• The VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!

D&D 5E I Need Help With The Final Fight Of My Campaign

BeaniBum

Explorer
I'm Running a homebrew campaign and I'm having difficulty trying to balance the final boss fight. I have 7 players (1 Death Cleric, 1 Bard, 1 Warforged Fighter, 1 Beast Master Cleric, 1 Master of Shadows Rouge, 1 Artificer, 1 Ranger of an undetermined archetype) The final fight of my campaign is a multi-leveled siege of what used to be the capital city of the world. It was taken control of by an elder god who has sent a magical corruption to every plane causing anyone who comes into contact with it to be turned into a mindless aberration. This god is meant to harder than the Tarrasque. I need any ideas and help as to how I could make this engaging difficult and deadly.
 
Last edited:

log in or register to remove this ad

The best way is to have multiple goals, and perhaps multiple bosses at the same time.

Determine a few key points that the players must conquer, and allow them to determine how they distribute their forces/resources. You don't need to play out every battle. Instead, you could narrate the outcome of some of the battles depending on the player's choices, while playing out whatever battles the players themselves actually take part in.

I would assume that fighting a god is not something you do in a straight up fight. Instead, the players probably want to weaken the god first, by taking out some strategic locations. These locations are of course heavily defended, and small boss battles themselves.

So, think of some key locations that are important in regards to their possible victory. How can they weaken the god? What strategic mistakes must they watch out for, and what locations do their forces need to focus on to win? Are there things they can conquer to swing the odds in their favor?
 
Last edited:

GMMichael

Guide of Modos
Is the boss fight a recapture of the city, or a fight against Daddy Terrasque?

Recapturing the city is simple enough: destroy all command-and-control points and seize the opposing force's assets. If there are any non-mindless aberrations there, it would be a good thing to mobilize them to help the recapture.

But since that would make for a pretty boring battle, you should probably do what Imaculata said :)

If the PCs are supposed to fight the god, let them think they're supposed to go toe-to-toe with it. (And it should probably ask them, when they meet, if they're gods as well...) As they try everything in their arsenals to realize they can't hope to hurt the god, introduce the idea that maybe they should rely on the lessons learned completing the earlier goals.

For example, if one goal was clearing the local theatre of zombie-soldiers, a PC or NPC could utilize the acting troupe's zombie masks to gain surprise attacks against the zombies. And when you put these masks on in the god fight, they lower the god's attack rolls/initiative/whatever to a reasonable level because the god's hubris makes it drop its guard where it sees success...
 

BeaniBum

Explorer
That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of something like that where the pc's have to help the other commanders break through to bring powerful weapons to help fight the god which would be difficult because they have to fight through hordes of infected in order to get to the god in the middle. How would you suggest an army fight would go with the remaining denziens of the planes grouping together to face this threat. Surely there would be casualties but should I use mass combat mixed with individual combat in order to keep the pcs involved?
 

Oofta

Legend
There are sooo many things I've done to make final fights tougher. I can't give you specific advice since every group is different. I will note that since you have a larger group, you need to throw a lot.

I'll break this up into categories.

Environment: In a situation like this, the environment itself should be quite hostile to the PCs. Steal liberally from lair actions but don't necessarily limit yourself to the limitations of the book. Want multiple lair actions per round? Go for it. Lava pits, waterfalls of unholy water, pits of despair, go nuts.

Creatures: Don't make this a fair fight against just one BBEG. The big bad has mooks that stand in between him and adventurers. Since this is a god, a Balor or two could easily count as mooks.

Reinforcements for the final boss fight can also be handy, fighting waves (instead of just 1 wave) of creatures often increases the threat level significantly.

Plot Twist: Ok, this one is a bit tricky because you don't want the final fight to be easy and you don't want it to feel like a "the DM has to save us" but it can be a fun twist. I will sometimes set up someone that the group can bring over to the light, or that has had doubts about what the BBEG is up to.

This can also provide a nice break from the battle slog and give you a RP break in the middle of battle.

BBEG: There are guidelines in the DMG for building custom monsters, I would suggest using those. I normally start with something that feels appropriate and tweak.

If, for example I have a fight against Thrym (frost god) I may start with a Balor, substitute cold for fire and then add in other flavor. I'd look at the guidelines in the DMG and up HP, AC and damage appropriately.

I'd take a look at legendary actions for other high level monsters for inspiration and go from there.

Give him fun legendary and lair actions so he's not just a big bag o' hit points.

Another thing I do sometimes (which I stole from some blog somewhere) is to have the BBEG go through phases as they get hurt. So stat out full health to 2/3 health as normal. When he hits 2/3 health down to 1/3 health he gains different abilities and so on.

So going by my Thrym example, at first he's doing typical frost god things, swinging a big axe and doing an occasional frost breath.

As he gets down to 2/3 he starts to realize he's in danger. Maybe he starts radiating killing cold, or he starts making reckless attacks that leave him open but are more devastating. He can spin his axe over his head and send out deadly icicle missiles in all directions and so on.

At 1/3 HP he loses control and goes berserk. The environment around him becomes a death trap affecting friend and foe alike. His axe shatters but then forms a spinning cloud of death attacking everything that moves. He starts smashing the ground with his fist causing waves of damage that ripple out knocking people prone, possibly freezing them to the ground.

Use your imagination and switch up the monster and his tactics as fits your vision. Feel free to steal attacks from other monsters as you see fit.

When the BBEG dies, it may not mean the PCs are safe. Have the castle crumble, have vengeful spirits coming to get their revenge on the dead BBEG that aren't too picky about killing those in the immediate vicinity and so on.
 

Oofta

Legend
That makes a lot of sense. I was thinking of something like that where the pc's have to help the other commanders break through to bring powerful weapons to help fight the god which would be difficult because they have to fight through hordes of infected in order to get to the god in the middle. How would you suggest an army fight would go with the remaining denziens of the planes grouping together to face this threat. Surely there would be casualties but should I use mass combat mixed with individual combat in order to keep the pcs involved?

You could take a look at the new mass combat rules. Or just have the PCs be a special strike force/reinforcements. Most of the horde is probably going to be fairly low level, but every once in a while a "special" comes along that they have to deal with.

Possibly throw in some situations where multiple groups need help - although be careful with that because some people get frustrated with no-win situations or would split the party.
 



Balfore

Explorer
The 4 Horsemen is a pretty good ending to a long campaign, depending on your theme.

And I used this guy at the end of mine:
This was my BBEG along with 3 Liches. (I took away their lair actions and they all basically shared a Lair Action and they only did a cantrip as a Legendary Action).
195dd08135857eff8698d90620faf990.jpg


I also used these horsemen and the group had to travel to each plane to kill them. Of course, they don't have to be 'the' horsemen, you can change them up, and give them Pack Tactics and bring them out 1 or 2 at a time before the main battle...to tenderize them up little. 😄
fc3b33096b3a89e192656c2d5e0ea132.jpg


7963880355206b06a803fa78da79a692.jpg


f7176a39ef2f9a553ecb7859eab746a6.jpg


924f68da0ed9c821a3b897c9dc79557c.jpg


Sent from my SM-N910V using Tapatalk
 


Remove ads

Top