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

[Hejdun]

Make it brutally hard and force the PCs to win it. The most memorable combats are always the very hardest ones. And if the PCs fail, it makes for an excellent backdrop for your next campaign.

Although now that I think about it, it'd be a very interesting premise for a mini-campaign to have a party have to deal with the coming of the End Of The World (As We Know It). The hordes of darkness approach: you have no chance. The women and children look to you to save them. Do you futilely throw yourself in the way of the horde and take down as many of them as you can? Do you lead the women and children away to find some sanctuary from which humanity will rise again? It'd be an interesting way for the players to FEEL the consequences of their failure, and to have a hand in making some of the legends that the next campaign will speak of.

 

[Whimsical]

That said, has anybody actually come into the final battle of a long campaign only to have a TPK?

Yes. We played the Giant-Drow series in 1st edition, and Lolth wiped us out in the end. However, I was OK with that because I felt that I have played through the whole adventure series.

 

[NewJeffCT]

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.

Sounds like a great ending to that first one - the PCs in my game have similar in that one of them wields a weapon that they believe can destroy this evil artifact once and for all.

 

[Treebore]

I am running the last of the classic Lolth series (Giants through to Queen of the Demonweb...) and I had the party get to Lolth this last session. They almost killed her, too easily. Now part of this is because I am adapting this from 1E to Castles and Crusades, and she was wimpy in the 1E module to begin with. Still, even my upping her HP and AC a little bit wasn't nearly enough to make this a battle of mortals versus a goddess.

Which bugged me.

So I have given my players warning, and I am now pulling on my 25 years of nearly constant gaming to redesign the whole thing to where the party will have no doubt they are a bunch of mere mortals fighting a GODDESS in HER OWN HOME! They accumulated almost all of the treasures put in the module series, including wishes, scrolls of Shapechange, Hammer of Thunderbolts, Girdle of Giants Strength, Gauntlets of Ogre Power, a Staff of the Magi, Staff of Fire, and many other very nice items, weapons, armor, etc....

So when I am done they are going to need to burn through those wishes and use the heck out of those powerful items in order to even have a CHANCE of bringing down a GODDESS. If they don't, if they play too conservative, too safe, she will tear them apart and the PC's will die.

This will be battle royale that they will remember one way or another. I think that is a good thing after 33 months of getting to this point.

One way or another they are going to know they fought a goddess in her own home. Hopefully it will be victory, but if not, it took a god to beat them.

 

[Whimsical]

One thing that happened when we fought Lolth was that one of the players moved up and then broke a Staff of Power/Magi (I don't remember) to go nova. Lolth was right outside of the blast radius. Doh.

For the original poster, make it clear to the players that losing this battle results in total enslavement, not death. They're fighting an EHP god of slavery & tyranny, after all. This removes the possibility of a TPK with something much more terrifying.

Have all damage dealt by the enemies be non-lethal damage. This will put the players in the WTF zone right away. If one of them drops, the EHP can use his staff to make the character his thrall while healing all of the damage (no save). This will creep them out when they realize that there's no death = escape option here.

Include some secrets, surprises, and opportunities. One or more of the opponents is a dominated good creature, such as a gold dragon, couatl, or good outsider. The EHP is very proud to have control over such a powerful good creature, but the control isn't as complete as he would like. If the players can figure out how to free the good creature during combat, then he'll become a powerful ally. This differs greatly from "an NPC saves you" because the players chose to make it happen with their cleverness.

It also turns out that if the EHP has the PCs on the ropes after an intense battle, his trusted lieutenant will take advantage of the opportunity to try to enslave the EHP. She has a secret whopper of an attack to make this so, and is just waiting for the right opportunity.

And the EHP doesn't know everything about the artifact. PCs that have done their homework and pull out some good Knowledge checks know an obscure detail about it that can cause it to benefit the players or work adversely against the enemies. Maybe something cool happens if a high-level cleric channels the positive energy of a Turn Undead into it.

Several rounds into the fight, there's an intense earthquake, causing many open fissures, cave-ins, and collapses in the area. This inconveniences everyone!

 

[Snoweel]

We just finished up a campaign where we ran through the 4e published series of modules.

It was a lot of fun but the ending was very dissatisfying.

The PCs accidentally killed the Raven Queen and then through some good early dice rolling they never looked like losing against Orcus and friends.

Anyway I've fast-forwarded 100 years and turned it into some good backstory for our next campaign.

 

[NewJeffCT]

We just finished up a campaign where we ran through the 4e published series of modules.

It was a lot of fun but the ending was very dissatisfying.

The PCs accidentally killed the Raven Queen and then through some good early dice rolling they never looked like losing against Orcus and friends.

Anyway I've fast-forwarded 100 years and turned it into some good backstory for our next campaign.

It's actually become expected of me as the DM to roll badly in key situations (and, we make our rolls on the table...) - 15 charging orcs run into a spell effect and the odds said 5-7 should make their save. Only 1 of the 15 did... that was a real challenge, eh? Or, last time out, the evil high priest's #2 was in a grapple in an anti-magic field. If I rolled well, I escape the grapple and move away from the AMF and then use a quickened spell to move further away. But, I rolled 3 straight 3s.

However, the one time I rolled well in a combat was a near TPK.

 

[roguerouge]

Now is the time to pull out the Mirror of Opposition trap.

 

[NewJeffCT]

Now is the time to pull out the Mirror of Opposition trap.

That would be a funny way to change things up.

 

[NewJeffCT]

The fight did not completely end last night - so, we'll have to wrap it up after the holidays. High level combats can be tricky and complex.

However, while the PCs took down the Paladin of Tyranny, the evil high priest, the pit fiend and evil mage have not taken any damage yet while the party has burned a lot of higher level spells, including a Mass Heal.