I’ve been working hard, very hard, on prepping a fight with the big bad evil guy (“BBEG” in RPG lingo) in my Dungeons and Dragons game. I’ve spent at least the same amount of time preparing this encounter as I would on three regular sessions. I am fully prepared for all that work to be thrown out the window by a single, unforeseen PC action, but that’s the game, right?
Why all this work? Because this is the climax of the current storyline…AND because I absolutely HATE when the BBEG dies within the first round or two of combat. This happens to almost every dungeon master / game master that has ever run these encounters: A surprise round or a poor initiative roll for the BBEG, coupled with the PCs concentrating all their firepower on them, and the boss dies before even getting a single action off. Then the PCs mop up the minions in a rather anti-climactic, not-very-epic, fashion.*
For this upcoming encounter, I prepared five questions that I have to answer in my prep:
- How to make the BBEG not die in the first one or two rounds?
- How to make the BBEG scary?
- How to make the minions worth taking on by the PCs rather than the PCs concentrating all firepower on the BBEG?
- How to keep the fight from going on too long?
- How not to accidentally cause a TPK due to all the enemy buffs/mods implemented to fulfill questions 1, 2, and 3?
Due to the PCs being extra-powerful for their level AND the players being very experienced, this is quite the conundrum. Without spoiling the fight in case any of my players see this (I’ll write a post about how it went down after it happens) here’s how I’m attempting to answer these.
- How to make the BBEG not die in the first one or two rounds?
I’ve increased the BBEG’s hit points by a third. This may sound like too much, but I know my players and their characters. If there’s a surprise round or bad initiative or my strategy for staying out of harm’s way doesn’t work, this is what it’ll take to ensure surviving past one or two rounds. I can always choose to use the original, RAW (rules as written), HP if I’ve over-corrected and things are going too badly for the PCs.
Also, I’ve buffed their AC a little. Not too much but seeing as the PCs have ridiculous “to hit” bonuses (my fault for letting that happen), it’s an absolute necessity. - How to make the BBEG scary?
To make them more scary, I’ve buffed their lair actions and given them more legendary actions. I’ve framed those legendary actions to more resemble Matt Colville’s “villain actions” (see his brilliant video on “action-oriented monsters” here). This adds to the BBEG’s action economy AND makes them more terrifying. Plus, there’s an action/ability in the boss’s stat block that makes no sense, and fixing it certainly ups how scary this boss is.
And unless the players solve a particular mystery, I have a little surprise for them if they bring the BBEG to 0 HP too soon. (Come back in two weeks to find out what that is.) Bwah-hah-hah! - How to make the minions worth taking on by the PCs?
I think most of us have solved this one. How to make the PCs have to deal with the minions while simultaneously needing to deal with the boss. Often, we have a bunch of low-HP minions, usually coming in waves, harass the PCs. These minions often don’t cause tons of damage–technically you don’t want them to–but sometimes it’s not enough to really be anything more than a nuisance rather than creating a sense of danger.
I’ve decided to make my minions glass cannons. They’ll cause more damage (not too much more! see 5) but still only have enough HP to be killed within one or two hits by a single character’s damage output.
I use this strategy a lot, as I’m sure most of you do, too. It works pretty well. And here’s another one you probably use:
The BBEG can attack at range…but so can the PCs. This encounter will be happening in the BBEG’s lair and I can set up the environment so that the minions force melee on the PCs while the boss can attack from a distance, at least for the first rounds. - How to keep the fight from going on too long?
The problem with how minions are usually used in a fight, coupled with how I’m dealing with questions 1 and 3, is that this can make the fight drag on and on. My way of dealing with 1 is to revert to the BBEG’s RAW HP if things are dragging out too long and get rid of the surprise I have planned in point 2. To deal with question 3 is to be very careful of how many minions I start with, as well as being ready to drop later waves of minions that I have ready in the wings. - How not to accidentally cause a TPK?
First, simply following the plan to deal with question 4 will already help with this. Other precautions include making sure that the buffed damage from the minions isn’t too damaging. This one is almost impossible to gauge. I hope I’ve struck the right balance between adding a sense of danger but not creating a scenario where they sap too much of the PCs’ HP and resources.
Also, there’s the BBEG’s legendary/villain actions. I’ve added several more actions that can be done per round. I may have to drop some or all of these and revert back to the original number…or even less. I may have to drop a lair action or two. There was an ability that, RAW, didn’t make much sense that I homebrewed away and I may have to simply revert back to RAW for that.
I think, ultimately, in dealing with question 5, it’s relying on that truism of any session prep work: You have to be willing to let it go unused or be altered in the moment. Don’t stick to the original plan. You may disagree, but, generally, TPKs should only happen either because EVERY player was rolling really, really poorly or the PCs made some seriously stupid decisions or both. At most, I’ve only had two characters die in a single encounter due to absolutely stupid mistakes.
I’m sure there are other ways to deal with those five questions but I just couldn’t think of them. If you think of a couple, let me know in the comments below!
* Oddly enough, my PCs reversed that order not so long ago. A well-placed Wall of Fire both killed off a chunk of minions and split the bosses from the minions. The party then wiped out the minions, dropped the wall, and then wiped out the bosses who, minion-less, didn’t match the party’s action economy.