Hi all! I am busy planning the fourth session of my first ever campaign! The party is currently exploring a long-lost tomb which was recently uncovered due to intense rains and has been made into a necromancer's base. I want to make the final encounter more difficult than anything they have yet experienced, but I'm afraid I'm going a bit overkill with the difficulty. The party is made up of:
a level 3 Tortle Fighter
a level 3 Wood-Elf Warlock
a level 3 Half-elven Paladin
a level 2 Human Cleric
a level 2 Tiefling Rogue
a level 2 Half-elven Ranger
I was planning on having the final room contain:
3 Zombies
3 Skeletons
1 Shadow
1 Wight.
Following the calculations in the DMs guide, a "deadly" encounter for my party would be anything greater than 1800 XP, and the XP for this encounter is 2,200. But, at the same time, I feel as though zombies and skeletons are pretty squishy, so they should be able to handle them pretty easily.
Could be reasonable. My party regularly beats 'deadly' encounters. There seems to be a roughly equal number of enemies and heroes, so the action economy isn't too far against them. In addition, the enemies are mostly dumb undead, so they're not necessarily going to fight very tactically. You've got a L2 cleric so they should have Turn Undead, which will be good here.
HOWEVER, the big question is how worn down the party will be by the time they get here. If they'll be out of spell slots and on their last legs, a deadly encounter would be very rough. If they're pretty fresh, then that's more reasonable. (In my case, we don't have very long sessions, so the party often gets relatively few encounters-per-day, which is why they're able to fight 'deadly' encounters at a decent clip. If this is the capstone to a long and grueling dungeon and they haven't long-rested for five fights, then it's a lot harder.)
If this is a boss fight, there should probably be a boss in there somewhere. Where is the necromancer? If the necromancer has fled, who is in charge? An apprentice of some kind perhaps?
If you want to increase the difficulty a little, add a few more skeletons wielding long bows and have them attack from 1/2 or 3/4 cover. You can also throw in a few monsters who are not undead, but who "happen by," drawn by the sounds of combat. This could force the party to fight on two fronts at once and disrupt the effectiveness of holy water/turn undead tactics.
Keep this part of the "Building Combat Encounters" rules in mind:
The Adventuring Day
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
As others stated, you will probably find that most "deadly" encounters don't really hamper a fully refreshed party all that much; as the above infers, they can typically handle maybe 3 or 4 deadly encounters per long rest. If your party is entering this fight fully healed with all their spell slots, it'll probably be relatively easy even if you're a few hundred exp over what is recommended as "deadly." If they're coming into this after a handful of other fights, it should be challenging. If they're coming into it fresh, I'd recommend bumping it up a bit. You can always plan contingencies if things start to go to hell for the party.
Rather than just thinking about CR and creatures, why not consider lair actions? (Page 11 in the Monster Manual). They can add a really epic edge to a final encounter. If you've not used them before, they're basically special abilities, tied to the villain, but taking their own place in the initiative order (typically top of the round), that affect the battlefield, usually to the advantage of the enemy. The villain can have a few lair actions to choose from - or just one that happens each round.
They’re usually associated with dragons and the like, but they don’t have to be. An example Ive used, was the party was clearing out a den of spiders. After fighting through giant spiders and ettercaps, they came upon the queen's lair. The creature itself wasn't particularly powerful - a Giant Spider with double the HP. But her lair action - which would cause 1d4 Swarm of Spiders to emerge each round, turned a simple encounter into a race to defeat the Queen before they were overwhelmed. Drama ensued.
For your necromancer, think about why they've chosen this location as their lair. Think about how to even the odds in a more dramatic way than just having undead guards. Perhaps the necromancer is alone to begin with, lulling the party into a false sense of security. But the area is strewn with bones... and a lair action each round has a chance of causing Skeletons to form, thanks to the dark energies pouring from the altar at the far end of the room... Now the players have multiple problems to find solutions to - rather than just 'attack the necromancer until they die.’
Perhaps a putrid mist lingers over the battlefield, seeming to not affect the villain, but meaning the players have to make a save to avoid being poisoned. Another aspect they need to consider.
Think also about how players could use their skills to aid them. An arcana check in the above example could be used to decipher the runes engraved into pillars around the room, that reveal - with a religion check - that a dark ritual to a god of death has been performed here, leading the players to consider whether splitting their efforts to destroy the altar might stop the summoning of skeletons, or dissipating the mist. Perhaps it doesn't work at all!
Think creatively and you can make final battles more than just a challenging fight - but a truly memorable encounter!
Thanks to everyone for the responses! Although depending on the route, they will have fought through several encounters to arrive at the final chamber, there will be a few corners of the dungeon where they could potentially take a long rest before the final encounter.
I decided to remove the shadow and add Adunaphêl Balukzagir, an apprentice necromancer, to the encounter. Although he is not the chief necromancer and villain of this story arc, he will hopefully provide a greater challenge to the players, and it will be their first experience dealing with an enemy spellcaster. Additionally, I added an altar with some sort of glowing purple energy in the room that re-forms the skeletons if they go down (provided that Adunaphêl is alive). If they don't take the long rest I expect them to I will probably modify the encounter somewhat.
We're playing tonight, so I'm very excited to see how it goes!
Sounds like an excellent encounter! You've provided multiple dangers to consider, but left yourself enough freedom to modify things on the fly.
For example, if it turns out you've over-egged your spellcaster and he's ripping through your party, perhaps destroying the altar could also weaken Adunaphêl Balukzagi. Or if they're really struggling to focus on both the altar, the skeletons and Adunaphêl Balukzagi, perhaps after destroying enough skeletons, the altar ruptures. Etc.
Really keen to hear how it goes! And how your players handled the situation, so keep us in the loop!
So, the party was not able to make it to the final encounter when we played Wednesday, but they completed the dungeon last night. Although I was initially afraid that this encounter would be too difficult, the opposite turned out to be true. They managed to get surprise on the entire room and took out the wight before it even had a chance to act. Additionally, they subdued Adunaphêl on the second round of combat. Unfortunately, this meant that the altar never even had a chance to fire and Adunaphêl was only able to cast one spell. However, my players still felt that the encounter, especially the buildup to it, was incredibly tense and memorable, and I guess that is what counts in the end. Thank you all for your help with this!
Hi all! I am busy planning the fourth session of my first ever campaign! The party is currently exploring a long-lost tomb which was recently uncovered due to intense rains and has been made into a necromancer's base. I want to make the final encounter more difficult than anything they have yet experienced, but I'm afraid I'm going a bit overkill with the difficulty. The party is made up of:
a level 3 Tortle Fighter
a level 3 Wood-Elf Warlock
a level 3 Half-elven Paladin
a level 2 Human Cleric
a level 2 Tiefling Rogue
a level 2 Half-elven Ranger
I was planning on having the final room contain:
3 Zombies
3 Skeletons
1 Shadow
1 Wight.
Following the calculations in the DMs guide, a "deadly" encounter for my party would be anything greater than 1800 XP, and the XP for this encounter is 2,200. But, at the same time, I feel as though zombies and skeletons are pretty squishy, so they should be able to handle them pretty easily.
Thank you for the help!
Could be reasonable. My party regularly beats 'deadly' encounters. There seems to be a roughly equal number of enemies and heroes, so the action economy isn't too far against them. In addition, the enemies are mostly dumb undead, so they're not necessarily going to fight very tactically. You've got a L2 cleric so they should have Turn Undead, which will be good here.
HOWEVER, the big question is how worn down the party will be by the time they get here. If they'll be out of spell slots and on their last legs, a deadly encounter would be very rough. If they're pretty fresh, then that's more reasonable. (In my case, we don't have very long sessions, so the party often gets relatively few encounters-per-day, which is why they're able to fight 'deadly' encounters at a decent clip. If this is the capstone to a long and grueling dungeon and they haven't long-rested for five fights, then it's a lot harder.)
If this is a boss fight, there should probably be a boss in there somewhere. Where is the necromancer? If the necromancer has fled, who is in charge? An apprentice of some kind perhaps?
If you want to increase the difficulty a little, add a few more skeletons wielding long bows and have them attack from 1/2 or 3/4 cover. You can also throw in a few monsters who are not undead, but who "happen by," drawn by the sounds of combat. This could force the party to fight on two fronts at once and disrupt the effectiveness of holy water/turn undead tactics.
Keep this part of the "Building Combat Encounters" rules in mind:
The Adventuring Day
Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.
As others stated, you will probably find that most "deadly" encounters don't really hamper a fully refreshed party all that much; as the above infers, they can typically handle maybe 3 or 4 deadly encounters per long rest. If your party is entering this fight fully healed with all their spell slots, it'll probably be relatively easy even if you're a few hundred exp over what is recommended as "deadly."
If they're coming into this after a handful of other fights, it should be challenging. If they're coming into it fresh, I'd recommend bumping it up a bit. You can always plan contingencies if things start to go to hell for the party.
5E mechanics heavily favor the players., and the CR ratings don't really account for it.
I would double the number of monsters, and include a boss with lots of ranged spells.
Depends on whether they have silver and magic weapons.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
Rather than just thinking about CR and creatures, why not consider lair actions? (Page 11 in the Monster Manual). They can add a really epic edge to a final encounter. If you've not used them before, they're basically special abilities, tied to the villain, but taking their own place in the initiative order (typically top of the round), that affect the battlefield, usually to the advantage of the enemy. The villain can have a few lair actions to choose from - or just one that happens each round.
They’re usually associated with dragons and the like, but they don’t have to be. An example Ive used, was the party was clearing out a den of spiders. After fighting through giant spiders and ettercaps, they came upon the queen's lair. The creature itself wasn't particularly powerful - a Giant Spider with double the HP. But her lair action - which would cause 1d4 Swarm of Spiders to emerge each round, turned a simple encounter into a race to defeat the Queen before they were overwhelmed. Drama ensued.
For your necromancer, think about why they've chosen this location as their lair. Think about how to even the odds in a more dramatic way than just having undead guards. Perhaps the necromancer is alone to begin with, lulling the party into a false sense of security. But the area is strewn with bones... and a lair action each round has a chance of causing Skeletons to form, thanks to the dark energies pouring from the altar at the far end of the room... Now the players have multiple problems to find solutions to - rather than just 'attack the necromancer until they die.’
Perhaps a putrid mist lingers over the battlefield, seeming to not affect the villain, but meaning the players have to make a save to avoid being poisoned. Another aspect they need to consider.
Think also about how players could use their skills to aid them. An arcana check in the above example could be used to decipher the runes engraved into pillars around the room, that reveal - with a religion check - that a dark ritual to a god of death has been performed here, leading the players to consider whether splitting their efforts to destroy the altar might stop the summoning of skeletons, or dissipating the mist. Perhaps it doesn't work at all!
Think creatively and you can make final battles more than just a challenging fight - but a truly memorable encounter!
Thanks to everyone for the responses! Although depending on the route, they will have fought through several encounters to arrive at the final chamber, there will be a few corners of the dungeon where they could potentially take a long rest before the final encounter.
I decided to remove the shadow and add Adunaphêl Balukzagir, an apprentice necromancer, to the encounter. Although he is not the chief necromancer and villain of this story arc, he will hopefully provide a greater challenge to the players, and it will be their first experience dealing with an enemy spellcaster. Additionally, I added an altar with some sort of glowing purple energy in the room that re-forms the skeletons if they go down (provided that Adunaphêl is alive). If they don't take the long rest I expect them to I will probably modify the encounter somewhat.
We're playing tonight, so I'm very excited to see how it goes!
Sounds like an excellent encounter! You've provided multiple dangers to consider, but left yourself enough freedom to modify things on the fly.
For example, if it turns out you've over-egged your spellcaster and he's ripping through your party, perhaps destroying the altar could also weaken Adunaphêl Balukzagi. Or if they're really struggling to focus on both the altar, the skeletons and Adunaphêl Balukzagi, perhaps after destroying enough skeletons, the altar ruptures. Etc.
Really keen to hear how it goes! And how your players handled the situation, so keep us in the loop!
So, the party was not able to make it to the final encounter when we played Wednesday, but they completed the dungeon last night. Although I was initially afraid that this encounter would be too difficult, the opposite turned out to be true. They managed to get surprise on the entire room and took out the wight before it even had a chance to act. Additionally, they subdued Adunaphêl on the second round of combat. Unfortunately, this meant that the altar never even had a chance to fire and Adunaphêl was only able to cast one spell. However, my players still felt that the encounter, especially the buildup to it, was incredibly tense and memorable, and I guess that is what counts in the end. Thank you all for your help with this!
In the end it's about how much fun your players had =)
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale