Rise of the runelords [possible spoilers]

[arkangel111]

So I have been running a RotRL's game for awhile now. The party used to have 8-9 people but has been brought down to 3 and is likely to stay that way. The party consists of a shocking grasp crit magus, a twf rogue, and a PoW Warlord. their stats are pretty high, I had them roll and 1 person did amazing on their roll so i buffed everyone up to help fill the power gap.

As OP as they are in the mook fights I cannot see the 3 of them beating the last encounter. I honestly don't think they have a chance. We're still a bit far from the end and I have handed out some mysterious artifacts that helped in some early encounters before they hit 6, but they haven't been highlighted much recently. I am thinking of making these artifacts pieces of a greater artifact that might help defeat the last encounter. But what exactly should I make it do? Karzoug isn't even alone in the fight, AND he can timestop. I know the simple answer is to scale back the last fight, but how much? besides I think it would be much cooler if they could beat him and these random artifacts I gave could have something to do with it. Might make them feel like they really accomplished something. I have toyed with the idea of letting them go mythic, but they already steamroll most encounter's, and in fact haven't been challenged unless I design a side encounter, like the ones for the artifacts, but then I design it specifically to target their weaknesses, and then scale back the tactics just enough to let them slip by.
Most of the normal encounters I just beef up the numbers, or make a few of the big name guys return, since many of their fights they have only knocked bad guys negative and then I roll after combat to see if they survive and many have. Some are even pretty adept at running away and invariably escape. Mostly these guys are goblins but the bugbear managed to live as well. I have kept these guys around and vaguely linked with the storyline.

TL:DR: Last fight is too strong for my guys IMHO. I have custom artifacts and badguy side characters that are already implemented and could somehow even the last battle. Ideas?

[upho]

This is a tricky one. I'm currently running RoRL for a party without full casters, and though we're not even half-way through I've also been thinking about how to make this final battle suitable climactic.

My take is that if you set up and play the fight against Karzoug according to the instructions, the victory of a small party without an arcane full caster will basically depend on the right guy winning initiative. (Meaning that guy may incapacitate Karzoug before he has a chance to act. For example, if the warlord in your party wins initiative, has readied say the Lightning Step boost, is able to fly and starts buffed with haste or a similar movement enhancer, Karzoug on his throne 30 ft. up and 100 ft. away is well within charging distance. If the warlord uses a pounce-enabling strike such as Wrath of the Primal Hunter, a damage boost via dual boost and is in a suitable stance, there's a very high probability the warlord will kill Karzoug on his first turn. This is of course possible through a number of combinations of maneuvers from the disciplines available to a warlord.) Which makes it a very boring fight which will boil down to a couple of initiative rolls and be over before the first round has ended if the if the party succeeds.

Not a very epic ending to a great campaign.

If the party lacks the tools or tactical cunning for a one-shot before Karzoug may act, or if you change the environment and/or allow him to prepare a bit more to shut down things like flying charges in the first round, I think you're absolutely right that a TPK is highly likely. Which would probably be considered an even less satisfying ending.

IMO the main culprit is time stop, the king of high level rocket tag - with it, Karzoug is near invincible to a party without an arcane full caster (with the right spells to counter stuff like prismatic wall), and without time stop, an otherwise unchanged Karzoug will be too easy.

My suggestion is that you both make it impossible for the party to pull off any easy one-shot shenanigans by making changes in the environment or similar, and give their potential artifact some kind of power which allows the party to act during a time stop in some limited fashion, perhaps giving each PC a single move and swift action at the normal initiative count, plus allowing for AoOs and immediate actions as usual.