BBEG Final Encounter Difficulty Should Be?

[lord4571]

So just as the title ask for a 5E game what should be the BBEG final encounter difficultly?

I have an idea for one final encounter having a beholder that turns into a death beholder once it is knocked unconscious (if it doesnt die which i might have it change anyways). in total this would be a CR 14 + CR 15 fight. for a party 4 level 16s this is a deadly encounter (assuming their is no break between the fights). 17 level and up it is just a hard encounter.

Also how much resources should the party expend before making it here if the beholder had minons?

this is just an example im currently using so if you want to be more general or use other examples feel free to. i do have several BBEG Campagin ideas, but for this one i wanted to know what was possible. other examples could show me whats possible for the others i have came up with (so my world has multiple stories to play through).

[Unoriginal]

Depends what you want.

Do you want to challenge your players? Then I recommand at least at least one additional Deadly encounter composed of mooks and a second one with somewhat more durable underlings before that.

Keep in mind CR doesn't include things like environment or tactics. Catching a Beholder in a 10 by 10 corridor isn't the same as fighting one that's at the top of a vertical shaft with objects they can throw using telekynesis while the party is at the bottom.

[lord4571]

it will be in the beholders lair unless they find a way to draw it out and i do want it to be quite a good challenge

[Unoriginal]

Also keep in mind a Beholder will always have an escape route or more if it can.

They're very careful and paranoid creatures.

[lord4571]

lets say the party has found a way for it not to escape.

[lord4571]

and ur saying 2 hard encounters then beholder, then death tyrant

[Unoriginal]

lets say the party has found a way for it not to escape.

Then you have my answer. 4 lvl 16 PCs should be able to handle 3 CR 16 Deadly encounters, and mixing mooks, tougher underlings and the two-part boss would be a good variety of challenges that'll prevent them from just spend all their ressources at once.

That being said, my other advice is: NPCs do not care about CR, and will do what they can to defeat/kill the PCs if cornered. So if the PCs are detected in the Lair, all the bad guys should face them at once. Which is why not being detected is important.

[Unoriginal]

and ur saying 2 hard encounters then beholder, then death tyrant

Yes indeed.

[ChildofLuthic]

First question: how hard has the game been thus far for them, and how much do they seem to struggle? In my game, I give my players around 6 combat encounters per day that average 1 CR level higher than it should be. For the last few levels, no one has dropped to zero hit points. So if I wanted to make something difficult, I would ramp that up to 2 CR levels higher than it should be (on average) and make the boss super deadly (4 CR levels higher than a medium fight would be at their level).

I don't know how deadly you're trying to make this, but if you want them to take the fight more seriously, just make the difficulty a CR level higher than normal. Alternatively, if you normally do 2-3 encounters a day, give them 6. By the end, they'll be out of resources and squirming, or they'll be low on HP because they've been saving their resources.