Cue the Choir (Final Battle music)

[Joker]

From this (http://www.soundsonline.com/EastWest-Quantum-Leap-Symphonic-Choirs-pr-EW-165.html) site I would recommend Dragon War and Wall of Fire.

From this (http://www.soundsonline.com/EWQLSO-Platinum-Pro-XP-pr-EW-155PRO.html) I would recommend Bigger than Kong, Battle Scene, Eruption of Mount something or other and the Summoning.

Just click the little songs on the playlist to the top right to listen to or download them.
Unfortunately they are relatively short with respect to the real time of duration combat.

Lux Eternea is pretty good but very situational. Things I sometimes use for combats are:

Fellowship of the Ring OST:
Amon Hen
The Bridge of Khazad Dum
And depending on the situation: Treason of Isengard, Black Rider, At the sign of the Prancing Pony.

Return of the King OST:
The Fields of Pellenor
End of All Things

Black Hawk Down OST:
Pretty Much anything, but I don't use it for high fantasy themed campaigns.

Gladiator OST:
The Battle
The Might of Rome
The Barbarian Horde
Am I not Merciful

The Last Samurai OST:
Specters in the Fog
Ronin
Red Warrior.

And now I forgot what else.

 

[Sidekick]

Food for thought:

What music should be playing as the PCs confront the font of evil that has been a source of a campaign worth of evil?

I think The Bridge of Khazad-Dum from Fellowship of the Ring takes it

Just as an interesting aside, one of my old flatmates back home - her boyfriend (now fiancee I beleive) was in the choir that sung that music.

oh and agree -0 that is one very very cool piece of fantasy inspired music.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Last of the Mohicans always makes the hair on my neck stand.

 

[thedungeondelver]

At the risk of expanding this out beyond the original parameters of the poster, let me just add a couple here...

Whenever any horror adventuring is to be done, for my money Trent Reznor's soundtrack to QUAKE I and Abagail Mead's incidental scoring for FULL METAL JACKET are both haunting pieces that work well for S1 TOMB OF HORRORS

 

[paradox42]

I always favored Battle without Honour by Tomoyasu Hotei myself. That's such a cool score.

That was, of course, the first thing I queued up for the massive battle in the Evil game. And the reactions of the players as they started to realize just how many enemies they had to face there, were priceless. My comment: "I picked Kill Bill for a reason, guys..."

 

[Joker]

Mikseri's stuff is pretty good. www.mikseri.net. But because his website is in some kind of weird dead language, I can't figure out where the songs are I liked.
He posts here so maybe he can come in and suggest a few appropriate ones.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

I've built soundtracks to our campaign that has just hit 20th level. Looking over the music that I queued up:

While not "Final Battle" worthy the soundtracks to Soul Calibur II and III have a lot of good Not-Quite Big Bad Evil Guy music.

If your looking for stuff that is a little moodier Bourne Identity and Bourne Supremecy by John Powell have a lot of good stuff. This also has the fast paced and comically titled ride that is "Bim, Bam, Smash" for Supremecy (it is the music for the Hummer and Taxi Cab dual - nowhere near Epic in feel but very good for a fast paced insane fight and it is a long track).

To add to the Hanz Zimmer love he also did Broken Arrow and The Rock for end battle goodness. He also did the instrumental stuff for The Lion King (definately look at 'The Stampede' for battle music).

Rounding out various battle sets that haven't yet been mentioned I took from X-Men: The Last Stand (also by John Powell), 24 (Sean Callery), The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (Harry Gregson-Williams) and even Kingdom Hearts II (Square Enix knows what they are dong with video game soundtracks). If you can get your hands on a legal copy of the Final Fantasy XII soundtrack that has good stuff as well.

 

[Nightfall]

That was, of course, the first thing I queued up for the massive battle in the Evil game. And the reactions of the players as they started to realize just how many enemies they had to face there, were priceless. My comment: "I picked Kill Bill for a reason, guys..."

Sweet! I love that move. I give it a 9.5 out of 10.

And who ever suggested S&M, I also suggest looking at other live Metallica performances, especially if you can get Orion, Call of Ktulu, and Anesthesia, since those are some great non-vocal tracks by Metallica.

Of course there's Some kind of Monster, which is my favorite too for massive monster fights.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

Sadly, I can't use music where I play/run games; calling the acoustics 'uncooperative' would be somewhat akin to calling a great wyrm red dragon 'menacing.'

While *planning* an encounter, however, I listen to the music I imagine playing in the background during it.

Some I recall using for final/major battle type encounters:

Bombardment 2 (Skies of Arcadia)
Duel of the Fates (Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace)
Fight Version 4 - Last Battle (Grandia 2)
One Winged Angel (Final Fantasy VII)
Seized With Fury (OCRemix of a Final Fantasy VI track; I prefer this arrangement for this purpose)

 

[Nightfall]

Duel of the Fates man.

Such an awesome track. Too bad the movies that went with it, didn't go that well.