One big bad vs. the party. How to?

[RangerWickett]

Scipio, Stahn Li -- out please.







In my game the party will be confronting a few major villains in the near future. One of them is a cunning illusionist who has a bevy of assassins working for him that he'll disguise and hide in plain sight among illusions of monsters and warriors, so the group won't know who's who. That fight should be complicated but fairly balanced, because the villain won't have to go toe-to-toe with the PCs all at once. He's even going to have two body doubles wearing masks so that the wizard with true seeing will have to play a shell game to hit him.

But then there's the main villain, a warrior who by his nature wouldn't have many allies. He's sort of like what you'd get if the Grim Reaper and Batman had a love child. A bit of a loner, you might say. He could have a few demon minions that he summons, but mostly it'll be . . . let's see here . . . yes, SEVEN PCs vs. one big bad.

Have any of you successfully dealt with a similar conflict in your games? The party's going to be 15th level by that point, so this guy is going to need to be phenomenally tough to last even 3 rounds. I'd prefer for him to last longer than that, so I'm thinking of cranking up his defenses a huge amount, and have his offense be just fairly strong. His defenses will have weaknesses that will bring him down if the party figures them out.

His name is Reich Rawnbeck, an Elvish warrior (Elf fighter 20) born to two mortal enemies who were trapped in a prison dimension together. It's an offshoot of the plane of the dead, so Reich was born a dead old man and is growing younger as time goes on. He wants to destroy the world because he's got a lot of Oedipal hate going on.

I'm not quite sure where the fight's going to take place, but it'll need to be someplace where I can have Reich move to cover. He can take down a lot of weaker people easily, but high-level folks he needs to string out. Due to his weird planar heritage, he's got some special powers that will keep him from just going down to a few hits.

1. The Plane of Ruin grants him the ability to rust metals that come near him, and to convert magical energy into an entropic burst. Non-magical metal weapons that come within a foot of him rust and cannot harm him. Magical ones take 5d6 points of damage for each attack that hits him, ignoring the hardness of the item. Similar deterioration affects crystal and stone weapons. Only weapons of once-living matter like wood or bone, or those composed of magical energy, can harm him without taking damage.
2. The Plane of Ruins also transforms spells that directly target him (typically Fortitude and Will save spells) into entropic energy Reich can release as an attack. He has spell resistance 31 against such spells, and whenever his spell resistance counters a spell he stores its spell level in damage dice. When he finally releases it, it deals Xd6 damage to everything in a X times 10 ft. radius as a full-round action. If he has more than 40 spell levels stored up, additional spell levels damage him.
3. The Plane of Time has quickened Reich. When he was born, he fell into a spring of elemental time energy, which allowed his dead form to age in reverse, and gave him powers of time. Each round he takes two full rounds worth of actions, one on his normal initiative, and one 10 points lower on the initiative. He can also give up both his actions in his next turn to act out of sequence this round, taking a full round action whenever he wants. He can do this before attacks are rolled and before spells hit, so he'll do this to avoid instant-death effects, but he cannot undo something he has been hit by.
4. The Plane of Space granted him the ability to teleport 3 times per day, and to scry unerringly on locations he would want to teleport to.
5. The Planes of Fire and Water have given him the power to create a flaming longsword and an icy sickle, which he wields simultaneously. He can shoot a quickened fireball 3 times per day for 10d6 damage, and is himself immune to fire.

He has no powers from the Dream, Air, or Earth. Those planes hold the keys to defeating him. His greatest weakness is that he is powerless if he cannot see the sun. He grows weaker as the sun sets, and is forcibly returned to the Plane of Ruin when the sun has set. He is very vulnerable to psionic powers, and though the party has none of their own, they have psionic enemies they could ally with. If he's underground, he is very vulnerable, because he can't see the sun. And he can't fly.

I don't quite know how the fight will go, but I hope he'll be able to survive until they figure out the tricks of defeating him. And after that he's still a 20th level fighter.

 

[Kyrail]

5d6 damage? What weapon could survive that? Most magical weapons have 12 hp, how do they even touch him.

 

[Plane Sailing]

5d6 damage? What weapon could survive that? Most magical weapons have 12 hp, how do they even touch him.

Don't magic weapons have +1 hardness and +10hp per +

 

[kenobi65]

Don't magic weapons have +1 hardness and +10hp per +

Jes, though actually it's +2 hardness and +10 hit points for each + of enhancement bonus. But, that's in the errata, so not everyone may be aware of it.

 

[Zappo]

Hm... I see how Air, Earth and Dream are his weakness. If the party can get him underground, he's dead. If they fly, he's dead. If they land a good psionic attack on him, he's dead.

Not only he's dead in these cases, but the fight will become rather uninteresting, which isn't what we want. If he's underground, it's seven 15th level PCs vs. one normal 20th level character; he's barely a worthwhile encounter for them and will die in the first few rounds.

If the party flies, he won't be able to deal damage, save for three fireballs. And if the party uses psionics, they just need to target his Will save and he'll become anywhere between severely weakened to the party's faithful servant.

You need to reward the players for using his weaknesses, but also keep the fight interesting. In all three cases, exploiting his weakness should make the fight easier, but not a cakewalk. And, reasonably, such a powerful character will have backup plans in case he's attacked where he's weaker.

Earth: equipment! He'll have backup weapons in place of his Fire and Ice stuff, a good armor granting high AC, and some save-boosting items. In place of save-boosters, you may want to give him SR-granting items; this way, the items don't stack with his natural abilities. Then, he needs stat-enhancers, and some miscellaneous items such as something to enhance his mobility. A scarab of protection would be a good idea too.

Air: he must have a powerful bow, good arrows, and the appropriate feats (a 20th level fighter should have more than enough to specialize in a few weapons). The best thing would be something to enable flying, but that would go against the character concept. So, I'd recommend some kind of dispelling thing - maybe dispelling arrows. Also, he should make sure to summon flying creatures.

Dream: his bane are Will based powers. A magic circle against good should take care of Domination, Charme and the like. Several summoned fiends can provide that. Besides that, the rest of the equipment is already giving protection (save-boosters; also, SR from items might work against psionics).

This way, you can get a good fight even if the PCs exploit all weaknesses - and if they don't, they won't automatically be toast, since most of that stuff doesn't stack with the character's powerful abilities.

 

[MerakSpielman]

He'll need a quick way of thinning the herd, as it were. He needs to disable or immobalize multiple party members on his first action or he won't have much of a chance.

 

[RangerWickett]

His first attack will probably be to unleash an entropic bolt at the party's witch, destroying her broom so she can't fly away. Then he'll go after the half-fiend PC with a full attack, because he has wings. They'll wail on him for a round, see that he's messing up their weapons and ignoring their spells, and then he'll unleash his entropic burst. I'm thinking they could fight on a bridge so that whenever he releases a burst, the terrain around them will crack and fall apart.