Okay, here's what's been happening. My group have been going along their missons and came out unscarthed in every one, except for a scum who lost his leg in one encounter and then asked his cell-mate to shoot him dead permanently. In short, I believe I'm being a little too easy on my players, and they're about level 3 - 5 at the moment.

So, now they''ve come to the pivotal point of the campaign, the BBBG (Big Bad Boss Guy) that caused most of the problems. They've met the BBBG early on once and now they have to defeat him.somehow, or at least find a way to escape (but the latter is not an option since the BBBG doesn't want them to just run away). Oh, the characters are inside the warp and on a space hulk where the BBBG is, courtesy of a rogue trader, and he has the ability to phase....so, no easy kills. They did get rid of a roomful of extremely tough & difficult to hurt zombies by throwing bombs at them.

I don't want to railroad my players but I also don't want to make it easy for them to defeat the boss, either. I'm not going for TPK and I don't want them to think I'm out to do this. Any suggestions on how to handle the encounter?

Thanks in advance.

Breathe in deep, hold it for a sec breathe out again. then pick up the dice....

On a more serious note: you could turn it into a chase around the space hulk. Pehaps his phasing or shielding could be dependen on an external source, some power generators, or dispersed covenants on cultists that are ritually fueling their boss. You could have like three of four locations that the characters have to cleanse before the boss becomes beatable.

Meph said:

The Chaplain's teleport homer wargear is only so much dead weight if the Battle Barge has exploded....

40K fortune cookie aside, this above is not a bad idea. The big bad can be rendered less big and bad if the players cleverly unravel the keys to his power and then begin cutting the strings that bind his evil plan together...

"FOOLS! You dare challenge the might of Groxthor the Pungent! Without the Crystal Shard of Lamdragorna you are helpless to resist my awesome powers! Uh... Oh... I see you found the Crystal. Well, shucks."