Has this ever happened to you? You spend an entire campaign working up this one, big villain. You give him powerful henchmen, show him stealing an artifact of untold power, maybe even had him kidnap a virgin or two. Then, you give him every magic item you think he needs, give him a solid battle strategy, give just the right speech before the fight against the only heroes in the world that can stop him, then BAM! Your vampiric arch-villain is taken down in two rounds by your overly lucky, absurdly well prepared party. Needless to say, you’re quite annoyed, and the players are just looking around thinking “Is this it?”

But hey, there’s nothing you can do about it, right? They killed him fair and square, might as well divide up the treasure and start working on another bad guy, maybe this time with some damage reduction or a higher challenge rating. Wrong. You can still salvage this fight easily enough, all you need to do is make your bad guy a little tougher. Basically, the final villain, they guy your heroes have been dying to beat to a bloody pulp should be challenging. It should never be easy for the players, and we all know that the challenge rating system is not perfect. Some creatures with a CR 5 are tougher than others, some are more challenging to certain groups and some are easy to kill. What you, as the DM, have to keep in mind is that the final fight should be difficult. It is not fair to the character and it is most certainly not fair to your players for the fight they have been waiting for to only last for two rounds.

So, what do you do? If you want to be discrete about it, just add on some more hit points or armor. Don’t even bother justifying it, the players can’t see how much HP this guy has, or how high his AC is. This prolongs the fight, obviously, and gives this villain a chance to show off some of the tricks you have been working on for so long. In this same line of thought, you can give him damage reduction, which is a challenge for just about any group to fight against. Alternatively, if you want to be a bit flashier, you could throw in some new powers or magic items. If one of your players rolls maximum damage for a “Disintegrate” spell, and that is enough to kill your lich wizard, just have him teleport to the other side of the room and menacingly hold up a new ring. Maybe have him blurt something out about learning from their last fight, or having prepared specifically for that trick because he has “seen it before.”

Many of you might be thinking “Well, that’s not fair to the players.” In fact, that is just the opposite. Players live for the challenge, and the villain’s defeat will be all the sweeter if they really have to work for it. Feel free to give more experience out for defeating this powered-up villain, or add some more treasure to the pile to make up for it. They are defeating a more powerful opponent, after all, and should be rewarded for it. Keep in mind, however, that you should not use this for every monster or random encounter. A troll is a troll, and if it is defeated in one round, no one really cares. However, for named villains, opponents that have something special to them, you should give the players more time to enjoy the fight, and see what surprises you cooked up for them. Similarly, if an opponent is too powerful, feel free to power him down just a little bit. Dungeons and Dragons is about having fun, rules and numbers are secondary, a guide, and they can be adjusted when it would make the game more fun for you and your players.

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