D&D 5E As a DM, do I kill the entire party at the end? Im torn?

[5Shilling]

Op back again - so next week is the week it happens. The party have made their way up the tower where the BigBad is at the top - they are one floor from the top, ready to head up. And here is what I have decided...

Sounds like you've put a lot of thought into it and come up with some solid plans. I would also suggest dropping the slavery thing though - it is functionally still a TPK.

One final option: if they manage to kill the Big Bad without destroying his heart, you can always have him laugh as he dissolves: "Bwhaha! I will return! You can never destroy me while my heart yet lives!". It might prompt them to go and destroy the heart as a kind of epilogue (if so the spirit of the Big Bad can be heard screaming in rage as it finally fades away for good).

If they can't even be bothered to do that then read them a short epilogue with general rejoicing but rumours of the Big Bad's eventual return...

Anyway best of luck and have fun!

 

[Eltab]

One thought that comes to mind based on what others have said, is that in the main 'town' of the story (where the PCs have spent a lot of time), there is an Inn with a barkeep who is an old adventurer. they spent a lot of the time in the Inn planning. I could bring the Inn Keep back.... he had been listening to what the party had been discussing, after they set off for the Big bad, he put 2 and 2 together, search the BBEG houe, found the clues that the party had missed, retrieved the heat, followed them up the tower and appears at the top of the tower at the moment of defeat with the heart and stabs it (before dieing).

Seems a bit of a cheat - but it will be too much of a back track for the PCs to return back to town, and I cant think of a get out 'weakness' that the BBEG could have after saying so many times, the heart has to die to kill the big bad. Not unless anybody can think of a spell that somebody could use to teleport the heart to the party that I could leave lying around.

Didn't one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies use a similar device? Have Captain Jack Sparrow show up in the tower carrying a locked box and looking for the key.