devils have a good variety of high CR options, or you could use a mix of undead, such as a Lich with an allied Death Knight and Adult Blue Dracolich.
Use 7 CR 20 monsters, so like 7 pit fiends or something.
To make it interesting, I would look to give them enemies to defeat in several places, with time constraints to do so, and a variety of different enemy types.
For example: The enemies are trying to destroy the city. Nice simple concept, an easy goal - kill them before they do so.
Make it a mining city, which mines adamantine. The city is over the top of a honeycomb of mines, and someone has worked out that there is one key weakness which, if destroyed, would collapse the city.
There's also a dam which, if burst, would destroy the city.
There's also a mountain which, if caused to avalanche, would destroy the city.
There's also a tower in the city which is harnessing power from the plane of fire to give the city rudimentary electricity. If the protective glyphs are destroyed, then the city would be destroyed.
Then have a purple worm go for the mines, slowed by the adamantine in the rock, to give them a battle underground.
Have a horde of enemies trying to pull down the dam, to give their area-of-effect spells a time to shine.
Have a powerful creature (or several) try to dislodge the mountain on top of the city.
Have stealthy infiltrators attempting to destroy the warding glyphs and release the plane of fire on the city.
4 things to deal with, which will hit within minutes of each other - give them sending stones so they can get updates on what's going on.
Then have a big boss fight, when they've spent all their spell slots, against whoever is controlling all this.
Then have a twist that the city is bad, which is why they wanted it destroyed in the first place!
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I think a staggered encounter would be a good idea. They would fight one group of monsters, then, when they begin to move on, have another group of monsters move in on them, and keep doing more waves. Each wave will drain their resources because they can't take rests in between, and then do a boss fight at the end (lich, dragon, powerful fiend, etc.). You should probably also do themed monsters, to keep the consistency and not make it seem like a bunch of random monsters charging to their deaths.
You can make the battlefield more dynamic by adding traps, different levels, hazards, antimagic fields, and the like. This can add some fun by forcing them to use creative tactics and also drain a few hit points.
IN a deep canyon, coming face-to-face with the legion of Evil, headed to town. Waves of "fodder" middling CR (8-20 maybe) demons/devils, mixed with some Undead for spice. Followed by more elite, skilled soldiers, CR 10-14, who are followed by Commanders of the Legion CR 15+ and if it looks like they are still kicking, with some spunk left, DA BOSS, a Homebrewed warlord of your choosing, complete with Legendary powers, spells, insane melee stats and all.
Epic, Hollywood style battle, where the 7 biggest bada** heroes in the Realm make a stand and save the world!
Talk to your Players. Talk to your DM. If more people used this advice, there would be 24.74% fewer threads on Tactics, Rules and DM discussions.
I think that a “tour” through the four elemental planes to recover four pieces of a magical artifact would be a great challenge. Have each of the pieces be in the possession of one of the four Princes of Elemental Evil, complete with their servants and guards.
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I would note that an advantage of waves of monsters is that the players don't know how many waves there are, so you can just keep spawning them until it feels like a good challenge (yes, this is a bit of a cheat, but cheating is an important part of the DMs toolbox).
Portals of some sort are a good option, though it's a good idea to make them move, otherwise the PCs will do something like throw a Prismatic Wall across the entrance.