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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack99" data-source="post: 5249553" data-attributes="member: 53135">In my campaign, the players are about to head into the Temple of Elemental Evil, trying to figure out how Tharizdun will be released 500 years later, destroying the universe. Unfortunately, they were drained of their power when sent back through time by the last living gods, so instead of being epic demi-gods, they are once again simple adventurers (now level 8).Anyway, inside the Temple, they will find several factions, each working on empowering the Elder Elemental Eye, which they know is Tharizdun. One of the big fights I am prepping, is the fight against the Master Summoner, leader of cult of demon-worshipers that revere the Elder Elemental Eye as the one who can return and empower the Abyss so that it can swallow the universe.I had from the beginning envisioned this as either:1) With the Master as a n+0 or n+1 solo, and his summoned demons as a horde of minions, popping out at the beginning of combat, or the very least over the first couple of rounds.2) With the Master as an higher level elite and the demons as standard monsters.Then when I sat down to design the Master, it (once again) struck me how little I like humanoid solos. They just do not work well IMO.Instead, I got the following idea. I made the Master a standard monster, and gave him a protective shield which must be “killed”, before the attacks of the players can affect him. The shield has currently hit points equal to 4 standard monsters of that level, so in total, the Master and the shield will have the same amount of hit points that a solo of said level would have. Of course, there will be the added benefit that no conditions will touch the Master until the shield is down, which would be the last 1/5th of the combat.Now, there still was the issue of # of attacks. Obviously, a standard monster (The Master) can’t keep up with the damage output an equal level solo would have, so the natural thing was to turn to the demons. They will now be special minions, entering combat each round, so that there are always 4 demons present when the Master’s (and in this case, the demons’) turn. But instead of regular minion damage, they will do damage equal to a normal monster. They will still have 1 hit point, of course.This means, that for the majority of the combat, the BBEG (Master + demons) will make 5 attacks every turn. That might be a bit hard on the players, so I thinking about implementing some sort of skill challenge/skill checks primarily based on arcana and religion, where the players can compensate somehow. On the other hand, since it’s only the Master who has AP’s, the AP rounds won’t be very brutal. The shield and the demon mechanics also mean that the marking ability of the two defenders in the group will be next to useless, since they can’t get to the master, and marking the shield doesn’t do much, and if they hit (and kill) the demons, another one just reappear. Instead, I am going to make their defender abilities feel useful by having two or three portals, so that they can move around and place themselves in defender-y positions in order to at least control who takes the damage.What do you think about it? Could it work? Did I miss something? Any good ideas that could improve the encounter?</blockquote>

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