My party of 6 level 18 players is nearing the end of their final dungeon. Their objective is to stop the BBEG, a powerful warforged with a serious god complex, from using the MacGuffin (an artifact from an ancient, advanced race of giants) to ascend to godhood. When the party reaches the BBEG he'll already be partially ascended, giving him celestial powers of radiance and fire, maybe in addition to some planar manipulation abilities. To help give a feel for the theme I'm going for, I've included the below images I shamelessly stole from Google Images of Zenyatta from Overwatch.
I need help thinking of fun and interesting encounter mechanics. Factors to consider are:
This is a very powerful party; each has access to a legendary magic item. I can provide additional details if needed.
I've currently got the home-brew BBEG set as a Mythic encounter in a demiplanar lair. He's built not as a bruiser, but as a spellcaster/magical ability user.
At risk of running into classic issues with the action economy, I'm keeping the BBEG as the sole hostile creature in the encounter. Without bloating the fight, I'd like to introduce some other factors for the players to consider so that the fight doesn't boil down into the boringly simple game of hitting the BBEG as hard as they can every turn.
As an example, one such mechanic I've thought of is giving the BBEG a rechargeable solar flare ability that deals immense damage and threatens to blind the party. Players paying close attention might notice that the BBEG is about to use this ability, and can hide behind large pillars in the room to avoid the worst of the damage.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post! I'm open to any and all feedback. Please let me know if you need any additional info.
My DM went through this phase where he loved putting pillars with aura damage into rooms. Just magical pillars, and at the start of each character’s turn, they take damage from it. It really made fight like this interesting because we had to choose if we wanted to just eat the damage and focus on the enemy, or destroy the pillars. You could amp it up more by going the video game route, where they also create a shield so the party has to destroy them before they get to him. Or two sets, I’ve died damage, one creates the shield, again forcing the choice of which to prioritize.
Not sure if this applies, but have you ever heard of an old French animated show called Wakfu? The villain of the series is a robot priest of a time god who is obsessed with finding a way to turn back time to correct a past mistake. In the process, he is willing to destroy all magic if it gets him his second chance. You talk about planar abilities - one way the make the fight crazy might be to do homebrewed versions of spells like slow, forcing magic-based saves from the party while he gets to wail away on one or two key members of the party for free, though maybe he can only use this ability once or twice over the fight (keeping action economy in mind).
Not sure if this applies, but have you ever heard of an old French animated show called Wakfu? The villain of the series is a robot priest of a time god who is obsessed with finding a way to turn back time to correct a past mistake. In the process, he is willing to destroy all magic if it gets him his second chance. You talk about planar abilities - one way the make the fight crazy might be to do homebrewed versions of spells like slow, forcing magic-based saves from the party while he gets to wail away on one or two key members of the party for free, though maybe he can only use this ability once or twice over the fight (keeping action economy in mind).
Damn dude I'd never heard of the show, but I go to watch your YouTube video and now I'm getting emotional over a story with which I have no prior investment. Great suggestion.
Hmm I really like your idea of using home-brewed versions of spells to affect the fight. I'll look into that, thank you!
My DM went through this phase where he loved putting pillars with aura damage into rooms. Just magical pillars, and at the start of each character’s turn, they take damage from it. It really made fight like this interesting because we had to choose if we wanted to just eat the damage and focus on the enemy, or destroy the pillars. You could amp it up more by going the video game route, where they also create a shield so the party has to destroy them before they get to him. Or two sets, I’ve died damage, one creates the shield, again forcing the choice of which to prioritize.
This is a really interesting suggestion, thank you! I'll see if I can work your pillars idea into the encounter.
Another way could be to alter the environment around them on a time based manner. E.g. collapsing cave floors that create gaps, or forces closer range combat (although easily negated by flight unless it rains acid where collapsing rocks crumbled :-) ).
I agree that it makes sense to have something else on the battlefield, even if it's not minions or anything, but something like pillars or crystals that affect the combat... The important part is that players have to make the choice if they want to attack the BBEG or take down these alternate targets. I think the way I would do it is that I would create 6 that do different things (boost the BBEG's AC, just releases a wave of damage, heals the BBEG, etc.), and each round at 20 they trigger... roll a d6, and whichever alternate target fits that number triggers. If that particular target has been destroyed, then nothing happens... big reward for clearing them out, but I think each one should be pretty burly so the players have to really decide whether it's more helpful to take them out or leave them.
I think something else that would be particularly fun is giving your BBEG an ability that forces your players to attack each other. If everyone's got legendary equipment, why not turn that against them? Probably something where the player has to make a WIS saving throw or they target their nearest ally with an attack.
One of the best things I've done for making good encounters is to give the enemy something else to be doing.
For example, you could enforce the power of your warforged by stacking a hundred or so temporary HP on him to act as a shield (which the players can see) and have him moving from one pillar to the next, taking the hits but ignoring them. Even make him regenerate / immune to attacks whilst the pillars are working.Then they need to work out that they need to get ahead of him and stop him doing what he's doing to the pillars (IE destroy the next pillar), which will trigger the fight proper. With each pillar they destroy, he starts to panic as the magic goes wrong or out of control. Then when the ritual is ruined, he fights them.
This way they might ignore him doing it and just attack (and this will mean he successfully ignores them and ascends to godhood) or they stop him and he kills them, or they stop him and kill him. Gives 3 potential outcomes, and prevents it just being "roll the highest numbers" to finish.
You could even split the party, for this one scene - have 3 pillars that need stopping, each a half mile away from the centre of the ritual. That makes the party make decisions, which makes it more interesting than "enter the room, kill him before he kills you".
My party of 6 level 18 players is nearing the end of their final dungeon. Their objective is to stop the BBEG, a powerful warforged with a serious god complex, from using the MacGuffin (an artifact from an ancient, advanced race of giants) to ascend to godhood. When the party reaches the BBEG he'll already be partially ascended, giving him celestial powers of radiance and fire, maybe in addition to some planar manipulation abilities. To help give a feel for the theme I'm going for, I've included the below images I shamelessly stole from Google Images of Zenyatta from Overwatch.
I need help thinking of fun and interesting encounter mechanics. Factors to consider are:
This is a very powerful party; each has access to a legendary magic item. I can provide additional details if needed.
I've currently got the home-brew BBEG set as a Mythic encounter in a demiplanar lair. He's built not as a bruiser, but as a spellcaster/magical ability user.
At risk of running into classic issues with the action economy, I'm keeping the BBEG as the sole hostile creature in the encounter. Without bloating the fight, I'd like to introduce some other factors for the players to consider so that the fight doesn't boil down into the boringly simple game of hitting the BBEG as hard as they can every turn.
As an example, one such mechanic I've thought of is giving the BBEG a rechargeable solar flare ability that deals immense damage and threatens to blind the party. Players paying close attention might notice that the BBEG is about to use this ability, and can hide behind large pillars in the room to avoid the worst of the damage.
Thank you for taking the time to read my post! I'm open to any and all feedback. Please let me know if you need any additional info.
My DM went through this phase where he loved putting pillars with aura damage into rooms. Just magical pillars, and at the start of each character’s turn, they take damage from it. It really made fight like this interesting because we had to choose if we wanted to just eat the damage and focus on the enemy, or destroy the pillars.
You could amp it up more by going the video game route, where they also create a shield so the party has to destroy them before they get to him. Or two sets, I’ve died damage, one creates the shield, again forcing the choice of which to prioritize.
Not sure if this applies, but have you ever heard of an old French animated show called Wakfu? The villain of the series is a robot priest of a time god who is obsessed with finding a way to turn back time to correct a past mistake. In the process, he is willing to destroy all magic if it gets him his second chance. You talk about planar abilities - one way the make the fight crazy might be to do homebrewed versions of spells like slow, forcing magic-based saves from the party while he gets to wail away on one or two key members of the party for free, though maybe he can only use this ability once or twice over the fight (keeping action economy in mind).
If you would like to see a good summary video on the character I mentioned above, this review does a great job at it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKNCEPdbJ0c
Damn dude I'd never heard of the show, but I go to watch your YouTube video and now I'm getting emotional over a story with which I have no prior investment. Great suggestion.
Hmm I really like your idea of using home-brewed versions of spells to affect the fight. I'll look into that, thank you!
This is a really interesting suggestion, thank you! I'll see if I can work your pillars idea into the encounter.
Another way could be to alter the environment around them on a time based manner. E.g. collapsing cave floors that create gaps, or forces closer range combat (although easily negated by flight unless it rains acid where collapsing rocks crumbled :-) ).
I agree that it makes sense to have something else on the battlefield, even if it's not minions or anything, but something like pillars or crystals that affect the combat... The important part is that players have to make the choice if they want to attack the BBEG or take down these alternate targets. I think the way I would do it is that I would create 6 that do different things (boost the BBEG's AC, just releases a wave of damage, heals the BBEG, etc.), and each round at 20 they trigger... roll a d6, and whichever alternate target fits that number triggers. If that particular target has been destroyed, then nothing happens... big reward for clearing them out, but I think each one should be pretty burly so the players have to really decide whether it's more helpful to take them out or leave them.
I think something else that would be particularly fun is giving your BBEG an ability that forces your players to attack each other. If everyone's got legendary equipment, why not turn that against them? Probably something where the player has to make a WIS saving throw or they target their nearest ally with an attack.
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One of the best things I've done for making good encounters is to give the enemy something else to be doing.
For example, you could enforce the power of your warforged by stacking a hundred or so temporary HP on him to act as a shield (which the players can see) and have him moving from one pillar to the next, taking the hits but ignoring them. Even make him regenerate / immune to attacks whilst the pillars are working.Then they need to work out that they need to get ahead of him and stop him doing what he's doing to the pillars (IE destroy the next pillar), which will trigger the fight proper. With each pillar they destroy, he starts to panic as the magic goes wrong or out of control. Then when the ritual is ruined, he fights them.
This way they might ignore him doing it and just attack (and this will mean he successfully ignores them and ascends to godhood) or they stop him and he kills them, or they stop him and kill him. Gives 3 potential outcomes, and prevents it just being "roll the highest numbers" to finish.
You could even split the party, for this one scene - have 3 pillars that need stopping, each a half mile away from the centre of the ritual. That makes the party make decisions, which makes it more interesting than "enter the room, kill him before he kills you".
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