Puzzle fight?

[JusticeZero]

Gearing up for a big fight against a BBEG.
I'm looking for a puzzle fight, one where they will be challenged with a very good chance of failing, but which probably won't kill the party.

In this particular case, ironically, the party wants to save the BBEGs life (to sacrifice OUTSIDE of town), and she's trying to be killed INSIDE town to complete a ritual. Pathfinder Epic-6, one mythic rank in play.

Looking for ideas, or maybe puzzle fights you have run out seem that worked well.

[Particle_Man]

Doppelgängers that look like BBEG. If the party “saves” the wrong person . . . oops. 😁

[Troacctid]

Try including environmental objects that the players need to disable somehow, or hostages or bystanders that need to be rescued or defended.

[Elandel]

Let them have to activate some obeliscs or something similar to activate teleportation circles, in the end giving them the option to teleport the BBEG outside of town - or if they fail, right where he / she wants to be (maybe just placing the group out of the city).

[Beni-Kujaku]

One puzzle fight that I really liked was when some NPC researched a spell that allowed the PC to go back in time everytime they TPK'd. In this scenario, they had to destroy the BBEG's bubble of protection which had automated defenses, way over the players' CR (for example, it could summon a balor when my players were around lv 10), so they were almost guaranteed to all die, but each time, the defenses activated at the same places, so they could learn with each death where to position themselves to avoid most defenses and optimize their damage output to destroy the bubble before they were wiped out. I think that could translate very well to your situation, with CR adapted threats, of course.

Another thing you could do is have the BBEG fused with Symbiots of creatures that are immune to almost anything (Fire Elemental for Fire, Ocean Giants (MM2) for bludgeoning, some kinda undead for Frost...). And to fight, the BBEG has to summon one of its symbiot as its original form, which make him lose his immunity. So the party has to attack the BBEG with the immunity of the creature it summoned. Finally, it will summon a golem/Storm Giant, which will allow mind-affecting/movement-restricting spells to affect him, and hence put him out of combat without killing him.

[unseenmage]

When they arrive on scene they're all openly given a choice by a disembodied voice of the BBEG to choose a role.

King, Captain of the Guard, Chamberlain, etc.

The option to choose nothing is there as well.

Afterwards they're privately all offered the choice to betray their allies by performing the same role but in the bad guys side for double rewards and superpowers and wealth or whatever.

Regardless the voice announces that there was a traitor jn their midst and that at least one of them has sided with the big bad.

Bwahahaha.

[rel]

get the widget to stab the monster
break the widgets to depower the monster
break the widget to disable the monsters terrain bonus
remove the widget that is the source of the monsters power