On a scale of "Stop railroading you asshole" to "That's pretty ingenious actually...

That was an example, and do the players know that his magic is consuming him? If so then they might just wait him out in the first place if not, I hope you foreshadowed that was what was happening/was going to happen from their previous exploits. Otherwise it'll feel like an ass-pull and they'll feel cheated out of a win.

What? It's not like it's never been done before.
And can he truly be called a BBEG if he doesn't at least have that much resolve and willpower?

I get what you're saying. I'm going to have to rethink how I present this.

The idea he can sustain his phsyical form just because "grr I'm angry" is so played out I guarantee you it'll only be met with eye-rolls.

While I'm not gonna tell you to reinvent the wheel every time you use some kind of trope, I sincerely hope you put more thought into it than just "muh IRON WILL".

It's the darkbad answer to The Power of Love.

>Holy crap, guys! This dude is actually pretty strong.
>Let's run away and regroup so we can come up with a better strategy.
>The party comes back the next day, finds the BBEG keeled over, dead.
>Poor guy's heart couldn't take all the excitement of the last battle.
Oh well. Players win, I guess?

>going full The End on them
Ha. Oh man. That might be worth it just to see their faces.

>Iron willpower
>Darkbad version of the power of love
>Can't do the impossible
>Can't touch the untouchable
>Can't see the invisible
>Can't break the unbreakable
>Doesn't ROW ROW, FIGHT THE POWAH!

I mean from the description the BBEG fight is meant to be Hold the Line / Escape Alive, so assuming the party knows that the BBEG is on a time limit that would be their win condition that they work towards.

It's a pretty terrible idea. Let your players actually win rather than handing it to them.

Please stop.

Based on what you've said so far, about him being sustained by hatred, I'd say that you should allow the BBEG to hit harder than usual, and have the party fight a battle of attrition (Hold the Line). Should be interesting, at the very least.

It could work if he's trying to do some Bad Thing before he dies, and the players' goal is not to kill him but to stop him or mitigate the damage. Sort of a video-game like mission, where you try to save as many villagers as possible within five minutes or whatever.

It's a little bit like Darth Sion in Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords. The moment you deplete his health gauge, he instantly refills it, and can do this a unlimited number of times until you choose the correct dialogue options to convince him that death wouldn't be so bad. He's functionally immortal, with his defeat only coming from a scripted event.

If you pull it off well, and you have the kind of players who trust you as a GM/DM it can work. But it's definitely not something to do if this is your first, second, or even fifth campaign.

It's always better if you have some sort of player interaction leading to the death.

If the players KNOW he's going down, that will work nicely, then they just need to get away from the bastard, for example.

But you really have to be able to put a lot of backstory in it.

I would suggest "can't be killed by physical damage but can be talked into just giving up and dying", pic related.

I never really liked that kind of video-gamey approach to fighting the big bad though. Like, the idea he's behind some unstoppable wall and you just have to wait it out/kill the five bone summoners generating the wall before you get to wail on him,

Frankly, I think a real BBEG worth his salt isn't something you should just hit with swords till he dies. Or really engage directly at all.

A good, tough, competent BBEG wouldn't bring themselves down to the party's level. Finding some roundabout way to stop the villain is a lot more interesting and a lot more satisfying, IMO.

No.

It's something to consider.

I was actually trying to avoid something like that. Specifically the "you bring his HP to 0, and it just goes right back to full" aspect. As even I always felt that's cheap.

If the players can't beat the BBEG on their own merit they shouldn't be in a position where they think they have to fight him.

It is possible for players to figure out on their own they shouldn't engage certain enemies. It does work.

I seem to recall that guy eventually just starting to take damage and dying if you just kept whaling on him.

Nothing wrong with the final challenge being essentially environmental, like "escape from the temple before it collapses" or "survive until reinforcements arrive". You don't have to beat the designated guy down to his last hp and then loot him.

Nah, basically, you can either talk him down so you can beat on him easier, or you can just keep beating him down so you can talk him to death easier.

The only option is to basically say "no, I can keep doing this all day, and I'm doing it after being separated from the force. You're already dead, so give up already."

Well, that was the Dark Side dialogue option to convince him to give in. The Light Side option was something like "Even if you beat me, Darth Traya will never take you as her disciple. If you give in, you'll be free of all this pain and become one with the Force."

>If the players KNOW he's going down, that will work nicely, then they just need to get away from the bastard, for example
This, OP.
The idea of a killer enemy that must be endured until his Star of Invincibility runs out, kind of works.

But as a player, having a tough as hell BBEG just fall over in the middle of the battle after shrugging off our best hits would be an anticlimactic duck move on the GM's part and I'd want to know what he was trying to prove.

>Star of Invincibility
I like this idea, actually. Thanks.

...

That was Jean, right? She managed to stop herself from fully awakening, because she wanted to die human. Or is that a new Claymore?