End of Paragon Tier: Thought Dump

I'm going to use this post as a dump for some of the ideas I've got floating around in my head in an attempt to organize them and expand on them in a meaningful fashion. So my players will be hitting level 20 soon, which means the end of paragon tier is only 1 level away. So far the players have a small idea of what's going to be coming up for that climactic battle, but I'm planning on blowing them away with the crazy battles and conquests that will occur, hence why I must be organized.


So Paragon tier will end with the players assaulting the former capital of Alden, where the ancient red dragon Ashardalon sits on his stolen throne. This is the biggest and baddest creature on the planet, and the players are going to face him. So far Ashardalon is the top-level bad guy, and they haven't really heard of any villains above him, so this will both shock and surprise the players to know that they have to face this guy before the campaign is actually done.

To defeat Ashardalon the players will march their army up to the city and begin the siege. This siege will be a composite of several encounters, all building up to the climactic battle with Ashardalon. For now, I just want to go over the siege part, and leave Ashardalon for another post. The siege phase of the battle will consist of 4 combats, giving me ample opportunity to wear the players down, but not so much that it becomes a slog.

While there are only 4 fights the players will get to be in, there are several more options for what battles those are. The players' actions will shift the battlefield, depending on which combats they join in, and which they don't. So far I only have a few ideas for combats, but I've got a week or two before I need to know them all. It's also important to note that the players will all have dragon mounts, as rewards for rescuing a golden dragon (assuming they succeed at that, that's next week), which opens up several more interesting combat options.

With the way the players are progressing their armies, there are 3 sides to this siege: Ground forces, naval forces, and air forces; that's right, the players have airships on their side, countered by the dragons and githyanki airships on the opposing side. This gives me ample room to force the players to decide how the siege will go. For example:

If the players have a strong naval force, Ashardalon will attack them first, since the docks are less defended than the land-entrances. If the players choose to fend off this assualt, they can get their forces into the city early in the campaign. If they don't fend this attack off (and instead help defend other units, or attack), the ships will be forced to retreat or destroyed.

This makes it seem like helping the navy would be the best option, but in doing so, the players may let a huge fire titan rampage around the field crushing ground forces, or letting the githyanki airships wail on their own sky vessels. So this combat will really force the players to think tactically and choose how they want to proceed; they can't go from one battle to the next keeping everyone okay. So right now I'm in the phase of trying to come up with different encounters that might occur based on player choice. I will most likely end up drawing up a flowchart for this, since it's very player dependent.

My question to any of you: What interesting combats do you see coming out of this? The best thing I've got coming out of this is the fight with the giant titan, which is actually 5 monsters in 1 (the head, torso, legs, right and left arm) and the players will need to destroy all parts to stop the titan's rampage. Oh, and I'm trying to stay away from strict dragon fights, since I want the one with Ashardalon to be really unique, not "just another dragon fight."

That's all I got for now, I'll likely post a bit more later on if I come up with stuff. Happy gaming!