Unsatisfactory BBEG Fight?

[Numion]

Inspired by the NPC mechanics thread.

So, the set-up is this: the campaigns BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) has harrassed your PC group for the past ten levels or so (say, 5th-15th). He's sent minions after you, kidnapped your relatives, killed a few of your group and maybe even mocked you by monologuing from a safe position.

Now at 15th level you've breached his sanctuary and confronted him / her / it. After another brief gloating from the BBEG (the DM enforces a cinematic break, so nobody loses actions / buffs while the BBEG reveals his devilish scheme to return Electrum Pieces into circulation), the initiative is rolled. Tensions are high.

Something unexpected happens. BBEG botches his init. Then it might be your wizard who scores a lucky Disintegrate after another lucky (quickened) Dispel Magic. Or it might be the archer who rolls 20-20-crit and the DM had earlier insisted on using the instakill optional rule from DMG. Or the Barbarian lucks his way through the Mirror Images, Displacements and Anti-Life Shells and forces a massive damage save.

The point is, the BBEG is stomped on round 1 in a fight that's the pinnacle of your adventuring careers.

Would you feel satisfied?

EDIT: Hmm - to make it clearer, would you feel more satisfied after a drawn out 20-round with your side on single digits, I guess. Which the fight would've been if not for your incredible luck. Sorry for the unclear instructions.

EDIT 2: To make it clear, the BBEG loses on round 1 due to the PCs luck, not because the BBEG goofed up. The BBEG is fully prepared. Buffs up the wazoo, he knows the PCs favorite tactics and weaknesses, as much as the PCs haven't disguised them. His border conditions:

1) He would be around party level +5 -- +8 on the EL scale. If he's less than that, he's not really the BBEG. If he's more than that, he's in some other adventure.

2) He has to stoop down to actually confront the PCs. It happens now because the storyline is exhausted or the campaign is drawing to an end. This has happened due to the PCs determination and actions and has caused considerable hardship to the PCs already (kidnapped relatives, dead PCs mentioned in the text).

 

[Abraxas]

I would feel satisfied and there would be much laughing around the table and congratulations to the player whose PC got the lucky shot off.

 

[wayne62682]

I would feel like "What the [expletive deleted] just happend?". In short, it would totally ruin the campaign for me. I like intense boss fights, where you just barely scrape victory at the end. On the flipside I would feel the same way if the BBEG has gotten a lucky maximized fireball and all of us players failed our massive damage checks.

 

[FrostedMini1337]

Good thing that wasn't actually the BBEG, it was an underling that he was controlling via magic. Or the BBEG guy is a lich. Or he had contigent ressurection on.

Oh he's really dead? Lame.

IMG we run "Bawls out" style of gameplay. You are rewarded heavily for daring manuevers, bailing people out of suicidally poor circumstances, and generally being in over your head. Lots of attack rolls, save vs damage, and awesome manuevering are expected from both sides of the table failure means less XP for you, or we mock your GM cowardice. If we got the appropriate reward for defeating the BBEG, I'd expect the next battle/confrontation with whatever to be freaking spectacular. Hordes of something. Something 4 CRs above us, preferably Gargantuan or larger. Something in that vein.

 

[Wystan]

I would feel that it is a battle well done, and expect the BBEG to have a clone stashed somewhere, or somesuch. I would also expect that this was a test by him, not his real self, a polymorphed underling. Any number of not-so-underhanded GM tricks.

 

[Stormborn]

This past Saturday my players confronted the Mindflayer that had been using their boss as a puppet in a d20M game. They learned that creature they thought of as his aid was a disguised mindflayer near the end of the last session. They took a few precautions, including a one off psionic tattoo that allowed them to shrug off the mindflayer's inital blast attack, which they got before they even knew who or what they were dealing with. The decided that suprise was the best option they had and charged in and attacked the creature in their boss's study. Due to the Massive Damage Threshold rules in d20M combat lasted one round. They confronted the mindflayer, he blasted them (ineffective) the melee PC closed, got a good hit, mindflayer failed his Fort save v. MDT and dropped.

They loved it. All week long they had been agonizing over dealing with a mindflayer (they were 6th level) and sat there for several moments with their mouths open when I pushed the mindflayer mini over after that first blow. That and a few story revelations and they were thrilled with the outcome.

 

[caudor]

I'd smile on the PCs victory and congratulate the players. The PCs came through in the clutch and killed the villian quickly. So my BBEG got spanked; the PCs did the spanking...there is no harm. Maybe next time they won't be so lucky, but they will most likely remember this moment.

The DM should be a referee who does not favor the Villians or the PCs. It sounds like they played well and were blessed with some luck. That's what heroes do, after all.

 

[Turhan]

feel not cheated- but

As the DM for our group most of the time, I always have a trick for the final battle ready. (As a player -when the Old DM runs his twisted games, I always expect a trick if we PC's get lucky.)

One possible example:
In such a case the BBEG will die, but his able bodied henchmen or a tame demoness would lurch forward and try to raise him from the dead and heal him, all while several fairly tough minions try to distract the PC's. As the DM I would not reverse the initial outcome, the PC's did kill him after all, but I would create a dramatic fight to make it feel better (solely because our group likes the big fight to conclude the campaign thing). A final battle that is an easy kill has happened, once or twice, and we still enjoyed it, but we like the huge graphic battle a bit better.

Either way, though I'd not feel cheated. After all, sometimes life and games are decided on a single throw of the dice.
Also, if the BBEG has last init, even if he dies, well, that just means he gets to do all of the last Talking in the round. A speech, a taunt, a curse- hah! he might say, "Yes I am dead, but I don't die instantly, I can still do one thing- Yes, I can drop this tiny ball of glass and then fall over Dead! Touche you pipsqueaks."

 

[painandgreed]

I'd feel satisfied so long as I felt it was luck. the first time would be great. If it started happening too often, then I'd be a little less satisfied. Even then, it wouldn't really determine the over all feel of the game. The last DM I had essnetially, had made all combats like that due to some special weapons we all ended up with. It was getting to be dissatisfying till I realised that this particular campaign wasn't about the combat but about the set up, planning, story, and role play.

The BBEG was defeated in sort of an anti-clamactic way, but we had spent a great deal of time making sure that's how it was going to happen. The BBEG was some sort of half-feind wizard that had escaped our clutches several tiems and it was a sort of him or us drawn out battle. First, we had come across a sort of magical "bomb" which we planned to use on him. We tracked him down to Doraka in Iuz and had managed to find out his schedule and that he would be at a particular event. The event was being held at a place that had plenty of protection both magical and muscle. We managed to get an invite to said event (after killing and posing as another atendee). We arranged to have the package delivered to our target once he left by an unwitting third party. As he left, our man on the inside followed him out along with eveyrbody else. Once outside he was gifted with our bomb. Our man used a magic item he had made for a touch attack of dimentional anchor and then used his 5' step back into the doorway and magical protection of the event venue (and to block our target's retreat that route). Bomb went off in the manner of releasing a demon that killed our target as well as anything else in the area. As a battle goes, it was pretty anti-clamactic, consisting mostly of one touch attack that did no damage and one effect by a magic item, but we had spent the good part of the past two or three sessions so that it would turn out that way. We were prepared to finish the job if the "bomb" didn't do it, but were very happy that we didn't have to.

 

[Gold Roger]

I voted indifferent.

If it's plain luck I wouldn't really be upset, I mean, this stuff happens, no matter how hard you try. I'd just hope there still is some fight with his minions, because a single BBEG in D&D is just plain bad design. No villain worth his salt wouldn't have somebody around and single enemies will fall this quickly no matter if good lucks involved.

If it's the result of good planning on the side of the PC's, I'd be satisfied.

If it's the result of bad design I'd be dissatisfied. And I'm very liberal with the term bad design here. The DM had his BBEG mastermind focused on the offensive with weak defenses-bad design (there's plenty of room for such opponents, but evil masterminds shouldn't be build like PC's). The BBEG was all alone-bad design. The BBEG had no defenses against Scry-Buff-Teleport-bad design (I haven't looked deply into it and have already found plenty of counters). The BBEG had a disadvantegous lair-bad design.

What can I say, I'm (among other) a tactician player. I don't expect the DM to be totally into that playstyle, but I expect him to have a decent enough grasp to have his Masterminds act apropiately clever.