u/actorsAllusion

4 Sessions. 9 hours. Thousands of hit points worth of damage. And one victorious party.

I posted previously in this subreddit my map for my homebrewed final battle.
https://www.reddit.com/r/VecnaEveofRuin/comments/1uhbh1n/eve_of_ruin_mechanus_core_final_battle/

Tonight my players finished the battle after a long, multi-session battle. And it was absolutely fantastic. The players made absolute insane saving throws to avoid damage from Meteor Swarm and Disintegrate, tanked a Solar's exterminating arrow, battled dragons, vampires, liches and demons, poured out SO much healing, while taking advantage of boons gifted to them by their powerful godly allies.

It ended with the Barbarian, Soren getting the final blow as the Rod of Order pieces fused into his gauntlets to gift him with the Fist of the Multiverse (he used a Maul, but flavoured it that he punched with big metal gauntlets). In order to use it, the players and the spirits of their closest allies joined together to meet the shared DC 125 group con save, allowing Soren to make one final strike completely destroying Vecna's Soul.

I'm exhausted, and super emotional, but I'm incredibly happy. And now I rest.

Edit: The Astral Dreadnaught was summoned by the party Cleric with a use of Gate.

Well, here it is. The final battle map for my (heavily homebrewed) Eve of Ruin Campaign.

The party is going to descend into the core of Mechanus, using the Rod of Order as an activation item for what's essentially a multiversal antivirus program to purge Vecna, who siphoned half of his soul out of his phylactery into the Plane of Order to try and make the entire multiverse his phlactery, and in the process making every creature in the multiverse an extension of himself. "The ritual in the Cave of Shattered Reflection was Plan A, but ultimately, why make the multiverse mine, when instead I could simply make the multiverse...me."

In order to do so, they will need to pass through demi-planes representing each of the realms they retrieved pieces of the Rod of Order from, using it to prime magical sigils (each of the players will be able to do so, utilizing different checks based on their skill sets) while also battling through what is essentially a boss rush of every major threat they've faced.

At the same time, Vecna will be using a physical avatar to battle them, one that can be killed but regenerated via Lair Action. Due to the amount of opponents and sheer length of the battle, each completed sigil will also grant some buffs, from partywide bardic inspirations, refreshes of class resources, healing and so on.

Hopefully this will give my party of 8 Level 20 Player Characters a challenge, though given how much the dice seem to love them, who knows! Regardless, I know that they're going to think it's rad as shit.

Images here are the map itself, and the map as it will look in Roll20 with Vecna, The Darkness of Eternity stationed at center stage.

And just for clarity, the demiplanes in order starting from bottom and going clockwise:

1. Mechanus Core
2. Toril (Underdark/Web's Edge)
3. Astral Sea (Havok Interior)
4. Eberron (Landro Interior)
5. Ravenloft (Barovia Castle)
6. Krynn (Draconic Fortress)
7. Oerth (Tomb of Forgotten Souls)
8. Avernus (Avernus Fields)

Tomorrow night, my long running group is getting to what they think is going to be the final battle of the campaign. A battle against Vecna, The Whispered One (a tweaked version of the High Mage Vairae stat block from Flee, Mortals!), Vecna, The Wyrd (a combined and buffed version of the Telepath and Telekinetic Masters stat blocks from MCDM's The Talent book) and Vecna, of Eld (a combination of the 2016 and 2024 Lich statblocks) along with two Lesser Dracoliches, just to have some minions to soak up damage.

This battle, between a master spellcaster, a telekinetic expert and a lich wielding multidimensional energies will hopefully push my part of 8 level 19 PCs (yes, I am psychotic, thank you for asking) to their limit and maybe, just maybe, I might finally get them to use some of their gold on a True Resurrection.

And of course, not one of them know that this isn't even going to be the true final battle, which is going to take them deep into Mechanus to use the Rod of Order to activate a multiversal anti-virus program to purge Vecna once and for all. But they'll be finding out soon enough.

Note: Deleted the previous version of this, the pics were pixelated all to hell for a few of them.