My D&D group has been merrily mucking their way through the first few adventures of Savage Tide, and are currently partway through The Sea Wyvern's Wake. The plan was originally to play the entire two year's worth (biweekly gaming) of adventures. However, I will have too much work this year in school to run the game. Thus we will be ending the game after the summer - and since all my players are going on vacation at one point or another, we only have about five or six sessions, maximum!
I've begun concocting a satisfying ending that essentially skips to the end of Sea Wyvern's Wake, mushes together parts of HTBM, and culminates in the big fight at Farshore - except not at Farshore! (I'll be changing it up, and making a familiar face the Big Bad.)
I will most likely be throwing experience straight out the window and having players level up after every session. I will also be more open to the Rule of Cool and will do my best to make these last few sessions be nothing but enjoyable.
Do you have any suggestions for a DM who's decided to go for broke on the last few sessions his group has together? Weird crazy s&$% you always thought would be cool? A fight you ran five years ago as a finale that deserves someone else's playtime? Get that down on electronic paper and post it right here.
You know you want to give me advice! FIRE AWAY!
Thanks.
Well, with that specific campaign, I wanted to kill Lavinia and Avner.
My D&D group has been merrily mucking their way through the first few adventures of Savage Tide, and are currently partway through The Sea Wyvern's Wake. The plan was originally to play the entire two year's worth (biweekly gaming) of adventures. However, I will have too much work this year in school to run the game. Thus we will be ending the game after the summer - and since all my players are going on vacation at one point or another, we only have about five or six sessions, maximum!
I've begun concocting a satisfying ending that essentially skips to the end of Sea Wyvern's Wake, mushes together parts of HTBM, and culminates in the big fight at Farshore - except not at Farshore! (I'll be changing it up, and making a familiar face the Big Bad.)
I will most likely be throwing experience straight out the window and having players level up after every session. I will also be more open to the Rule of Cool and will do my best to make these last few sessions be nothing but enjoyable.
Do you have any suggestions for a DM who's decided to go for broke on the last few sessions his group has together? Weird crazy s!@! you always thought would be cool? A fight you ran five years ago as a finale that deserves someone else's playtime? Get that down on electronic paper and post it right here.
You know you want to give me advice! FIRE AWAY!
Thanks.
What level will the party be at for the final fight?
S@@#, I can't believe I forgot that. The party could be anywhere from 7th to 10th level. Assume that they are 8th level. There are three of them.
However for the final boss fight, I may be using a Macguffin to summon all of their old (read: deceased) characters as an augment to their power. The New Old Guys will be under my control, but suddenly the party size has ballooned (don't worry, I can handle them - there are only like five deadies as of this writing and I doubt we'll lose more than a few more). In this case, I would assume ~8-10 7th level PCs, and thus we're looking at a combined CR (if they were a monster group) of like 15 at least.
Go wild, sir/ma'am. I can re-stat any/everything if necessary.
Perhaps a Scaled-Down (heh) version of Demogorgon? PCs stumble across one of his Shadow Pearls, destroy it ... and the Demon Prince sends an avatar down to smite them.
If I can unearth the correct manual, I'll see if there isn't a way we can 3.5 nerf-stick-beat-down Demogorgon down to a CR 15 level enemy. Possibly destroying his avatar causes him immense pain, and the PCs get a flash of insight into the location of the other Shadow Pearls, or the death of a potent avatar causes them to simultaneously melt/explode/combust, meaning the PCs have a real reason to go globe-hopping, tell the BGG's what's the skinny and try and capture the Savage-Tainted results of the meltdown, all the while dodging Demogorgon's pissed-off servants and a possibly a showdown with old two-faces himself via a portal into the Material Plane.
Time to herd the Tarasque in Demo's direction and then RLF the other way.
Don't forget the Shadow Pearl. Only, in this case, when it goes off ... it creates a MASSIVE effect, obliterating most civilizations that are NOT in the vicinity of the Isle of Dread.
In short, you can "post apocalypse" the campaign setting, setting up a return for later to a world gone sideways, the Isle of Dread at the epicenter of civilization.
Or something. :P