So just had to share this one. Last night's session culminated in a crazy combat and here are the details!
The Background
Action Hero Rules
The Fight
The Paladin after a brief cinematic discussion with this god and realizes that if doesn't hurt the BBEG's forces now that the rest of the group may be in great trouble later, decides to go full fury and charges the encounter on his horse. His anti-dragon lance cuts deep, putting in big damage on the first dragon. He also downs a potion of fire resistance before the encounter begins as he saw the red dragons incoming.
The first dragon breaths on him, but with his super boosted saves and his fire resistance he tanks it with relative ease. The minions are completely worthless, this player actually took a special feat to become super powerful against ninjas and so they are 0 threat to him. The gith struggle to hit his high AC. The BBEG releases a fireball against him (remember he was expecting the rest of the party so doesn't want to blow his resources too quickly especially with such a force). He also has the conjure fey spell active and the creature is whispering sweet nothings of death in the paladin's ear, but again the paladin's saves are mighty and he resists. The other dragon does manage to get some claw attacks in and the paladin starts taking pain.
Fast forward a few rounds. The paladin has been taking steady damage but manages to near kill the first dragon. The BBEG switches to healing that dragon but our hero breaks through and slays the first dragon. The BBEG puts a death ward on the 2nd dragon, realizes he can no longer take chances against this threat. The other dragon is enraged as it was his brother and the paladin manages an epic intimidate check to goad him into breathing on him, positioning himself near the gith warriors. The dragon breaths, and roasts the gith warriors to death! The paladin bathes in the fire while using lay on hands and a potion to heal himself, though still wounded.
At this point its down to the dragon and the BBEG, but the BBEG has now fallen for the paladin's fear aura. As a paladin of conquest the aura makes the BBEG's speed 0 and he takes small damage at the beginning of his turn. The second dragon after taking a critical from the paladin flies up and decides to breathe on him from range rather than risk melee attacks. So now its the paladin and the BBEG in melee. The BBEG gets smacked and loses concentration on a damn nat 1 of his conjure fey effect and decides to switch to greater invisibility. But he still cannot move due to the fear effect, so the paladin knows exactly where he is.
The two trade blows, both drinking potions both engaging in attacks. The bard uses various abilities to lower the paladin's attacks and with the disadvantage manages to get missed by several, but every successful hit lands like a truck. Meanwhile the dragon has a scorching ray attack it uses and then breathes whenever it can. And so both the paladin and BBEG are draining away in hps, who will fall first!
The concentration save finally fails the BBEG again and he is revealed! He uses mirror image to maintain protection, hoping the dragon can finish the job. But the paladin's luck is with him and while he hits the mirror image on the first swing, he cuts through on the 2nd, and the BBEG goes down! Or....does he!!!!??? For the BBEG had both a death ward on themselves AND a contingency. The BBEG gets healed to 1 hp and a resilient sphere goes up around him with the contingency. The sphere is impenetrable to anything the paladin does. And so with a laugh the BBEG stands up, monologing to our hero. He can now stand and watch the dragon finish the job.
BUT.... there is one effect, one tiny small effect that does work inside the resilient sphere. That damn fear damage aura. Now you could absolutely rule that the resilient sphere blocks the aura, but I ruled a while ago to allow it for rule of cool, and it seemed incredibly appropriate here. And so the BBEG took a small modicum of damage....and drops to 0 hp and unconsciousness!
So now its the paladin vs dragon. The paladin uses his eldritch blast from his warlock levels and starts blasting the dragon. The dragon realizing he actually can be hit from the air decides to fly up higher and wait for his breath to recharge. But then with a smirk the paladin keeps blasting, for he has the effect that increase the eldritch beam to 300 ft!!! The dragon now debates, can it keep running and get out of range, or is this thing have like a 1000 ft range and he is screwed if he runs? The dragon decides to dive bomb the paladin and goes to work!
The two fight in melee for a couple of rounds, and the dragon is on its last leg. But its breath recharges, and though the breath roll is decent, its just not quite enough. The damn fire resistance wins the day, and the paladin survives. he cuts into the dragon (triggering the death ward) and then with his 2nd attack ends the work.
Now the paladin stands at the resilient sphere, unable to intervene. He decides to turn off his aura and watch things unfold. I roll the death saves (for most NPCs they die at 0 hp but I gave this guy the PC treatment). I roll two of each, and then on the last save he stabilizes. The sphere ends and the paladin holds the BBEG unconscious on his arms, debating what to do. Show mercy and let him live, or kill him and end the threat?
With a final nod of confirmation, he removes a small dagger, and without fanfare sticks it into the BBEG's heart....taking his life.
The paladin rushes back to alert his troop, destroying the entire ambush and walking away from a certain death trap alive!
The entire combat took like 9 rounds, longest one I have run in a while, and was just some great epic back and forth moments. Obviously the custom rules I used was a big part of the success of the paladin in this fight (this is not meant to be a CR judgment again my custom rules overwrote a lot of that)....but it will definitely be the kind of fight my player will remember for many years to come!
The Background
One of the BBEGs has become a trusted mentor to the party, but the party has started to learn too much about their plans, and are now going to a group of very powerful individuals that will ultimately be able to reveal the BBEG for who they are. After sending a few hit squads to take the party out (and failing) the BBEG realizes its time to do it himself. He delays the party with some false info in a last attempt to gather one more group of forces, and then sets up an ambush.
However, because of other circumstances, only one party member takes the bait, the Paladin/Warlock (13th level). The rest of the party has to go defend another friend of the group and so the player strikes out on their own. This was already incredible because this party never splits up, but this time they decide to. The paladin detects two young red dragons off in the distance, but has a legendary anti-dragon weapon and decides to continue.
But its not just the dragons....it turns into a full scale encounter:
1) Two Young Red Dragons (CR 10)
2) A 12th level 2024 bard (the BBEG)
3) 4 Gith Warriors (CR3)
4) 15 Ninjas (minion type monsters that are common in the world the party finds themselves in).
This was an encounter meant to challenge my 5 player party but likely would be beaten resulting in the villain teleporting away and starting the next arc. But now this encounter is thrown at a single PC!
However, because of other circumstances, only one party member takes the bait, the Paladin/Warlock (13th level). The rest of the party has to go defend another friend of the group and so the player strikes out on their own. This was already incredible because this party never splits up, but this time they decide to. The paladin detects two young red dragons off in the distance, but has a legendary anti-dragon weapon and decides to continue.
But its not just the dragons....it turns into a full scale encounter:
1) Two Young Red Dragons (CR 10)
2) A 12th level 2024 bard (the BBEG)
3) 4 Gith Warriors (CR3)
4) 15 Ninjas (minion type monsters that are common in the world the party finds themselves in).
This was an encounter meant to challenge my 5 player party but likely would be beaten resulting in the villain teleporting away and starting the next arc. But now this encounter is thrown at a single PC!
Action Hero Rules
I made this campaign a very "action hero" oriented kind of game, the game where a hero will walk into the villain's layer surrounded by goons and not care a lick. To accomplish this I created a rule in my campaign:
"This is a bad idea"
If the PCs ever walk into a notably tough encounter, the DM will say "this is a bad idea". If the PCs continue, they receive a d6 "bad ass die" that is applied to ALL rolls for that encounter.
As this was the motherload of bad ideas, I actually awarded the PC two bad ass die, so 2d6 on all rolls.
"This is a bad idea"
If the PCs ever walk into a notably tough encounter, the DM will say "this is a bad idea". If the PCs continue, they receive a d6 "bad ass die" that is applied to ALL rolls for that encounter.
As this was the motherload of bad ideas, I actually awarded the PC two bad ass die, so 2d6 on all rolls.
The Fight
The Paladin after a brief cinematic discussion with this god and realizes that if doesn't hurt the BBEG's forces now that the rest of the group may be in great trouble later, decides to go full fury and charges the encounter on his horse. His anti-dragon lance cuts deep, putting in big damage on the first dragon. He also downs a potion of fire resistance before the encounter begins as he saw the red dragons incoming.
The first dragon breaths on him, but with his super boosted saves and his fire resistance he tanks it with relative ease. The minions are completely worthless, this player actually took a special feat to become super powerful against ninjas and so they are 0 threat to him. The gith struggle to hit his high AC. The BBEG releases a fireball against him (remember he was expecting the rest of the party so doesn't want to blow his resources too quickly especially with such a force). He also has the conjure fey spell active and the creature is whispering sweet nothings of death in the paladin's ear, but again the paladin's saves are mighty and he resists. The other dragon does manage to get some claw attacks in and the paladin starts taking pain.
Fast forward a few rounds. The paladin has been taking steady damage but manages to near kill the first dragon. The BBEG switches to healing that dragon but our hero breaks through and slays the first dragon. The BBEG puts a death ward on the 2nd dragon, realizes he can no longer take chances against this threat. The other dragon is enraged as it was his brother and the paladin manages an epic intimidate check to goad him into breathing on him, positioning himself near the gith warriors. The dragon breaths, and roasts the gith warriors to death! The paladin bathes in the fire while using lay on hands and a potion to heal himself, though still wounded.
At this point its down to the dragon and the BBEG, but the BBEG has now fallen for the paladin's fear aura. As a paladin of conquest the aura makes the BBEG's speed 0 and he takes small damage at the beginning of his turn. The second dragon after taking a critical from the paladin flies up and decides to breathe on him from range rather than risk melee attacks. So now its the paladin and the BBEG in melee. The BBEG gets smacked and loses concentration on a damn nat 1 of his conjure fey effect and decides to switch to greater invisibility. But he still cannot move due to the fear effect, so the paladin knows exactly where he is.
The two trade blows, both drinking potions both engaging in attacks. The bard uses various abilities to lower the paladin's attacks and with the disadvantage manages to get missed by several, but every successful hit lands like a truck. Meanwhile the dragon has a scorching ray attack it uses and then breathes whenever it can. And so both the paladin and BBEG are draining away in hps, who will fall first!
The concentration save finally fails the BBEG again and he is revealed! He uses mirror image to maintain protection, hoping the dragon can finish the job. But the paladin's luck is with him and while he hits the mirror image on the first swing, he cuts through on the 2nd, and the BBEG goes down! Or....does he!!!!??? For the BBEG had both a death ward on themselves AND a contingency. The BBEG gets healed to 1 hp and a resilient sphere goes up around him with the contingency. The sphere is impenetrable to anything the paladin does. And so with a laugh the BBEG stands up, monologing to our hero. He can now stand and watch the dragon finish the job.
BUT.... there is one effect, one tiny small effect that does work inside the resilient sphere. That damn fear damage aura. Now you could absolutely rule that the resilient sphere blocks the aura, but I ruled a while ago to allow it for rule of cool, and it seemed incredibly appropriate here. And so the BBEG took a small modicum of damage....and drops to 0 hp and unconsciousness!
So now its the paladin vs dragon. The paladin uses his eldritch blast from his warlock levels and starts blasting the dragon. The dragon realizing he actually can be hit from the air decides to fly up higher and wait for his breath to recharge. But then with a smirk the paladin keeps blasting, for he has the effect that increase the eldritch beam to 300 ft!!! The dragon now debates, can it keep running and get out of range, or is this thing have like a 1000 ft range and he is screwed if he runs? The dragon decides to dive bomb the paladin and goes to work!
The two fight in melee for a couple of rounds, and the dragon is on its last leg. But its breath recharges, and though the breath roll is decent, its just not quite enough. The damn fire resistance wins the day, and the paladin survives. he cuts into the dragon (triggering the death ward) and then with his 2nd attack ends the work.
Now the paladin stands at the resilient sphere, unable to intervene. He decides to turn off his aura and watch things unfold. I roll the death saves (for most NPCs they die at 0 hp but I gave this guy the PC treatment). I roll two of each, and then on the last save he stabilizes. The sphere ends and the paladin holds the BBEG unconscious on his arms, debating what to do. Show mercy and let him live, or kill him and end the threat?
With a final nod of confirmation, he removes a small dagger, and without fanfare sticks it into the BBEG's heart....taking his life.
The paladin rushes back to alert his troop, destroying the entire ambush and walking away from a certain death trap alive!
The entire combat took like 9 rounds, longest one I have run in a while, and was just some great epic back and forth moments. Obviously the custom rules I used was a big part of the success of the paladin in this fight (this is not meant to be a CR judgment again my custom rules overwrote a lot of that)....but it will definitely be the kind of fight my player will remember for many years to come!
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