Just finished Kingmaker and our party got wiped out in the fight with Nyrissa. We did have the dice and luck against us plus missing some players. Anyone else find her being too op or was she an easier fight for you?
My group had almost no way to counter her fairly basic high-level strategy to the point that only on player could damage her so he was an obvious target.
Due to slight GM fiat, when that character died they were brought back to life quicker than it should've happened.
Bad luck on the right saving throw vs. a high-level caster can completely transform the battle. Like failing a save vs. finger of death could completely bone an average or smaller size party. Or any other save-or-suck that doesn't have an easy remedy.
OTOH, I know a group that beat her in the first round when the melee PC with Briar rolled 2 crits in a row. D&D can be very swingy.
In my game, once the party had weathered her higher-level spells she wasn't all that scary.
Dominate and maze just destroyed us. We were also running low on resources too. But with covid and not everyone being there, the ones that were there were having to handle multiple characters. So at this point I'm personally considering the last module to not have happened and we ended at module 5 instead.
That would have been more satisfying
Her stat block is kinda wild. If you compare it to the average stats for a CR 20 creature, she's got like a 15 to 20 point edge on all saves and a 12 point higher AC. So she's a nightmare to fight fairly. On the other hand, her offenses are weaker than other final bosses (like the one from Rise of the Runelords), and the special rules for confusing her can give the party multiple rounds of leeway to break through those defenses. And if you can take advantage of spells and abilities that let you bypass her defenses, it can be easy.
If you compare her to certain other spellcaster final bosses who can cast 9th level blasts followed by quickened timestop followed by multiple area control spells and self buffs, all before the party acts... Nyrissa's offensive arsenal is pretty mediocre. She's also fought totally alone.