Hey you guys have been great helping me as a gm here. And now I'm back for one final question for you peeps.
The players right now are headed for the final boss in my game. I'm gonna have it happen next session. They are at levels 15-17 right now and I'm sure they can kill him pretty good. But here's the problem.
The baddie in question is a supremely powerful lich. And I already decided that he knew all the spells in the book. My question for you guys is how do I make this a fair fight? Thing is, what's stopping the lich from say, teleporting the fighter into space. Or entombing the sorcerer, or spamming weird or horrid wilting on everyone till they die? Or hell, what's stopping him from wishing them all to die?
I do plan on having him toy with them for a little bit with disintegrates and fireballs here and there. But when he gets tired of them then what? The thing is, so many super high level spells are essentially save or die. And hell some non combat spells can be used like that anyway like the teleport into space idea. I don't want to be a gm that just up and starts killing off the players in cheep ways turn after turn like that. Even if it is the final battle. I want to give the players and the lich a fair chance at winning though.
Here's the general abilities of both sides:
Lich:
AC: 40
SR: 28
DR15/epic
HP: 666
Fort: 25
Ref: 30
Will: 37
Knows all spells
Players consist of a battlefield control/summoner wizard, a blaster sorcerer, a sword/board fighter, a cleric and a casting bard.
The fighter averages about 150 damage a round and has around 200 HP, so he's gonna be invaluable in this fight. The cleric can dish out 90 or so damage a turn himself with his hammer, but of course doing heal on the Lich would do almost twice as much. And the player has healed undead before so he knows this. The others have equipment designed to protect them from death effects. Plus, the fighter and cleric have the auto "5d8 healing if they get less than 0 hp" effect on their armor. Oh yeah and the fighter has the shield of Aroden that they all got from a quest.
So yeah, how can this work to be a fair fight without the lich coming off as stupid? That's the main thing. What should he do on his end of things? I don't want to rely on super cheap spells, but at the same time yeah he Lich ain't dumb. What's a dm to do?
If your party is level 15 to 17 then I am worried for the lich, not the players.
He is outnumbered, and his SR is only 28.
Heal is a standard action, and if he is healing then he is not fighting unless he quickens a spell(5th level).
I don't know how your players play, but that lich should be smart enough to have some minions.
It is better to have a CR X made of more than one creature than it is to have one creature fighting alone.
So if you have time drop the lich's CR and give him some backup.
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It's the final fight, go crazy, summoned creatures, undead minions and have him use wish as soon as he drops below half hp to restore him and all his minions back to full life. Make the earth quake, the sky darkens, lightning falling down from the sky.
If they win, they would be very happy and satisfied with the epic memorable encounter. Use contingency, this is Lich, that what they do, they cheat death and make sure that they are always the top dog, he will use every tricks in the book to win.