D&D 5E How did the final battle in Out of the Abyss go for your table? [spoilers]

So finally after a year we got to the finale of OotA. I told them it was win or lose here, no bonus group of PC coming in if they all die. They placed the dark heart in came the demons. The party watched the battle royal and fought off some demons who got too close. Finally, only Demogorgon was left. The party rushed in to attack. It was a L11 1/2O Paladin, human Barbarian, 1/2 elf rogue, gnome Druid, human Fighter, and drow cleric, along with a L10 1/2 orc Paladin (brother of the other Paladin), and a 1/2 elf fighter. The base assumption in the game is that you will have 4-5 15th level PC for the end fight so I thought lets just see how it goes since I'll beef him up a bit anyway. He is supposed to be down 206 HP from the fight and since I gave him max HP he was at 474 HP with one Legendary save left. It took six rounds but despite him rolling a couple crits on his tail attack that had him doing 16d10+9 damage he couldn't keep a PC down. He 3 on the ground with his devastating tail but relentless endurance and the cleric made it pretty much right back up and swinging away. The two Paladins doing max smites on crits did staggering amounts of damage, along with the rogue sneak attacking. His gaze was marginally effective and probably bought him two rounds. In the end 8 L10-11 PC were just far too much for the ancient Prince of Demons. He was vanquished, and all was well in the world again. I supposed I could have had him try to flee and make the final boss fight against the greatest of demons a chase where they run his cowardly butt down and kill him, but that seemed lame. So he waded in and was smoked. I don't think that getting rid of the PC feats would have done much, as it was core class abilities that were the kicker. The normal group is 6 PC but instead of having outside forces help they were able to get two of their PC who had been killed, replaced, then reincarnated, back.

Anyway glad I finished an AP and the campaign, though I probably should have rewritten Demogorgon to make him a challenge, but I figured he had to have enough to take them. It was fun in that in a group that has players going back to the early 80's that was the first time anyone at the table had ever fought and destroyed Demogorgon. But it was sort of anti-climactic. He just didn't have enough attacks.

How did it go for you?

While we’re not running OotA one of my biggest concerns about running a final battle (as we’re about to do in RoT) is a that it won’t feel epic. But I also don’t want it to become a slog either. These legendary creatures should not be easy to dispatch...

Both Beholder fights they fought were far more touch and go, and fun, I'll say. But there were environmental issues helping the foes in those cases. Even with max HP, and not enforcing the -5 to all rolls penalty he was supposed to get from the effects of the summoning spell he was not much of a match.

We had already fought Demogorgon as last boss during the Savage Tide (Paizo/Dungeon magazaines campaign), so I dediced to let the player use the Demon Princes in the final fight while the PCs fought balors and marilith.

Then when the last Demon Prince (Juiblex) was left standing, I had him explode with all the power he gathered from the other demons, and he opened a rift in reality. From that rift, the avatar of Lolth came out, and the PCs fought her.

http://outoftheabyss1.blogspot.be/

That probably would have been more epic.

I haven't run OotA, and while I think the overall adventure is well done, almost as good as the Curse of Strahd, I didn't like the implication that under any circumstances a party of 15th level guys would be able to fight Demogorgon even if he is weakened. I mean, Demogorgon is THE demon in this genre. Even weakened, if a party of even 20th level characters isn't biting their nails during the whole fight you're probably doing it wrong. I mean, you just beat the biggest, baddest demon the game has, and you still have 5 levels to improve yourselves. Hows the saying go, "They'll be no living with him now...". How does one DM a group of players that still have 4-5 levels to go after they beat Demogorgon?

That being said, what is the point of having a big bad like Demogorgon if you never ever get to see him? I like the concept of the adventure a great deal, and I think it is well written. I just was surprised that they made it so that a party of 15th, and apparently 11th for the OP, would even have a prayer of surviving let alone beating him.

If you’re looking to squeeze an extra session or two from the saga, consider running DDAL 3-16 Assault on Maermydra. It’s got some solid boss fights, and a big finale against Graz’zt.

My party completely ROFL-stomped him. They were all level 14, and the paladin ran up to him and critted, then threw in a max level smite...ended up doing almost 100 points of damage by himself in one round.

And then I was having terrible rolls...they had him down in under 3 rounds...one of the most disappointing boss fights I've ever been a part of.

So, I sucked them into the Demonweb pits, where I've been throwing Driders, drow and demons with levels in character classes. It is working out most spectacularly.

It took us two years to get to the end of Out of the Abyss. We had five PCs (sorcerer, rogue, paladin, barbarian/fighter, and a cleric/sorcerer/fighter), with levels ranging from 10th to 13th.

No PCs took death saves, but the battle lasted over an hour and felt suitably epic. The room practically exploded when I told them they had finally vanquished him.

The gaze attacks only actually hit once, but I targeted the casters hanging in back, so that they had to break line of sight to avoid them, or face the high DC of the save. That kept them from using a number of their spells.

It took us three years to finish that adventure path, and we concluded the final battle with Orcus beating everyone.

It was definitely fun with the battle royale as all my players got to fight against each other using their favorite Demonlord!!

I had Graz'zt make a deal with a powerful NPC, known to the players, and he got away, just before he was killed.

i also had Lolth heal Orcus to full power just so the players could have something challening to fight.

We even ran a freestyle/homebrew epilogue that i called "Into the Abyss" that concerning dealing with Graz'zt escape, planescaping into the Abyss to "close the Demon portals", and defeating Lolth herself!

It all just ended this past week actually!

I say, i think Out of the Abyss was an excellent adventure in general, and my players loved it!