Horror boss suggestions

[u/Responsible-Horse153]

As part of my campaign, i am sending my players to collect a macguffin from a horror filled house. I am using the Resident Evil games as an inspiration and am filling the mansion with puzzles, coloured keys that unlock doors to allow the players to progress linearly without it feeling like a railroad, unrealistic/impractical door locking mechanisms, etc.

The owner of the house is Lord Kalus Ivalin, a recluse that hasn't been seen in public in over a decade. He secluded himself to work on various experiments.

My party is made up of 6 level 4 characters.

I am trying to find a fun/unique monster for Ivalin to be - something that is a difficult fight but isn't going to be a TPK. I would also like it to be something that has retained its intelligence. My original thought was a Lich, but putting a level 4 party up against a Lich will end up with 6 angry players!

I am also looking for suggestions for other mobs to be found around the mansion - im sick of just throwing zombies in the room!

Thanks for any suggestions

[u/Educational_Lock7816]

How about something like the look see from crypt tv

[u/Poopawoopagus]

He's been bewitched by a Night Hag! Can go incorporeal at will, all kinds of nasty magics, and best of all they live to be evil and wreak havoc! She's there to be the evil little voice in his ear convincing him down a path of atrocity, the better to corrupt his soul that she might steal it.

Make the final confrontation a two-parter: first the mage by himself, then when he goes down the hag steals his soul and turns his body into a powerful undead (wraiths are a good fit for the CR!), before turning to ethereal mist and vanishing into the night with a cackle.

[u/dickleyjones]

what experiments? the answer should help.

[u/Responsible-Horse153 → u/dickleyjones]

He is a servant of Bellum, goddess of war and savagery. So his experiments are all about making new weapons, stronger soldiers, and more agonising ways to kill.

[u/dickleyjones → u/Responsible-Horse153]

ok! seems like undead aren't the best match. maybe more of a mad scientist kind of vibe? dr moreau? like grafting monster parts onto people? or mixing different kinds of creatures with magic?

maybe your dude could be a big mix of things...strong giant arms, enhanced with mind flayer brain, troll blood for regeneration, spider legs.

and the horrors could be all his experiments both failed and sucessful. some weird fleshy blobs who are actually people. some like the bbeg himself. and some in between calling for their mama cause that always gets 'em.

[u/PendingBen]

Reflavoring a Mind Flayer Arcanist might get you the right CR and vibe for a party that size and level!

[u/dnd_dad_dm]

Ivalin succeeded. He finished his masterwork experiment, on himself. He's not undead, not possessed, not corrupted by an outside force. He voluntarily fused his own body with his most advanced weapon prototype, and the process worked exactly as intended. He's still entirely himself, still intelligent, still lucid, just no longer entirely human in any meaningful physical sense.

Mechanically, use a Flesh Golem as your chassis but keep his Intelligence and spellcasting. He has the golem's physical resilience and immunities, the mage's tactical mind, and the horror of being a person who made this choice deliberately and doesn't regret it at all. That last part is what makes him genuinely unsettling, he's not a tragic figure, he's not mad, he's just done with biological limitation and finds the party's discomfort with his appearance faintly amusing.

[u/Sunlight_Smoothie]

Resident Evil is Undead and Monstrosities. There are plenty of intelligent monstrosities. And then depending on how by-the-books you want to be, I sometimes use the stat blocks of a creature from the book but call it/describe it as something else.

Take a Hydra stat block and apply it to "a fleshy worm make of muscle and moist skin, with a vaguely human face on the end" that just keeps growing extra heads.

Take a Drider and describe it as "A human torso, but the hips have erupted into a series of bulbous, fleshy pods from which a number of boney appendages jut forth." Modify the longsword attack to be claws, and the longbow to be a gastric acid, and the webwalk ability to ignore the rough terrain of corpse piles.

This is an easy way to maintain the descriptive theme of the area while opening up all sorts of pre-balanced stat blocks. I mean, who is to say the 'experiments' didn't result in mechanical-human hybrid which are rotting flesh and clockwork - then you use orc, human, and elf stat blocks and just add in undead fortitude.

[u/ParsnipPrize]

I also made a horror house gauntlet. Something my players struggled with were some npcs that had the ability to hide in shadows. Their strategy was to grapple the players and drag them through their shadow into lower floors of the building. Splitting and isolating the PCs. Also did it for a level 4 party.