I won’t go on about it too much as it is a bit tangential and I am glad that you are getting some ideas that might make this kind of encounter more fun, but it raises some questions and concerns that I have about adventure design.
I don’t know that solo brute monsters are good encounters to serve as “this one is going to be a real challenge” type of encounters for parties above 12th level. If it is not a smart, central component of the campaign (which it shouldn’t be if it is not going to be actively considering magical protections, setting an am ish in a favorable environment or using minions to make the fight easier) than it is probably ok for the encounter to be a relatively fast one. Maybe the creature can have a good reason to surrender and try to negotiate with the party, making the encounter not so much of a combat encounter, but a social encounter that includes some combat at the beginning to spice things up? Maybe it just get steam rolled and the party gets to feel powerful. Maybe it is high enough level or has some power that has a 10-20 percent chance of killing a PC quickly or if they approach it wrong, but it is otherwise more of a narrative setting piece with some xp attached to it? All of that is fine too.
High level solo bosses really shouldn’t be brutes with no awareness of how to make the encounter a challenge against the PCs. They can be interesting neutral parties that can be exploited by either side to make another encounter very dangerous, or a hunter that can complicate a dungeon going too easily, but on their own, as the only encounter in a day, not aware of a plot they are a part of, it is probably ok that they aren’t really a central memorable encounter in a campaign.
PF2 adventure designers make a lot of these encounters in modules. The module in question has several encounters with unique monsters that are big solo brutes, some with better mobility like dragons but no real magical defenses.
High level characters with caster support just eat these types of monsters alive. Yet there in modules with unique names and histories where it seems you're supposed to make a real fight of it, but if the PCs know what they're doing even a bit they turn these fights into cakewalks.
The high levels fights that are toughest are usually a boss with help or a large group with some special attack or ability that is hard to deal with as even high level groups of physical monsters often get crushed.
Even in PF2 high level characters are a load to deal with. Not as hard as PF1, but a coordinated, well built high level PF2 group can usually handle some really powerful encounters fairly easy. Solo brutes are the hardest to build for a solo encounter with a powerful PC party.
It's hard because I think the real answer and what youre talking about are different.
What you say you want is a Big, Nasty, Singular, Badass Creature. The biggest baddie of baddies. A massive inflated statblock.
But in reality, that's always gonna be kinda unsatisfying. You have to design an ENCOUNTER that's hard. I've found that the best way to fill out an encounter's XP budget is hazards.
Now, I know you said you don't want any tricky environment or whatnot. But simple and complex hazard are basically enemies themselves, except the bad guy "creates" them and they have their own initiative.
A single lava wizard is more of an encounter if he can summon choking smoke, lava spurts, and unstable sinkholes. Those are all "things he can do" that you can easily represent with hazards.
You also said you want something that boosts your bad guy's defenses more than his offense, and I think a great thing about this is that it spreads the damage/skill checks across multiple targets to disable the hazards, creating a buffer for your bad guy.
Making it so the PCs can't get to the monster just makes them feel ineffective and makes the casters even more important to the encounter while making the martials feel weak and ineffective.
The combined parties of casters and martials all wanting to use their abilities makes it hard to create hazards with movement impediments or random close damage which would then make the archers and ranged casters suddenly more effective while Mr. Martial is struggling to get to the fight.
That's why I want martials to be able to fight without making the casters the focus of the fight by throwing massive impediments that only casters can easily overcome.
In PF1 the caster-martial disparity was incredibly bad. I don't want anything close to a return to the roll initiative with casters solving everything while martials stand there looking for things to hit or not being able to get get to the target. If I wanted to be mean, I could make the big brute monster super mobile so the melee martials couldn't get to it then leave it up to the casters and archer to take care of the monster or monsters. But that makes the melee martial feel like they are useless.
The key is to design these unique solo monsters a fight everyone can feel effective from the big weapon fighter to the powerful caster. That's why I'm going with building a sufficient defensive ability to mitigate, but not eliminate the ability of the PCs to attack it.
I want all the PCs to have fun. I don't want to incorporate anything that is a burden on a PC that doesn't have flight or special movement or senses or that focuses the fight on the ranged archer or casters. The entire group should be involved and having fun in the fight, while the solo monster should feel like they are fighting a Godzilla type of enemy that is a great fight.
For boss monsters with particularly high weaknesses, you could change the implementation so they take full weakness damage only once per turn. Subsequent triggers during that turn would apply only half the weakness (or something similar). This makes a fire weakness relevant, with say a flaming property helpful, without making "attack as many times as possible with it" the obvious answer with it.
I also like the idea of granting bosses additional reactions, similar to a hydra. Particularly powerful reactions might be limited to one extra reaction per two PCs. These reactions could be set to trigger at the end of a player's turn (when the boss's next turn isn't imminent) if that player interacted with the creature in some meaningful way, such as attacking it, flanking it, standing adjacent, or affecting it with a spell. The reaction could be a Strike, a buff/debuff effect, or a choice from several options.
Another possibility as has been mentioned is giving bosses a subordinate turn, not unlike the option of granting extra reactions, but giving full actions at a later time. I agree it should be limited to one or two actions, preserving 3-action activities for the primary turn. End-of-turn effects such as persistent damage would only occur on the primary turn. Conditions like slowed could be directed to consume actions from the subordinate turn first, making the primary turn harder to shut down.
Subordinate turns might also allow for interesting chained abilities, which gives access to telegraphed 'big moves' that someone mentioned earlier.
For a basic example:
* Primary turn: Bite. <one-action> some normal damage
* Subordinate turn: <two-actinon> If the Bite succeeded and the target remains adjacent, Swallow Whole. More bite damage, but bad situation afterwards.
If the party knows this is possible and the consequence is severe, it creates tactical gameplay as allies work to prevent the follow-up action.
Defensive reactions are another option. A skeleton, swarm, or similar boss could gain reactions triggered by taking a large amount of damage at once[at least level in HP], reducing that damage significantly [perhaps halving].
Similarly, a boss reduced to 0 HP could trigger a reaction that instead leaves it at half its current HP and gives it the wounded condition. In exchange, it enters a desperate final phase with abilities such as fast healing, reduced weaknesses, increased resistances or an aura that damages nearby creatures (i.e. thrashing 10' aura; bludgeoning damage).
Since the Stunned condition would be especially devastating to such a creature, becoming stunned could trigger one of their reactions. In that case, the reaction would merely negate the Stunned condition instead of reducing damage for that attack.
Granting several uses of such reactions would force the party to sustain a constant pressure rather than relying on one or two massive hits.
The common theme is preventing a boss from being trivialized by one or two exceptionally powerful attacks. Requiring a sustained, coordinated onslaught gives the entire party more opportunities to contribute and may be a useful ingredient in creating memorable boss encounters.
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@Deriven
The ideal scenario you've mentioned a couple of times you want was:
- big brute monster
- the environment shouldn't matter
But as you describe, your party destroys the brute before it gets near to the party. I think at some point you have to say, that there simply is no such thing as a generic, impartial environment. The environment is always there, and it's good or bad for the monster.
A dragon with a really high fly speed, is gonna be a different fight in a small room or on the wide open plains.
A kraken is gonna be different if you fight it on land, on a ship, or with everyone underwater.
A big tentacle monster in a mid size room where it has enough reach that the martials can't really prevent it from threatening the casters, is pretty different than in a much bigger room where the casters can stay way out of reach.
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Now, I've played enough adventures where you run into a monster in an environment that really really favors them and you go "well isn't THAT convenient". You don't have to get that cheesy. But fighting the kraken at sea instead of in the tavern isn't a stretch. And the dragon deciding it'd rather fight you somewhere wide open where it can use its high fly speed isn't really a stretch either.
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DL, what are your players' favorite tactics so that we can work on a brute monster that is not that easily beaten ?
Let's look at what they did this last encounter.
They stealthed up. Every PC in my parties usually buys and builds up stealth while using stat points to boost dexterity. So all at least decent at Stealth. Our group considers stealth a high value skill.
Ranger with flight and invisibility scouted ahead.
Wizard used scouting eye to get an idea of the layout and best way to enter.
Monster was a big brute troll with four guard hound type of monsters in a abandoned castle with some breaks in the walls.
PCs scouted up to the walls with breaks.
Archer and wizard opened up with damage hammer to hit the surrounding hounds. Champion and fighter formed up near the entrance to the broken wall to intercept the adds when they came. Big brute came when its hounds were drawn into a fight.
Wizard dropped falling stars on adds. Archer blasted adds while hasted with Hunted Shot and Flurry Masterful Hunter which makes bow machine gun real nice.
Set up about a 100 feet away to make the enemies use actions closing while they dropped the ranged hammer.
Once Brute got to battle, it had been worn down by the archer and spell attacks. Then intercepted by the champion and fighter. Fighter used Crashing Slam to take it down. Champion and fighter with Champion Archeype fought using attacks and reactions to reduce damage from brute while getting extra attacks.
Archer and wizard continued dropping ranged hammer on the monster.
It added up to a whole lot of vicious hammering as the monster closed.
The martial group players have little trouble holding a position doing nothing from defensive actions until a monster closes while the ranged attackers soften the target.
They like to force the enemy to use move actions against their ranged attacks as exchanging movement for damage is in their favor.
Big brutes without flight have a problem closing the distance without getting hammered.
Those are the kind of tactics they use to control the fight. My group is big on controlling where the fight occurs and don't mind drawing a target to where they want to fight even if they don't attack every round. Even the martials will attack once, fall back to draw a target to the desired chokepoint.
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Many thanks, DL. It is much easier imagining how to spice up an encounter when we know how the PCs usually act.
First, I think it is very good that they do scouting and adapt their strategy to get the best from the info they got this way.
Having some creatures with unusual senses from time to time to mess up a bit with this strategy should be worth it so that the players do not consider it 100% reliable. But I guess you already do this.
The martial group players have little trouble holding a position doing nothing from defensive actions until a monster closes while the ranged attackers soften the target.
I guess this is how usually deal with brute monsters, so we can imagine some foils for this.
And I get why you feel more HPs could be a proper solution.
First foil that comes to my mind is a Burrow speed. Maybe the troll has claws so strong that it actually got quite adept at digging with them.
In the same theme, I can totally see the Troll throwing a rock at a ranged opponent like a Barbarian can with the right feat.
I really feel stealing from the Barbarian's toolbox can be quite appropriate for a brute monster.
Maybe the troll can also grab a big rock, tree or piece of wall and use it like a Fortress shield so that it can get the bonus to AC and Reflex saves when attacked from afar.
I was thinking also of the way constructs's plating can get broken after it sustains too much damage.
Maybe the troll is so covered in moss, mud, soil and rocks that it works like a construct's plating, granting it better AC, more HPs and/or some resistance to physical damage unusual for its kind.
And once the PCs get its HPs to the normal zero, the "plating" breaks, its benefits cease, but the troll becomes faster and more agile, so that fighting it is akin to fighting a different troll.
The troll might also be so unkept that its odor makes people sick. Or it is able to spit the content of its stomach with results you choose from alchemical bombs, whether inflicting unexpected damage or some condition.
Finally, the solo brute should know when it is time to withdraw from a fight. It likely did not reach its power by being so dumb it would not smell a trap.
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I am not blaming anyone with this observation, but a troll, even a very powerful one, living alone with a couple of hounds in a ruined castle sounds like a mid level encounter, not a high level one. Even if the creatures are high level, the environmental set up is so easily dominated by high level magic that this troll needed to be at least 4 levels higher than the PCs, even with 4 hounds that will likely be dealt with as essentially a different encounter before the battle is joined.
Again, it is perfectly fine for a big solo brute encounter to not really challenge a high level optimized party, because those are difficult low level encounters and it is good that parties can get better at handling encounter types that were previously hard.
That said,
What if the troll had a blink blade? That is a level 12 item, so a very reasonable piece of treasure. I have a feeling the troll instantly appearing 100 ft behind the fighter/champion line, on top of the casters, with nasty reactions/ ability to swallow a caster is going to really test your party’s preparedness and is really easy to justify in world. The party even gets a fun treasure at the end if they win.
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@Deriven
So there's a few things that I think play into why this troll did so poorly.
- The players all succeeded in their stealth checks? PF2 doesn't impose distance penalties on Perception anymore. There's a solid chance that stealth checks against a higher level monster fail, simply because higher level means high Perception score. And each sneaking PC needs to check, unless they're using Quiet Allies. Even so, with Quiet Allies you're still using the worst Stealth modifier in the party. Invisibility helps a bit, makes it hard for enemies to see you, but numerically speaking, doesn't make it easier to sneak up quietly.
- The players got to pre-buff (haste). Did the spellcasting alert enemies? You could use Subtle Spell spellshape I guess, but if you didn't, then spellcasting isn't quiet. If you do it really far away so that it should be out of earshot, sure, but then you're spending some actions just closing in. And remember that Haste actions can't be used to Sneak.
- Was there that much open ground that the troll had to cross? It's possible of course, but at that point you could analyse that the terrain isn't a neutral factor, it's a factor in favor of the players. A troll that's only strong in melee in a wide open space, fighting ranged PCs, has a terrain disadvantage.
I think trolls are typically more of a mountain/dungeon/cave/forest kinda monsters. But there's a lot of variants. If you wanted to use this kind of terrain, maybe you should design a "savannah troll" that gets Pounce and a high base speed?
I have to say though, that I haven't had that much luck with trolls as a GM either. The regeneration gimmick is a bit played out, it's fairly easy to do fire or acid damage. Pretty often monsters with regeneration also get a weakness against the damage type that shuts off the regen, and as you mention the impact of weakness is pretty high. Since fire regen+weakness is so very easy to match, the monster ends up more vulnerable than a monster that didn't have the weakness or regeneration.
Many thanks, DL. It is much easier imagining how to spice up an encounter when we know how the PCs usually act.
First, I think it is very good that they do scouting and adapt their strategy to get the best from the info they got this way.
Having some creatures with unusual senses from time to time to mess up a bit with this strategy should be worth it so that the players do not consider it 100% reliable. But I guess you already do this.
The martial group players have little trouble holding a position doing nothing from defensive actions until a monster closes while the ranged attackers soften the target.I guess this is how usually deal with brute monsters, so we can imagine some foils for this.
And I get why you feel more HPs could be a proper solution.
First foil that comes to my mind is a Burrow speed. Maybe the troll has claws so strong that it actually got quite adept at digging with them.
In the same theme, I can totally see the Troll throwing a rock at a ranged opponent like a Barbarian can with the right feat.
I really feel stealing from the Barbarian's toolbox can be quite appropriate for a brute monster.
Maybe the troll can also grab a big rock, tree or piece of wall and use it like a Fortress shield so that it can get the bonus to AC and Reflex saves when attacked from afar.
I was thinking also of the way constructs's plating can get broken after it sustains too much damage.
Maybe the troll is so covered in moss, mud, soil and rocks that it works like a construct's plating, granting it better AC, more HPs and/or some resistance to physical damage unusual for its kind.
And once the PCs get its HPs to the normal zero, the "plating" breaks, its benefits cease, but the troll becomes faster and more agile, so that fighting it is akin to fighting a different troll.
The troll might also be so unkept that its odor makes people sick. Or it is able to spit the content of its stomach with results you choose from alchemical bombs,...
All not bad ideas. We had a burrowing encounter the encounter before against a bunch of works. Burrowing does help avoid getting targeted and can be used to draw PCs into melee range.
I didn't want to use it that close together with another creature.
Ideas to play around with. I have another big solo creature coming up. But this one can fly and is a dragon creature. So should be easier to make it tough as it has real high mobility.
- The players all succeeded in their stealth checks? PF2 doesn't impose distance penalties on Perception anymore. There's a solid chance that stealth checks against a higher level monster fail, simply because higher level means high Perception score. And each sneaking PC needs to check, unless they're using Quiet Allies. Even so, with Quiet Allies you're still using the worst Stealth modifier in the party. Invisibility helps a bit, makes it hard for enemies to see you, but numerically speaking, doesn't make it easier to sneak up quietly.
Only the ranger stealthed ahead invisibly. Rest of the party stayed back. The wizard used scouting eye. The ranger did fail their stealth check against the troll, but succeeded against the cats. It didn't matter much as the ranger was invisible and flew to a high tower to survey the area. Troll had no way to see them or get them to quickly.
Rest of the party stayed back. They are all communicating with telepathic bond.
- The players got to pre-buff (haste). Did the spellcasting alert enemies? You could use Subtle Spell spellshape I guess, but if you didn't, then spellcasting isn't quiet. If you do it really far away so that it should be out of earshot, sure, but then you're spending some actions just closing in. And remember that Haste actions can't be used to Sneak.
Party only pre-buffed Heroism, Hidden Mind, See Invis, and long-term spells. Party cast haste when engaged.
They did not bother to stealth up. Champion and Fighter walked up to the hole and did not care if were heard. Champion AC is high as you well know. Fighter is also wearing plate and using a single weapon with Dueling Dance and the feat that let's him drop into Dueling Dance as soon as they roll initiative. Both have Champion's reactions. So they are ok with stuff rushing them. They wanted to be heard.
- Was there that much open ground that the troll had to cross? It's possible of course, but at that point you could analyse that the terrain isn't a neutral factor, it's a factor in favor of the players. A troll that's only strong in melee in a wide open space, fighting ranged PCs, has a terrain disadvantage.
I think trolls are typically more of a mountain/dungeon/cave/forest kinda monsters. But there's a lot of variants. If you wanted to use this kind of terrain, maybe you should design a "savannah troll" that gets Pounce and a high base speed?
He was a big unique troll. I wanted him to be able to take the hits and keep on coming. That's the part I wanted to make him scary is that these powerful PCs were inflicting damage on it that would fell most creatures, but this big fearsome troll kept on fighting.
I have to say though, that I haven't had that much luck with trolls as a GM either. The regeneration gimmick is a bit played out, it's fairly easy to do fire or acid damage. Pretty often monsters with regeneration also get a weakness against the damage type that shuts off the regen, and as you mention the impact of weakness is pretty high. Since fire regen+weakness is so very easy to match, the monster ends up more vulnerable than a monster that didn't have the weakness or regeneration.
Weaknesses are set too high. Troll had 20 fire weakness against a group with three members using fire runes, one of the most popular runes. Yeah, trolls not the best. Dragons are better with their high mobility. I can usually give a dragon rogue like mobility for movement to prevent them from generating reactions while moving or use their reach. So a little easier.
Giants, trolls, hydras, kaijus, and similar pure big brutes that are land-bound are rougher to make a tough fight. I want that feel of being so brutally tough they can endure massive damage while continuing to fight.
So far I've found their offense is set high enough, so if they do manage to fight for a few rounds they can really tear a PC up. It's getting that chance to fight that is rough to do some fights at the higher levels. Lower levels a big brute can be quite rough for a PC party, but higher levels they have so much magical power and so many maneuvers and options it makes such fights a cakewalk.
Even having a fighter archer with debilitating shot slowing it every round while doing damage can be a huge pain even for dragons. That no save slow 1 with Legendary attack bonus is a powerful archer ability for fighter archers. Stuff like that turns these fights into cakewalks.
Oh, and another way is to place the fight in an environment that heavily favors the opponent or actively works against the pc's.
Hurricanes, sandstorms, earthquakes, underwater rapids, traps everywhere, a lava field, in a collapsing cave vs a burrowing creature, etc...
The idea here is to mess with the PC's action economy, make executing their standard go-to tactics very challenging to execute and make it a much more dynamic situation.
I second this and is pretty much what I came here to say myself.
I think it is more of a PF2 design issue. The high level game is far, far easier than the lower level game. PF2 designers did make PF2 high level less problematic than PF1, but once you're past 13th to 15th level you really destroy solo monsters.
What's the point of playing to high levels if you can't absolutely destroy tough monsters around level 15?
The game is designed specifically so that player characters get more powerful in relation to monsters as they level, and that's a good thing. If there was no sense of advancement, this game would have far fewer players.
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I think it is more of a PF2 design issue. The high level game is far, far easier than the lower level game. PF2 designers did make PF2 high level less problematic than PF1, but once you're past 13th to 15th level you really destroy solo monsters.What's the point of playing to high levels if you can't absolutely destroy tough monsters around level 15?
The game is designed specifically so that player characters get more powerful in relation to monsters as they level, and that's a good thing. If there was no sense of advancement, this game would have far fewer players.
Why should big brute solo monsters not able to be a threat beyond level 15 ?
At level 15 you can brutally destroy what would be otherwise terrifying creatures. But you are not yet the biggest fish in the pond.
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I think it is more of a PF2 design issue. The high level game is far, far easier than the lower level game. PF2 designers did make PF2 high level less problematic than PF1, but once you're past 13th to 15th level you really destroy solo monsters.What's the point of playing to high levels if you can't absolutely destroy tough monsters around level 15?
The game is designed specifically so that player characters get more powerful in relation to monsters as they level, and that's a good thing. If there was no sense of advancement, this game would have far fewer players.
The encounters where you look tough destroying monsters that were once tough are plentiful.
Sometimes you want the brute to be a real strong fight because it's a big, brutal type of creature. You don't want it to get fancy like a caster or blink around or need special environments. You want a big, brutal monster that is challenging and take a physical punishment while dishing it out.
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But things like teleporting and advanced control over the environment are a part of higher level play in the same way that legendary proficiencies and skill feats that let you fall from orbit and take no damage. The game changes narratively as well as mechanically at high level.
At a certain point narrative challenges that were once nearly impossible to overcome are easily bypassed. Sometimes without magic, but magic is the thing that trivializes these types of challenges the most easily and with as little investment as possible. Intelligent creatures living in a high magic world and surviving to high levels are going to encounter magical things and insisting that they somehow just survive them by being tough enough, without any thought to how that toughness includes to resilience to magic and the narrative experiences of high level play is pretty much demanding an unchanging mechanical treadmill.
There is a reason your party is taking all these utility/narrative changing spells as they get higher level. That is especially going to be the case if the enemies you are using never get to, in the same way as having high level enemies without the equivalent of striking or potency runes built into their stat blocks would make those creatures much weaker than other higher level creatures that did have those mechanical advantages.
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But things like teleporting and advanced control over the environment are a part of higher level play in the same way that legendary proficiencies and skill feats that let you fall from orbit and take no damage. The game changes narratively as well as mechanically at high level.
At a certain point narrative challenges that were once nearly impossible to overcome are easily bypassed. Sometimes without magic, but magic is the thing that trivializes these types of challenges the most easily and with as little investment as possible. Intelligent creatures living in a high magic world and surviving to high levels are going to encounter magical things and insisting that they somehow just survive them by being tough enough, without any thought to how that toughness includes to resilience to magic and the narrative experiences of high level play is pretty much demanding an unchanging mechanical treadmill.
There is a reason your party is taking all these utility/narrative changing spells as they get higher level. That is especially going to be the case if the enemies you are using never get to, in the same way as having high level enemies without the equivalent of striking or potency runes built into their stat blocks would make those creatures much weaker than other higher level creatures that did have those mechanical advantages.
Mythic creature abilities might give some ideas to make solo brute monsters more resistant to conditions and other non-damage results of hostile spells and abilities.
But, except for a few cases, HPs and thus damage is what takes a monster out of the picture.
Even magic will usually be a means to the end of dealing more damage over the whole fight.
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Even having a fighter archer with debilitating shot slowing it every round while doing damage can be a huge pain even for dragons. That no save slow 1 with Legendary attack bonus is a powerful archer ability for fighter archers. Stuff like that turns these fights into cakewalks.
Against this one, take a page from the zombie family book. Make the creature naturally slowed and adapt its abilities to this natural state of things.
The Zombie Desecrator is level 17 and there are also rules for creating bigger than Medium zombies, as well a a host of nice abilities to give to zombies. Enjoy.
But things like teleporting and advanced control over the environment are a part of higher level play in the same way that legendary proficiencies and skill feats that let you fall from orbit and take no damage. The game changes narratively as well as mechanically at high level.
At a certain point narrative challenges that were once nearly impossible to overcome are easily bypassed. Sometimes without magic, but magic is the thing that trivializes these types of challenges the most easily and with as little investment as possible. Intelligent creatures living in a high magic world and surviving to high levels are going to encounter magical things and insisting that they somehow just survive them by being tough enough, without any thought to how that toughness includes to resilience to magic and the narrative experiences of high level play is pretty much demanding an unchanging mechanical treadmill.
There is a reason your party is taking all these utility/narrative changing spells as they get higher level. That is especially going to be the case if the enemies you are using never get to, in the same way as having high level enemies without the equivalent of striking or potency runes built into their stat blocks would make those creatures much weaker than other higher level creatures that did have those mechanical advantages.
I've already done all of this before. You know I have been DMing for 40 plus years now. I know all this stuff being suggested. I've used it all. I do add lots of this stuff in where it is appropriate or interesting.
In this instance, what I want is a high level big brute of a monster that can be a challenge with no bells or whistles. I want it to be a challenge as a big brute. This is common fantasy trope and Paizo puts a ton of these types of encounters in the modules with the expectation they be challenging. Yet they are often not.
My question is how to make a big brute with no bells and whistles challenging to a high level party. It has to do so like a big brute would challenge a party by just being a big, physical beast that is hard to kill and deals vicious attacks. Basically, how do you make King Kong or Juggernaut hard for a high level party with lots of powerful magic?
So far my tactics are usually give it a ton of hit points, buff up its saves, and possibly give it damage resistance or immunities to make it big brute its way through the fight.
But things like teleporting and advanced control over the environment are a part of higher level play in the same way that legendary proficiencies and skill feats that let you fall from orbit and take no damage. The game changes narratively as well as mechanically at high level.
At a certain point narrative challenges that were once nearly impossible to overcome are easily bypassed. Sometimes without magic, but magic is the thing that trivializes these types of challenges the most easily and with as little investment as possible. Intelligent creatures living in a high magic world and surviving to high levels are going to encounter magical things and insisting that they somehow just survive them by being tough enough, without any thought to how that toughness includes to resilience to magic and the narrative experiences of high level play is pretty much demanding an unchanging mechanical treadmill.
There is a reason your party is taking all these utility/narrative changing spells as they get higher level. That is especially going to be the case if the enemies you are using never get to, in the same way as having high level enemies without the equivalent of striking or potency runes built into their stat blocks would make those creatures much weaker than other higher level creatures that did have those mechanical advantages.
Mythic creature abilities might give some ideas to make solo brute monsters more resistant to conditions and other non-damage results of hostile spells and abilities.
But, except for a few cases, HPs and thus damage is what takes a monster out of the picture.
Even magic will usually be a means to the end of dealing more damage over the whole fight.
I have been thinking of incorporating some mythic abilities for single big brutes. For big, unique brutes, it makes sense they have some mythic powers. I think that might help. I did not do it for this one, but I am going to do it for the next one. I think the mythic rules might help in this regard. They made the mythic monster rules so they might work even better against non-mythic parties for providing an extra challenge.
Juggernaut Is flat out immune to professor x’s powers while wearing his helmet. He presents no threat at all without awareness of the forces of his world that can easily stop him. This is true of all brute creatures in fiction. They are either easily controlled by people with powers that bypass their physical toughness and strength, or they are immune to those abilities for some kind of narrative reason.
I think your party will probably like using some mythical defenses and such. That is a good mechanical reorientation of narrative powers beyond the typical scope of the game.
Could one thing that might make a memorable fight be fighting a creature more four or more levels higher than the PCs, but have the creature less than committed to the fight. If they can take the creature down to half HP or hit it with something it is weak against, or some other specific accomplishments, they disengage and decide it isn't worthwhile hanging around.
You have an extreme difficulty potentially creating some instances where the party will have to retreat. Others, once they get a good foothold, or figure out a key aspect, they may bypass the obstacle (even though they don't actually fully defeat it, they do get through it)
Such a battle might have the boss trying to take/steal/recover a key resource important to the storyline, which if lost negatively affects the party. But the creature may not care about killing the party, they just want the item, when they think they spot an opportunity to get it. But they also aren't interested in actually getting hurt getting it, so they are willing to retreat if things look like they might get close to having the tables turned.
You probably need to be careful to not have such a creature take the party completely by surprise, as that could potentially easily take out one or more PCs before they have a chance to react, and that would likely feel pretty -unfun- for them. But a broadcasted threat coming in, with a demand to turn over their hard-earned resource they just got, could make the choice to try to keep it more memorable.