I have put my own personal twist on Caverns of the Damned one-shot (iirc the official name, I've changed the name to The Gauntlet). I have for the moment been using a combination of Kobold Fight Club and RPG Tinker to help me create a final boss (should the party decide to return to town and fight). The boss is a Drow Mage and he will be by himself against a party of SIX level 3 characters. I want this boss to be a hard fight but I am struggling despite the assistance from these two pages. I've used KFC to help point me towards a general difficulty setting for the battle and RPG Tinker to help with setting the specifics (from character stats all the way down to specific spells). Now I am looking at the spell list which contains things Disintegrate and Chain Lightning. Just those two spells alone could quite easily damn near wipe away a siginificant portion of the party before the first couple rounds have passed and the party has a realistic chance to act. I want him to be hard and almost a deadly threat but I am being really put off by the access to the sort of spells this NPC will have. Any advice on what to do? Or could I multi-class him? I could be a bit of DM you-know-what and make him a cleric as well ha! This is what KFC says: Easy: 450 exp Medium: 900 exp Hard: 1,350 exp Deadly: 2,400 exp Then again looking at RPG Tinker I may be getting confused. KFC says a CR of 7 is a bit of a fight for this sort of party whereas a CR of 12 is probably too much. My mage I have put together with the aid of RPG tinker has a CR of 9 but is worth apparently 5000 exp. Which is double what KFC recommends. Any help will be hugely appreciated! I want my first DM session to start soon :) I do have an idea regarding an old man in a tavern the party meets (whether to make him a secret mage who will help the party in the final confrontation IDK - but adding him will throw the balance out the window and make the fight too easy Im thinking)
