Party of 5 level 20's? You want it to be a CR 26 encounter?
Take Choral the Conqueror from the end of the Kingmaker AP... a CR 25 Advanced Great Wyrm Red Dragon... and surround him with 32 Iron Golem Archers.
CR is a guess at best by that level. They might be able to handle multiple CR 26 monsters, or one with a few mooks might smear them. There's a wide range in people's abilities at min-maxing and no average case to default to.
There are dozens of ways of easily ending the battle that the PCs might have and I have no idea which you have overlooked. The size of the arena and a plan to use it all suggests that they won't be able to get away with the 'fly above the enemy and shoot' plan, but like I said, dozens.
Not enough data given to help you sorry.
Who? I seem to remember a fae was involved... sort of a half-goddess with horrible spacial-sense. Nothing as straight forward as a dragon.Party of 5 level 20's? You want it to be a CR 26 encounter?
Take Choral the Conqueror from the end of the Kingmaker AP... a CR 25 Advanced Great Wyrm Red Dragon... and surround him with 32 Iron Golem Archers.
Choral the Conqueror is in the back of the AP. After you deal with the bat-$#!+ crazy Fey, you can continue playing and this big dumb dragon shows up claiming to be Choral the Conqueror returning to unite his old kingdom, or some such nonsense. You either take a knee and kiss the ring, or you stand your ground and hang his head above your throne.
Casters who are good are more than capable of soloing CR 30 bosses like Cthulu and various Demon Lords. I highly suggest going for quantity over quality here.
Casters who are good are more than capable of soloing CR 30 bosses like Cthulu and various Demon Lords. I highly suggest going for quantity over quality here.
This is terrifying. How is the game even fun at that point?
Wizard: "Hmm, Cthulu... I cast WIN THE GAME AGAIN, again."
Boring.
I built a Panache using martial that went from level 9 to 12 without taking any damage, and I retired him because he was boring.
I absolutely cannot imagine why you would dedicate so much of your time to something handed to you served on a silver platter so ridiculously easily... like don't you have anything better to do? Barely lifts a finger, breaks reality somehow more than the God of insanity.
For everyone else, it's a struggle and takes work, it is a rewarding experience to overcome such great odds and survive to see the sun rise after beating Cthulu.
Just put them to fight versus the 7 sin runelords at the same time let see if they have what it's needed to win
Rather than 1 CR26 monster, I would use multiple lower CR monsters, simply for the action economy.
Rather than 1 CR26 monster, I would use multiple lower CR monsters, simply for the action economy.
Yes. A CR25 Advanced Great Wyrm Red Dragon and 32 Iron Golem Archers. Lol.
I was thinking more like 2-6 monsters that are CR 20-24 that add up to a CR 26 encounter.
Like, a CR 26 monster is 2457600 exp, but if you break up the encounter into 3 monsters, x1 CR22, x1 CR23, and x1 CR24 monster, it ends up being 2662400 exp, which overall is a CR26 encounter. Or you could go x1 CR24, x1 CR23, x1 CR20, and x3 CR18, that is 2816000 exp, but still considered a CR 26 encounter. If you only want 2 monsters, then x2 CR24 monsters is exactly 2457600 exp, which is a CR26 encounter as well.
Anywho, you can make up w/e encounter you want here: PF CR Calculator
And if you have Combat Manager, you can take basic monsters and buff them up to whatever CR you need for the encounter. Easy peezy.
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You really need to limit what they can use, as there is a large number of "I Win" scenarios PC's can use in a build:
I ran many years of PvP games at GenCon, and every year the majority of the players came with the same build I banned the key feature.
- Gate - 8 of 12 players brought a Solar to their level 12 PvP
- Leadership feat doubles your effective power.
- Anti-Magic fields - everyone will be a barbarian UMDing a scroll of antimagic field.
- Crafting double or triple buying capacity.
- Xanthuun Tablets - infinity concentration.
- Quickening Diamond material components - 8,000 gp all casters will always quicken their spells.
- Goz mask + ever smoking bottle = constant fort saves to all non-party members.
- Metamagic Rod of Maximize + Storm bolts + Quicken Material components + 1 level Sorcerer = take 40d8+40 Fort Save for half.
You could make all the monsters start invisible. Having a party of players all slap their heads because they can't see invisible creatures in priceless.
I mean, maybe they will all have some good buffs and magic items to help them see invisibility, but I bet at least one of them will be out of luck in the first round. It doesn't even have to be improved invisibility, just a one-shot for you to giggle at. You need to have fun here, too!
Battlefield control can be key--monsters that can move in different ways can make for a tense fight. Burrowers, incorporeals, even a monster protected by some water hazards or high winds (makes ranged attacks a little tougher without some abilities).
This is almost a weird bending of the rules, but polymorph any object can set your creatures to have different types than the players expect (anyone feel free to correct me if I am way off). For example, a golem polymorphed into a manticore still retains the construct type. A bear polymorphed into a black pudding can still have animal growth cast on it. It's cheese, absolutely, but a cheese of a slightly different smell. This might have been errata'd in the last few years though.
I would personally retain a small army of goblins with tanglefoot bags and other cheap touch attack effects to make some random fun. It gives you a round of battlefield control and gives them a big group of cheap minions to blast. Sure, there are a lot of easy ways to avoid these things, but sometimes very low-level tactics can be fun (or just a distraction). Many 1st-level spells are dangerous in mass, but don't pound someone with eighty magic missiles. Maybe seven of them a round, but not eighty.
Got a few slightly higher level wizards? Encase someone in a few walls of stone or ice. Splitting the party even momentarily can make it tense. Doesn't have to be lethal, just take a few actions away from them.
Illusions are fun, just don't overdo it. At this high of a level, it is almost guaranteed the spellcasters will know exactly what spells you are casting all the time if they can see or hear you (unless they are still and silent spells), so making illusory monsters is rather difficult, but you could always make it obvious and then have another monster teleport into the "illusion" group.
Just a few suggestions on how to maybe add a little spice and fun to the arena.