My campaign is nearing its end, and my plan for the final battle is perhaps not a terribly original one. It's to have a bunch of rifts opening and monsters pouring out. I'm looking for any creative ideas and / or some help balancing it.
The PCs are five level 11. I plan to have a powerful ally join them. Its stats will be similar to an adult or ancient dragon, plus it will have some spells and custom abilities. Only this ally will be able to close the rifts. Closing the rifts will require it to concentrate over multiple rounds: larger rifts will require more rounds. I'm thinking I'll give it a pretty high Con save, say +7, so if it takes damage of 20 or less, there is a slim but not zero chance to break its concentration. In the early rounds, it probably won't be worth it for the monsters to try to break its concentration, but in the final round, I'll use monsters that can regularly deal out 20+ damage, and they'll turn their attacks against the ally when necessary to prevent the rift from closing.
Somewhere in the middle of the battle the ally will use a one-time ability to restore the PCs in some way. I'll want to get them worn down pretty badly by this point, with multiple PCs going unconscious and most of them below half hp.
How should I decide how many rifts to have, and how many monsters of what CR should pour out each round? Or should I just fudge it on the day, adjusting the rate of the onslaught to guarantee the desired narrative effect?
Players are expected to fight about a third of that per short rest which would be 17500xp or roughly 1 deadly encounter (18000).
This will probably slightly under perform what you are after because the bar for a deadly encounter is basically downing at least one player and you are including a monster to be attacked as well so feel free to go a little bit over budget but cap yourself at about 26250xp or the players will probably not have enough spells etc. to make their way through.
If you want that damage to be spread out use something with a big aoe or lots of enemies that attack from multiple directions to hit as many players as possible but be careful not to make the encounter too difficult to handle. You might want to group enemies and have them act like one big monster but appear as many small ones 1.e have groups share initiative, roll the attacks together etc...
Also to avoid combats becoming a slog try to give them a short break or shake it up significantly every 3 rounds minimum. Do a change of location to find different portals or something.
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My campaign is nearing its end, and my plan for the final battle is perhaps not a terribly original one. It's to have a bunch of rifts opening and monsters pouring out. I'm looking for any creative ideas and / or some help balancing it.
The PCs are five level 11. I plan to have a powerful ally join them. Its stats will be similar to an adult or ancient dragon, plus it will have some spells and custom abilities. Only this ally will be able to close the rifts. Closing the rifts will require it to concentrate over multiple rounds: larger rifts will require more rounds. I'm thinking I'll give it a pretty high Con save, say +7, so if it takes damage of 20 or less, there is a slim but not zero chance to break its concentration. In the early rounds, it probably won't be worth it for the monsters to try to break its concentration, but in the final round, I'll use monsters that can regularly deal out 20+ damage, and they'll turn their attacks against the ally when necessary to prevent the rift from closing.
Somewhere in the middle of the battle the ally will use a one-time ability to restore the PCs in some way. I'll want to get them worn down pretty badly by this point, with multiple PCs going unconscious and most of them below half hp.
How should I decide how many rifts to have, and how many monsters of what CR should pour out each round? Or should I just fudge it on the day, adjusting the rate of the onslaught to guarantee the desired narrative effect?
You can use the DMG 'creating a combat encounter' rules
If you want that damage to be spread out use something with a big aoe or lots of enemies that attack from multiple directions to hit as many players as possible but be careful not to make the encounter too difficult to handle. You might want to group enemies and have them act like one big monster but appear as many small ones 1.e have groups share initiative, roll the attacks together etc...
Also to avoid combats becoming a slog try to give them a short break or shake it up significantly every 3 rounds minimum. Do a change of location to find different portals or something.