I'm an aspiring DM making her own D&D universe that's a hybrid of high and dark fantasy, and I've decided the final villain for my first campaign(If the group can last long enough) would be a powerful and barbaric Demon Lord in service to a bloodthirsty evil god(Demon Lords in my universe are servants of Dark Gods, and are original characters). But how many levels should the players have in order to fight a Demon Lord? Though this Demon Lord comes from me and not any any book, I want him to be as tough as the ones in the books.
Use this rule of thumb - CR1 Monsters are a standard fight for 4 Level 1 Characters. The highest CR in the MM is 30, the highest level for players is 20. In other words [1.5 x the an individual player's level] is the expected CR of a Final Boss for 3 to 5 players.
So how many players and what CR is this Demon Lord? That will help determine what level the players should be. If you don't have a CR tell me the stats and I'll give you the CR. If you don't have stats, then give me what level of the players you want or CR of the Demon Lord and I'll give you stats.
I'm an aspiring DM making her own D&D universe that's a hybrid of high and dark fantasy, and I've decided the final villain for my first campaign(If the group can last long enough) would be a powerful and barbaric Demon Lord in service to a bloodthirsty evil god(Demon Lords in my universe are servants of Dark Gods, and are original characters). But how many levels should the players have in order to fight a Demon Lord? Though this Demon Lord comes from me and not any any book, I want him to be as tough as the ones in the books.
Use this rule of thumb - CR1 Monsters are a standard fight for 4 Level 1 Characters. The highest CR in the MM is 30, the highest level for players is 20. In other words [1.5 x the an individual player's level] is the expected CR of a Final Boss for 3 to 5 players.
So how many players and what CR is this Demon Lord? That will help determine what level the players should be. If you don't have a CR tell me the stats and I'll give you the CR. If you don't have stats, then give me what level of the players you want or CR of the Demon Lord and I'll give you stats.
Most of the stat'd Demon lords are around CR 23, so a party of 19th and 20th level characters would be about correct.
4 players. CR 23. A lot of it is still work in progress.
4 level 19 PCs is just barely a deadly encounter, so they may win even if not all survive.
4 Level 20 PCs is a hard encounter just short of deadly, higher chance of victory, may still lose a PC in the battle.
Thanks. There's still a lotta work to be done though.