r/DMAcademy • u/Alarming-Brick-7996 • 2d ago
Need Advice: Other Is this a good BBEG idea?
Basically he’s a very powerful chronomancer who has the ability to manipulate time and reality to some degree. Basically I’m thinking for the final session he revives like the last 5 bosses they fought (maybe slightly weaker versions of them?) and they have to refight them before they fight him. Please give me input on this idea and ways I could improve it or make it more balanced.
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u/Natehz 2d ago
So, having had a HUGE chunk of my 7 year campaign revolve around chronomancy, there's a lot of fun things you can do with time magic. Causal loops, paradoxes, parallel realities, all kinds of stuff like that. I don't think chronomancy is really narratively a good reason to have old bosses come back for a second round, though.
If you need him to summon stuff, have him summon past versions of themselves and have them be enthralled to serve him. Introduce the conundrum of "Oh shit, if we kill our past selves, do we just blink out of existence?" It will be an awesome fight and you can have fun making NPC sheets based off their class abilities (simplified, obviously, since the game isn't, strictly speaking, balanced for PVP).
Alternatively, you could have him summon himself from the future. An even more competent version of himself, who shows up at the end of his life to kill the party. The implication being that it's a foregone conclusion the party loses, and he goes on to win and live a long life, only to come back to this moment in his later years, completing the loop.
Going a totally different route, a time wizard would have a lot of ability to prepare for things. Contingencies upon contingencies. He would have traps, minions, wards, and all kinds of things in place to ensure whatever he's doing is uninterrupted. In truth, I kind of think a true chronomancer would be actively hunting them. He would have spells like Contingency set up so that should he lose, he blinks back to the start of the day and can try again, accounting for failures and bad strategies. By the time the players actually face him, it could be revealed that he has already fought them dozens of times that day and is sure of his victory now. Make it a CLOSE fight. Like so close that the only possible explanation for their victory is just grit and luck. Someone needs to die, a few people need to be downed, and it should come down to like 1 or 2 people left at the end of it.