The campaign's final battle - what do you do?

[Grymar]

Some great ideas here.

I just finished an Eberron Dhakanni campaign (Goblinoid PCs) where they were trying to get their small clan to take the throne of Darguun. In what I knew was the final battle, three armies were facing off with the PCs holding an epic weapon that could destroy the enemy armies, but each time the weapon was used, there was a high probability of one of the creatures imprisoned in the device escaping.

So some of the group had to fight the escaping creatures, which got waay more difficult each time, while another tried to use the device (spellcraft rolls) to attack the armies.

In the end? The guy using the device rolled over 17 eight of nine straight times, only allowing one minor creature to escape, winning the war.

BUT, I had to plan otherwise

I wrote out a paragraph or two on each of the possible endings, to be read in the even that it came to pass. One of those included a TPK, which I figured was about 40% likely.

I loved this battle because it was all on them, they knew the DCs, they knew what might happen and the risks. It worked out great, IMO.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Pretending for a moment that I were in your campaign and I just played for over 2 years, I'd be annoyed if a nameless slave NPC from the sideline comes out and saves me/us. I invested 2+ years in to this, a slave that i've never met before shouldn't come in to power and save me at the exact right moment.. i'd feel cheap and empty. The same is true of any NPC savior, but especially so if it's some never-before-met-slave who came in to power just right then... just, no, it would cheapen the entire thing. (at least for me).

Bottom line:
The players (and their PCs) worked long and hard to get to this point, THEY should get the spot light save or no one does (and in the case of the later, hopefully they at least did *something* that makes the situation less terrible than it could have been otherwise - and then emphasize that fact to them as to how it is less worse thanks to something they did).

Edit: In re-reading my own post, i'm realizing that the tone is coming off harsh. not sure how to change that without excessive editing, but please note that the harsh tone is not my intent, just trying to answer your question

Again, as I followed up later in the thread, I was not looking for the slave to suddenly turn into a fully armed and fully buffed Drizz't Do'Urden, but more along the lines of a slave bold enough to have unlocked his shackles and who then trips a bad guy, or even to throw himself in the path of a charging bad guy to prevent the charge.

 

[MrMyth]

One approach I've taken in such battles is a 'delayed death' approach - if a PC takes a mortal blow when fighting the ultimate villain, they can fight on for another round or two before death claims them. Or, if they have their own divine power on their side, perhaps their spirit can lend aid to the tide of battle in some fashion.

Essentially, helping them make the most of the fight, making sure people get to keep active in the fight - but with their death still there when the fight ends, even if they end up victorious.

 

[NewJeffCT]

One approach I've taken in such battles is a 'delayed death' approach - if a PC takes a mortal blow when fighting the ultimate villain, they can fight on for another round or two before death claims them. Or, if they have their own divine power on their side, perhaps their spirit can lend aid to the tide of battle in some fashion.

Essentially, helping them make the most of the fight, making sure people get to keep active in the fight - but with their death still there when the fight ends, even if they end up victorious.

True, one thing that would suck is if BBEG cast Implosion on one of the party in round 1 and that PC failed his save - they might be stuck doing nothing all night (or having to run an NPC or a monster)... you can't Revivify somebody killed through Implosion and True Resurrection takes 10 minutes to cast. I suppose you can take a 5,000 XP penalty and cast True Res through Miracle, but that is limited.

 

[NewJeffCT]

replying to myself to see if I can get another response or two.

 

[JediJake]

The players' task is not necessarily to kill the EHP, it is to destroy the artifact he controls before he can activate it (using the blood of a newborn fathered by the EHP, whose mother is a now fallen priestess of freedom...)

That said, has anybody actually come into the final battle of a long campaign only to have a TPK? I suppose I can pull a DM ex machina out of my rear end to help save them, but would prefer not to do that (there will be innocent slaves about... one could be more than he seems. And, I mean this like - "slave slips his shackles and trips an onrushing bad guy" or "slave sees chance of freedom for imprisoned family, throws himself in front of onrushing charger to disrupt charge" and not the slave turning out to be Conan or similar)

Any other options?

For extra hilarity you might give the EHP the armor of the dread emperor from the book of vile darkness if you have it. BBG gets attacked, the people (children in the books where the examples, I would lengthen the chains and put terrible monsters in them) take the damage.

Maybe let the characters know that a herioc sacrifice of life given freely will end the artifacts influence but leave the EHP hanging around, if they throw a wrench in his plans and die anyway, they have still won, at a great cost etc. Next heroes please.

As final battle TPK's go for me, I once had the ArchEnemyGeneral frenzied berserker take down five of the seven characters before he was put down and his army dispersed, saving the realm. Once an evil sorceress imprisoned a Paladin to one of the lower plains in a battle for the great maguffin. In a story arc ending revealing the Dragons against the PC's on an airship they where riding, the Mercenary Villains set it on fire and ripped the arms and legs off the crusader, nearly killing the rest of the pc's in an inferno involving the released greater fire elemental. Good times.

Not quite sure what you where looking for cause you seemed to have the situation and the capabilities of your players well in hand but if your concerned about them being enslaved themselves or save or died, give them bone rings and helms of mind blank or something in preparation for the "unstoppable evil approaching".

However it happens I would love to hear about the aftermath pretty please.

Good Gaming, Jake

 

[NewJeffCT]

For extra hilarity you might give the EHP the armor of the dread emperor from the book of vile darkness if you have it. BBG gets attacked, the people (children in the books where the examples, I would lengthen the chains and put terrible monsters in them) take the damage.

I like that idea - it is certainly evil.

 

[JediJake]

I like that idea - it is certainly evil.

Heh thanks, bad guy I used it with was a Balrog analogue from the Infinite Hells, who had taken humaniod form to get the magic maltese falcon, whose crowning moment of evil was when he was forming his power base and wanted to meet the PC's to either recruit them or guage them in their first meeting had set them up the bomb at many of their close personal allies bases to go off if they attempted to destroy him. They just thought he was a cowardly wizard surrounding himself with bodygaurds, they didn't find out till the end battle that the guards where connected via the magic collars around their necks with invisible chains until a true seeing after a critical hit knocked the wrong guy down by an invisible sword wound. They almost pooped their pants when the "mighty wizard" turned into a giant demon and whipped out a sword. Grand times.

Good gaming, Jake

 

[Jhaelen]

That said, has anybody actually come into the final battle of a long campaign only to have a TPK? I suppose I can pull a DM ex machina out of my rear end to help save them, but would prefer not to do that (there will be innocent slaves about...

Well, my current campaign is actually the first that might actually get to 'the final battle'. All others ended well before.

I share your fears, though. The final combat, as planned, will be extremely difficult to win. And they'll only stand a chance if they manage to get the aid of several npc parties. Then again, they've managed to surprise me on more than one occasion with their resourcefulness, so we'll see.

I'm definitely not planning to fudge anything, though. Maybe, another generation of heroes will be given the chance to return to that point in time to retroactively change things and succeed where their predecessors failed...

 

[Jeff Wilder]

As it happened, my campaign recently ended with a climactic battle to save the world (Eberron) from an invasion of nightmare spirits in warforged bodies.

I put a lot of work into the final battle, calculating the math very precisely. (The BBEG was effectively unbeatable without a special weapon, so this was easier to do that with a more standard "hit 'em 'til they drop" BBEG.) Honestly, though I was careful, the precision of things in play still took me by surprise.

I had it worked out so that if everything was in the party's favor -- flanking with the right PC, assist bonus from other PCs, max roll on action points, and so on -- they had slightly less than a 50/50 shot to land the finishing blow. As it happened, they had their first chance at that about three hours into the session, and it would have been a satisfying ending. But they missed. And then they missed the second try. And the third try. And the fourth try -- and at this point things were extraordinarily exciting. Finally they landed the kill on the fifth "perfect circumstances" attempt, and it was glorious.

The thing that made it so much fun was that a TPK really was possible, and more importantly felt possible, but it was not nearly as likely as it felt, due to my careful preparation with the full range of my PCs' capabilities in mind. (Of course, I did not plan on the PCs missing four 50/50 shots in a row, so by the time they were maneuvering for the fifth attempt, things really were getting dicey.)

Contrast this to our final battle in Age of Worms, only a week later (coincidentally, three long-running campaigns are ending within a couple of RL months of one another), which (from my perspective as a player), felt like a foregone TPK. I'm not going to say that the battle was unwinnable, because at 20th level D&D, almost anything is theoretically possible, but I think the battle was unwinnable for us. And for that reason it was very unsatisfying to play.