PCs vs the BBEG. Should they always win? How difficult should he be?

[heavyfuel]

Yes. How difficult should the BBEG of a campaign be?

right now, I'm DMing an E6 campaign, and the BBEG is real nasty. I do think the players stand a good chance, especially with a mcguffin that will come into play, but just how good should their chance be?

Sure, if they roll twenty 1s in a roll they will likely fail. Since a previous thread here, I've been rolling out in the open, and what will happen if I roll really high all the time?

I want to make this battle as excruciating as possible, but still give them hope.

Any tips?

Edit: On a sidenote. As he stands, the BBEG is dealing ridiculous amounts of damage. How should I introduce the PCs to this without killing them? (like I said, it's an e6 campaign, so death is pretty much permanent.)

[DMfromTheAbyss]

Point 1: If it has stats the PC's "can" kill it.

Point 2: Plans no matter how well made rarely survive contact with an adventuring party.

Possible Solutions:

Make up a good resourceful/powerful/intelligent enemy and set him up with an agenda/goal. Then set him up with several ways of achieving said goals, preferably ones the PC's can theoretically stop in awesome ways. Let the dice fall where they may and have an idea or two ready for other plots/bad guys/adventures if they get lucky and knock him out early.

As above but have the BBEG use pawns and agents to acomplish his goals. If he appears at all it's through illusions, communications with his agents or in situations where fighting directly is a horrible idea. Keep fighting him directly an impossibility until it's thematically appropriate.

Have bad guys with a cause, with each villian having a spot in a larger organization. If the guy you thought was going to be the end boss dies early, use another guy in the hierarchy to continue the plot. If one of them lasts awhile or particularly resonates with the PC's, move him up the corporate ladder and have him take over as he gets influence from their success/survival.

As to difficulty, nowadays different players/groups have drastically different ideas about that. You should discuss this with them directly, before play really gets started.

That being said as a good default start things easy and slowly ramp up. When the PC's start to complain about how tough that fight was adjust accordingly for the groups abilities and tendancies.

EDIT: As far as the main baddies actual ability to kill the PC's, I'd suggest you not have him do over 75% of a "tough" PC's HP , which is plenty enough to be deadly, but not neccessarily instant GIB against a high defence PC. You want to avoid instant victory/death in a single action, but have plenty of "I can't survive another round with this guy".

[FabulousFizban]

in my game, the 2nd time the party encountered the BBEG, he one shotted a PC, declared them a waste of his time, then left. (The player's god then sold his soul to another of their enemies, who raised him so the PC could do his bidding from time to time. Created a whole subplot of getting the players soul back.)

[jiriku]

If I intend for the BBEG to be defeated, then I generally stat his encounter at EL+4 or EL+5. If I intend for the party to clash with him and be defeated, I stat the encounter at EL+8 or higher. Any lower than EL+8 and there's a considerable chance that the players will be adding a notch to their belts and I'll be spending the weekend statting up a replacement villain. :smallbiggrin:

In an encounter where I intend for the players to clash with the villain and not defeat him, I always ensure that the villain has a pressing reason not to kill the PCs. For example, he might be in a hurry, and have a goal that is unrelated to their presence on the battlefield, such as stealing an item, killing an NPC, or destroying something. If they get in his way, they may get ragdolled a bit, but he's most likely to brush them off, do his business, and get out.

In a climactic, campaign-ending encounter, I usually aim for the party to have about a 40-50% chance of winning, probably with several character deaths and just barely managing to succeed through cleverness I hadn't foreseen. It is a ruthless, gloves-off fight and I pull no punches. In an encounter where the players defeat a major villain but the story will still continue, I make the bad guy much more defensively oriented, focused on combat endurance. The fight lasts long enough to be satisfying and a reckless or unlucky PC may die, but the outcome is never really in doubt.

Note: my players are comfortable with sometimes losing the final fight and accepting that the entire campaign may end in failure. Yours might not be. Use your best judgment, since you know your friends best.

[sideswipe]

a BBEG in an adventure should be either just powerful enough that the PC's should be able to overcome him if they don't do anything stupid. so aim for lvl+5 ish.
they should have to plan and either have no bad luck or a strike of good luck to come out unscathed. usually it should be a time in which people should feel that one wrong move may bring death. and the adventure failed.

in a very long campaign, have them as big as you want. and have the PC's have to build up to him. giving them hints on his level of power. if they go in too early and without planning then BOOM dead.

[AMFV]

I think they should potentially lose a few times, but those encounters should not necessarily be "to the death" for example the BBEG takes something they need, or thwarts their plan, but doesn't kill them at that time. Or if he does kill them, they get better. That shouldn't be overused (although that exact line can be hard to determine) but a few times will give them a good idea about the power of the BBEG

[Kaeso]

I don think any encounter with the BBEG should automatically be won. However, as with all encounters, one should make sure that the PCs can survive. Give them escape routes, back-up plans, a villain simply uninterested in killing them (maybe heś just so amused by them that he wishes to fight them again) etc.

[Barstro]

With a decent enough story, you can have the BBEG purposefully be letting the PCs go; then he can be as powerful as you want for now.

1) Waste of time to bother with PCs (uses some sort of nova attack and teleports out)
2) Something unexpected comes up (gets word that the princess is no longer with her bodyguard and is ripe for the picking)
3) Machiavellian BBEG is helping PCs get stronger and smarter while feeding them clues as to some special item that will help PCs destroy BBEG, but it's really an item that BBEG wants (cliche)
4) Same as above, but BBEG is one hell of a mathematician and is helping PCS gain levels so he can kill them to gain a level.

As for the actual question of a fight where BBEG and PCs are in a fair fight to the death, or to the pain, PCs should be able to always win with good strategy unless; 1) clues were given that the fight is too hard, 2) PCs were given an escape route in the middle of the fight and refused to take it, 3) BBEG gets a couple lucky rolls (in which case, allow for an escape route).

I feel that a fight or two before BBEG (with at least enough time to get items and change strategies), PCs should have to face a few fights that specifically attack their weaknesses. Dominate a tier 1, nullify precision damage, inexplicably attack from behind in the middle of the fight to pick off the weak ones, have TWO random fights so the wizard learns to not blow through all his spells at the first sign of trouble. Then, the PCs shouldn't have too many weaknesses for the BBEG to exploit, or they will still have them but have been warned in advance.