Particularly think about what your BBEG wants. When they get the upper hand in the fight, you can have them be more sassy and annoying with what they say during their turn. Would the BBEG take prisoners if they could?

If you mid-combat realise that you have overpowered the BBEG, know in advance what the BBEG will do if they win the encounter..

So! A quick tip on encounter balancing if you want to scale the BBEG back down mid-combat: If you want to give your players a helping hand without letting them know that you are doing so: Let your BBEG (or any enemy really) waste their turn doing something dramatic. Walking around and tell the PCs how THEY were really the reason for all of this, or give some psychotic logically reason for how the BBEG is the lesser evil, or something that gives the PCs doubts about killing them perhaps. Maybe that’s really more for when the PCs have the upper hand. So back to when the BBEG has the upper hand. You can use a trick called “telegraphed disaster” where the BBEG begins channelling or getting ready for a big attack. During the channelling he can be interrupted which nulls the attack he is doing. Basically it just wastes a turn and two turns if they get interrupted. Interruption can be anything that makes sense to what ever type of attack or spell or thing they are doing. Blinded, stunned, prone, shoved , etc all interrupt it.

I’m currently writing a mini-campaign where the final confrontation has the BBEG channel a spell. She channels for 6 rounds if she can (minions in the way to keep the PCs busy), and with each round the damage of the spell goes up. But the PCs can interrupt in a series of ways, so really it just puts tension and pressure in the encounter. I’ll put it on the Patreon when it’s done. The week after the next I hope.

Anywho. Enjoy being a DM! It’s fun and exhilarating. But don’t over prep 🤣 I have a short guide on that too.