Shortcut to resource depletion
Hey friends, love reading all your wisdom on other posts!
My party in their next session will be facing off against their BBEG for this arc. I expect they will start the session with a long rest and then a short journey to the fight.
Some have no spell slots at all, others missed a session so are pretty fully stocked, so it would feel unfair to just not let them rest - I want players to feel evenly equipped for the fight.
Normally I would throw a smaller encounter or two along their way, but since this is the last session before one of my players move away, I don't want to spend time on other things that might delay them and result in that player missing the climax.
Is there any other way people have to 'artificially' drain some resources?
e.g. a montage of encounters on the journey with some brief rolls that determine how much they lose? How to fairly manage loss of HP and spell slots amongst different classes?
They're level 5. I was thinking of including something like rolling 2d3 and they lose that many of that spell slot, e.g. a 1 and a 3 would be either 1 level 3 slot or 3 level 1 slots.
Keen for better ideas than mine that are fair, hopefully a little fun, and quick!
Or is it just better to let them be at full power and crank up the difficulty of that final combat.
Thanks everyone!