Fabula Ultima: a Level 100 Champion

Artwork: Gustave Doré, Death on a Pale Horse

You might be wondering: what the #@*! does a Gustave Doré piece have to do with Fabula Ultima? That's easy: today I'm gonna try my hand at a level 100 champion (the kind of adversary that can threaten an entire group by themselves) and I wanted a badass artwork. Let's face it, most "final bosses" in JRPGs are nothing short of apocalyptic visions such as the one showed in this breathtaking engraving.

But enough chitchat! Let's try making a level 100 villain! In this example, I'm going to assume a standard party of four Player Characters, and this will be a hard battle (which means our villain will be the equivalent of five level 100 creatures).

(Note: while reading you'll often encounter the expression "High Roll". This indicates the highest number rolled during a Check, such as 8 when rolling a 6 and an 8 on two dice. This is generally used to calculate damage from an attack check or a magic check.)

• First of all, let's decide who this Villain is going to be. Given the picture above, I'll go with Judgment. Literally, an incarnation of law and punishment.
  
• Since this creature is an incarnation of a concept or belief, her species will be demon. Demons are a pretty simple species: they get Resistance to chaos and toxic damage, and also to a third damage type of our choice. Let's go with Resistance to soul damage, because this entity is rather impervious to spiritual strength.
  
• Let's choose some traits for Judgment: I'll give her arrogant, godly and stern.
  
• Time for some numbers, specifically attributes. A creature gets to improve one attribute every 20 levels, which means Judgment has improved her attributes five times (and no attribute can go beyond a d12).
  Let's take the standard lineup (d8 in all attributes) and upgrade it to a powerful d8 Dexterity, d12 Insight, d10 Might and d12 Willpower.
  
• Because of this, Judgment has a Defense of 8, a Magic Defense of 12, 750 Hit Points and 160 Mind Points. She gets a total of five Initiative turns, respectively at Initiative scores 20, 18, 16, 14 and 12. I'm already grinning.
  
• Let's give Judgment a basic attack. I'll call it Doom Scythe, with an Accuracy Check of [Might + Willpower] and causing damage equal to [High Roll + 5]. However, creatures always add 1/4 level to damage, which means the scythe actually deals [High Roll + 30] damage. I think I'll go with soul damage, since it's a type that is rather hard to resist.
  
• Now the biggest deal: skills. A level 100 creature can purchase 11 skills (1 + 1 every ten levels); however, a champion also gets one skill for each creature it replaces. Judgment is replacing five creatures, which means she has 16 skills in total. Oh boy.
  
  1) I'll start things simple with improved attack, increasing Doom Scythe's damage to [High Roll + 40]. This will hurt.
  
  2-3) Let's give Judgment some status effect immunities: I'll take the skill twice, once selecting immunity to poisoned and then again to give her immunity to dazed and shaken. I am purposefully leaving her vulnerable to status effect that lower her Dexterity and Might, because I don't want to completely shut down strategies.
  
  4-5) Now, some elemental tweaking. I'll purchase damage resistance twice, once to make Judgment Resist physical damage and again to make her Resistant to bolt and fire. She can still be damaged normally by acid and ice. If you're thinking "this is a tough boss", you're very right.
  
  6) Judgment has a lot of MP, and we should make use of those. Let's pick the spellcaster skill and add two spells to her arsenal: the Devastation spell, which I will rename Fire and Brimstone. The spell costs 50 MP and I'll tweak it so that it deals [High Roll + 20] fire damage to any number of targets - oh wait, we need to add 1/4 level to that. So it's [High Roll + 45] damage to the whole party... the elementalist in the group has a job to do!
  For the second spell granted by the skill, I want to go with Cursed Breath. I will rename it as Bolt of Judgment; this offensive spell costs 10 MP and inflicts [High Roll + 10] bolt damage on a target, in addition to the shaken status effect. Once again, we add 1/4 level and get to [High Roll + 35] damage.
  
  7-8-9) Oh, now something fun. I'll select special attack twice to modify Doom Scythe. First, I'll make it so that it targets Magic Defense instead of Defense (Magic Defense is generally lower), then I'll give it a brutal effect: If Doom Scythe hits a shaken target, it deals exactly 999 soul damage instead of the normal amount. This means insta-K.O., in case you were wondering.
  Frankly, this ability is strong enough that I'll make it count as two skills.
  
  10) I also want to give Judgment a special action, which I'll call Equity. As an action, Judgment may choose any two characters (one might even be Judgment herself). Calculate the total sum of those targets' current Hit Points, then divide it by two. The current HP of each target become that number.
  Judgment can use this action to focus on one character and then "redistribute" the damage, or she could even use it to heal herself and hurt a character in a pinch.
  
  11-12) Let's make Judgment's defenses a bit better, shall we? Specifically, I'll take the Improved Defenses skill and give her +2 Defense and +1 Magic Defense. This skill also lowers her Initiative scores by 6, but I'll give her the Quick skill to bring it up by 4 points.
  Now, Judgment has a Defense of 10 and a Magic Defense of 13; her Initiative turns are 18, 16, 14, 12 and 10.
  
  13) How can I make Doom Scythe even more threatening? Easy: I can give Judgment the counterattack skill from Weaponmaster. When missed by a melee attack, she may immediate retaliate with Doom Scythe. Honestly, Judgment's Defense is low enough that, at level 100, this will rarely happen. But still.
  
  14-15-16) Finally, I'll purchase the Specialized skill three times, granting Judgment a +2 bonus to Accuracy Checks, a +2 bonus to Magic Checks, and a +2 bonus to Opposed Checks. She's good at pretty much everything.

And we're done. I know, you might be thinking "holy shit this looks scary complex", but writing this took me about 20 minutes (and it's going to be a lot faster when you're doing this in your head). Also, it's a level 100 boss... most groups won't get to this level of complexity, and if they do they'll have had time to learn the game quite well.

What we have here is a tough boss fight, with plenty of actions and a couple of tricks up her sleeves, in addition to an insane amount of resilience.

BUT HOW CAN PLAYER CHARACTERS SURVIVE THIS?
Oh, it's not that bad. Judgment may still be hit with status effects that make her easier to hit and lower her offensive capabilities, and the heroes are free to establish parallel goals during the battle, such as taking away the strength of the scythe to remove that nasty 999 damage ability. Spells and equipment that grant Resistance to bolt, fire and soul damage will prove very helpful, and ranged attackers will be able to ignore counterattack.

And if things go to hell, a player might sacrifice themselves in order to shatter Judgment's scythe, perhaps screaming "I DISOBEY!".

You know you'd love that.