Epic Boss Deaths

[Mr.$mith]

Hey guys whats happening as the title says I like to have the bad guys at the end of modules die a pretty epic death, I feel like it adds a bit more to the story and to what the PCs are doing if they have interesting deaths instead of hitting –their con and falling over. But I think I kind of blew the rest of my budget in the 3rd module, I’ll give you the buildup. Also once they “die” I just describe a cut scene to them.
Stag Lord- He had a ring made out of the nymphs hair on his left right finger, wedding ring since he planned to rule with her, and when he died he dropped his sword and almost fell over, he then started walked past them towards the gate of his keep, pretty much looking past them as if they weren’t even there. He then fell to his knees and dropped his head and his helm fell off. They were standing around him while he was doing this and could see that tears of blood were running down his eyes as he reached out his left had said “My lady…I have failed you, I cannot keep my word to you” and at that point the ring started to glow and then started burning in a soft green flame, he didn’t scream out in pain but yet a look of relief came over his face and he said “Forgive me” and the flame consumed his left arm and part of his chest and then where it had burned turned to stone, his eyes when white and he fell over.

Trolls!- The party had fought their way to the trolls base and murdered their way through to the last two and were really low on everything so they pulled back and healed up. I was a bit mad about that so I decided to WOW boss them up a bit. They came back and started fighting the main troll guy and everything was ran as normal, the rock troll came up behind them and attacked, nothing special there, I did double there regen, but they do a lot of damage so that was just to keep it challenging, when they pretty much CC the trolls, one with glitter dust and the other with laughter I let them notice the main troll had a necklace made out of green hair, and that it seemed familiar. Once the trolls were CCed I had the necklace activate and it covered the trolls in a soft green fire, mechanically it doubled there regen again, got rid of the glitter dust and laughter, and the rock trolls hands got bigger and he did a bit more damage, oh and they got more hp. So once they killed them the main trill said “I’m sorry I could not serve you better” and then the green fire consumed him and left behind the necklace. The cleric picked it up and rolled a 1 on a will save so he put it on and started getting burned and saying things like “I praise you my queen” so the fighter grappled him and pulled it off and threw it to the floor and it just burned up.
Lich man- After they killed the water elemental I had the doors to his chamber open and they were pulled in by a magic black fog, everything went dark and they felt them self’s crash against each other and hit a hard stone floor, when they could see they were all piled up and all they could see was a stone floor 30ft around them lit up by an unseen light source(basically they were in an extrademisonal space that Vor had made before he lost all his powers and its abilities had faded quite a bit, so it just looked like they were standing in a 60ft diameter circle room with nothing but darkness beyond that) Vor then began speaking to them asking them why they thought they were fit to rule such a savage land, how did they have any right to rules these lands that were so ancient and wild and have no right to have civilization brought to them. All the wile there were skeletons trickling out from the darkness, no big deal, and then a big Cyclops undead guy, kind of like naxx from wow. Then he appeared and the fight began as normal. They pretty much murdered him in like 5 rounds, and I ran him pretty well for what he could do I thought, MCed the ranger, cleric took care of that, tried to ruin the party, but it didn’t work. Any way once they hit his normal hp I started having him fall apart, like all the arcane magic that had been locked away within him from all his years of “sleep” started erupting out of him, so now once they passed up certain hp marks (I think they were 150 hp each) basically there was an explosion from him and they took AOE arcane damage, no save, and that happened every round. After the 2nd one it would have knocked the cleric and wizard out I let them make a will save (15) to see that it was raw magic pouring out of him and that let them deflect it. After the 3rd mark I let everyone make whatever their best save way to negate the energy and explained how they did it, will they bent it so it didn’t do anything, reflex they just dodged it like in bullet time, fort they more or less used their weapons to deflect it. But at this point the lich was dead 3 times over so it was more of bonus round endurance fight and they made it past all of them. So I had them feel there god’s presence with them, the cleric of Sarenray, wizard with Abbadar and so on. Once he was dead…again, he was going to go supernova I let them do a cut scene move on him all the melee characters basically launched him up into the air, and as he was going up the rouge had jumped on to him and ripped the eye out of his head, the cleric cast a null damage spell, and the wizard felt a hand on his left shoulder looked over and saw abbadar and time seemed to stop, and abbadar walked over to some of the energy pouring out of the lich and grabbed it and explained it to the wizard and I let him cast Meteor Swarm on the lich, he had a lot of fun rolling those dice. After all that the energy collapsed back on to Vor and his head fell to the ground as a crystal and the demi plane they were in faded and they were in the regular room where the fight was suppose to take place.

They all really seem to like them so I like doing that but I just feel that after the lich I’ve kind of painted my self into a corner. So that’s where I’m at, I’m not quite sure what to do for armag, or the king, the nymph will be something cool. Just waned to throw these out there and get some feed back.

Thanks, $mith

[PJ]

Mr.$mith wrote:

Hey guys whats happening as the title says I like to have the bad guys at the end of modules die a pretty epic death, I feel like it adds a bit more to the story and to what the PCs are doing if they have interesting deaths instead of hitting –their con and falling over. But I think I kind of blew the rest of my budget in the 3rd module, I’ll give you the buildup. Also once they “die” I just describe a cut scene to them.

Stag Lord- He had a ring made out of the nymphs hair on his left right finger, wedding ring since he planned to rule with her, and when he died he dropped his sword and almost fell over, he then started walked past them towards the gate of his keep, pretty much looking past them as if they weren’t even there. He then fell to his knees and dropped his head and his helm fell off. They were standing around him while he was doing this and could see that tears of blood were running down his eyes as he reached out his left had said “My lady…I have failed you, I cannot keep my word to you” and at that point the ring started to glow and then started burning in a soft green flame, he didn’t scream out in pain but yet a look of relief came over his face and he said “Forgive me” and the flame consumed his left arm and part of his chest and then where it had burned turned to stone, his eyes when white and he fell over.

Trolls!- The party had fought their way to the trolls base and murdered their way through to the last two and were really low on everything so they pulled back and healed up. I was a bit mad about that so I decided to WOW boss them up a bit. They came back and started fighting the main troll guy and everything was ran as normal, the rock troll came up behind them and attacked, nothing special there, I did double there regen, but they do a lot of damage so that was just to keep it challenging, when they pretty much CC the trolls, one with glitter dust and the other with laughter I let them notice the main troll had a necklace made out of green hair, and that it seemed familiar. ...

You're like a great director except you only direct the bad guys! Good story endings!

[BornofHate]

It would be cool to have Armag in a mass crypt where not only is the original Armag entombed, but hundreds of members his original horde are entombed as well.

As the PCs enter his chambers they see Armag through a bluish-green haze beyond a field of sarcophagi. Amongst the sarcophagi are several freshly risen undead barbarians standing in a dreamlike trance. Entering the tomb causes the barbarians to move to engage. As Armag sees the PCs enter make sure to have him scream something about the will of Ovinrrbane and how destruction is his birthright.

As Armag destroys each sarcophagus (one hit each) an undead barbarian rises to join the others. Its eyes eminating the same red vapor as Ovinrrbane.

I'm thinking about a CR 4-5 for each undead barbarian. This should pose a threat to PCs but serve more as a deterant in getting to Armag himself. Plus it will eat up some resources and be an epic battle based on size alone.

[PJ]

BornofHate wrote:

It would be cool to have Armag in a mass crypt where not only is the original Armag entombed, but hundreds of members his original horde are entombed as well.

As the PCs enter his chambers they see Armag through a bluish-green haze beyond a field of sarcophagi. Amongst the sarcophagi are several freshly risen undead barbarians standing in a dreamlike trance. Entering the tomb causes the barbarians to move to engage. As Armag sees the PCs enter make sure to have him scream something about the will of Ovinrrbane and how destruction is his birthright.

As Armag destroys each sarcophagus (one hit each) an undead barbarian rises to join the others. Its eyes eminating the same red vapor as Ovinrrbane.

I'm thinking about a CR 4-5 for each undead barbarian. This should pose a threat to PCs but serve more as a deterant in getting to Armag himself. Plus it will eat up some resources and be an epic battle based on size alone.

That is an awesome idea!