Final Battles of Campaigns

[Herabec]

So, I've been mulling around and getting the final 'boss' of the game's campaign statted out and the battleground and such all sorted out... And it got me wondering...

Just how would fellow Playgrounders handle the ultimate encounter of their respective campaigns? Are your Archvillains over-the-top when it comes with power, requiring excessive amounts of teamwork to overcome, or are they pushovers without their droves of minions to stand between themselves and the heroes?

Would your battles take place in the swirling chaos of the space between planes, or atop a crumbling tower as a battle between armies of good and evil takes place below?

Sate my curiosity. :smallbiggrin:

[Safety Sword]

So, I've been mulling around and getting the final 'boss' of the game's campaign statted out and the battleground and such all sorted out... And it got me wondering...

Just how would fellow Playgrounders handle the ultimate encounter of their respective campaigns? Are your Archvillains over-the-top when it comes with power, requiring excessive amounts of teamwork to overcome, or are they pushovers without their droves of minions to stand between themselves and the heroes?

Would your battles take place in the swirling chaos of the space between planes, or atop a crumbling tower as a battle between armies of good and evil takes place below?

Sate my curiosity. :smallbiggrin:

My answer is: Depends.

For damned sure it's going to be a tough fight, usually because I stack the terrain/environment to suit the bad guys.

I mean, if I was a baddie, that's how I'd do it, right? :smallwink:

[Herabec]

My answer is: Depends.

For damned sure it's going to be a tough fight, usually because I stack the terrain/environment to suit the bad guys.

I mean, if I was a baddie, that's how I'd do it, right? :smallwink:

Quite right!

Just curious, as I'm making him from the ground up to be able to put up a hellova fight against a group of four Epic-level characters alone, with terrain in his favor.

For this, I've ended up creating a template and a class all for him as well, and so far it looks strong and promising. I'll probably need to do some playtesting with him first off though before I actually let him fight the party... They're still a long way from that though.

[Lonely Tylenol]

In the campaign I've been planning, the final boss encounters have been planned out to be quite strong--and there's always more than one. In two occasions (the ends of Act II and III, respectively), large-scale battles do occur before and during the climactic enemy guy fights.

I always operate under the premise that a good big, bad enemy guy surrounds himself with other big, bad enemy guys, to better ensure their mutual survival. The fights, then, might either include a series of "mini-bosses", or a boss along with a bunch of "mini-bosses". To answer your questions in the formats posed: over-the-top difficult, and top of a crumbling tower.

[Safety Sword]

Another favorite of mine: Having the BBEG wade in on a battle when the PCs thought they were winning. Very good for the "Oh $H1t" factor it generates.

[agahii]

My favorite way to handle this is a large number of less powerful foes. Things that are maybe 1/2 the power of the PCs with a leader that is equal in power to the PCs. My leaders are typically full casters that are optimized fairly well, and if a PC went toe to toe with him/her solo while the rest of the party fights the horde(reducing the chance of all party members surviving), the solo PC could very well win, but working for that win will make the victory sweeter.

When the PCs lose one or more of their number the villain typically stabilizes and does something besides killing. Some examples would be a well constructed AMF prison in a hide out in another location, or killing with thinium(spelling?) weapons. Another favorite is reversing the characters alignment with a helm of opposite alignment after some hefty wisdom drains, or a mindrape.

If the PCs win, they better do something similar or the big bad should come back to haunt either the same characters in a follow up game, or like the characters great grandchildren as new PCs after the big bad waits a while to strike again.

[Chess435]

My favorite way to handle this is a large number of less powerful foes. Things that are maybe 1/2 the power of the PCs with a leader that is equal in power to the PCs. My leaders are typically full casters that are optimized fairly well, and if a PC went toe to toe with him/her solo while the rest of the party fights the horde(reducing the chance of all party members surviving), the solo PC could very well win, but working for that win will make the victory sweeter.

When the PCs lose one or more of their number the villain typically stabilizes and does something besides killing. Some examples would be a well constructed AMF prison in a hide out in another location, or killing with thinium(spelling?) weapons. Another favorite is reversing the characters alignment with a helm of opposite alignment after some hefty wisdom drains, or a mindrape.

If the PCs win, they better do something similar or the big bad should come back to haunt either the same characters in a follow up game, or like the characters great grandchildren as new PCs after the big bad waits a while to strike again.

Or, if your players are of the more practical sort, they'll Helm of Opposite Alignment/Mindrape/Programmed Amnesia the BBEG :smallbiggrin:

[Herabec]

I've always been of the mindset that BBEG should never pull any punches in a fight where his life is on the line. For example: He'll start off a fight with a Disintegrate on the caster-iest looking party member if he gets the chance, particularly if he wins initiative. Or a Disjunction. Or a Time Stop...

In the event a PC goes down near him, he may use a Quickened Death Knell or some such to take them out of the fight permanently, before their nasty Cleric can get them up with a Heal spell.

I always feel that if I don't play a BBEG to their deadliest potential, then the group is somehow cheapened by not having the ultimate fight their characters should have. That real life or death struggle with everything on the line.

[agahii]

Or, if your players are of the more practical sort, they'll Helm of Opposite Alignment/Mindrape/Programmed Amnesia the BBEG :smallbiggrin:

Thats totally why I said

"If the PCs win, they better do something similar or the big bad should come back to haunt either the same characters in a follow up game, or like the characters great grandchildren as new PCs after the big bad waits a while to strike again"

[MrKarato]

The final battle is going to vary greatly unfortunately. In my case it's a giant battle with two very large sides. My battle is a battle with battles around it, the heroes fighting the BBEG, the battle would have to be tough with a good amount of teamwork and minions jumping in occasionally. If your villain has no large amounts of minions, then it should be a tough fight with the villain that involves a lot of team work. That's my opinion at this point.

[gbprime]

There is always a major battle at the end, and its often reality-rending. But I actually avoid making the "final battle" the capstone of the campaign. Wrapping up all your sub plots and leading up to a giant fight gives the campaign a "jump the shark" feeling if you're not careful about it, or at the very least a sense of "let's get this over with".

Instead, I try to make sure that there are a great many tasks and side plots that are not yet concluded. Life goes on, climactic battle or no, and as my campaigns usually run 24-30 months end to end, there's quite a lot of it.

The goal is to make my players think that the climactic battle was the coolest thing yet, but that we're not "done" and to have them go "awwwww" at the thought of the campaign ending. (more stuff to pick up when it's my turn to DM again. =)

[BlueInc]

Final battles I can think of:

1. BBEG and his generals in the officer's quarters aboard a warship. Each of the players had an equivalent foe to fight (the bad guys had a paladin, rogue, monk, sorcerer, etc. They mostly ended up fighting their counterparts :D)

2. On an island, trying desperately to stop evil proto-gods breaking out of cracks in the ground from stopping a ritual that will save the world.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

My last few arch-villains' boss fights include, but are not limited to, the following:

1) An insane necromancer/grafter leading his zeppelin navy full of adamantine clockwork horrors, spellstitched curst, and his other undead/construct creations against the PCs' homeland of Faerie.

2A) Mordenkainen (yes, that Mordenkainen) fighting the PCs in his private demiplane over control of an artifact that would let him kill several gods and ascend to take their place; after the forces of Good won out in the worlds of Oerth (Greyhawk) and Krynn (Dragonlance), he decided he had to gain the power to balance things back to Neutral at any cost, and cooperating with all of the Lower Planes combined to let Evil conquer the PCs' home universe was the most convenient way to do that.

2B) Mordenkainen fighting the PCs after they failed to stop his ascension in 2A. :smallbiggrin:

3) Conglomeration of 206 demiliches vs. party of epic PCs; I've told this story here before.

4) PCs fighting a pair of master manipulators, one a thrallherd and the other an illusionist, and their hundreds of minions on the plane of Dal Quor to prevent the quori from coming back to Eberron in full force.

[Captain Caveman]

The focal point of every single one of my boss fights has always been that the boss is not a stupid man. You do not become a serious threat to existence that the party must stop without any sort of merit to your name. You have been ruining his plans for 5 levels nowm chances are he has given some thought to how best to kill every single one of you himself. Half your party is casters? Of course he has anti magic on himself when he fights you. Your party is mostly melee? Of course he makes it impossible for you to fight him more than one at a time. It is a boss fight, no one will ever be happy with the guy that goes down like a led balloon. It is the fights people barely survive that they remember. At least that is my take both as DM and player.

[Seharvepernfan]

I think its best to not pull any punches and to use every resource and plan available, within reason of the BBEG's abilities. I make them HARD. As in, the pcs need to use every resource and plan as heavily as possible.

If they are smart and thorough throughout the campaign, then the fight won't be as hard as otherwise. The more of their own time that they spend weakening the BBEG before the climactic battle, the easier it will be if they were successful.

As for builds, throughout a campaign, I tailor builds to match characters, not the other way around. With BBEGs I do the opposite, so they are much more optimized than what the pcs have been dealing with. I figure that the BBEG is (or should be) the only necessary fight in any campaign, so it should be truly difficult (which also means truly rewarding).

[FMArthur]

Here's the plan for my current campaign:

It's a battle with an Illithid Savant carrying a grossly overpowering artifact, eyestalk grafts and Acquire Class Feature'd Beholder Mage casting. He probably won't have the full BM progression, depending on how high level the party is at the end.

The PCs have collected similar artifacts and have only now learned that the world they know is the back of the dead god Behamut, who died eons past to protect the mortals of the Material from an unsealable rift to the Far Realm. The world crumbles beneath them and begins to fall, the artifacts in their guarded tombs apparently being the lingering source of the flying continent's power. In their quest to collect the artifacts to protect the world (or more likely, simply take them for their own use), they'd only helped to end it. The illithids, being mortal sentients and thus deemed worth preserving by the gods long ago, have kept their secret even from the gods: they really hail from the Far Realm, and their agenda includes the full union of their native plane to the Material.

The surrounding environment starts as a crumbling underground temple, but the quaking of the falling continent rips open the ceiling and breaks loose massive chunks of stone that float up into the air - so effectively the battle with the BBEG is on and around tons of small 'floating' (just falling separately) islands of rock from 5 to 30 feet across. The artifacts confer flight and free movement on the party, though.

My vague idea for the next campaign is the recovery and defense of civilization in a much more dangerous world, facing the forces of the Far Realm. Justifying appropriately level-scaled encounters at higher levels, I suppose. Maybe they'll be able to seal the rift, or maybe it's plugged already. I haven't decided.