Help Me balance a fight vs BBEG

Coroc · May 7, 2018

This Setup seems to be very deadly to me, if you roll in the open.

The Problem here is your Party does not have much AE power, which would be needed here to take out the mooks. If the cleric gets out Spirit Guardians at a good place that might work for them, but it is very local and takes up the clerics concentration so no bless for them.

It is the number of attacks the Party has to face which makes this hard. If the mooks do Focus fire on one character and get some lucky hits the character might be in Trouble.

In Addition to that you got good chances to take out 1 Party member and even control him (Domination) plus the wizard mob (not easy to target except by ranged attack because of the meatshields) using lightning bold (AE) on the Party to further deplete their hitpoints. I would dare to say if you manage to take out 1 of the Party then it is a TPK. The only successful tactic the Party could go here is take out the wizard first and try to do the adds as fast as possible or reduce their number so their damage is neglectable.

What Magic items has the Party to even out things a bit?

CapnZapp · May 7, 2018

Ancalagon said:
NPC Allies: 2 that are semi ineffective

Don't underestimate the value of simply soaking a hit.

Each attack on an NPC is not an attack on the heroes.

If you're concerned about a TPK, have the bad guys take out these two first (disguised by some attacks against PCs). It should take the better part of the first round, allowing the players some breathing room and time to calibrate: "do we got this, or is it time to high-tail it?"

Ancalagon · May 7, 2018

Coroc said:
This Setup seems to be very deadly to me, if you roll in the open.

The Problem here is your Party does not have much AE power, which would be needed here to take out the mooks. If the cleric gets out Spirit Guardians at a good place that might work for them, but it is very local and takes up the clerics concentration so no bless for them.

It is the number of attacks the Party has to face which makes this hard. If the mooks do Focus fire on one character and get some lucky hits the character might be in Trouble.

In Addition to that you got good chances to take out 1 Party member and even control him (Domination) plus the wizard mob (not easy to target except by ranged attack because of the meatshields) using lightning bold (AE) on the Party to further deplete their hitpoints. I would dare to say if you manage to take out 1 of the Party then it is a TPK. The only successful tactic the Party could go here is take out the wizard first and try to do the adds as fast as possible or reduce their number so their damage is neglectable.

What Magic items has the Party to even out things a bit?

The warlock does have fear, which should clear our some of the mooks.

Magical items of note: the paladin has a vicious sword. The monk a +1 spear. The warlock has slipper of spider climbing. The cleric has the most items for some reason, with the wand of negation, a cloak of protection and the trident of fish command. They also have a decanter of endless water.

Coroc · May 8, 2018

[MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION] hm the warlocks fear could work, the other things are just nice Gimmicks except the wand of negation. But do take into account that your Players might estimate the Situation wrong and not apply the perfect tactic obvious to you, because you have more insight as being the creator of that Encounter.

If this is the final fight of the final session of a campaign then the Setup is ok, even with the gate Thing. If not then it is to hard.

Quartz · May 8, 2018

Does the Decanter have a geyser mode?

Ancalagon · May 8, 2018

Well the PCs went "the other way" and explored a side branch. The "Final" showdown will be next session, not last night!

Coroc said:
[MENTION=23]Ancalagon[/MENTION] hm the warlocks fear could work, the other things are just nice Gimmicks except the wand of negation. But do take into account that your Players might estimate the Situation wrong and not apply the perfect tactic obvious to you, because you have more insight as being the creator of that Encounter.

If this is the final fight of the final session of a campaign then the Setup is ok, even with the gate Thing. If not then it is to hard.

It is the final fight of this large adventure, but there will be more adventures after this.

Quartz said:
Does the Decanter have a geyser mode?

Yes!

Ancalagon · May 22, 2018

Some of you may wonder how this battle went, and I just ran it today.

I did the following adjustments: I removed 1 Duergar and 1 Troll. Also, the NPCs helped a bit. Udit (hey [MENTION=59816]FitzTheRuke[/MENTION] ) did 3d6 ranged attack (+6 to hit) if the target was adjacent to a PC, but only 1d6 if not. The alchemist threw 2d6 firebombs (5 foot radius) or handed out healing elixir (3d8 HP). They also were somewhat attacked (the conjuror lined up one lighting bolt with a PC and the alchemist, forcing the alchemist to spend a round healing himself instead of helping the party.

The fight was interesting, although a bit drawn out at the end as the main bad guy tried keeping distance and running around the gate. Some PCs were steadily effective (the monk tanked *very* well with patience defence) while others were more... erratic. The cleric in particular was very instrumental in some ways (Spiritual guardian was a beast, using the wand of negation to shut down the Eye of the Kraken to stop dominating attacks, dispel magic on Edvard's black tentacle) but wasted turns doing things like "I throw caltrops at the conjuror's feet!" (this is after the conjuor demonstrated 3 times that he could teleport around). Another key moment was the warlock using fear to scatter part of the mook's defensive line, allowing the monk and paladin to press the attack.

Bad dice plagued the party at some points, with the paladin and monk struggling to land attack. On the other hand, some favored the party quite heavily - the warlock got stuck in Evard's black tentacles for 2 rounds. The 3d6 came to... 4 and 5. At the end of the combat he had 4 hp left, and the cleric 6. The monk and Paladin also took moments to heal themselves in the fight - that lightning wand did a lot of damage!

It was a bit long but I think people felt pretty satisfied by it, and that's a good thing IMO.

FrogReaver · May 22, 2018

Ancalagon said:
Some of you may wonder how this battle went, and I just ran it today.

I did the following adjustments: I removed 1 Duergar and 1 Troll. Also, the NPCs helped a bit. Udit (hey [MENTION=59816]FitzTheRuke[/MENTION] ) did 3d6 ranged attack (+6 to hit) if the target was adjacent to a PC, but only 1d6 if not. The alchemist threw 2d6 firebombs (5 foot radius) or handed out healing elixir (3d8 HP). They also were somewhat attacked (the conjuror lined up one lighting bolt with a PC and the alchemist, forcing the alchemist to spend a round healing himself instead of helping the party.

The fight was interesting, although a bit drawn out at the end as the main bad guy tried keeping distance and running around the gate. Some PCs were steadily effective (the monk tanked *very* well with patience defence) while others were more... erratic. The cleric in particular was very instrumental in some ways (Spiritual guardian was a beast, using the wand of negation to shut down the Eye of the Kraken to stop dominating attacks, dispel magic on Edvard's black tentacle) but wasted turns doing things like "I throw caltrops at the conjuror's feet!" (this is after the conjuor demonstrated 3 times that he could teleport around). Another key moment was the warlock using fear to scatter part of the mook's defensive line, allowing the monk and paladin to press the attack.

Bad dice plagued the party at some points, with the paladin and monk struggling to land attack. On the other hand, some favored the party quite heavily - the warlock got stuck in Evard's black tentacles for 2 rounds. The 3d6 came to... 4 and 5. At the end of the combat he had 4 hp left, and the cleric 6. The monk and Paladin also took moments to heal themselves in the fight - that lightning wand did a lot of damage!

It was a bit long but I think people felt pretty satisfied by it, and that's a good thing IMO.

Sounds good. Just curious about how many punches you had to pull?

Ancalagon · May 22, 2018

FrogReaver said:
Sounds good. Just curious about how many punches you had to pull?

Very little - maybe 1-3 attaks missed instead of landed. However, that being said, I made a key mistake at first. The BBEG ordered the warlock to turn against his fellows (a free action, the PC warlock refused) and he then tried to dominate the paladin (mistaking him for a mere fighter - different culture) and ordered him to kill the slugman (using the Kraken Eye but this failed). Had the BBEG instead opened the fight with Evard's black tentacle and hit the whole party... that would have been bad. Now the BBEG honestly believed the warlock would turn, and the area of effect spell would have hit this "ally" so it sorts of makes sense he didn't but... it bothers me a bit to be honest.

Now this wasn't me pulling punches, but due to luck, a few key saves that went the party's way were also critical - those saves vs domination failed (edit: as in the domination didn't work), and also when the warlock blasted the BBEG and some mooks with a fear spell, the BBEG failed the save. This bought 2 rounds of "no BBEG" to the party. Had all those saves gone the way of the bad guys... you could have had a TPK.

Lastly, the mooks were good at protecting the casters (somewhat), but they also made the casters' lives more difficult as they were in the way of offensive spells.

Quartz · May 22, 2018

Ancalagon said:
It was a bit long but I think people felt pretty satisfied by it, and that's a good thing IMO.

If everyone was satisfied and happy then you did a good job.

Help Me balance a fight vs BBEG

Coroc

Hero

CapnZapp

Legend

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

Coroc

Hero

Quartz

Hero

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

FrogReaver

As long as i get to be the frog

Ancalagon

Dusty Dragon

Quartz

Hero

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