Anti-climactic BBEG battles

[Altamont Ravenard]

Warning, may contain minor Sunless Citadel spoilers...


Last night my group finally completed the Sunless Citadel (after 4 6-7 hour sessions) with a fight against Belak and his minions. I must say i was pretty disappointed with the fight...

The 3rd-level party consists of:
- Falstof, Fullblade-wielding fighter
- Li Mu Bai, katana-wielding monk
- Quintillius, elven cleric
- Blaireau, Flick-of-the-wristing rogue
- Mertole, human Illusionist

The party attacked the Twig Blights in the room adjacent to where Belak stays, and thus, Belak noticed them. As it is pointed out in the adventure, Belak talks to the characters before the actual big final battle begins.

Quintillius and Blaireau showed themselves, and talked to Belak. Falstof and Li Mu Bai were hidden behind a wall. Mertole was invisible, on the ceiling over Belak.

So there's a little bla bla bla and the remaining twig blights try attacking the characters from behind. Initiative ensues.

Quintillius goes first. Sound burst on the group. Every opponent is stunned except for Belak. Mertole casts a magic missile on Belak. Li Mu Bai and Falstof then Rush Belak and hack him to pieces. Blaireau takes care of the stunned Sir Braford with a nasty sneak attack.

Sharwyn is stunned but still standing, as are the frog and the twig blights. One good punch from Li Mu Bai and Sharwyn is down. One good hit from Falstof and the frog is dead.

It was a little disappointing. I was hoping for a long fight with plenty of magic flying around, but it was basically over after 2 rounds. The Shadow was a tougher fight! (Erky died and thus spawned as a shadow and went after his former comrades (because he knew where they were hiding), and the party never defeated the original shadow. I rolled really well for it and all the magical effects kept failing against it.)

All in all, a good game, but a disappointing ending.

What do you guys do when the big final battle you've been building to suddenly deflates and is over before you know it?

AR

Off to Forge of Fury!

(needed to vent a little )

 

[LordVyreth]

My shortest-lived BBEG was a 22nd level psionic warrior (3.0 version.) She fought the party along with an Aurumach Rilmani (I think, the highest CR Rilmani,) a psionic Wind Ghost, and an advanced umbral (a template from Manual of the Planes) terratomorph. In addition, all the bad guys except the terratomorph could teleport at will. So the party (who were all in the 20th level area at this point,) buffed before the fight. The party wizard cast a shapechage, but kept her normal form for now. The fight begins, and she creates a prismatic sphere, as she often does in these major fights. The BBEG teleported into the sphere in an attempt to take her out. So, the wizard shapechanges into something and bull-rushes her through the sphere! One failed Fortitude save later, and the BBEG was poisoned and killed! However, they had to capture her alive, so I guess I had the last laugh!

 

[iwatt]

All in all, a good game, but a disappointing ending.

What do you guys do when the big final battle you've been building to suddenly deflates and is over before you know it?

AR

Off to Forge of Fury!

(needed to vent a little )

Interesting enough, my last session was running the PCs against Nightscale in the last battle of the Forge of Fury. Because of judicious scouting through the Sorcerers celestial owl (darkvision up the wazoo, the script said Nightscale was slleping). The sorc got a vruy good description of the creature. The ranger rolled a 26 in His knowledge Nature check ( deduced of course that it wasn't a natural creature) while the sorc rolled a wopping 28 in his knowledge arcana check. Which basically gave him enough info to recognise it as a medium black dragon. After such a good roll he knew it had acid damage, no reach, and probably had no significant spellcasting.
The cleric and sorc then decided to buff the party barbarian up the wazoo, which didn't really worry me (hit and run tactics from the water would take them out in no time). What I wasn't counting on was on them casting water walk on the barbarian as well. Still no biggy (swim speed of 60' will beat swim speed of 40' any time). But the barbarian uses his intimidating rage ability as well, and then proceeds to steal nigthscale's treasure when she's retreating to recharge her breath weapon. Which of course makes her very mad. which leads it to closing into attack with the enlarged Barb. Who never missed. And was dealing incredible amounts of damage. And had great AC for an elnlarged raging maniac (shield of faith and Magic Vestment). The only good thing was that the cleric brought down the bridge and kept the other PCs busy trying to rescue him. whuile the Brabaraian singlehandedly destroyed the 105 hp (I rerolled the hps ) with a 54 hp critical when she was just trying to get away. I'm afraid BADD is coming afetr me now.

 

[Nilhgualcm Leahcim]

I Know all about anticlimactic BBEG fights. My players would say that I have become the master of them!
Last game, my players were infiltrating a tomb, looking for a powerful Magical Weapon to help them defeat a supreme evil. But my BBEG got there first. He rode a Behir, but I ruled that the Behir would stay outside and guard the entrance while MR. BBEG would pillage the tomb.
My players encountered the Behir and all heck broke loose. THe Behir is a CR 8 critter, and my 6 players are all lvl 8, so I figured it wouldn't be much of a challenge for them. WRONG! The behir killed one party member and was on its way to killing another (she was down to 4 hitpoints) when it was vanquished. Lots of spells slung, potions drained, everything. It was great. The players fight and puzzle their way into the inner portion of the dungeon where an EL 11 encounter is waiting. A BBEG fighter, with spring attack and nasty crit ranges and magic items (hee hee) along with a party of daemons (vlogar, from the Book of Fiends [GR]). 3 round later, my party, virtually unwounded, look around the room, searching for the true baddie. THey slew the bad guy and his minnions like they were 1st lvl commoners!
Now, my first instinct is to bump up CRs in the next adventure to account for tougher monsters. But our previous GM did just that and wiped out the party altogether, and I don't play into the grudge monster thing. I don't know what to do.
It feels to me that CR is not much of a designator if things like this can happen. How would you guys fix this sort of thing? (Short of not running )

 

[Kormydigar]

Warning, may contain minor Sunless Citadel spoilers...


Last night my group finally completed the Sunless Citadel (after 4 6-7 hour sessions) with a fight against Belak and his minions. I must say i was pretty disappointed with the fight...

The 3rd-level party consists of:
- Falstof, Fullblade-wielding fighter
- Li Mu Bai, katana-wielding monk
- Quintillius, elven cleric
- Blaireau, Flick-of-the-wristing rogue
- Mertole, human Illusionist

The party attacked the Twig Blights in the room adjacent to where Belak stays, and thus, Belak noticed them. As it is pointed out in the adventure, Belak talks to the characters before the actual big final battle begins.

Quintillius and Blaireau showed themselves, and talked to Belak. Falstof and Li Mu Bai were hidden behind a wall. Mertole was invisible, on the ceiling over Belak.

So there's a little bla bla bla and the remaining twig blights try attacking the characters from behind. Initiative ensues.

Quintillius goes first. Sound burst on the group. Every opponent is stunned except for Belak. Mertole casts a magic missile on Belak. Li Mu Bai and Falstof then Rush Belak and hack him to pieces. Blaireau takes care of the stunned Sir Braford with a nasty sneak attack.

Sharwyn is stunned but still standing, as are the frog and the twig blights. One good punch from Li Mu Bai and Sharwyn is down. One good hit from Falstof and the frog is dead.

It was a little disappointing. I was hoping for a long fight with plenty of magic flying around, but it was basically over after 2 rounds. The Shadow was a tougher fight! (Erky died and thus spawned as a shadow and went after his former comrades (because he knew where they were hiding), and the party never defeated the original shadow. I rolled really well for it and all the magical effects kept failing against it.)

All in all, a good game, but a disappointing ending.

What do you guys do when the big final battle you've been building to suddenly deflates and is over before you know it?

AR

Off to Forge of Fury!

(needed to vent a little )

One thing to keep in mind when running published adventures in 3.X is that the encounters are balanced specifically for Tordek, Mialee, Jozan, and Lidda. If you have more than 4 characters, or if the 4 characters have more hit points, better stats, gear, ect. than the sample characters then the adventure will probably require some modification to be a challenge. A simple change in party composition such as having two fighters and no wizard would require some changes as well. This aspect of 3rd edition adventures is tied closely to the XP and challenge rating system. Every once in awhile the final battle turns out quite unexpectedly to be either a pushover or a TPK due to exellent or poor planning on the part of the players or the bad guys, bad die rolls or some other factor. This can happen with published adventures as well as carefully crafted homebrew scenarios. The key to providing exciting challenges is to know your players and the capabilities of thier characters and what challenges them.

What do I do when the final battle flops and my big baddies get punked out? I salute the players for a job well done, give them the credit that they are due, and remember that they are capable of greater things when designing the next climactic encounter.

 

[kigmatzomat]

What do you guys do when the big final battle you've been building to suddenly deflates and is over before you know it?

Mmmm, get on with life. My players walk through mega-monsters with regularity but routinely suffer at the hooves of herbivores. I figure it's a trade off; when they panic and unload on something because it's obviously powerful they smack things down. Get a bit of the swagger and they eat dirt.

Though to be honest I tend to have GM anticlimaxes from player intelligence. Recently they were being stalked by a shambling mound wizard (not really, but close enough). After being abused by his custom-grown minions, the bard hangs out a white flag while healing. Rather than having a nice adrenalin-laced showdown where the wizard and his mini-army demands his artifact back, they have a fairly rational conversation and the players ponder their options.

The counter is that they occassionaly get in fights with things they should talk to and cause themselves no end of problems.

I figure in the greater scale of things, it's a wash.

Now were I you, I'd imply the BBEG was never there, place some clue that the people they killed were patsies and that there's a *real* menace still out there. It'll make you feel better and possibly add to the overall plot.

 

[the Jester]

D00d, I know how you feel. The climactic battle of Return to the Tomb of Horrors for my group about a month or two ago lasted all of two rounds. But really, what can you do? Move on to the next adventure, basically.

I've found that a well-prepared party in 3e can tear things up with incredible speed. A couple games ago I had to cry out, "I never got to use my ur-priest!" (They killed him before he had a chance to go.) It's cool, though; let the party feel tough. Just remember that if someone else gets the initiative, they might be able to do the same to the party.

 

[Shallown]

I have a Big BBEG fight coming up in a week or two. I am afraid it will be anticlimatic and somewhere Iwill foul up the whole deal. I did A dream sequence with the players fighting the big bad and they whopped him handily. Now I'm not sure how well the fight will go but since it is the Campaign ending fight after a 1.5 year run I want it to be something they remember. This is the first full beggining to end campaign some players have been in so I feel a large resonsibility to having that dramtic ending.

I keep reveiwing my Big bad just to make sure I don't miss a trick. Hopefully I can mow a few characters down without wiping them all out. The characters know this is the final battle and are willing to die to save the world so killing a few is not that big a deal, a dramatic ending to the campaign in my eyes.

Later

 

[Altamont Ravenard]

Now were I you, I'd imply the BBEG was never there, place some clue that the people they killed were patsies and that there's a *real* menace still out there. It'll make you feel better and possibly add to the overall plot.

Actually, Belak fell into the negatives, but my players never did say that they finished him off. They also didn't cut down the tree. Instead, they told the villagers about what had been going on, and that the villagers should handle the situation the way they see fit.

So, Belak could very well still be alive...

AR

 

[MerakSpielman]

- Li Mu Bai, katana-wielding monk

[anal]
No No No! Li Mu Bai wielded a Tai Chi sword, closer to a D&D longsword, not a katana! He was a Kung-Fu/Tai Chi fighter, not a Samuri!
[/anal]

OK, on topic, the problem with BBEGs is that they're just one individual. Thus, a single unlucky roll can mean instant death, battle over, PCs win.