Yeah single enemies don't last long in my experience, this pretty much goes for anything that gets full attacked. As such I try to use at least two enemies per encounter, one is simply not enough. Give him the ability to summon some helpers and throw some buffs up beforehand. If hes in melee, make him highly mobile, I cannot stress enough that to get full attacked by the party is normally enough to put a class leveled enemy into the ground.
What kind of character is the evil guy?
So, the bane of the single BBEG fight is the action economy. If your BBEG is fighting against a party of four adventurers, they get four times as many whacks than the BBEG does. To counter that, single targets tend to do massive damage, or use spells which incapacitate PCs for most or all of the fight. That, in itself, makes for a "swingy" fight. If the BBEG gets a bit lucky and takes down two PCs, then the rout is on and a TPK is possible.
I can't remember the last time I did an actual solo BBEG boss fight. I tend to have bosses that are a challenge when they have some accomplices and that keeps the action economy more balanced. Plus, in my mind, it's more realistic unless the campaign is a quest to take down the Tarrasque or a red dragon or something.
If you are locked into the solo BBEG then your best bet to make the fight challenging without risking a TPK would be to have a means to distract or disable PCs for a short time so that they aren't sitting out the whole fight (bored) or the party can't manage without them (TPK). Temporary effects like daze could be helpful.
And do everything you can to avoid allowing full round attacks. Move around, use magical shielding from ranged attacks, utilize terrain, etc.
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A few levels higher than the group. He should know weaknesses of the party and be planned ahead, in any of the 1v1 situations he would destroy them (it would be a massacre not a fight). He has a plan for taking out each character, however by working together the party can overcome him.
This is incredibly dangerous and may end up in 1-2 character deaths, but you said you wanted a badass.
This is why i use rules (Similar to 4E) that create Teirs of enemies which gives more actions to those of higher teirs balancing AE somewhat.
It can be done, but it involves a lot of variables. You have to know your player's characters well. Sometimes last minute tweaking is in order.
The level of the characters is a factor, and should determine what class you use, and how you use them. Lower level characters can fight a melee type, but at higher levels it is better to have a caster or at least a hybrid character.
2+APL is for the miniboss
The end game boss is suggested to be 3+APL
At higher levels though a party can take on 4+APL or higher.
I would not allows a clear path to the BBEG if you use a caster. If you do the fight will be short.
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Don't make the fight about his hit points. Enemy hit points won't work for this dynamic because of "action economy" as you mentioned.
What can you do instead?
(a) The 'ole "chip away" theme. He has some sort of special armor or enchantment that must be broken through with a sufficient number of hits. Don't bother picking a number in advance. Keep describing how well the party is doing. The cracks in his mystic armor get wider. The fractures in his force wall glow more brightly. He slowly gets angrier and increasingly often betrays hints of worry. When the sense of drama shows the time is right, the heroes finally break through this layer of plot-device-barrier and can fight him normally.
(b) The 'ole "lots of him" theme. His lair has eerie portals that each spawn a copy of him. Let the first copy be his first-level self, and increase his level with each copy. Design the map flexibly so there is no fixed number of portals. When the party is running low on resources and starting to worry then they find the McGuffin that disables those portals and allows them to fight the real guy, who is of course one last level greater in power.
(c) The 'ole "untraditional combat goal" theme. He can only be hurt by a weapon made from putting together the X Pieces of Mystic Mashing -- and he carries the final piece on his helmet, or he made it the pommel of his sword, or uses it as his codpiece. The heroes have to disarm/steal it and then spend a few rounds attaching it to their otherwise complete Mystic Masher -- while he is busy chasing or attacking them. Then he can be fought normally. This theme works well with a prior hint that some Deus Ex Machina (a fountain or gem in his lair, divine patron of their mission, etc.) is willing to give the party a one-time resurrection after this fight only, since a PC is likely to be killed.
In other words, you cannot plan this fight well by the rules. Careful planning is too much work, and does not suffice. Use a gimmick, not careful NPC stat building, to make this a memorable encounter. Fudge with the gimmick, not the NPC stat building, and the climactic defeat will seem "fair" and "earned" by the players.
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What is your party makeup?
What type of character does your BBEG need to be? (Caster, melee etc)
One thing you could do is set up traps with poisons / mind effects / ability drain / Haunts or phantoms so that they're either weaker or used party resources before getting to him.
Oh and if they travel in fireball formation, Necklace of Fireballs all day every day. Like Mikaze said, environment can be key. Environment plus Necklace of Fireballs is TPK.
Potions of invisibility, the Diehard feat, using the cover rules, forcing them to attack him in a narrow corridor so they can only get to him one at a time in melee, using Withdraw and GM plot devices like the BBEG setting off trapdoors that fall behind him as he withdraws to drink potions, slowing down the party.
All that fun stuff can make a fight hell difficult if the party isn't properly prepared, and some of it even if they are.
Of course, Mirror Image and other abilities can be handy if you give him UMD or something. Roll behind a screen and FUDGE EVERYTHING \o/ *cough* Sorry, I meant, be a fair and just GM and let them smash your poor single BBEG >_>
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Undead dragon mount.
Summoned monsters or undead work well to serve as barrier. Having him buffed with mirror image and displacement should result in a lot of missed attacks. Expeditious retreat will make him very fast also.
If things are looking bleak for the party, just get him started monologing about how badass he is and weak the party is until the party can regroup.
I do that sometimes, have a villain mock the party. Sometimes I do it when the bad guy is clearly losing also. :)
So, you have a Big Bad Evil Magic User who's going to be fighting an entire group by himself, and the basic problem is that he's outnumbered and they get to do a lot more than he does.
Right?
The answer is easy: make the PCs fight for you. Dominate Person, Suggestion, and Murderous Command are your friend. As a caster, your BBEG would know that the ones who carry big swords and wear clunky armor generally have poor will saves and deal tons of damage. So making one of them a sock puppet simultaneously prevents all that damage from hitting your BBEG, and instead gives it to his enemies.
BWA HA HA HA!!! *lightning crash*
This. The scariest fights I've ever seen are when a minmaxed player gets mind controlled and sent after his minmaxed party. Someone usually gets hurt really badly. Plus, the characters all know how hard the party two-handed weapon Barb hits....just the thought of being on the receiving end of that tends to get people really tense at the table.
I love the confusion spell....as it's not automatic that people who fail will kill their party members....but each time their initiative comes up, the people closest to them start wringing their hands...
Edit: Also, a well placed magical suggestion trap or two can be AWESOME. If the group doesn't find it ahead of time...if you're clever with the suggestion and have good role players at the table, it can be hilarious when the PCs finally get to the BBEG. I recommend taking a player who fails the suggestion trap aside and only telling them what their character now believes. This leads to awesomely genuine reactions around the table.
Graveknight Antipaladin. 2 class levels ahead, full PC gear for an APL+4. Since you're the DM, you can make the judgement call that allows him to use his Touch of Corruption on himself as a swift action. Give him a conductive weapon to be able to use his Cruelties (preferably something that limits your melee guys action economy). Make his Fiendish boon a Monster so you can have an extra dude in melee. Mook up the battlefield with some unintelligent undead (5:1 hit die ratio). Not to mention he's got some other cool abilities like an instant mount, AOE energy blast, and interference with healing. If a TPK is on your hands you can have him leave to let his mooks finish the job, leting the party live to come back another day. Or he could be so drunk with power that he makes bad tactical decisions.
So I turn to the Paizo boards for assistance on this. One humanoid, class level lugging villain agaisnt a full party, is it doable?
I was doing the 'Big Bad' villain thing for a couple of years as a legacy from my pre-pathfinder days. I was even nerfing classes to make the fight a bit more doable, but in the end pathfinder classes are much more powerful than in 3.5, and the single villain doesn't work unless you do lots of planning.
The one time recently that I had a good challenge was when the 16th level party went in search of an ancient red dragon's lair; it had been harassing them for a few sessions, and they were absolutely set upon killing it.
In it's lair, it had access to diamonds (for limited wish) and scrolls etc so it was a lot tougher, and using the environment of its lair (lava pools and rivers, mazes etc) the dragon actually killed all but one person, who ran away and never came back (party wipe due to hubris!)
So yes, it can be done, and as someone said above, the environment must be its ally. Generally I don't do solo villains anymore though, I do an A-team of bad guys :D
This is why i use rules (Similar to 4E) that create Teirs of enemies which gives more actions to those of higher teirs balancing AE somewhat.
This is a solution I've had a lot of success with. Just have the BBEG act on his own initiative and also again on his initiative - 10. The other suggestions in this thread are good too, but there's a point where you don't want -every- major boss encounter to be a dude on a dragon. The other thing to steal from 4e (AKA "the edition that actually designed monsters as things for players to have interesting fights with as though D&D was a game or something") is some increased resistance to effects that take a creature out of combat entirely. It's a narrow line to cross, because you don't want spellcasters to feel like they're just totally useless in the fight, but a special ability that reduces the duration of most disabling effects to a round is a good place to start. (They're still insanely powerful, because robbing the guy of a round is like giving everyone on the good guy team an extra full turn.) Obviously these suggestions aren't helpful to anyone who has that weird allergy to DM-only material (since you obviously don't want to make those things player options), but they're good starts for making solo encounters something that actually functions in the system instead of, you know, not.
This is rarely a good idea. You should be prepared for disappointment as the action economy is a big part of the game. But if you want to make a go of it, the things you should consider are as (in my opinion) as follows:
1. Classes that gain an edge in action economy. This biggest here are summoners and druids. There is nothing like big bad pet to cover your arse in terms of the action economy. Wizards and clerics can also, with enough warning summon monsters to cover them. A conjurer with the teleportation subschool that has had time to prepare is an excellent choice as well.
2. Be prepared. Seriously, dont have him just sitting in a room waiting for them, have him prepared. Have favorable terrain. Think about the kinds of things the party likes to do, and make them harder to do, while not also hindering the big bad. Have a cavalier that likes to charge? Have only 5ft gaps between big columns that the horse has to squeeze through. Does the party caster love charm spells? Consider things like protection from good (or law or what have you as the case may be with your party). Make sure the big bad knows when and how the party is coming to him, and has several rounds to prepare (possibly even has traps and things set up).
3. Speaking of traps, traps as part of encounters are a great thing. It was laid out in dungeonscape in 3.5 pretty well, but if for instance you can give your big bad fire resistance, having several jets spouting flames into the room that would need to be dealt with or something similar will go a long way to helping split the party's attention. Even the old 'damsel hanging off a cliff' trick is great for giving the big bad a few extra rounds of not just getting pummeled by the whole party. Maybe put a few pit traps in the room that the big bad knows of but obviously the party doesn't and have him try to coax the pcs into them.
There is good advice about mounts and minions and the like upthread.
Consider this: it is real life, and you walk past an alley to see four angry looking but somewhat un-athletic looking gentlemen. On of them is brandishing a knife. He calls out to you "hey, come here a minute." You're a trained knife-fighter in this scenario, and you're reasonably confident that you can disarm the fellow. What do you do? Nothing. Because nobody every willingly enters a 4-on-1 fight. Even if those mooks are really pathetic, you stand a good chance of losing by numbers.
Pathfinder routinely undermines this basic real-world logic for the sake of coolness. That's fine, but remember, BBEGs are supposed to be smart. (if not high int, they've at least survived somehow to control the group, right?)
Consider again, when exactly do you see the villain in high adventure films stick around when more than one competent protaganist shows up? Those are not good odds. Most competent villains will split, even if it means the protaganists foiling their plot, only to re-emerge later when they are able to isolate one hero. This doesn't make for the best RPG setup, but keep it in mind.
The long and the short of this is, you always need some kind of equalizer. Sometimes, just jacking up the CR gives you the necessary tools, sometimes it does not.
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If you apply class levels of magus to: Hekatonkheires
Then you have an "NPC," and he is the only monster short of a hydra that doesn't get hurt by the action economy. It would be a CR 25+ but you know, awesome....
One of, in my opinion, the most deadly creatures in the game is the Dark Stalker. The Dark Stalker can See in All Darkness, can cast Darkness and Deeper Darkness at will, is a natural Rogue with a 3d6 sneak attack, and very stealthy. I keep a leveled Dark Stalker on my Hero Labs for when PCs get cocky. The one I currently have prepared is a Dark Mantis (Dark Stalker/Red Mantis Assassin) with some slightly different abilities (like Sawtooth Shortswords instead of Sawtooth Sabers).
This guy really effects the normal Action Economy as he can alter the environment to his choosing.
Round 1 Deeper Darkness
Round 2 Move + Sneak Attack
Round 3 ???
Round 4 PROFIT!
Make it a Dark Encounter with Creepers and Slayers running around with the Stalker being the BBEG. Dark Slayers function well as either Sorcerers or Oracles with their Charisma bonus, and the Creepers are lower level mooks that use Darkness at will and See in All Darkness.
I had a really nasty NPC Master Summoner that I created as a recurring villian for a campaign we were running, he was incredibly arrogant, egocentric and took to wearing a mask.
In the last encounter with him, he was 10th level, party was around 8th,he had kidnapped the paladins girlfriend and challenged them to a showdown in one of the city's squares. He had paid a few gnome commoners to act as lookouts and send a signal when the party got close (dancing lights - thankyou OOTS) so he had several rounds to buff-up and summon like crazy. He hated the paladin with a passion, so just to give him the finger, he summoned up Lantern and Hound Archons into the fight. One of the buffs he had cast was invisibility, and he avoided directly harming the party so as to not negate the spell. Eventually the party wizard, who had see invisibility running, cast a summon of his own, a Salamander who grappled him and snapped his neck. The party was suprised when the remaining Summons did not immediately disappear. After they had been dealt with, the party, eager to loot their Nemesis, peeled of the mask and found...the paladins girlfriend! (Dunh, dunh, duh!)
BBEG had cast Magic Jar and possessed her long before the fight. When the Salamander killed her he returned to his own body to watch them make the horrifying discovery.
The last thing the party ever heard from him was his maniacal laugh and "This was my revenge, I never needed to kill you!" before he dimension door'd away, never to be seen again.
Evil story aside, if you need a viable solo NPC to threaten a whole party, then Master Summoners are just downright nasty.
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{Bows to Mighty WraithStrike}
Depending on how much you want to use / house rule stuff it can be done.
EX: In 3.5 their is a set of Evil Plate mail that has 5 30ft. chains coming off of it with manacles. The "Evil" blackguard (Antipaly) would have slaves or creatures attached to him under a domination effect(part of the armor). Each time he was hit one of the "slaves" would take the damage until he was dead. What made it even more Awesome was when they died the chain would detach and he could attempt to grapple a PC into it... muahh ahhh.
You could use something similiar with your BBEG Caster. Maybe magical Ethereal chains (invisible and incorporeal) to creatures slaved to him on the Ethereal plane. He would have Any amount of extra hit points you would need (based on what the hit points of those creatures were) to stay in battle and weaken the group. If PC start to question it... have it detectable by arcane sight (or something similiar) and maybe a special item they found that can sunder the special chains... (given beforehand as a foreshadowing).
Just an idea. I used a Amulet once (same idea) that held blood stones of creatures (who failed a will S.T. to be bound to the magic). Each time the BBEG was hit one of the individuals would take the damage. If he died the Blood stone would crack and go dark. It was around the neck of the BBEG. The Brusier of the PC's ended up disarming him of it after about 300 hit points of damage didn't kill the BBEG (he had Frost Gaints blood stones).
As a couple other people have said, it is paramount to keep warrior types from getting full attacks on your BBEG, especially paladins. Once the battle is joined in full, expect it to be over in about 2 rounds unless your guy can keep them at arms length. They will hit, and the damage will be extreme. Especially paladins.
To illustrate: the group I play in recently finished a long campaign with a fight against a longtime recurring BBEG. We were 4 level 13 characters. The bad guy was a CR 17 or 18 half-fiend vampire cleric. We spend a few turns dealing with his mooks (we fought him with him maximum allowable HD of vampire spawn a created undead, plus 3 summoned shadow demons in an area that was affected by unhallow and desecrate) after which the paladin closed on to melee. The both declared smite, and traded full attacks after which they both were at ~10% HP and obliged to retreat. A 13th level paladin dropped a CR 17 boss to 10% in one full attack. If you want your BBEG to give your PCs a run for their money solo, he will have to be incredibly nasty. So nasty, in fact, that you should prepare your players for the very real possibility that some or all of their characters could die due to tactical mistakes or simple bad luck. Knowing that going in will have the upside of making it a nail-biter from the time initiative is rolled, but you should give very serious thought to providing your PCs with some scrolls of breath of life, or something similar.
Also, give your BBEG max HP. You know you want to.
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Suggestions to give the BBEG extra turns are good and effective.
Spells or terrain that mess with PC action economy: (Bad guy is immune to fire, but spouts around the room blast the area with fireballs, they can be disabled by the rogue, but that means the rogue's not dealing damage to the BBEG, or a Druid in an area of heavy undergrowth etc)
Minions - Most BBEGs keep around some minions to protect them from pesky adventurers, and it means that PCs can't just all flank the bad guy and wail on him until death.
Mind-Control - Turn the fighter on the PCs. Please use this sparingly occasionally the players get a kick out of it, but usually it's a recipe for jerkdom.
Silencio - If a BBEG is a non-spell caster giving it a one-shot magic item that creates an area of silence messes with PCs who rely on the magics to do their thing. Again use this sparingly.
Hostages - PCs could attack the BBEG OR they could rescue the princess from the unnecessarily slow acid pit dipping device.
Underwater Combat - Aquatic BBEGs underwater tend to do quite well against a party of PCs as it messes with their attacks and damage, the ability for the PCs to cast spells and action economy if they lack swim speeds.
Summoned/Gated/Undead - This is similar to minions above, but you've pre-cast some of the BBEG's spells (or just used some scrolls) so that the BBEG has back up.
Retreat and Healing - As soon as the BBEG is brought to less than half health he MUST use his next action to escape. Dimension Door, teleport or even just casting darkness and escaping through his secret door. Then he should have a reliable method of healing wherever he disappeared to. That way he can either pop back in and keep fighting for round two, or the PCs can traipse through more death traps and minions before facing him again for the last time.
Finally MAX HEALTH - Giving you BBEG max health doesn't break his CR, and means the fight can last a little longer if the PCs are having fun using their abilities.
Try really hard not to rob the PCs of their actions when toughening up an NPC, as when that happens you're basically telling the player: "Skip a turn, you don't get to play for the next 10 minutes while everyone else gets to enjoy using their abilities".
Actually, Dark Stalkers haven't got much to fear from martial classes, especially Paladins. They are Chaotic Neutral so Smite has no effect. The only thing Dark Stalkers really have to worry about is a caster with True Seeing. Or an anti-magic zone preventing him from using his Darkness abilities.
You're the GM, tell the story. Fudge the rolls if needed. Give him a unique one time use magic item if you need to (if you want to account for everything you need him to do). make sure he is completely prepared for the PCs and buffed. No need to let rules get in the way of a good time.
Mind Fog+Permanency+Magic Jar
Oh, yeah, in a labyrinthine maze. That has shifting walls.
Seriously, lay a mind fog over a large area, inside which you have *multiple* magic jar foci.
Then spend your time body-hopping between the PCs (and their cohorts, if any). Speaking of cohorts, your BBEG *needs* Leadership, and a suitable cohort (fighter7/rogue10 is great for a top-level necromancer) with hefty UMD ratings so he can be the one to pop off the song of discord scroll, causing the party to (possibly) start killing each other, giving the BBEG time to cast waves of exhaustion and dimension door his (current) PC body into a pit of acid...
Hope it helps.
bandid/ninja + double barreled merciful pistol(s) and a keen katana. Together with sap master
surprise round: shoot one unconscious with pistol with underhanded talent. Aim for tank or high init. target.
1. round, hope you go first, and shoot second one unconscious, as they are flat footed. Aim for mage.
next rounds, use shatter defense, when you crit with katana they are flat footed and knock them unconscious with improved unarmed strike.
Perhaps it will be upsetting that he is such a glass connon, but here it's mainly about equalizing action economy, and that through taking the ennemy out of the fight.
Other idea is: Master summoner: ambush them and summon the living hell out of it.
One thing I've found that works is having a BBEG with reach, Combat Reflexes and attack options that alter movement. In 3.5, for example, there was a feat, Knockback, that gave large+ creatures a free bull rush against anyone they hit with an attack for which they used Power Attack. Melee PCs have to close the distance to the enemy, risking AoOs, and when he connects on his attack, he knocks them back out of their melee range. In PF, you could replace Knockback with Trip or maybe Standstill.
Adding terrain the players have to worry about (I had the above fight set on the top of a sort of high dais, so anyone knocked back very far was looking at a 40 ft. drop...which takes someone out of the fight for a while due to their having to run back up the stairs, or being subject to Featherfall for a few rounds).
One thing I liked about 4th Edition was how it handled the inherent problems with pitting single enemies against a group of PCs, by giving boss-type monsters extra actions and HP. That's something I've always wanted in PF in order to make those 1v4 fights work.
One thing I've found that works is having a BBEG with reach, Combat Reflexes and attack options that alter movement. In 3.5, for example, there was a feat, Knockback, that gave large+ creatures a free bull rush against anyone they hit with an attack for which they used Power Attack. Melee PCs have to close the distance to the enemy, risking AoOs, and when he connects on his attack, he knocks them back out of their melee range. In PF, you could replace Knockback with Trip or maybe Standstill.
Or they could simply replace Knockback with Awesome Blow
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Extra HP is never a bad move. I can't really add much after all the good suggestions, but you can take some ideas from other games too.
How about the infamous Magus fight from Chrono Trigger? One big badass, he cast different magic spells as shields - they did a bit of damage to everyone around him then set him to absorb every elemental spell cast at him (in hp) that did not match the element of the shield used (Fire, Electricity, etc. - 2d6 each but to everyone within 30 feet., gives him weakness to the element the shield covered but absorbs other elements as HP. Non elemental magic could encounter his DR, see below) - he also had an incredibly high defense that could only be lowered by the Character who held the MacGuffin sword (Frog with the Masamune in this case - you could say his armor class was very hi, or give him DR 10/Masamune that drops by 1 every time he is hit by it) - he also would cast Geyser, which hit everybody and started to drain their HP (-1d4 hp per round?) and when he was weak he would cast Magic Shield ('Magus risks casting a spell...'), and then Dark Matter which would hit for a LOT - basically, the BBEGs big nasty attack.
This isn't a console RPG, but the premise is the same. A lot of games use tricks, a bumped HP range and good use of weaknesses and strengths to give challenges, not just tabletop.
One thing I've found that works is having a BBEG with reach, Combat Reflexes and attack options that alter movement. In 3.5, for example, there was a feat, Knockback, that gave large+ creatures a free bull rush against anyone they hit with an attack for which they used Power Attack. Melee PCs have to close the distance to the enemy, risking AoOs, and when he connects on his attack, he knocks them back out of their melee range. In PF, you could replace Knockback with Trip or maybe Standstill.Or they could simply replace Knockback with Awesome Blow
Awesome Blow would be a decent inclusion, but Knockback was applied to ANY attack you made, meaning that your attacks of opportunity could knock people away from you. With reach that becomes a sort of shield against melee attackers.
Also, giving your BBEG the ability to deal with multiple characters per round is helpful. For a melee type, the War Hulk PrC from the Miniatures Handbook of 3.5 helped there as it eventually leveled the attacker's swings to hitting multiple spaces at a time. If you're a big brutish type, hitting 2 or 3 characters a round becomes a pretty big deal, especially when you get deep into the PrC and get to make sweeping attacks as attack actions.
I've currently got a BBEG lined up that can cast 2 spells around for 6 rounds. When the PCs encounter her, they have to cross a narrow bridge to get to her, at which point she'll be flying. She'll have cast Solid Fog over the PC area and bridge, Wind Wall in front of her, and Wall of Fire on the bridge. She's flying and has Stone Skin, Resist Energy Fire, Shield and Protection from Good.
She's going to open up with spells like Black Tentacles, Confusion, and Slow. But she'll always combine a control or debuff, with a blasting spell. For instance, in one round she'll cast an Empowered Chain Lighting (Metamagic Mastery) and use Quickened Confusion. Another option is Black Tentacles and Quickened Fireball, or Quickened Slow and Empowered Fireball.
If anyone asks, she's a Universalist Wizard. I chose Universalist because then she can apply metamagic feats to prepared spells ala Metamagic Mastery. Also, it's an experiment on where I can take my own wizard in Kingmaker.
He might not have any minions around, but what about constructs? heheh
Flood the room, then give the BBEG spider climb or fly. Death from above!
How about an improved version of mirror image, where he splits into 4 - 5 identical copies (twi per each PC?), all of which can attack separately? Each one only has 1 hit point and shatters like broken glass when hit.
Or, if you aren't concerned with going "by the books" (which you shouldn't be, since you're the DM), come up with a "combat teleport" kind of power only he has!
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Here is my take.
You have to concentrate on 3 things:
- action economy
- staying power
- puny damage
Action economy:
You want your BBEG to do a lot of stuff: if you really plan a solo fight (I usually advocate the use of minions, but if you are set on a single enemy so be it) you want you BBEG to do a lot of things. Classes that allow you to do a lot of attacks, use a lot of abilities every rounds should be favored.
Staying power:
You want your BBEG to stay up for a lot of rounds. This means that you should have a fair amount of hp, solid saves (best if you also have rerolls), good AC and defenses.
Puny damage:
I don't really mean "puny". But if you try to follow the above suggestions, you could simply add up levels until you simply have a TPK instead of an epic fight. You should aim at making a BBEG who can reasonably hurt your party but that's disproportionately strong in the defense department.
All in all there are a few choices that I like.
Magus: the king of action economy, can have very good defenses (mirror image, shield), has good saves, can buff himself if needed.
Anti-paladin damphir: very good saves and AC, damphir is for swift healing like a normal paladin, but you can work around it in other ways if you need to. Sword and board can help with defenses and you can still deal high (but not too high) damage with smiting.
Casters: I like charisma based spontaneous casters (see dips) since they make memorable opponents (who remembers the quiet wizard?). Concentrating on blasting with a few debuffs is good, you can buff you before hand (mage armor, empowered greater false life) and with quickened spells during the fight (some do wonders, like mirror image or even shield). You should avoid save or die spells unless you want more spice in the fight and concentrate on targeting the highest number of opponents every round.
Another good option is dips:
You can decide the level of threat by concentrating in a single class (like the above mentioned magus or paladin) and then expand your option and increase your staying power by dipping into things that hardly increase your offense but are good for defense or for different options.
Monk dips: one of the best imo. Not a big increase on offence but very good defenses. 2 level will increase your bab only by one, but will help you with: saves (+3 to all saves is a lot), evasion, 2 bonus feats (crane style and deflect arrow if needed for more staying power), unarmed attacks in case you get grappled/disarmed. 4 levels may be a bit too much offensive-wise but give you very good increase in defenses.
paladin/antipaladin dips: in case you decided to go with a charisma based caster, no one will notice your 2 antipaladins level when you cast your spells, but those 2 levels will let you stay around for more rounds thanks to your incredibly good saves and a few more hps.
caster dips: even a single level of wizard or sorcerer will greatly improve your BBEG staying power thanks to a couple of good level 1 spells (+4 ac thanks to shield really makes a difference) and to a +2 to will saves. It will also let you use scrolls and wands more easily, which is good for versatility.
Ok, I think that you can see what I'm saying. The idea is to simply decide the level of threat your BBEG should pose to your PC, trying to not be overshadowed too much in the action economy department, and than add dips that let the level of offense mostly unchanged but that let you keep going for more rounds.
Why not just give him more turns to make up for the action economy? Roll his init twice or something.
I remember one BBEG Drow that had a mutated twin growing out of her side. The twin was an arcane caster of equal level, while the Drow herself was a high priestess. We were positively FLABBERGASTED when the Drow would cast Fireball and Flame Strike in the same round.
Milking the environment for all it's worth can be a big help here.
Do you have clock towers in your setting?
No doubt on this suggestion. ;)