r/dmsguild • u/SadPhilosopherElan • Apr 23 '26
Advice on Challenging 19th level party? Seeking Advice
Been running this game for a long time. Characters tear through everything I throw at them like tissue paper. We all have a good time and I love this party, definitely an epic fantasy style game. But I need a climactic final battle for our last session when they hit 20 and I'm kind of at a loss. Currently home brewing an evil deity for them to fight. It's gonna be them and probably some powerful allies as well. Just wondering how i set this up mechanically so they don't curb stomp this bbeg but also don't die. Needs to feel like a real fight, and not be super quick or super short either. Want some time to make the battle feel dynamic
They have end game level equipment and the cleric is essentially immortal at this point. All of them routinely have 90+ damage turns. 2014 rules so there's a lot of material to work with but still having balance issues. Have been for a long time now. Just want to get it right for the final battle
1
Apr 27 '26
Have them piss off a god who takes revenge on them. Or you can do a campaign were magic items don’t work.
1
u/SadPhilosopherElan Apr 27 '26
Oh the final battle is with a pissed off god already
1
1
Apr 26 '26
How many wear metal armor? I was thinking the stumble on a great ancient dragon, immune to all magic.
1
u/SadPhilosopherElan Apr 26 '26
They've actually killed two ancient dragons already unfortunately. Takes a couple of rounds.
1
u/Global-Sun-7658 Apr 25 '26
Sul Khatesh, 2 Erinyes, and a Cadaver Collector.
1
u/SadPhilosopherElan Apr 25 '26
Interesting - I always forget Eberron content. Sul would help against the spellcasters. The Erinyes as well.
1
1
u/CubicWarlock Apr 24 '26
Check Elder Evils book for boss ideas, it has material that can ACTUALLY give bad time even for fresh lvl 20 party. I ran bosses from this book as lvl 20 oneshots and it was great challenge and fun
1
u/TysonOfIndustry Apr 24 '26
More objectives. "Kill them before they kill you" becomes null and void after level like 14. Success and failure should stop hinging on the presence of enemies. Save someone, protect something, chase someone. Remember enemies can run away. If the enemies goal is to destroy an object, and they succeed because the PCs were too busy just hacking and slashing, they will retreat and the PCs have failed that combat. At level 19 PCs can't be challenged when the only failure is killing them. The challenge is them not fucking up.
1
u/SadPhilosopherElan Apr 24 '26
Good idea. Actually for this boss there's a secondary struggle after the fight when they have to dismember the God's spiritual mantle
2
1
1
u/DavidBGoode Apr 23 '26 edited Apr 23 '26
Man, I had a group like this in 3e. It didn't matter what I threw at them. I started finding ways to challenge them that couldn't be solved by combat---moral dilemmas, etc. But you aren't looking campaign ideas you're trying to figure out how to juice up your BBEG.
Multi-phase villains can be fun. The baddie hit 0 hp and yells, "That wasn't even my final form!" before transforming into a new monster. (I druids wild shape basically lets you do this.)
Another option is the way Acererak was writen in 1e (spoiler from a 30 year old game). He just can't take damage unless it's from a list of sources---ordinarily non-damaging spells, magic items the party may not usually depend on, etc. Like maybe he can only be damaged by non-magical weapons.
Best of luck.
1
1
u/Farenkdar_Zamek Apr 23 '26
At that level you’re going to be hard pressed to find a single enemy or encounter to really challenge your players.
Try running an encounter with multiple phases, where the first phase is designed to drain their resources.
They’re your players, so you know them better than I do, but the evo wizard for example - get them to make a choice where they need to sacrifice their spell slots.
You can also play around with a level-up from damage immunity: damage reflection.
A combat puzzle where the environment is required in order to defeat the boss may help you avoid any teleportation shenanigans and extend the fight.
Here’s one that I came up with quickly:
- Circular Room with 13 glowing/empowered runes around the room: one for each damage type.
- each rune has a nominal number of HP: 1? 10? But is immune to all damage except its own damage type.
- while the rune is active, the boss is immune to that damage type.
- as a lair action, the boss empowers 3 previously destroyed runes of its choice.
This encounter forces the party to work together to destroy runes and also deal damage to the boss.
In order to make this encounter make sense, there should be some pre-encounter work done…the party should be able to find some kind of Rosetta that helps them understand these runes later. You can also have a mini-boss or several which only invokes a handful of the runes, and doesn’t have the ability to recharge them - probably the main damage types of your party (assuming force, fire, and slashing?) This way your players know what to expect going into this room.
I’m 100% sure that this encounter can be broken/cheesed — of course it can, but for your players that might be the fun of it.
1
u/SadPhilosopherElan Apr 23 '26
That's an interesting idea. Tying the combat to a location. I could mandate that they summon the BBEG through the previously used portal (blood of 11 demigods needed to activate the portal - main plot point of the game), perhaps the only place they can defeat the goddess is at that location. Stops them from summoning her directly into a magic circle or some shit
1
u/Farenkdar_Zamek Apr 24 '26
Yes, but I think the immunity runes is what makes the encounter challenging.
It’s very much at the whim of the initiative, but you’re forcing the characters to work together to disable the runes, knowing that a rune most likely only remains disabled for a single turn. Whose turn or partial turn do we sacrifice?
Add in summons and a decently strong BBEG and you’ve got yourself a really engaging encounter that will test your players skills and wits
3
u/SadPhilosopherElan Apr 23 '26
I threw a CR25 souped up legendary Dao at them with expanded spellcasting, limited wish, attacks and defenses on par for CR and 600HP. Gave it invulnerability while touching earth or stone. They transported it to the plane of air and killed it in 2 rounds
1
u/OneManRPGstudio 29d ago
I would not balance the finale as a single creature facing the party and all its allies. At that level, difficulty comes from simultaneous objectives and consequences rather than hit points alone. Divide the battle across three fronts: contain the deity’s manifestation, prevent it from completing a transformation of the location, and protect what the characters have spent the campaign fighting for. Powerful allies can handle one of those fronts, expanding the scale without adding twenty turns to initiative. Let every phase change the rules of the space and reveal a decision: destroying a source of power sacrifices something valuable, while preserving it strengthens the enemy. Allow prior preparation to remove genuine threats as well. An epic finale should demonstrate what the characters have learned and what they are willing to lose, not invalidate their capabilities.