D&D 5E (2014) Help Me Create an Epic Final Boss Fight!

[jayoungr]

Thanks for your help, everyone! The final session is in a couple of hours, and I plan to incorporate some of the ideas in this thread.

 

[Moving Pictures]

Thanks for your help, everyone! The final session is in a couple of hours, and I plan to incorporate some of the ideas in this thread.

Update?

 

[jayoungr]

Update?

The session ran long, and we only got a few rounds into the combat before we had to pause it because of a combination of people needing to get dinner and me developing a pounding headache. I hope we'll be able to finish sometime in the next couple of weeks.

I created two levels of mistwraiths that spawn every round, one based on a shadow and a heftier one of level 3. I also have some animated debris cyclones that I may or may not use, depending on how long the combat takes and how hard a time the party is having getting to the boss. So far, they are moving very slowly because they are trying to huddle in the calm emotions spell cast by the bard.

Each round, there's a wisdom save. Those who fail become charmed and must immediately move their speed toward the boss (with the idea that they may then be separated from the group, where they can be swarmed by mistwraiths). Someone else can shake a charmed PC out of the charm as an action.

The bell must be rung every round as a bonus action. All mistwraiths within a 30-foot radius must make a DC 13 wisdom save. On a failure, they must spend their turn running as far away from the bell as possible (similar to turn undead, but it only lasts for one round). On a success, they have disadvantage on their next attack. You'd think this would mean very little actual combat, but the wraiths have been rolling amazingly well so far on saves and attacks.

For the boss, I'm using a reskinned and slightly modified legendary dread wraith from the first Monster Manual Expanded collection. It's CR 13, but I figure I can pull back if the party is in very bad shape by the time they reach it. (Then again, they have Leomund's Tiny Hut, so they might just decide to take a long rest and go nova on it.)