Hey, need some creative help with weaken my players before the final boss. Encounters, traps and terrain effects are most welcome.
I have 6lvl6 players, who are going into a cursed, hive mind forest. They have about a days travel on foot, before they meet the boss. I want to make it hard for them to take a long rest, but I don't want to wreck the party totally because they have a hard boss fight in store.
Depending on your boss, and what level of control he has over the forest, you could have the forest dark and thick with undergrowth ,that any time the players rest longer then a short rest it begins to attack them, doing minor damage, but makeing it impossible to take a long rest.
Small groups of blights could also roam the forest and attack, they wouldn't do much damage but would slowly use up the players supply the hp, and spells. They would also keep them from takeing a long rest.
As far as traps go, living vines suddenly tripping them or pulling them up a tree. Pit traps covered in leaves and the like.
The party has a deadline, they need to reach the BBEG by a certain time. They have to traverse a large marshy area, too soft for the horses to travel, and wide and rough enough that it will take the Party longer to traverse on foot than they have until that deadline, if they stop and long rest.
You could throw medium sized swamp denizen encounters at them to drain down resources.
Personally - I'm not a fan of "sandbagging" a Party before they get to a major conflict, as it's cliche', and you can't precisely control how many resources they expend on the way. You would have more predictable & consistent results if you gave them an opportunity to Long Rest just before the major encounter, and then designed that encounter around the assumption of a fully rested party.
But if you want to go that route, swamps and time pressure could do it.
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I was thinking of awful mosquitos or other insects keeping them from a good rest. A pack of spying birds or bats might find the party and then a band of kobolds happens upon the party. Magic activated fire, lighting, ice spike traps could sap the party of HP and healing spells. Druidic intervention using plants and animals could hurt a party. It is pretty tricky to come up with the right balance though. It would seem easier to just have a band of lower level critters fight the party before the boss jumps in the mix. It should be easier to dial that in to the right strength, but nowhere near as effective a mind game though. If you are just trying to get the party to hurry it up, they could be pursued by a couple bears, a pack of wolves or something they want to avoid more than the boss. If you want to wear them down, then you'll want to do something like the trap thing.
Time is definitely going to be an issue. Maybe I am sandbagging my party, but mostly I'm trying to make the journey feel interesting, having them move unscrached from point A to B and right into the bosses waiting arms, would be anticlimactic.
But I'll keep it in mind, thanks :D, swamps are great.
Oh - you can absolutely keep the journey interesting along the way :)
For example, if your BBEG was a Dragon ( I know it's not ), you could keep having the party run into evidence of how that Dragon has changed and warped the countryside around their lair. Show them, through encounters highlighting the warped and blasted countryside, just how much a badass the BBEG is, and ratchet up the fear and tension.
You can even throw in combat encounters with minions along the way - it's just more predicable planning the last big fight if you allow them to fully "power up" fully before it. That's my $0.02 only :) Whatever works for you and your Players best is the way to go.
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Vedexent has some good points. It's very possible to have small encounters, and difficult landscape full of bogs, thorny blood drinking plants, and sudden canyons make a adventure feel very difficult, use skills checks, and other such rolls often to keep the players on their toes, and yet do very little resource loss to the players. It depends on the bad guy. If he only slightly more powerful then the party then you need to sap the players strength, if you can scale him as a good challenge to the party at full strength as Vedexent said that is much easier to guage the results, and I feel preferable.
The boss battle is going to be hard, (main story arch boss), it's a gigantic corrupted tree. I have a cool layer planed out, (what else can you do when your bad guy are stationary. (any cool suggestions for layer effects?)
In my campaign PC death is a very real possibility, and has happened a few times, so I want to give them a hard time but still make sure the fight is fair. (in true apocalyptic spirit some of the dead PCs will be used henchmen.)
So I love the notion to give them skill challenges and hoard minions just to sap a bit of strength from the PCs but let them be creative and have a possibility to avoid a some damage and feel the tread of incoming doom.
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Fake it til you make it.
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Hey, need some creative help with weaken my players before the final boss. Encounters, traps and terrain effects are most welcome.
I have 6lvl6 players, who are going into a cursed, hive mind forest. They have about a days travel on foot, before they meet the boss. I want to make it hard for them to take a long rest, but I don't want to wreck the party totally because they have a hard boss fight in store.
Creative traps, creature encounters, problems solving. Forest themed.
I want some resource management. Any ideas are very welcome.
Fake it til you make it.
Depending on your boss, and what level of control he has over the forest, you could have the forest dark and thick with undergrowth ,that any time the players rest longer then a short rest it begins to attack them, doing minor damage, but makeing it impossible to take a long rest.
Small groups of blights could also roam the forest and attack, they wouldn't do much damage but would slowly use up the players supply the hp, and spells. They would also keep them from takeing a long rest.
As far as traps go, living vines suddenly tripping them or pulling them up a tree. Pit traps covered in leaves and the like.
You could use Time.
The party has a deadline, they need to reach the BBEG by a certain time. They have to traverse a large marshy area, too soft for the horses to travel, and wide and rough enough that it will take the Party longer to traverse on foot than they have until that deadline, if they stop and long rest.
You could throw medium sized swamp denizen encounters at them to drain down resources.
Personally - I'm not a fan of "sandbagging" a Party before they get to a major conflict, as it's cliche', and you can't precisely control how many resources they expend on the way. You would have more predictable & consistent results if you gave them an opportunity to Long Rest just before the major encounter, and then designed that encounter around the assumption of a fully rested party.
But if you want to go that route, swamps and time pressure could do it.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
I was thinking of awful mosquitos or other insects keeping them from a good rest. A pack of spying birds or bats might find the party and then a band of kobolds happens upon the party. Magic activated fire, lighting, ice spike traps could sap the party of HP and healing spells. Druidic intervention using plants and animals could hurt a party. It is pretty tricky to come up with the right balance though. It would seem easier to just have a band of lower level critters fight the party before the boss jumps in the mix. It should be easier to dial that in to the right strength, but nowhere near as effective a mind game though. If you are just trying to get the party to hurry it up, they could be pursued by a couple bears, a pack of wolves or something they want to avoid more than the boss. If you want to wear them down, then you'll want to do something like the trap thing.
Good luck.
Time is definitely going to be an issue. Maybe I am sandbagging my party, but mostly I'm trying to make the journey feel interesting, having them move unscrached from point A to B and right into the bosses waiting arms, would be anticlimactic.
But I'll keep it in mind, thanks :D, swamps are great.
Fake it til you make it.
Oh - you can absolutely keep the journey interesting along the way :)
For example, if your BBEG was a Dragon ( I know it's not ), you could keep having the party run into evidence of how that Dragon has changed and warped the countryside around their lair. Show them, through encounters highlighting the warped and blasted countryside, just how much a badass the BBEG is, and ratchet up the fear and tension.
You can even throw in combat encounters with minions along the way - it's just more predicable planning the last big fight if you allow them to fully "power up" fully before it. That's my $0.02 only :) Whatever works for you and your Players best is the way to go.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Vedexent has some good points. It's very possible to have small encounters, and difficult landscape full of bogs, thorny blood drinking plants, and sudden canyons make a adventure feel very difficult, use skills checks, and other such rolls often to keep the players on their toes, and yet do very little resource loss to the players. It depends on the bad guy. If he only slightly more powerful then the party then you need to sap the players strength, if you can scale him as a good challenge to the party at full strength as Vedexent said that is much easier to guage the results, and I feel preferable.
Oh that's very good points.
The boss battle is going to be hard, (main story arch boss), it's a gigantic corrupted tree. I have a cool layer planed out, (what else can you do when your bad guy are stationary. (any cool suggestions for layer effects?)
In my campaign PC death is a very real possibility, and has happened a few times, so I want to give them a hard time but still make sure the fight is fair. (in true apocalyptic spirit some of the dead PCs will be used henchmen.)
So I love the notion to give them skill challenges and hoard minions just to sap a bit of strength from the PCs but let them be creative and have a possibility to avoid a some damage and feel the tread of incoming doom.
Fake it til you make it.