Most powerful/dangerous BBEG you have ever faced?

[Closak]

Simply put, i was wondering what are the most powerful and/or dangerous BBEG's you guys have ever met?

Alternately, BBEG's that provoke the reaction of "OMG OMG WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE RUN AWAY AHHHH!!!"

I'm kinda curious about your experiences.


All the worst one's i have had are all of the Lovecraftian Eldritch Abomination variety.

The worst non-Elder Evil BBEG has to be that goddamn dragon.
...*Shudders at the memory of that goddamn dragons lair* ...So...many...traps...
Overcomplicated traps that are nigh impossible to detect at that.
And the actual dragon
Psychopatic she-dragon owning our asses. Not pleasant (And coming from me, that's saying something, that dragon was freaking scary)

Who's great idea was it to tick of a Advanced Great Wyrm Red with Class Levels anyway?

[KellKheraptis]

Simply put, i was wondering what are the most powerful and/or dangerous BBEG's you guys have ever met?

Alternately, BBEG's that provoke the reaction of "OMG OMG WE ARE ALL GONNA DIE RUN AWAY AHHHH!!!"

I'm kinda curious about your experiences.


All the worst one's i have had are all of the Lovecraftian Eldritch Abomination variety.

The worst non-Elder Evil BBEG has to be that goddamn dragon.
...*Shudders at the memory of that goddamn dragons lair* ...So...many...traps...
Overcomplicated traps that are nigh impossible to detect at that.
And the actual dragon
Psychopatic she-dragon owning our asses. Not pleasant (And coming from me, that's saying something, that dragon was freaking scary)

Who's great idea was it to tick of a Advanced Great Wyrm Red with Class Levels anyway?

Ah yes, the Gygaxian Dragon in a Gygaxian lair. I had a similar one in 2nd Ed that dropped on our ship in the game that spawned my name here and iconic. Being an old school fire mage (from dragon, 1st Ed, they were basically specialist druids only with effective fighter levels), I instinctively threw my cloak over the elven archer to keep her from getting fried (it landed like 15 feet ahead of us right by the bridge and cut loose, hoping to gut the ship), and then replied with a point blank Lead Spray, since I was immune to fire. One lucky roll later (since it required a to hit roll, but no save and capable of critting, d10/level damage) and the thing was dead on the deck, the back of it's head blown clean off. I went up like 5 levels that night, and the quarter-god barbarian leading the party for some reason stopped his "stupid mages" comments.

[Closak]

And you know what the worst part of that dragon was?

We had to kill her several times, because every time we got her some kobold cleric would show up and cast True Resurection on her.

And the only reason we got her in the first place was sheer dumb luck and circumstances that gave us an advantage.
We spent most of the time running for our lives.

And for some reason her kobold servants were all ridiculously well supplied.

The room with the Half-Dragon Rust Monsters did not help in the slightest.
Nor did the "Sniper Corridors" or the "Giant pile of gold that is really an illusion that dissappears the moment you touch it, causing you to suddenly be staring at a wall full of Epic Explosive Runes that can start chain reactions"

I'm still diving for cover every time we see a big pile of gold...
I hate treasure vaults because of that incident.

Guy A: Oh, treasure vault! Looting time!
Me: NOOOOOOO!!! *Runs screaming in the other direction*

[Zeta Kai]

My players started by taking down a corrupt politician.

Then they took down his boss, a regional governor & squicky pederast.

Then they took down the king's chancellor, who was pulling the strings of the second guy (along with the rest of the kingdom; always blame the chancellor).

Then they took down his boss, the army-wielding warlord who was besieging the kingdom & secretly using the third guy to destabilize the nation from the inside & misdirect its defense.

Then they took down the god-king that sent the fourth guy, who wanted to take over the kingdom so he could ransack it, search for an artifact that could destroy the world & get the attention of the beings that create it.

Then they took down the creators of the world, who made it as a prison/laboratory for their brutal experiments (which explained why the world had umpteen races, cultures invariably based on some version of killing the other guys & taking their stuff, & an ecology filled almost exclusively with D&D monsters).

Then they took down their bosses, a race of god-like beings who created sentient thought in the galaxy/universe as an experiment on the experience of pain.

Then they took down God, who wasn't a bad guy, but had accidentally created a multiverse that was this warped & perverted. All so that they could take His divine power, destroy all of reality, & remake it into a place that didn't suck so badly.

Basically, my players killed God, destroyed the entire cosmology, & remade reality as a singular infinite paradise, in order to eliminate all suffering everywhere. Does that qualify?

[The Dark Fiddler]

The kinda sorta lich we just finished losing to that has spell saves in the 40s. The only character that could make them was my Warforged Warblade/Eternal Blade (DM allowed) using the Iron Heart counters allowing a concentration check instead of a save. And I still failed half the time. We weren't "supposed" to win.

[Soranar]

Walk in an empty room/hallway with an unusually high ceiling, as you try to get across rogues fall all around you and start attacking.

They were literally raining from the ceiling. AoE spells couldn't be used because we would get hit too (and our mage's DC was ridiculously high) of course no one had cleave or such.

We had a chain tripper but he was the first one to go down.

We tried to run away but the room was covered in goblins and the exit doors were barred.

We finally destroyed a door, threw the mage out (never thought I'd be glad someone took the feat fling ally) and had him blast us all with a fireball.

Thats right, our only hope for survival was the DnD equivalent of the "cure" for cancer.

[Volkov]

I took a paladin from a previous campaign who had fallen at it's climax, turned him into a totally badass blackguard and made him into a BBLEG.

[Amphetryon]

There were 6 of us, at 20th level. We knew it was the final battle. The DM had earlier given us a questionnaire to find out what we all most wanted to accomplish. One of the answers was to the effect of "A real Huge Ancient Dragon. None of this 'take it easy on the party stuff; BRING IT ON!"

It was a CR 25 Blue Great Wyrm, in its lair, that had been aware of our interest in its treasure hoard and had personally provided us with half of the information about its lair, some small percentage of which was true. It had, in character and in disguise, researched our general tactics and favorite spells and tricks. It was also as fond as is typical for Blue Dragons of the Illusion school. This was less about us hunting it, and more about it luring us in.

TL;DR - After getting through all its other traps and illusions, we had to fight the dad-blasted thing twice in immediate succession. Only the second one was real.

[Volthawk]

And you know what the worst part of that dragon was?

We had to kill her several times, because every time we got her some kobold cleric would show up and cast True Resurection on her.

True Resurrection has a 10 minute casting time. Couldn't you kill the kobold in those 100 rounds?

[Volkov]

True Resurrection has a 10 minute casting time. Couldn't you kill the kobold in those 100 rounds?

The DM probably fudged the casting time.

[Moglorosh]

True Resurrection has a 10 minute casting time. Couldn't you kill the kobold in those 100 rounds?

Scroll maybe?

[Volkov]

Scroll maybe?

As I said before, the DM could have purposely fudged it.

[2xMachina]

... You can cast True Rez from anywhere in the world.

100 rounds ain't gonna do you any good, if you can't even find the caster.

Seriously, if there's someone to True Rez you anytime you died, there is no way you'd stay dead, provided the caster stays alive. (Except soul trapping of course)

[Volkov]

And for the biggest bad guy I have ever faced as a player, The Emperor of Demihumans, a big, powerful level 200 Cleric of himself. Sure the killer penguin was more powerful, but he was an argajag expy and was thus too silly to count.

[Closak]

... You can cast True Rez from anywhere in the world.

100 rounds ain't gonna do you any good, if you can't even find the caster.

Seriously, if there's someone to True Rez you anytime you died, there is no way you'd stay dead, provided the caster stays alive. (Except soul trapping of course)

And that, was exactly the source of our problems when it came to keeping her dead.

And when we finally hunted the caster down, loo and behold, it's a trap!
And this time Miss Dragon brought her children.
As if her alone wasn't bad enough, now there's several younger ones helping her out.
Dealing with like half a dozen Old Reds at the same time as her while the cleric is running for safety...TPK.
It's a good thing we had friends in the church who could rez us after that experience.

[2xMachina]

Well, it IS a little imba. The Cr is probably off the charts... Old reds are 20Cr. Half a dozen... would probably pwn any non-epic.

And the caster of True Rez should be a lvl 17+ cleric.

[oxybe]

the most dangerous i've faced was an epic dragon. anti-magic field + epic dragon stats = ugh. more so in a group of primarily casters.

worst scenario? the "room of doom".

imagine this: you just fought your way through a hard underground dungeon and you find yourself chased by gobbos and low in both spells & HP. you enter a room, and huzza! a stockroom.

or is it?

-the room isn't a room. it's a greater mimic.
-the casks & chests are normal mimics.
-the stalagmites & stalactites are ropers & piercers respectively.
-those cloaks? cloakers.
-the potions? various small oozes "in storage". only a few HP each but swallowing a partial green slime is still brutal.
-ceiling? lurker above
-walls? stun jelly
-floor? trapper
-the goblin swords? all xavers.

you get the point. "we check the stock of weapons" followed by "THE ENTIRE ROOM COMES ALIVE AND TRIES TO KILL YOU", "" and "just kidding guys... please don't hurt me."

we did try to fend off the killer room of total doom, but failed miserably when the greater mimic got hungry, dropped the act and ate everything.

[Closak]

I'm going to drop some more info on the dragon.

She has a very murderous attitude towards everything that isn't draconic in some way (In other words, it sucks to be human in that world)
Total psycho.

So we have a murderous attitude towards anything not draconic backed up by the sheer power, intelligence and wisdom of a Great Wyrm Red.
Add in enough resources and treasure too run a kingdom and hundreds of thousands of minions doing her bidding.
Throw in years of scheming and pulling strings in order to screw over any and all non-dragons...

I'm not surprised she successfully took over most of the world and ended up driving most humanoid species to the brink of extinction (Killing humanoids in a variety of increasingly cruel ways seem to be her idea of entertainment, they also taste good with ketchup apparantly)

By the end of it she had been killed 3 times, rezzed 3 times, was ruling most of the world, and we were being chased everywhere we went by her minions.
And she destroyed everyone who could rezz us, so the next time we go down, it be for good.

She kinda...err...won in the end...


...She scares me...

[2xMachina]

A Cr 26 with half a dozen Cr 20, and 2,3 lvl 17+ clerics?

You should be afraid. Most lvl 20's would be pretty scared themselves.

Anyone that can make a build that can kill those?

[Volthawk]

What level were you and how many of you were there?

[Closak]

Somewhere in the high-twenties i think (27-29 range somewhere, at the very end before she killed us off permanently)

There were five of us.

And you have to remember that she's an Advanced Great Wyrm Red with several class levels as well (She had like 7 extra Sorceror levels on top of her innate casting)

Even though we did manage to kill her several times (Somehow) She came out on top in the end.
We made one mistake to many, overlooked the wrong detail, somewhere things just went horribly wrong and we got pinned in a corner with no allies left to save our asses.

Darn dragon outmanuevered us at every turn.

I have to leave now by the way, mom is calling

[2xMachina]

Wait, you're epic? Hmm, I guess you never knew to use Epic cheese...

But yeah, still high Cr for the encounter. Cr 33 is about tough enough for 5 lvl 29's. Add in Cr 20 backups, and it tips it over.

[JerichoPenumbra]

I can only think of three who fit the bill for me, 'cause most of the time when our main DM put us up against BBEGs we usually either mop the dungeon floor with 'em, they do so to us, or we just barely over come the odds defeating that BBEG(s) only to have a new one pop-up and try to kill us for the umpteenth time.

1. Blackstar, Human Spellstitched Lich Wizard 10/ Fighter 2. Our party had to talk to (read negotiate[re-read fight]) him to retrieve an artifact from him called the Eye of Hecate. The problem wasn't us trying break into his private fortress complete with his own small army and 6th lvl Minotaur fighter lieutenant plus a few clerics oh no, it was something more troublesome. The fact that most of us were killed and reincarnated after a break in at our home. Our employer who was the KING! of the realm thought is was a good idea to send his high level clerics away and so we ended up in ridiculous reincarnated forms. That and the idiot of the group who was obsessed over the fact he had a 3.0 PH kept asking the DM to use 3.0 reincarnate instead of 3.5. The DM let it happen to shut him up and I, the Wizard, was turned into a useless leopard (i.e. we had no Druid to make me combat capable). We survived after dieing by DM Dues after he realized a party of 7 sixth lvl characters and 1 seventh were no match for a ECL 16 encounter. When we met the guy again he gained 4 lvls Eldritch Knight and 2 artifacts.

2. The Witch King, Death Knight Epic level wizard of unknown level, prestige classes and power. Granted it's a campaign were we're playing Mature Adult Dragons with class levels, it's suppose to be a political game where we're rulers of kingdoms and less combat. That guy killed a fallen demigod almost singlehandedly and is the leader of the Death Lords, a council of epic level sentient undead who are trying to wipe us out.

3. Vilikshatathur (vil-ick-shah-tah-ther), The DM Surrogate and effectively the insane Cheshire Cat. Never actually had to fight him but was scared over the fact he looked like the patch work of a bunch of different animals of each part of his body. That and he was a 30HD Outsider with the Paragon and Psuedonatural Templates armed with a +20 Buckler, +20 Chain Shirt, and a +20 Falcion called "The Razor" which was also an artifact that could cut through space.

Honorable Mention: The Korgo, CR 4 Beast o' Terror with a rend attack and nauseating breath attack. Met it's end after a climactic build up after the group was cornered by it in the forest through an anticlimactic fumble where it tripped and broke it's neck, killing it instantly. Our DM was depressed about that for a week.

[Malificus]

The four horsemen of the apocalypse.

Well, Pestilence and Death. The other two were occupied by an army.

The fight ended in under 30 seconds game time.

[herrhauptmann]

That 3.0 adventure, where you fight Ashardalon.
HEY! Let's take a level 17-20 adventure, put an Ancient half fiend red dragon as the boss, you know, a CR 26+!
And right after you kill it, you gotta fight a half dragon balor (who might be advanced)

[Harperfan7]

My players started by taking down a corrupt politician.

Then they took down his boss, a regional governor & squicky pederast.

Then they took down the king's chancellor, who was pulling the strings of the second guy (along with the rest of the kingdom; always blame the chancellor).

Then they took down his boss, the army-wielding warlord who was besieging the kingdom & secretly using the third guy to destabilize the nation from the inside & misdirect its defense.

Then they took down the god-king that sent the fourth guy, who wanted to take over the kingdom so he could ransack it, search for an artifact that could destroy the world & get the attention of the beings that create it.

Then they took down the creators of the world, who made it as a prison/laboratory for their brutal experiments (which explained why the world had umpteen races, cultures invariably based on some version of killing the other guys & taking their stuff, & an ecology filled almost exclusively with D&D monsters).

Then they took down their bosses, a race of god-like beings who created sentient thought in the galaxy/universe as an experiment on the experience of pain.

Then they took down God, who wasn't a bad guy, but had accidentally created a multiverse that was this warped & perverted. All so that they could take His divine power, destroy all of reality, & remake it into a place that didn't suck so badly.

Basically, my players killed God, destroyed the entire cosmology, & remade reality as a singular infinite paradise, in order to eliminate all suffering everywhere. Does that qualify?

What were the stats of the last three types?

Also, what is a xaver?

[Closak]

Wait, you're epic? Hmm, I guess you never knew to use Epic cheese...

But yeah, still high Cr for the encounter. Cr 33 is about tough enough for 5 lvl 29's. Add in Cr 20 backups, and it tips it over.

You can say that again.

She owned us, big time.


...It really sucks to be any non-draconic species in that world now...

Draconic supremacy!

[Beelzebub1111]

The worst villians I have faced have been Ityak-Ortheel, iggwilv, and Turny the Merciless

[BigBadBugbear]

Our worst BBEG was a 11-headed pyrohydra of legend… We ran from it and collapsed the cave it was in…..

[onthetown]

It was also the most terrifying one that my DM ever made, for me.

I think it was close to Halloween and I had been growing bored with the campaign . . . I didn't know where to take my characters with the adventure and everything was starting to seem sort of generic to me. I guess he picked up on it because, before the next session, he asked me, "Do you mind if I use my Book of Vile Darkness with you next time?" followed by, "Are you going to be okay with R rated D&D?" My attention was caught and I quickly agreed.

The villain he created was . . . I don't even know how to describe how that session went. It started out as us meeting the villain, who was looking for sanctuary in our keep. Sure. The characters didn't trust the guy much, but he was to all appearances just looking for a respite.

That night, he forced the wizard into a deep slumber and kidnapped my Planetouched bard basically right out of her bed. She got in a few good hits with an instrument that was lying nearby, but that only served to annoy him and off they went. When everybody woke up, they realized the bard was gone, her room was a mess, she broke an instrument, and the "traveller" was gone as well. He had left a note saying they had 48 hours to find them, or the bard was going to die.

We spent the session going back and forth between the villain and my bard, and the rescue mission. The rescue mission was pretty standard, but I was sincerely terrified for my character's life and the success of the mission just because of those flashes of insight into what the villain was doing. He had the Book of Vile Darkness; I probably can't actually say most of what he did, but I don't think there's a problem with letting you know that it was completely R-rated, sick, and . . . well, vile. The general gist of it was that the villain needed a virgin for whatever ritual he was planning, and the ritual was not a pleasant one.

Long story short, we got to the villain's lair, rescued the bard, killed the guy, and did away with his ritual book. The bard was traumatized but otherwise still able to function, and I have never forgotten that villain. We've gone up against worse in terms of power, but I consider him to be the most dangerous and the one that's left the most impression on me.

Also, the only villain I've ever begged for a return in our campaign. Unfortunately, he was only a one-shot . . . But he's playing a minor role now.