Hello my fellow DMs, I am in the need of help for my high level campaign. I've been DMing for years now but have not tried running a big final boss fight through only roleplay and skill based rolls.
My players have been playing D and D for 35+ years but I am the most accustomed to the pathfinder rules and only playing for about 13.
We have adapted their characters from their old versions so am running a group of 6-8 characters all level 18+ with most level 20 or higher. We are going to be encountering a very powerful red dragon that I feel may be either to much for them or to easy for them. High levels are hard to determine power levels. So, I am looking for a way to run the battle where we can mostly roleplay it out to avoid the save or die scenarios and I would love to hear some suggestions.
First off I must ask, is this scenario in Pathfinder 1 or the Pathfinder 2 Playtest? You are on the PF2 Playtest forums but after reading the post I realized you might be talking PF1 here.
Assuming you are talking PF1, this is certainly an interesting challenge. Honestly if this is PF1 whatever you have in mind is probably not too much for them unless you've homebrewed the heck out of it. Players get crazy strong at high levels. But it is a tough balance and it's easy for a fight like this to bee way anticlimactic or badly lethal. So I can see wanting to avoid that. So maybe something like this:
Give your players some kind of arcane ritual or magic item that can bring down this dragon but needs some preparation and/or spellweaving to activate. Have the players work out their roles in a plan to use it, maybe some of them rush in, rolling attacks to distract and weaken the dragon or use spells to harm it, while others try to ready the magical coup de grace, rolling acrobatics checks to get into position while the battle rages and/or spellcraft rolls to activate and control the magic. You could work out ways to work whatever roles players want in the fight, like maybe someone wants to protect the main caster from stray breath attacks for example.
But in general the idea being attack or skill rolls suited to each player's chosen role in the plan, with successes contributing to the finish and failures having some improvised non-fatal penalties or damage. Once they've roleplayed enough distraction, weakening, maneuvering, magic charging, etc. to where it feels like a satisfying struggle, then have the ritual/magic item go off and finish the dragn once and for all.
Just an idea on how it could maybe be done. Hope this helps!
Thanks for the rally! And yes PF1 thanks for the catch, 1st post on here.
As for the battle we're doing, I am currently having them collect 5 orbs of dragon kind. In a homebrewed fashion altering it a bit and will end up being a ritual of sorts that will help them.
So my players are tied to the old faerun world but we have managed to mix both dungeons and dragon and pathfinder together to create a single world. They will be battling Kaulth, a great wyrm red,on the sword coast and is much stronger than a standard red. I found pathfinder rules for him and he's terrifying.
I came up with an idea of having weaken points on him to help the group wear him down to the point where they can fight him. A dragon could just fly and cast spells for an entire fight if possible so this is a way to help with that. Then they would have to track him down before he could heal up to full strength again. I'm going to try and make some tables that they pretty much are going to roll against. I liked ideas you placed regarding the skills and will have to put them to the test.
If you can think of anything else with the new info would help alot!!
In my experience, dragons are ALWAYS disappointing. For everybody. If the dragon's CR is even close to the PCs' APL then the PCs will slaughter it so fast that even they won't enjoy the fight. Common player comments have been "Really? That's it? I thought dragons were supposed to be scary."
Big let down.
Why?
Action economy. Even with all their multiple attacks, they still only get one turn per round while the players get one turn for each PC. And, comparable level fighters get multiple attacks too, so that's not even a real advantage for the dragon. Breath weapon is fun if you can surprise the party, but really, with saves being what they are, most of the time the group takes about the same amount of damage that a competent healer can fix with on AoE heal - but the dragon can't even do that every round unless he's really lucky with his d4 rolls.
Flying and casting spells? So what? Your players' characters can do that too. They're all level 18 or higher, right? They can blast that dragon with level 9 spells and their melee characters will have Fly and Haste and a dozen other buffs and can possibly solo that dragon without any of them ever touching the ground - except the dragon's corpse when it dies and plummets to the ground.
Not to mention, "Joor Zah Frul!"...
Fear not. There's hope!
Every FUN dragon fight I've had (fun for me AND fun for the players) involved one or more of the following:
1. Use a dragon with way higher CR than the PCs' APL. How much higher takes some practice at evaluating your ability to run vicious dragons and your players' ability to work efficiently as a team, as well as considering preparation time (do your PCs already have elemental protection, Haste, etc., cast before the battle?).
2. Give the dragon had allies. Not just simple mooks who die to the PCs' first AOE spell. I mean real allies who create real problems for the PCs. In the latter case, the dragon is just one of several enemies - maybe the most powerful, but the rest are threats too.
3. Terrain advantage. For example, a black dragon in a swamp where it can stay hidden underwater while the PCs have a terrible time moving in the muck. Even better if there is an underwater cave system with several entrances that the dragon can use move around the group undetected. Even better-er if the dragon's lair is down there and it can get some healing magic in between surprising the group from some new direction. Etc.
4. Magic items. No need for that dragon to have all its treasure lying around on the ground like Smaug. Maybe its hoard includes rings of protection, maybe it was smart enough to barter for an item that protections it to whatever element it is vulnerable to (e.g. a red dragon being protected from cold), maybe it got an item of Magic Fang or an Amulet of Natural Armor (j/k, doesn't stack), or a belt or headband of increased ability scores, etc. Maybe it can use a staff of fire (funny if it's not a fire-breathing dragon so the PCs didn't pre-buff against fire), etc. The staff is funny but not really useful because it uses up the dragon's precious few actions to wield it - better to give the dragon passive items and let it use its own formidable abilities win the battle. Give that staff to a non-mook minion instead.
Try some of this stuff and your dragon fights will be more memorable.
As for knowing how much is too much, that's just experience. Though you could try some mock battles before the real game session in which you "run" the PCs vs. your dragon to see how well YOU can do. Then tune the fight to the proper power scale and hope your players can do at least that well.
Finally, as for roleplaying options, all you need to do is make the dragon even more powerful (use many of the above options) then let the players find ways (go on a quest before the encounter?) to neutralize the dragon's terrain, ally, and magical items.