D&D 4E Help with 4E Demon Battle

[Tashtego]

Hi there,

My players have made a bargain with primordial demon but intend to shaft it. They will open a portal to the demon's realm (as per the bargain) but intend to meet it with allies, armies as much firepower as their little 16 level selves can muster.

Any suggestion for running a challenging, epic fight for 6-7 4e characters? Preferably broken into a bunch of stages, mixed up with some skill challenges - I want to simulate the ebb and flow of a LOTR battle without things getting too dull and grindy.

PCs are a paladin, vampire, warlord, control mage, knight, scout and cleric.

I have a lot of Paizo tile maps if that helps at all. I think they'll open the portal in the wilderness somewhere. I also have DDI access.

I'm just after some ideas or cool tricks to shake the Pcs up, as we've mostly done politics and interaction lately!

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Hi there,

My players have made a bargain with primordial demon but intend to shaft it. They will open a portal to the demon's realm (as per the bargain) but intend to meet it with allies, armies as much firepower as their little 16 level selves can muster.

Any suggestion for running a challenging, epic fight for 6-7 4e characters? Preferably broken into a bunch of stages, mixed up with some skill challenges - I want to simulate the ebb and flow of a LOTR battle without things getting too dull and grindy.

Where will they open the portal? Because unless they're epic level, they have to open the portal at a predetermined spot. There's no way the demon is going to have an unguarded portal. That's the first encounter. Because it's stationary, it should be filled with traps (I like to think of Symbol of X-style traps, just steal the better 3e spells; picture Symbol of Insanity as a one-shot trap that dominates PCs that see it) and because it's an introduction to the plane, it should have numerous hazards. (The Abyss is endless, so really, anything. Is the plane fiery? PCs gonna make themselves resist fire? Then how about a curse that removes fire resistance until a disease-like track is dealt with? I think there's a ritual in the dragon sourcebook that has something like this.) The place should also be guarded by nasty demons. The monsters and traps need to work together. The PCs should be scrambling to shut down traps while demons try to eat them, or kill demons while traps mess with them.

Next is the environment that the army has to travel through in order to get to the demon's castle. There should be skill challenges that cost healing surges on failed checks, plus swarms (literally) of demons, with more hit-and-run attackers if the PCs fail certain skill checks. If the environment is hazardous somehow (maybe there are winds that drive PCs insane) and the demons resist this, all the better.

Then the castle. Again with the traps and monsters. The castle should have lots of secret passages, so that if the PCs fight one group of demons another group can pincer them. Your control mage and maybe cleric are probably very vulnerable to this.

Finally, the boss. This should be hard. No boss travels by themselves, even if the boss is a solo. You need a level +4 encounter for this one. Be sure to really work on that enemy synergy. An idea I stole from a site, using foulspawns: one of the foulspawns has an at-will AoE daze attack (nasty, maybe a little too much), and several other foulspawns deal extra damage when they have combat advantage against, say, a dazed PC. Maybe remove the daze, but don't be afraid to have monsters with complementary abilities, perhaps the type that ready actions to really put the hurt on the PCs.

Read advice sites on how to prevent a boss from being really locked down. Angry DM's three-stage monster is a good piece of advice there. Sly Flourish also gives good setpieces you can steal.

 

[Tashtego]

Thanks for the help - lots of ideas there.

They're expecting just to open the portal and have the demon come out straight away. Since the bargain was to open a portal for the demon to come out at, I don't think they plan on going into the demon's realm to fight it there.

One break down could be:

1) PCs do ritual to open portal.
2) Portal opens. Was thinking either a horde of minions will pour out in a flood, or something environmental like a series of chaotic elemental blasts from the portal which may damage the massed armies waiting on the other side. Or it could come out as something weird, like a mass of flies or swarm of something.
3) PC's army is scattered and demoralised. [Social skill challenge to regroup]
4) PCs fight demon henchthings? Solo fights get very draggy and grindy and I want to keep them hopping and running all over the battlefield. They are maxed out against necrotic and elemental resistence, so maybe some critters that swap their damage around. Maybe critters that can fly or push the creatures at long range. I will combo this with terrain effects.
5) Physical skill challenge will go somewhere, for the fighty types in the party.... Maybe closing the portal?

I will check out Sly's Epic 4E book for some ideas on how to have some good set pieces.

 

[ajanders]

An army vs a demon prince

What a neat idea!

I might make a suggestion.

The PC's are going to bring an army. They plan to cheat.
The primordial demon lord is also going to bring an army. He's a primordial demon lord, of course he's going to cheat.

The two armies should cancel each other out. The battle will then be decided by the PC's actions.

So lets look at your steps.

A. PC's open portal. It's meant to devastate the area, allow a giant unstoppable army to come through, and materialize the demon lord. The challenge for the PC's is to mess it up. Successes here can give them a variety of bonuses:
1.Creating (and identifying) safe zones: PC's and allies that stand there are missed by the wash of demonfire or lightning that erupts from the portal.
2.Limiting the demonic army. Maybe instead of all of it appearing on round one, it appears over 10 rounds...each round another force comes in. Maybe the portal is too small for a fat hezrou or nalfeshnee, and only small dretch, quasits, and larvae can come in.
3. Limiting the demon lord. Maybe the demon lord is restricted to a few small squares, or he comes in as a lower power avatar instead of as his full self. Maybe he's buried in the ground up to his waist, so he's restrained, or immobilized.

B. Because the portal to evil opens and evil comes out, the PC's forces are scattered and demoralized, but maybe not as much.
1.Some particularly martial and heroic PC's, if they are stationed with a unit, may be able to keep them from running (Paladin, warlord, war wizard?). Of course, if they're doing that, they're not with the rest of the party able to act as a squad of 16th level adventurers.
2.Forces in the safe zones are probably not scattered and demoralized.
3.PC's could use Insight checks to determine which units can keep it together without further supervision, then leg it with movement abilities or athletics checks to less brave units, who could be rallied with Diplomacy (good speech) Religion (prayers inspiring faith against evil) or History (Remember the face of your father!)

C.Fighting the evil entourage
DM fiat here: the evil entourage cannot be stopped by 6 characters, no matter how high a level. You can kill everything in reach and pile a breastwork of bodies around you, but surviving horde will just go past and around you. You need an army, or at least a squad of allies.

1.You can work to use your squad effectively:
Perception checks let you see an enemy squad with an exposed flank. Attacking that squad makes it easier for your side to win.
Athletics lets you lead your squad to favorable terrain before the enemy gets there. You get an advantage.
Stealth lets you lead an ambush.
Endurance lets you outrun enemies, helping you escape a tough encounter.
Religion lets you bless your troops, giving them some sort of limited combat bonus.
And when the squad goes into battle, you can enter combat and do a heroic deed to inspire them. Do, say, 30 points of damage in a round to give your troops some kind of combat bonus.

2.You can go find a squad that was scattered and get it back in the fight.
Healing skills and powers might help if they were damaged.
Rally them with Religion, History, or Diplomacy. Maybe Intimidation

3. If all your squads are gone, you can just try and dodge bad guys.
Use Stealth to hide
Use Athletics and endurance to outmaneuver the enemy.
Use Arcana and religion to ward yourself from their attacks.
Use Intimidate to scare them away.

D. Fighting the big bad
This could be easy. If the PC's have preserved their forces and hampered the big bad by corrupting his gate ritual and leading their forces well in battle, maybe you hand wave it.
"Trapped by his corrupted ritual, his entourage utterly destroyed, and facing the steely resolution of 10,000 noble warriors, the demon lord screams a curse and returns to the abyss."

If the entourage is not defeated, the PC's are facing a solo plus...lots of minions and a few real monsters. Maybe the entourage is only partly defeated, and its a solo plus lots of minions or a few real monsters

If the ritual is not corrupted, the PC's might be facing a full 16th level solo at full power.
If it was partially corrupted, the PC's might be facing a 16th level solo with a hampering condition...blinded, or restrained, or a 15th to 14th level solo.
If they totally messed it up for the big bad, maybe it's a 14th level solo with a hampering condition.

This is obviously really sketchy, vague, and fast.

I must also acknowledge at least 2 more issues: I didn't talk about designing or selecting a solo monster opponent, and I didn't talk about recruiting forces (another adventure in itself).

I hope you find it helpful, however.

 

[Campbell]

I'd stat various demonic followers as mobs who come through the gate with him. I'd also give some time for each PC to rally thematically appropriate mobs of their own. That way you have two battles happening at the same time - PCs vs. the demons and the PC's mobs vs. the demon's mobs.

 

[pemerton]

I strongly recommend swarms for resolving PCs fighting hordes of demons.

As to mixing waves of foes with skill challenge-ye stuff, here are some examples of how I've done it.