I am about to start a campaign for 3 players and the BBEG I have planned is not any monster and is instead a level 20 Barbarian character I made but never got to use. Since I don't know what challenge rating the character is, I don't know what level the characters should be when they get to fight her and I don't want to make the fight too easy or too hard for them.
That's fairly simple. I would say a party of three level 15-18 characters could defeat it, but only through multiclass. Otherwise, Levels 18-20. Was this helpful?
However, if the party is level 20, it will be a very easy fight. I would take into account the fact that barbarians cannot cast spells, so a good challenge would probably be level 16, with or without multiclass.
I am about to start a campaign for 3 players and the BBEG I have planned is not any monster and is instead a level 20 Barbarian character I made but never got to use. Since I don't know what challenge rating the character is, I don't know what level the characters should be when they get to fight her and I don't want to make the fight too easy or too hard for them.
Honestly, you should just try to model the fight and see what happens. CR is probably fairly close to 20, so I'd go for about level 12 PCs.
Keep in mind action economy. If the barbarian is on their own, they'll be overwhelmed easily simply through players taking more actions than they can dish out (unless the barbarian is so over- leveled that they're 1-2 shotting players, which is also un-fun).
Keep in mind action economy. If the barbarian is on their own, they'll be overwhelmed easily simply through players taking more actions than they can dish out (unless the barbarian is so over- leveled that they're 1-2 shotting players, which is also un-fun).
A boss who doesn't one-shot a PC every round is generally underpowered, the way 5e is scaled. That said, a barbarian boss is likely to be colossal bore due to having low damage output, high durability, and not much variance in attack patterns.
I'd also add that a barbarian character isn't usually good with ranged attacks and has typically poor wisdom saving throws. As a result, depending on the opposition, a level 20 barbarian could end up being a trivial encounter.
Imagine that the party can all fly and spends the entire time casting spells and shooting arrows at the barbarian. Or perhaps the party has a few spell casters who like to use hold person to paralyse the barbarian making them an easy target.
You could then try to patch these weaknesses by adding features that don't exist for a level 20 PC barbarian. The problem with that is that you might as well start off with a custom made NPC as the nemesis and then neither you nor the players are constrained by expectations of what a level 20 barbarian should be capable of doing.
In terms of PC builds that have the potential to be a decent boss fight, you generally want the equivalent of legendary resistance to avoid just being stunlocked (note that, while various basically unattackable spellcaster builds are dangerous to an entire party of PCs, such builds are extremely unfun to fight and therefore I wouldn't class as 'decent'), teleportation (to handle things like walls of force), and flight. You also want some interesting variance in attack patterns, and relying on stunlocking the PCs, while dangerous enough, is again, not fun. Also, at the pacing of 5e combat... you probably want 100+ damage per round.
The general best candidate here is the eldritch knight -- indomitable in 2024 might as well be legendary resistance, they have enough ASIs for things like Resilient, a couple teleport options, the flight spell in a pinch. With four attacks and two uses of action surge, damage output is plenty scary, particularly with a magic weapon. With some magic item support, and possibly the mage slayer feat, other fighter types, monks, and paladins are also reasonable. It's very difficult to turn other classes into decent solo bosses.
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I am about to start a campaign for 3 players and the BBEG I have planned is not any monster and is instead a level 20 Barbarian character I made but never got to use. Since I don't know what challenge rating the character is, I don't know what level the characters should be when they get to fight her and I don't want to make the fight too easy or too hard for them.
That's fairly simple. I would say a party of three level 15-18 characters could defeat it, but only through multiclass. Otherwise, Levels 18-20. Was this helpful?
However, if the party is level 20, it will be a very easy fight. I would take into account the fact that barbarians cannot cast spells, so a good challenge would probably be level 16, with or without multiclass.
Honestly, you should just try to model the fight and see what happens. CR is probably fairly close to 20, so I'd go for about level 12 PCs.
Keep in mind action economy. If the barbarian is on their own, they'll be overwhelmed easily simply through players taking more actions than they can dish out (unless the barbarian is so over- leveled that they're 1-2 shotting players, which is also un-fun).
A boss who doesn't one-shot a PC every round is generally underpowered, the way 5e is scaled. That said, a barbarian boss is likely to be colossal bore due to having low damage output, high durability, and not much variance in attack patterns.
I'd also add that a barbarian character isn't usually good with ranged attacks and has typically poor wisdom saving throws. As a result, depending on the opposition, a level 20 barbarian could end up being a trivial encounter.
Imagine that the party can all fly and spends the entire time casting spells and shooting arrows at the barbarian. Or perhaps the party has a few spell casters who like to use hold person to paralyse the barbarian making them an easy target.
You could then try to patch these weaknesses by adding features that don't exist for a level 20 PC barbarian. The problem with that is that you might as well start off with a custom made NPC as the nemesis and then neither you nor the players are constrained by expectations of what a level 20 barbarian should be capable of doing.
In terms of PC builds that have the potential to be a decent boss fight, you generally want the equivalent of legendary resistance to avoid just being stunlocked (note that, while various basically unattackable spellcaster builds are dangerous to an entire party of PCs, such builds are extremely unfun to fight and therefore I wouldn't class as 'decent'), teleportation (to handle things like walls of force), and flight. You also want some interesting variance in attack patterns, and relying on stunlocking the PCs, while dangerous enough, is again, not fun. Also, at the pacing of 5e combat... you probably want 100+ damage per round.
The general best candidate here is the eldritch knight -- indomitable in 2024 might as well be legendary resistance, they have enough ASIs for things like Resilient, a couple teleport options, the flight spell in a pinch. With four attacks and two uses of action surge, damage output is plenty scary, particularly with a magic weapon. With some magic item support, and possibly the mage slayer feat, other fighter types, monks, and paladins are also reasonable. It's very difficult to turn other classes into decent solo bosses.