Very brief background of relevant details:
*The campaign is very player-driven (go where they want, and they drive the story. I just pepper in stuff)
* There is a very tough bad guy (think of it as a miniboss) that was already conceptualized _and hinted at_ as being several levels higher than the PCs (my thought process was that they would encounter it much later down the road)
* Knowing the above, the PCs are now planning to go confront the miniboss with the help of the royal guard.
* For reasons too lengthy to explain, the miniboss is confined to his location, so he will be there when the PCs and royal guard get there (so I do NOT have the option of saying "he's not home" as a way of avoiding this for now)
So now I'm left pondering this question:
1) Should I use the miniboss as he was already conceptualized and hinted at (i.e. much higher level), even though that means the players might end up doing less work than the royal guard in handling most of it?
or,
2) Should I reduce the difficulty of the miniboss to be more on par with the PCs current capabilities. Though that means with the help of the royal guard it is likely the fight will be very anticlimactic since they're expecting something very difficult...
I mean, I want it to be a fun/memorable encounter (hence, I lean towards #1 but then the players will be taking a backseat (which I always dislike) so I start leaning towards #2... but then that takes me back to it being anticlimatic and very unmemorable... which puts me back to #1.
I am thinking I might have part of the royal guard incapacitated (in a fair way, based on what the miniboss can do) and, thus, up the participation value of the PCs. But this will be tricky to pull off without it seeming "too convenient"
Or, I could just make this so overwhelming that the PCs might end up running...
If I'm feeling very desperate, I do have one option that would delay this encounter but it would come off as very "dm fiat" and i'd lose any good will from my players who are somewhat looking forward to this miniboss.
Anyway, thoughts? suggestions?
Edit: I have details about this specific situation added in post #28 of this thread
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