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Need creative ideas for final room of a module

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We are coming to the end of a module in an AP and I am taking creative license and trying to add a non-combat encounter with an unbeatable foe, such as a dragon.

Here is the setup - the party is looking for the princess, who was kidnapped by the evil Tian group. The princess is held captive in the final room of the dungeon. The party has made it this far, but they now must face the ?dragon? who is here guarding the princess. Almost like Shrek.

The dragon is going to be unbeatable, I am looking for the party to come up with a creative solution here. So some of my ideas are...

1. The dragon doesn't want to be here, but is held by some magic. Maybe the party could be forced to solve some puzzle or riddles or soething to figure out how to release the magic.

2. Maybe the dragon is lazy and can be influenced by some diplomatic PCs? Initially this idea doesn't seem as cool as the first one.

3. Maybe the dragon is asleep and will wake up and chace the PCs.

I need some help with some fun ideas on how to get past this last encounter...non combat!

Thanks everyone.

Does it have to be a dragon? If so, stop reading. If not, one idea might be to have a sort of construct that's on a timer. If they don't dismantle it in a certain amount of time, it unleashes a death spell that kills all of them. Consider the party before making the challenge. For example: If there's a wizard, rogue, and ranger in the party, make the construct's mechanism arcane in some manner so the wizard has to use his knowledge to discover what the mechanism is. The rogue has to find out where to turn it off, and the ranger shoots the disable mechanism, as the Tian would have to have a way to get to her. This could also open up later boss battles with the man who designed the construct, or add lore to your world involving mechanical geniuses. As an added note, if they try to take the princess before disabling the construct, it kills them.

It doesn't have to be a dragon...Nice idea JakNephilim.....trying to get the entire party envovled somehow is great. It needs a little development but I like the idea of the construct being dismantled. It add tension.

Yeah, the last part was just an example. Thanks.

Any other ideas?

If you decide to add some monster that's not meant to be defeated by combat, be sure to give your players ample warning, possibly even out of character warning. From my experience, the party Fighter really wants to solve hostile encounters via combat.

I also recommend making the monster 'very hard to beat' as opposed to 'unbeatable' if you do pursue this path. This is for the following reasons:
1) Monsters that are way over CR can easily kill one or more PCs in one turn. It's rather boring to die on turn 1 before you get to act.
2) If said Monster is way over CR and CHOOSES NOT to kill the PC in one turn for whatever reason, your players might feel incompetent because the enemy isn't even taking them seriously.

A non-combat final encounter sounds cool, but if you have dedicated combat-oriented classes, they might feel left out of the final encounter. If this is expected, then I recommend a combat encounter that has non-combat methods to reduce the difficulty.

Note that for high-level parties, sometimes it is hard to draw the line between 'very hard to beat' and 'unbeatable' monsters because of the game's tendency for Save or Die / increasing average damage.

What's the Average Party Level?

Party is at 6th level.

Combats get a little old sometimes, I like there to be variety - something interesting going on besides just rolling to hit. So I was looking for a clever idea that had some tension and problem solving elements in it for the PCs.

Are you looking for concrete ideas or general bits of advice or somewhere in between?

Once, for a final encounter, I did a chase:

The PCs assassinated an evil warlord (BBEG) in his castle to help an allying nation win a war. Right after the PC struck the killing blow, the evil warlord's minions started violent inner-conflict within the castle to decide the next warlord. At the same time, the allying good nation started their attack on the castle, and a THIRD evil clan also attacked the castle because the clan had spies to notify them of the warlord's downfall.

The result: The PCs are stuck in the middle of the BBEG's castle with literally an unending number of enemies who are all killing each other. The PCs need to escape*. To further complicate the matter, the BBEG was a dragon, and his hoard was large. Counting coins / taking items (or appraising them) took time. Time that could instead be used to run away from the mayhem.

*The castle blocked teleportation magic.

So let us take something that sounds like fun.
The party encounters a Ghost. Who has been raised to guard the princess. A ex bodyguard who was secretly in love with the princess. Now this guy is really tough and the princess liked him too. The party has to make it possible that he can safely go to the spirit world. One item is maybe locked away, so there is trap to be disabled and a lock opened. Some chains your barbarian has to sunder. And your wizard has to disable the arcane barrier and the divine start a banishing ceremony, delivered by the princess and translated by the wizard. Give it a fast track timer so that the group is really working hard. Even better take 2-3 games to the table one for deterious like a ball and maze game and one where you have a few pieces of geometric cardboard and the others have to build a figure out of it. We did it in our game and it was a blast.
Extra points if you take check first if it is possible. We fell because they darkened the wrong side and we weren´t able to do it that way.
Or a code to be broken.

You could also have something where the chamber is flooding from a trap and the PC's need to turn off the water in a certain time frame or drown. You could throw in some little enemies to give the fighter types something to do while the wizard figures out how to stop the trap.

This could be a disable devise check or a riddle they need to solve. This way everyone has something to figure out and it adds suspense in that are we going to die kind of way. And keep the enemies they fight weaker but add a few of them.
Helikon wrote:

So let us take something that sounds like fun.

The party encounters a Ghost. Who has been raised to guard the princess. A ex bodyguard who was secretly in love with the princess. Now this guy is really tough and the princess liked him too. The party has to make it possible that he can safely go to the spirit world. One item is maybe locked away, so there is trap to be disabled and a lock opened. Some chains your barbarian has to sunder. And your wizard has to disable the arcane barrier and the divine start a banishing ceremony, delivered by the princess and translated by the wizard. Give it a fast track timer so that the group is really working hard. Even better take 2-3 games to the table one for deterious like a ball and maze game and one where you have a few pieces of geometric cardboard and the others have to build a figure out of it. We did it in our game and it was a blast.
Extra points if you take check first if it is possible. We fell because they darkened the wrong side and we weren´t able to do it that way.
Or a code to be broken.

Cool idea.

I need a challenge for a:

Barbarian - STR check comes to mind for something
Wizard - a series of knowledge checks?
Monk
Bard
Ninja - some kind of chase?

I think they are going to another dimension for these challenges - ideas? I do own a chase deck.

The monk challenge could involved is (likely) high acrobatics check. The bard could work with the wizard, or perhaps serve as a distraction to a second group of enemies that the barbarian is too busy to handle, possibly working with the ninja.

The chase deck is useful, but it sometimes suffers from too many overly dramatic cards. What I mean is that cards are usually something big and noticeable, and players might end up wondering where all these traps/creatures/etc are coming from if they weren't there before. Consider combining them with 'blank' cards and some that you make yourself to better fit the flavor of the are they're in. I usually enjoy chases though, anyway.
noblejohn wrote:


I need a challenge for a:

Barbarian - STR check comes to mind for something
Wizard - a series of knowledge checks?
Monk
Bard
Ninja - some kind of chase?

I think they are going to another dimension for these challenges - ideas? I do own a chase deck.

Personally I liked the idea of the construct set on a timer before it wakes up. Don't have it cast a death spell, but instead have it begin chasing the players down. I.E. if the puzzle is failed then the players have to deal with the chase.

Barbarian: STR checks to push and spin large cogs into place that control a device that can destroy the construct in a single blow (like a giant adamantine spike suspended over its head.

Wizard/Bard: Knowledge/Linguistics checks to decipher the order the Barbarian pushes the cogs into place.

Monk/Ninja: An upper tier/level of the room is riddled with difficult terrain and mobility challenges, along with traps, but they have the levers which allow the cogs to be moved in the first place.

If the players fail the puzzle, again, it results in a chase, with the construct basically trying to smash them all as they try to move through terrain challenges and fairly minor encounters (easy encounters, which need to be finished quickly). Have the last section of the chase be on a bridge spanning a chasm, and have the construct cause the bridge to collapse as it continues after the players.

Wam bam, thank you Tian ma'am, you have an excellent non-combative conclusion and the princess is saved.
Westphalian_Musketeer wrote:
noblejohn wrote:


I need a challenge for a:

Barbarian - STR check comes to mind for something
Wizard - a series of knowledge checks?
Monk
Bard
Ninja - some kind of chase?

I think they are going to another dimension for these challenges - ideas? I do own a chase deck.

Personally I liked the idea of the construct set on a timer before it wakes up. Don't have it cast a death spell, but instead have it begin chasing the players down. I.E. if the puzzle is failed then the players have to deal with the chase.

Barbarian: STR checks to push and spin large cogs into place that control a device that can destroy the construct in a single blow (like a giant adamantine spike suspended over its head.

Wizard/Bard: Knowledge/Linguistics checks to decipher the order the Barbarian pushes the cogs into place.

Monk/Ninja: An upper tier/level of the room is riddled with difficult terrain and mobility challenges, along with traps, but they have the levers which allow the cogs to be moved in the first place.

If the players fail the puzzle, again, it results in a chase, with the construct basically trying to smash them all as they try to move through terrain challenges and fairly minor encounters (easy encounters, which need to be finished quickly). Have the last section of the chase be on a bridge spanning a chasm, and have the construct cause the bridge to collapse as it continues after the players.

Wam bam, thank you Tian ma'am, you have an excellent non-combative conclusion and the princess is saved.

I like it too - Paizo board comes through again!!!

Bruce Willis was dead all along.

How can I make this better?

Wizard has to make a series of knowledge checks to figure out which heavy ball goes in which hole.

Balls require STR 30 check to roll into proper circle. If they go in the wrong circle water starts flooding the room.

Up about 30 feet on the ceiling are six sets of 3 crystals. Checks to jump on thin beams must be made to get to them. For the Golems to stop, one of the three crystals has to be pushed. If wrong one is pushed, the room the princess is in starts caving in.
noblejohn wrote:

How can I make this better?

Wizard has to make a series of knowledge checks to figure out which heavy ball goes in which hole.

Balls require STR 30 check to roll into proper circle. If they go in the wrong circle water starts flooding the room.

Up about 30 feet on the ceiling are six sets of 3 crystals. Checks to jump on thin beams must be made to get to them. For the Golems to stop, one of the three crystals has to be pushed. If wrong one is pushed, the room the princess is in starts caving in.

I need to add a time constraint. Each time the wizard fails a knowledg check something happens.

While all this is going on, the Golems are running around attacking.

I wanted to follow up and give a report on how this session went -

The 5 6th level players entered a very large (maybe 125' by 125') square shaped room with three boulders in the middle of the room, 6 sets of 3 crystals high up (35') on the walls and 3 Clay Golems in the room (CR10). Also there was a manual in the room and 3 indentations on the floor in the corners where the boulders needed to be rolled to.

The wizard and bard got to use their knowledge checks to read the manual to figure out which boulders needed to go into which floor indentations. They also used their knowledge checks to figure out which crystals to push on the walls and learned that Hellwasp swarms would come up if the crystals were not pushed in time.

The ninja could have jumped on the rafters in the ceiling to push the crystal buttons but instead chose to try and attack the golems with ranged attacks (which was pointless really) but also distracted them a bit.

The monk and barbarian used STR DC 18 checks to roll the boulders around while trying to avoid the very slow moving Golem's (20'). I only allowed 1 attack per round for the golem's in this scenario.

I am very happy with how this turned out. The room was a bit contrived, but all of the players got to participate in some way using their individual talents. There was tension and the PCs did have to figure out what was going on. It was a satisfying encounter for all involved - and was much more interesting than a regular combat.

Thanks for all of the ideas on this one guys.

This room features puzzles, environmental challenges, force and sonic traps, culminating into a dragon fight.

Big room, floor covered with ice. 4 stone statues of dragons are the column supports for the room, each has two rods and a drum in front of it. At the center of the room is a large animated ballista made of dragon bones. It comes to life when living creatures enter the room or magic is used, and targets the closest moving thing. There is an exit on the other side of the room that only opens on x condition.

The PCs have to reflex their way across the ice while dodging force bolts from the ballista. If smart, they will use the dragon columns for cover. Any time damage is done to the ballista or a living person falls prone on the ice, or a column is shot when a PC uses it for cover ( GM tuning choices), one of the dragon arms falls and pounds the drum in front of it resulting in a sonic affect.

When/if the PCs destroy the ballista or damage/cast against the exit barrier, or a column is is destroyed (GM tuning choice) one of the dragons of stone animates (a construct) or turns into a real dragon and attacks. It may also be possible to trick the ballista into shooting the dragons by carefully moving on the ice to position the end boss between a target and the ballista.

If the ballista is not destroyed it might be cool to have its boney elements turn into a weapon or set of lich wings that augment the dragon. Also, when the dragon thing awakes, or as the sonic waves are released, maybe the room begins to collapse creating pressure to to finish quickly but dropping chunks of rock the PCs can hop across to avoid the icy floor.
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