D&D 5E Looking for ideas in a construct maker boss battle

[Hex_Toliver]

Hi community sorry for the long post but I want set the scene, been dming a group for over a year now and it’s been great, love my players, love what we’ve done so far.

We’ve been playing A home brew setting of my design set in a drained ocean, the party has been fighting a imperialist army that has taken over a city of artists. The cities labor is delegated to constructs that look like marble statues. The statues and other construction type jobs are head up by a gnome known as the lady of constructs. This gnome has sided with the imperialists and has been outfitting their armies with constructs to fill their ranks.

To add more to this gnomes record she had sent mechanical assassins after the party awhile ago for mucking about in her business resulting in some bad roles and 2 pcs dying.

Cut to the party organizing a ragtag opposing force and deploying other means of orchestrating a retaking of the city. We are in the middle of the siege and the party has decided their role is to take the gnome out, stopping her from making more constructs and avenging their fallen ally. They are a party of 5 lvl 9’s a ranger, cleric, monk/ rogue, a sorcerer, and a Druid.

They infiltrated and fought their way to her estate, where the top half of her factory building was separating from the bottom half, lifting into the air : a sort of mobile flying fortress for her to reinforce the imperialist in the battle and rain death down from above. She has outfitted it with magic cannons and other weapons of war, as well as a rapid construct making device that allows her to deploy them through out the battle. The party hitched a ride on the side and is about to swing through the window to fight the gnome and her menagerie of machines.

It’s been a long time coming and I really want the fight to be epic, hard fought, and rewarding after waiting so long to fight someone they have hated and has been so untouchable up this point. I need help/ inspiration with building her as a scenario, her stats and abilities, her various minions, environmental factors and side objectives, etc: I really like Matt Colville and his design of action oriented monsters and boss actions

Any commentary or ideas would be really helpful, thanks for reading!

 

[DND_Reborn]

First, it sounds like a great game! I'm sure you all have had an awesome time with it. So, sure, you want something truly awesome to cap it off!

So, here are a couple thoughts:

1. Make the final setting a challenging one. Include shifting floors, walls, traps, etc. since she is big into constructing stuff.
2. She should have at least a couple "escape pods" since it is a flying fortress so she can flee to fight again!
3. Have at least a number of opponents as the PCs, preferably more so they cannot gang up on her! Nothing will end a BBEG faster than the party ignoring minions to crush the BBEG, so you need minions which are strong enough to back her up.
4. Bosses should always have the advantage in the boss fights. It is their home turf after all!

Now, are they literally on her doorstep (window sill ) about to encounter her or just at the point where they are about to run the final gauntlet of challenges before facing her? If they are about to run the gauntlet, do NOT allow them to rest! This should be a knock-down, drag-out, fight-after-fight, struggle room-by-room death trap to get to her!

 

[Hex_Toliver]

First, it sounds like a great game! I'm sure you all have had an awesome time with it. So, sure, you want something truly awesome to cap it off!

First off thanks! Hoping for the pay out to be good.

So, here are a couple thoughts:

1. Make the final setting a challenging one. Include shifting floors, walls, traps, etc. since she is big into constructing stuff.
2. She should have at least a couple "escape pods" since it is a flying fortress so she can flee to fight again!
3. Have at least a number of opponents as the PCs, preferably more so they cannot gang up on her! Nothing will end a BBEG faster than the party ignoring minions to crush the BBEG, so you need minions which are strong enough to back her up.
4. Bosses should always have the advantage in the boss fights. It is their home turf after all!

All good ideas, she is very paranoid and intelligent so the fortress should be crawling with defenses, and having some sort of escape pod feature would be a good secondary objective for the party to destroy or secure unless things get too explosive heh.

Now, are they literally on her doorstep (window sill ) about to encounter her or just at the point where they are about to run the final gauntlet of challenges before facing her? If they are about to run the gauntlet, do NOT allow them to rest! This should be a knock-down, drag-out, fight-after-fight, struggle room-by-room death trap to get to her

The structure while large doesn't have too many chambers as they are big open chambers, but being who she is I imagine her to be in some sort of very safe position so they are probably a few chambers away from her.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Ok, since you mentioned big open chambers, I have to ask if you followed the Vecna Battle I ran on EnWorld a while back?

Here is a link to the room summary (map and spoilers for each location).

D&D 5E - New Vecna Battle (Let's Get Ready to RUMBLE!!!) - CONCLUDED

This is again a scenario where your one off versus organic story can create a difference. For this one shot we were given a certain number of items (which is exactly how I run my one shots too). However, in a campaign where I knew I was fighting vecna as the endgame, yes I would shop around or...

www.enworld.org

You'll see it is really one BIG room, but with multiple levels, traps (magical and mundane), and includes a couple minions which I never even needed.

having some sort of escape pod feature would be a good secondary objective for the party to destroy or secure unless things get too explosive heh.

Actually, disabling escape pods might stop her from escaping, but might also serve as a way for the PCs to escape once her self-destruct finale happens!

Before she is defeated, she should activate some form a self-destruct on the fortress. Now, the PCs have to race against the clock as well to escape before everything blows up!

 

[Hex_Toliver]

Ok, since you mentioned big open chambers, I have to ask if you followed the Vecna Battle I ran on EnWorld a while back?

Here is a link to the room summary (map and spoilers for each location).

D&D 5E - New Vecna Battle (Let's Get Ready to RUMBLE!!!) - CONCLUDED

This is again a scenario where your one off versus organic story can create a difference. For this one shot we were given a certain number of items (which is exactly how I run my one shots too). However, in a campaign where I knew I was fighting vecna as the endgame, yes I would shop around or...

www.enworld.org

You'll see it is really one BIG room, but with multiple levels, traps (magical and mundane), and includes a couple minions which I never even needed.

I did not, but at first glance it looks gorgeously wicked and a well of inspiration for a large chamber with much going on besides vaulted ceilings haha. I'll look at it more in depth later.

Actually, disabling escape pods might stop her from escaping, but might also serve as a way for the PCs to escape once her self-destruct finale happens!

Before she is defeated, she should activate some form a self-destruct on the fortress. Now, the PCs have to race against the clock as well to escape before everything blows up!

I definitely think that should be her end move as well, I was actually even thinking she has replaced her body and she is mostly machine now and maybe she has some protected core that has some sort of huge reactive explosive core that she can activate whenever she is about to die- not sure if I want to do that but I do like the idea of her having different augmented limbs from her tinkerings.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I definitely think that should be her end move as well, I was actually even thinking she has replaced her body and she is mostly machine now and maybe she has some protected core that has some sort of huge reactive explosive core that she can activate whenever she is about to die- not sure if I want to do that but I do like the idea of her having different augmented limbs from her tinkerings.

Interesting, almost like the mechanical version of a lich...

She could also have a mechanical "simulacrum" which, perhaps, they "defeat" first and think they have won... only to learn it wasn't actually her!

 

[Hex_Toliver]

Interesting, almost like the mechanical version of a lich...

She could also have a mechanical "simulacrum" which, perhaps, they "defeat" first and think they have won... only to learn it wasn't actually her!

I didn't even think of it like that, her being a sort of lich but i guess your right! Just another way of getting to immortality I suppose.

I love her having decoys as an idea, in fact maybe several...

 

[DND_Reborn]

I love her having decoys as an idea, in fact maybe several...

I did this with an Archmage at the end of my first 5E 1-20 campaign.

Sadly, the PCs defeated all three decoys, and thought the last one was actually the wizard. Turns out it wasn't... but I never told the players in case they ever want to return for an Epic game--in which case, he'll be back!

 

[Quickleaf]

Cool scenario! What if she has some kind of clockwork rod that allows her to (Lair Action? Legendary Action?) rapidly repair a few constructs she can see by telekinetically moving a stream of sprockets, gears, flywheels, bolts, and so forth through the air to restore the construct's hit points. The stream of machine parts buffets/damages creatures whose space it passes through, and might (maybe if they fail save by 5+) ensnare them inside the construct until they devise a means of escape or that construct is destroyed.

Might be fun to think of some unique malfunction or weakness that her constructs have, reflecting the Lady of Construct's personality. Mordenkainen's section on clockworks has a sample table for inspiration.

 

[Hex_Toliver]

Cool scenario! What if she has some kind of clockwork rod that allows her to (Lair Action? Legendary Action?) rapidly repair a few constructs she can see by telekinetically moving a stream of sprockets, gears, flywheels, bolts, and so forth through the air to restore the construct's hit points. The stream of machine parts buffets/damages creatures whose space it passes through, and might (maybe if they fail save by 5+) ensnare them inside the construct until they devise a means of escape or that construct is destroyed.

Thank you, and wow wow wow, love this idea. The image of a PC trying to squirm out from within one of the constructs is really funny.

Might be fun to think of some unique malfunction or weakness that her constructs have, reflecting the Lady of Construct's personality. Mordenkainen's section on clockworks has a sample table for inspiration.

I vaguely remembering looking at that in Mordenkainen's but I'll revisit it, I think its always cool/fun to be able to discover stuff like that in battle.