Elite encounter : Chosen of Gruumsh, how to make a good boss

[Puke]

Hi everyone.

My party is composed of 6 level 10 adventurers :
1 barbarian, chosen of Uthgar (no particular power) : Main DPS
1 fighter : Main tank
1 cleric (of Myrkul) : Support, debuff
1 Wizard : Support, terrain control, crowd control
1 Alchemist : Support
1 Bard : Support

At the beginning, the group was quite bad at fighting. But now, they have a very good strat :

- The barbarian pulls the aggro, the fighter covers the wizard.
- The wizard uses wall of force to circle the foes with the barbarian
- The bard boosts the barbarian
- The alchemist supports anyone who takes too many damages, using potions and spells, or pulling him/her out of combat if necessary, using an invisibility spell
- The cleric uses necromantic magic to inflict wounds / debuffs.

I must admit I'm having a hard time designing difficult encounters for them. Even tho I can usually manage to down 2 ppl in the party.


They seek to fight Sorlag, Chosen of Gruumsh. They know this orc is very strong and is blessed by Gruumsh.
I'm quite bad at making bossfights and I'm looking for some help to design this boss.

I want it to be a very hard fight. The players won't be able to fight Sorlag if they cannot isolate him from his army. But even if they do, he might be helped by two elite orc guards.

Sorlag is blessed by Gruumsh, meaning he shall have any divine bonus Gruumsh could grant him.

I was thinking about a "multi-phased" boss fight, where Sorlag would unlock abilities if he drops to a certain HP pool.
I did not find any monster near this.
Sorlag would use 2 sword and his class could be Barbarian or Fighter (if he has player class).
My first idea was to make it a "player character", granting him barbarian and/or fighter abilities, but what level shall he have ? Would it be enough ? What kind of items would be great ?


What do you think ?

My player barbarian is very good at the game, and his character is well optimised (even tho he suffered from bad luck at his starting stats rolls). He is the main threat here.

[MrStabby]

So with a party like this it is important, if you want an encounter to be hard, that the PCs encounter him at the end of the day with fewer resources rather than with a full tank of gas.

I would suggest that if this guy has divine power then one of the best uses would be divination. Find the party and know when there are no 4th or 5th level spell slots left and attack then.

Add legendary actions, legendary saves and a bevy of support spells. Word of recall, dispel magic, fog cloud, some healing etc.. All my legendary bosses have an offensive ability a defensive ability and a mobility ability - a ring that once per day let's you force a cha save or swap positions with an enemy, a sword that forces a con save or the victim keeps bleeding till they get healing. Armour that once per day grants immunity to one damage type (ensure some backup weapons are nearby so martials are not useless).

Otherwise give him good stats, 3 attacks and an aura that slowly does damage (makes dropping to zero HP much more dangerous)

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Hi everyone.

My party is composed of 6 level 10 adventurers :
1 barbarian, chosen of Uthgar (no particular power) : Main DPS
1 fighter : Main tank
1 cleric (of Myrkul) : Support, debuff
1 Wizard : Support, terrain control, crowd control
1 Alchemist : Support
1 Bard : Support

At the beginning, the group was quite bad at fighting. But now, they have a very good strat :

- The barbarian pulls the aggro, the fighter covers the wizard.
- The wizard uses wall of force to circle the foes with the barbarian
- The bard boosts the barbarian
- The alchemist supports anyone who takes too many damages, using potions and spells, or pulling him/her out of combat if necessary, using an invisibility spell
- The cleric uses necromantic magic to inflict wounds / debuffs.

I must admit I'm having a hard time designing difficult encounters for them. Even tho I can usually manage to down 2 ppl in the party.


They seek to fight Sorlag, Chosen of Gruumsh. They know this orc is very strong and is blessed by Gruumsh.
I'm quite bad at making bossfights and I'm looking for some help to design this boss.

I want it to be a very hard fight. The players won't be able to fight Sorlag if they cannot isolate him from his army. But even if they do, he might be helped by two elite orc guards.

Sorlag is blessed by Gruumsh, meaning he shall have any divine bonus Gruumsh could grant him.

I was thinking about a "multi-phased" boss fight, where Sorlag would unlock abilities if he drops to a certain HP pool.
I did not find any monster near this.
Sorlag would use 2 sword and his class could be Barbarian or Fighter (if he has player class).
My first idea was to make it a "player character", granting him barbarian and/or fighter abilities, but what level shall he have ? Would it be enough ? What kind of items would be great ?


What do you think ?

My player barbarian is very good at the game, and his character is well optimised (even tho he suffered from bad luck at his starting stats rolls). He is the main threat here.

Boss fights should emulate videogames, well, good videogames at least.

Multiple phases, location changes, and have the odds stacked against the party.

This party should be taking out enemies way over their expected CR, so don't be afraid to throw multiple moving parts.

Give the barbarian a secondary job during the fight, at least for one phase. Set up an objective, like, if the sacrifice is allowed to be lowered into the pool of acid, the enemies get stronger, the barbarian and fighter both need to hold the chains while enemies are around and someone (Bard) jumps up on the stone that has a sacrifice tied to it and saves them from death. Make sure to explain how heavy the stone is and calculate the weight based on their stats so the barbarian and fighter will need to work together.

Now the players may do things differently but something like this may go down.

After this phase make it where the minion enemies don't attack the players, but try to get the sacrifice to throw her in the pool of acid. The player's need to hold off the hordes... Sweet and simple. Have the enemies use a lot of grapples and shoves. You want these enemies to drain some resources.

Once the enemies fail... Or succeed... Sorlag comes out ("Fine, I'll do it myself"... Thanos style). If the sacrifice is killed, Sorlag can have an additional lair action and some extra HP. If the sacrifice is not killed Sorlag gets only his normal stuff.

Have this fight be a straight up fight. Have some moving parts via lair actions. During this fight, change locations in some way... Maybe Solrag climbs up to the roof of the building... The roof is not in great shape and stepping in the wrong location can cause you to fall off the building (Dex save or fall and slide to the edge and then another Dex save to keep from falling off the roof).

[Puke]

Thank you.

So, I guess I could do this :

The barbarian has a girlfriend, names Amira, who is trying to unite every barbarian tride against the Orcs.
She could have been captured, along with, say, 20 barbarian, and be held in front of everyone to show off Sorlag's strengh : "I have captured my strongest opponent, see how weak she is".

So the barbarian would want to free her from her chains before she is turned against him (because of torture, mind bending or anything like that).

That ressembles the idea of the sacrifice, but this way, i'm sure the barbarian would participate in the part, because the party is mostly evil, they would not help anyone if it is not necessary.

[Puke]

So, for the stats :

STR : 26 (20 base + 6 from his blessing)
DEX : 10
CON : 26 (20 base + 6 from his blessing)
WIS : 12
CHA : 14

Special features :
- Has 3 attacks : 2 main hand attacks, 1 offhand attack
- Brutal critial +2 dices
- Critical rage : when he does a critical hit, Sorlag gains either an extra attack or a bonus action reset
- Rage at will

Gruumsh blessing :
- Immune to any mind control and or effect

Legendary resistances :
- If he fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead (3 times)

Legendary actions :
- Taunt : Any creature able to attack Sorlag this turn must use their action to do so. Sorlag gains resistance to any damage until next turn.


Lair actions :
1d4 Orc grunts joins the fight
Any orc who can see Sorlag has advantage to his attack and save rolls and nobody can have advantage to them.


Any thoughts ?

[Brookshw]

Modify Taunt, generally it's bad form to force players actions. Instead give them disadvantage to attack any other enemy.

Lair actions, don't prohibit players from gaining advantage, that's just taking away toys for no real reason.

You need to add something to deal with Force Cage.

Give him a shaman/cleric backup.

[Wuzza]

Personally I'd throw in a shaman sidekick in there as well.
You don't have to give them a massive list of spells, I tend to give my spellcasters 3 or 4 thematically appropriate spells so I haven't got a load of bookkeeping to do.

[Man_Over_Game]

Boss fights should emulate videogames, well, good videogames at least.

Multiple phases, location changes, and have the odds stacked against the party.

This party should be taking out enemies way over their expected CR, so don't be afraid to throw multiple moving parts.


Well said.

Additionally, try to avoid non-telegraphed burst damage. For example, a lot of what you have is loaded on landing a crit, but there's no guarantee that it'll happen, and no warning for when it does. From the players' perspective, they were there, and now they're dead. So maybe have an element that increases his crit range or gives him Advantage to attack.

Good bosses come down to this: Providing your players an obvious goal, and a punishment for when they fail that goal.

So give him THP every time he loses HP if it's not by weapon damage, or have all adjacent enemies suffer Advantage to be hit by his enemies. As long as there're ways for the players to nullify his powers, you can tack on a bunch.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

Good bosses come down to this: Providing your players an obvious goal, and a punishment for when they fail that goal.

To expand on this...

The further away from "reduce enemy HP" you get, the better a boss fight can become. Yes, you want to kill the enemy, but when the goal is something else, the battle doesn't become just "beat down the bag of HP".

So, if you have a gargantuan dragon that has a crown that is controlling it, you can make it where HP damage is going to distract it while the rogue climbs up to disarm the crown. The dragon could be killed, yes, but you was tasked with freeing the dragon (say, it's mate).

Time tables are another good one. Each round the prince falls deeper and deeper into a curse of madness and if he goes too far, he falls into a coma. Falling into a coma means a player has to carry him and can't do much else. To get the prince to move, you have to do social checks (deception, persuasion, intimidation, or whatever) while he's on his feet. Side note, while this is happening, there's a... Let's say swarm... Of goblins, spiders, or whatever coming for the party and prince. The party needs to hold the line while the player up with the prince continues to get the prince to keep moving.

Just fighting a swarm is a battle anyone will do, getting the dang prince is keep going gives you a deadline and a different goal than just murderhobo.

[Puke]

Alright.

So, here are my updated thoughts :

STR : 26 (20 base + 6 from his blessing)
DEX : 10
INT : 12
CON : 26 (20 base + 6 from his blessing)
WIS : 12
CHA : 14

Special features :
- Has 3 attacks : 2 main hand attacks, 1 offhand attack
- Brutal critial : +2 dices (he is a barbarian, players won't be surprised)
- Rage at will

Gruumsh blessing :
- Immune to any mind control and or effect

Legendary resistances :
- If he fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead (3 times)

Legendary actions :
- Taunt : Any creature not attacking Sorlag this turn has disadvantage to his attack rolls.


Lair actions :
1d4 Orc grunts joins the fight ?

Combat comp :
- Boss + 1 shaman (support, out of player's reach)
- 2 Orc elite guards (fighters with a good AC)
- 1 Orc ranger

Combat situation :
- The fight takes place in front of a Gruumsh altar.
- The barbarian Girlfriend's his held on display, tied to the altar, as a scrifice, badly hurt. When the fight starts, orcs put an arrow in her chest. She bleeds for 2 rounds, then enters the death saving throw state. Players would not know if she passes or fails her death saves. The party will know when she looses consciousness.
- At the beginning of combat, one or two orcs will try to flee to warn the others so they can join the fight. If they manage to do so, then, the players will have to deal with 1d4 new ennemis every round.
- If the girlfriend dies, every orcs benefits from a bonus (I haven't decided yet)

Combat phases :
- When the boss looses half his hps, he goes full berserk, gains advantage to all his attacks, but looses AC and/or resistances.
- When Sorlag dies, he will be resurected later by a priest. They need to deal with that. Either they need to carry the body out of the fight, or make it disappear.


How to deal with force cage :
- Anti magic field around Sorlag ? I don't have many ideas on how to deal with magic here...


Any thoughts ?

[Galithar]

Alright.

So, here are my updated thoughts :

STR : 26 (20 base + 6 from his blessing)
DEX : 10
CON : 26 (20 base + 6 from his blessing)
WIS : 12
CHA : 14

Special features :
- Has 3 attacks : 2 main hand attacks, 1 offhand attack
- Brutal critial : +2 dices (he is a barbarian, players won't be surprised)
- Rage at will

Gruumsh blessing :
- Immune to any mind control and or effect

Legendary resistances :
- If he fails a saving throw, he can choose to succeed instead (3 times)

Legendary actions :
- Taunt : Any creature not attacking Sorlag this turn has disadvantage to his attack rolls.


Lair actions :
1d4 Orc grunts joins the fight ?

Combat comp :
- Boss + 1 shaman (support, out of player's reach)
- 2 Orc elite guards (fighters with a good AC)
- 1 Orc ranger

Combat situation :
- The fight takes place in front of a Gruumsh altar.
- The barbarian Girlfriend's his held on display, tied to the altar, as a scrifice, badly hurt. When the fight starts, orcs put an arrow in her chest. She bleeds for 2 rounds, then enters the death saving throw state. Players would not know if she passes or fails her death saves. The party will know when she looses consciousness.
- At the beginning of combat, one or two orcs will try to flee to warn the others so they can join the fight. If they manage to do so, then, the players will have to deal with 1d4 new ennemis every round.
- If the girlfriend dies, every orcs benefits from a bonus (I haven't decided yet)

Combat phases :
- When the boss looses half his hps, he goes full berserk, gains advantage to all his attacks, but looses AC and/or resistances.
- When Sorlag dies, he will be resurected later by a priest. They need to deal with that. Either they need to carry the body out of the fight, or make it disappear.


How to deal with force cage :
- Anti magic field around Sorlag ? I don't have many ideas on how to deal with magic here...


Any thoughts ?

Unless 'dealing with resurection' is something your party does I would telegraph that slightly. Don't outright tell them, but maybe let them hear a rumor that this particular Orc has died and the a shaman of Gruumsh brought him back. Otherwise you're just gonna end up with the "Didn't I kill you already?" Moment when he returns.

[SpawnOfMorbo]

"Didn't I kill you already?"

Some responses...

"Yeah, but I got better."

"Not very well, apparently"

"Who are you? No, seriously, never seen you before in my life."

"I'm here to return the favor"

"Wait, you're the one that killed my father?"

" Dragonballls Spells are a thing, why are you so surprised that someone got brought back to life?"

[Puke]

He is chosen by his god to roam Toril and bring war among the mortals.

They kinda expect him to be a worthy opponent who won't die from a "normal" mortal wound.

I cannot tell them he has been killed already because it would reduce the build up around the character. (They hear of him every other game since the beginning, he is told to be able to one or three shot any mighty barbarian who dared confront him).

Maybe can I point out his cleric has a BIG ASS DIAMOND and whisper to the wizard or cleric "you know, diamond, as in resurrection material DIAMOND".

[da newt]

You have a party of 6 PC's, I believe there ought to be at least that many enemies for the Boss Fight. Too often the boss fight is a couple insignificant minions and the BBEG - this makes it too easy for the party to gang up on the BBEG.

I'd also try to set it up so the party encounters the minions and fights for a bit, then BBEG rolls in from an unexpected direction (maybe behind the casters) and it's on ... perhaps there is a hoard of Orcs guarding the damsel in distress - let the party work on that for 3 rounds of combat - then the BBEG and his elite guard/shamen show up. Make the Barbarian have to wade through a bunch of minions just to get to the BBEG

Interesting terrain, and a secondary objective like rescue the girl are great flavor. Legendary and Layer actions make a big difference, and fight your badguys like they have a clue / some real tactics and a plan. These guys are not mindless zombies - fight smart.

I also like rogue badguys - hide, ranged attack w/ SA, and poison.

[Wuzza]

I like the Barbs GF dilemma, I would have her defended by an orc or two, or maybe they are the ones draining her lifeforce/blood/whatever, maybe performing a ritual killing. It will mean it's not just a case of casting cure to save her.

I'm not of the school of making things impossible for the group, therefore I think the shaman being un-killable isn't the way to go.
If the chosen "roams eternal", then you could imagine he has amassed a large enough following to perform the week long ritual to bring him back to the mortal plane with ease. His body can be destroyed but his spirit is ever-living. Maybe there is a way to banish him for a thousand years using a suitable McGuffin?

Otherwise looks like a decent boss.



How to deal with force cage :
- Anti magic field around Sorlag ? I don't have many ideas on how to deal with magic here...
Shaman can teleport the boss out. Although how have they got Forcecage at lvl 10?

[Puke]

The boss MUST NOT flee.
He his the ultimate badass. He will fight to the death.

They have force wall and they use it as a force cage with no roof.

[Galithar]

The boss MUST NOT flee.
He his the ultimate badass. He will fight to the death.

They have force wall and they use it as a force cage with no roof.

If they leave it with no roof Sorlag can simply climb out. If they put a roof on it they have no way of effecting him with anything. And you just swarm them with the 1d4 orcs lair Action until you can break the wizards concentration or you've gone through 10 minutes... Though 100 rounds of fighting Orcs might be excessively boring haha

Disintegrate is the go to counter for any force creation. And if the PCs are level 10 an enemy with sixth level spells isn't out of the question, especially if they use it 'defensivly' to break Sorlag from his jail.

[Puke]

Yes, he may climb out if he needs to. But I think he would rather rekt the Barbarian or the fighter first.
I'm note sure.

He his a good leader, a very strong fighter, and is smarter than the average orc.

[Puke]

https://i.ibb.co/1rjf5GV/Bossfight.png

So. What's going on here ?

The players will arrive from the south.
THey will see Uthgar, barbarian's god, reduced to a mortal state, banished to the ground by Tempus because he helped the party DIRECTLY by banishing an inevitable (Marut) who was trying to slay them because they cheated death.
In the center, the barb's lover and battlemaster, Amira, is held prisonner.
A shaman will start dragging the lifeforce of both NPCs (Uthgar and Amira). Each round, two status bar will start raising on Sorlag's (the boss) picture. All the players will see the picture, as a boss status in a videogame bossfight. Each round of this will give Sorlag a buff. If they don't stop the casting during the 5 first rounds for Amira, or during the 8 first rounds for Uthgar, they will die and give the boss a permanent buff.

From Uthgar's ritual :
Round 1-7 buff : Resistance to all save rolls, no matter what.
Round 8 buff : Legendary resistance (3x), cannot be prone, stun, silenced. Resistance to all damage.


From Amira's ritual :
Round 1-5 buff : Hp regen +10
Round 5 buff : Hp regen +10 / round. Shield for 50 damage.

Sorlag has a +3 greataxe. I'm yet to decide what kind of power I should give to this item.

[Aussiehams]

Have him riding a Wyvern or young green Dragon. That will make him seem much more powerful, and give him some more maneuverability.
Backed up with some mooks and a spellcaster.

[Puke]

If I do that, the battlefield need to be way bigger isn't it ? For now, the map is what you can see in the image, a temple without a roof.

[MrStabby]

Ok... so this is in a temple... what is the set of lair actions here? What might capture the essence of divinity in action you might want? Could you use this to make the encounter cooler?

Summoning spirits of dead orcs to fight
Dispel magic
Healing
Casting bestow curse for a round

Lair actions can be a real pain in the ass and help make fights a lot harder as well as more interesting.

[Puke]

Ok... so this is in a temple... what is the set of lair actions here? What might capture the essence of divinity in action you might want? Could you use this to make the encounter cooler?

Summoning spirits of dead orcs to fight
Dispel magic
Healing
Casting bestow curse for a round

Lair actions can be a real pain in the ass and help make fights a lot harder as well as more interesting.

The set is the ruins of a random temple in a city defeated by the Orcs. They painted the mark or Gruumsh everywhere to convert it to a temple of Gruumsh.

There is a Grand Shaman of Gruumsh here (15th level cleric).

About the lair actions, I was thinking about summoning Wyverns, pack of Worgs, maybe summon the spirit of the last Chosen of Gruumsh and have the spirits of the Orcs Warchiefs fallen into battle appearing to witness the action.

[MrStabby]

The ghost of the last champion would make for an awesome refluff of a high level spiritual weapon. A level 15 cleric could cast a spiritual weapon doing 3d8 points of damage (+wis) per hit. Not a great use of the spell slot, but it is concentration free.

[Puke]

So, I added the ghost of the last champion of Gruumsh.
The players will enter the area and will see Sorlag mocking them, while dragging the body of Uthgar to another room.
At this moment, the Ghost of the last chosen of Gruumsh will appear and taunt the players. He will be supported by elite guards and a shaman. Another shaman will proceed to cast the ritual.

The players will need to defeat the Ghost first (he is a lvl 10 barbarian with all undead/ghost traits) to go further. They may ignore the ghost, but he won't stop dealing damage to them.

Worgs may enter the battefield, as well as a Wyvern, but I put good stats on the Elite guards so I guess it will keep em busy for a while.

My goal is to overwhelm them and gorce them to choose : either fight to the death, either try to free Uthgar and/or Amira from the ritual, to avoid Sorlag gaining too much power. If they succeed, they will benefit, themselves, from "lair actions" such as "summoning" elite barbarian fighters. They could do that anyway if they survive long enough (8 rounds) and made the good choice earlier (more about that below) because there is a raging battle outside of the temple. Every living Barbarian is fighting outside to allow the party safe passage to the temple.

Before the battle, the party will have to chose either or not free an important NPC from a powerful necromancer (Sammaster) they helped long before. They might negociate with Sammaster to gain some favors. If they either gain Sammaster's favors or free Sammaster's captive, the battle outside the temple will slowly be won by the barbarian. If they do not, the barbarians will loose the battle and after 8 rounds, Sorlag will gain more lair actions, such as summoning orc warriors from the battlefield. They will be badly hurt tho, but they would act as some meat to distract the PCs and maybe finish them off.

[furby076]

- The barbarian pulls the aggro, the fighter covers the wizard.

This is your problem. Are you playing WoW? Aggro? Really? The word "aggro" and any person controlled game should NEVER enter the situation. You treat each NPC baddie with the level of intelligence that NPC has. A mindless creature might focus on a singular target, but anything with some intelligence (7+) will have a bit of tactics.

Amongst the other things said, this Chosen is should bypass the barb and fighter and go for spell casters. If he is the chosen, he will probably have his own clerics and wizard (maybe warlock or devoted soul sorc). Use tactics.

Does your Barb have that "compelling duel" spell that paladins have? Thats the only aggro.

[Puke]

I got your point. It's a good point, but it's not what is really going on.

But here is what is really going on :

1 - the barbarian and / or the fighter rush into battle, while the baddied try to reach the casters
2 - the wizard casts wall of force

End of the game.

Most of the time, NPCs cannot deal with force wall, and during the last fight, the casters were annoyed only by long range NPCs (any bowman or caster will go straight for them). I always manage to down one or two of the casters. But the npcs fighters will never reach them.

My issue is not that I treat my NPCs as bumd sticks, quite the contrary. They are, most of the time, far from being dumb. But they are, most of the time, orc meat, and are not well equiped to deal with adventurers who possess magic casting abilities.

I don't think my barbarian can compell duel. He has a berserker axe tho and this makes for a lot of fun during the encounters, when he turns against his mates and they need to flee until he calms down.

Thank you for your help. I guess I'll give them something to deal with force wall and / or teleport / misty step right into the casters area.

[MrStabby]

I got your point. It's a good point, but it's not what is really going on.

But here is what is really going on :

1 - the barbarian and / or the fighter rush into battle, while the baddied try to reach the casters
2 - the wizard casts wall of force

End of the game.

Most of the time, NPCs cannot deal with force wall, and during the last fight, the casters were annoyed only by long range NPCs (any bowman or caster will go straight for them). I always manage to down one or two of the casters. But the npcs fighters will never reach them.

My issue is not that I treat my NPCs as bumd sticks, quite the contrary. They are, most of the time, far from being dumb. But they are, most of the time, orc meat, and are not well equiped to deal with adventurers who possess magic casting abilities.

I don't think my barbarian can compell duel. He has a berserker axe tho and this makes for a lot of fun during the encounters, when he turns against his mates and they need to flee until he calms down.

Thank you for your help. I guess I'll give them something to deal with force wall and / or teleport / misty step right into the casters area.

I think this is where summoning ghost orcs as a lair action could be good. A summoned creature can pop up nearly anywhere and not only can they force concentration saves to possibly break wall of force, but they can trigger more if the casters don't disengage. Things like summoned enemies and stinking cloud can be mean - stopping disengagement and pinning enemies down in an area they don't want to be.

[Puke]

I think this is where summoning ghost orcs as a lair action could be good. A summoned creature can pop up nearly anywhere and not only can they force concentration saves to possibly break wall of force, but they can trigger more if the casters don't disengage. Things like summoned enemies and stinking cloud can be mean - stopping disengagement and pinning enemies down in an area they don't want to be.

Yes.
And the PCs could then understand : if we disable X target, let's say, a totem or whaterver, the ghost orcs will stop being summoned.

[furby076]

I got your point. It's a good point, but it's not what is really going on.

But here is what is really going on :

1 - the barbarian and / or the fighter rush into battle, while the baddied try to reach the casters
2 - the wizard casts wall of force

End of the game.

Most of the time, NPCs cannot deal with force wall, and during the last fight, the casters were annoyed only by long range NPCs (any bowman or caster will go straight for them). I always manage to down one or two of the casters. But the npcs fighters will never reach them.

My issue is not that I treat my NPCs as bumd sticks, quite the contrary. They are, most of the time, far from being dumb. But they are, most of the time, orc meat, and are not well equiped to deal with adventurers who possess magic casting abilities.

I don't think my barbarian can compell duel. He has a berserker axe tho and this makes for a lot of fun during the encounters, when he turns against his mates and they need to flee until he calms down.

Thank you for your help. I guess I'll give them something to deal with force wall and / or teleport / misty step right into the casters area.

Why not give your NPC hero/villain Misty step? It's a totally appropriate ability for a melee character to have. If your PCs use the wall of force trick often, and it sounds like they do, eventually word of their signature moves would get out and big bads would have some counters.

[MrStabby]

Why not give your NPC hero/villain Misty step? It's a totally appropriate ability for a melee character to have. If your PCs use the wall of force trick often, and it sounds like they do, eventually word of their signature moves would get out and big bads would have some counters.

To be honest it doesn't need any news having got out about their moves - the spell is a staple and any melee (or even ranged) fighter would do what they can to pick it up.

[Puke]

Erh, he is a barbarian.

If there is an item to get Misty step, maybe I can give one to him.

[MrStabby]

Erh, he is a barbarian.

If there is an item to get Misty step, maybe I can give one to him.

It doesn't have to be misty step specifically, just a mobility ability. Give him the earth elemental's earthglide ability or something like that.

Or if you are throwing in mooks, you could have a "Spirit of Gruumsh" that possesses the mooks and can hop from one to another, so if one gets pinned down another one becomes the big bad. You just want something to keep things fluid and to stop your main threat being backed int a corner.

[da newt]

In an earlier post you mention a random Orc shooting an arrow at the princess sacrifice to start her countdown to death - in order to up the BBEG's villainy / really ensure the boyfriend is incensed, I'd change that up so that the BBEG very deliberately stares down the boyfriend while slitting the princesses throat in order to collect all of her blood for the ritual or whatnot.

WRT Wall of Force - I'd ensure the battle area was large enough that the caster could not make the wall of force more than 30' tall so the BBEG could jump up and grab the top of the wall and climb out easily (if he's 13' tall his reach is 19.5' and his vertical w/ 26 ST is 11' with no roll needed, or athletics check w/ ADV due to rage to clear it outright). In my mind, that's how an Orc champion Barbarian deals with a silly wall of force - no need to manufacture a special magic ability, just HULK it.

I also think it would be very much in character for the Chosen to leave the spell casters to his minions so that he can go toe to toe with the melee guys, but maybe just to taunt the Barb even further he'd jump out of the wall of force to decimate the squishy finger wigglers first while the Barb is trapped by the wall of force (where he may be berserking his fighter buddy), then taunt him some more so the fight builds up to the Chosen vs Barb ...

[Puke]

Choices... there is so many options !

I wish I could do this fight in so many different ways.

They wont slit the throat of the "princess" (she is the strongest barbarian in the world). Rather, they will kill her very slowly. (yes I changed my mind).

Now : there will be a ritual to drain her strengh.

Eventually, if the orcs get defeated too easily, they will slit her throat to ensure she will never get free.

[Puke]

Everything went well.

Thank you all a LOT.