#like probably but. i remember doing the exact same damage with 1 attack versus 1 enemy n being like. hm.

[ajdrawshq]

fun interaction i never got before: if going against multiple enemies in a single encounter and all enemies have low enough hp, Bonnie can and will do the final hit on all of them. one after another

[aurorawest]

I'd really, really like to hear more of your thoughts about Stephen Strange's character in his own film (and in Ragnarok), vs. his appearances in IW/Endgame. "Doctor Strange" is in my top five fav Marvel movies, but I didn't realize how little thought I'd given to his IW/EG appearances until you mentioned the difference in the character between portrayals. (In hindsight, I think this is because Strange feels a bit ... flatly written in IW/EG?) So I'd love to hear your thoughts on this!

Thanks for asking! You nailed one of my chief problems with his characterization—Strange is flatly written in IW/EG. With the exception of his opening scene with Wong in IW, he’s boring, has little personality, and is just sort of a Generic Superhero. Ben Cumberbatch does his best—that ???? look on his face when Drax says, “I’ll do you one better—what is Gamora?” is one of the funniest parts of IW—but there’s only so much the guy can do when they basically gave him nothing to work with.

This got long and possibly salty, so, more after the break:

IMO, it’s pretty obvious that the Russos and the writers of IW and EG had little interest in Strange. And I get it! Every character is not interesting to every person! That’s why certain characters never show up in my writing, because I don’t care about them. But like, if you sign on to do a big ensemble movie, can you at least like, try to write the characters’ personalities the way they’ve been established? It just seems painfully, painfully obvious that the people making these movies didn’t care enough about Strange to try at all.

I have two really specific problems with the way Strange is written in IW/EG:

1. He tells Stark that if he has to choose between saving Peter and him and stopping Thanos, he’ll choose stopping Thanos and let them die.

...

This man is a doctor. We repeatedly see him, prior to IW, doing no harm. In his initial fight with the zealots at the Sanctum in Doctor Strange, he sends one of them through a door in the Rotunda of Gateways, and, of course, uses the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak to trap Kaecilius. And when he does kill one of them, he’s really upset about it and brings up the fact that he took an oath to do no harm. The final fight preceding his battle with Dormammu is more focused on reversing time and saving everyone’s lives than on stopping Kaecilius and his zealots. In fact, he only fights them when they break out of the spell. The whole plan is to reverse time far enough so that they can stop Kaecilius before the Hong Kong Sanctum falls.

Even the way he defeats Dormammu is about the least violent way he can do it—he never tries to attack Dormammu. And yeah, he does make a deal with Dormammu to send Kaecilius and the zealots to the Dark Dimension, which is probably his most ‘violent’ moment in the movie. He still doesn’t get his own hands dirty, haha.

We even see this in Ragnarok. Strange doesn’t hurt Loki. Here’s a guy who has done considerable damage to Earth. Strange has him on a list of threats to the planet. And yet, all he does is trap Loki in a 30 minute fall. Clearly, Loki is totally fine.

He emphasizes over and over that he’s a doctor—this is an important part of him, so important that he won’t let go of it, even though he’ll never practice medicine again. He sees himself as a healer, as someone who fixes people and makes them better. So the fact that he has that line in IW infuriates me. I get that if he has to choose between saving the universe and sacrificing two lives, yeah, he’d probably sacrifice the two lives. But like, where’s the guilt, where’s the regret at having said this? UGH.

I actually really love the choice between saving one life versus saving the universe—I think it’s endlessly interesting. It’s a thread that’s woven throughout Loki’s arc in the MCU, for instance, and it’s well done. But it was poorly done with Strange. I was talking to @mareebird about this and she rightly said that Strange just wasn’t the character for this particular arc in IW. Even his choosing to save one life (Tony’s) is only because he knows that Stark is going to be the one to defeat Thanos in the end ( @mareebird also reminded me of this).

2. It’s hard to avoid the feeling that they made Strange boring and flat because they already had one snarky genius with a beard, and the MCU has always been about Tony Stark.

So, full disclosure...I really dislike Tony Stark. I didn’t used to, and now I do. I fully admit that this second point influenced my dislike of Stark. The more I came to love Stephen, the more it irritated me the way he gets shunted to the side in IW in favor of Stark. It really feels like because Strange is also snarky, sarcastic, super smart, and kind of an asshole, that they felt it would take away from Stark. And because you can’t do that, instead Strange gets turned into this boring, one-dimensional, humorless character. Don’t get me wrong, he gets a few good lines here and there. But in Doctor Strange he makes jokes all the time! He literally says to Wong, “People used to think I was funny,” which tells us that joking around is part of his personality. Even though the situation we see him in in Ragnarok doesn’t give him a lot of opportunity to be funny, he’s still funny there. His reactions to Thor are comedy gold. That’s almost all gone in IW and EG. Remember how I said that with the exception of his opening scene with Wong, his character has little personality? I think it’s pretty telling that he shares almost every scene with Stark after that.

And just a general point of irritation: they made him so powerful in IW that they didn’t know what to do with him in EG. Instead of fighting, he has to hold up a dam for 90% of the final battle. Here’s a hot take: don’t make your characters ridiculously powerful just for the cool factor, because you’re going to have to deal with nerfing them later. I’m not saying this can’t be done well, but this is not a case of it being done well. It’s really transparent what’s going on (Carol falls prey to the exact same thing). Incidentally this is why I despise Loki stans going on about Loki not being powerful enough in the MCU because guess whaaaaaat, really powerful characters get taken out of the action since there’s no drama when you can just...win.

Thanks again for asking! Haha hopefully this didn’t get too salty.

[capricornus-rex]

In the Face of Fear (5 - End)

Cal Kestis x Reader

Requested by @stellar-trinity​

Summary: Kashyyyk has its own charms and surprises, but what if one of those said surprises rear its ugly, unpleasant head right in front of you in the form of a spider that’s the size of a boulder?

Tags: Arachnophobia, Wyyyschokk, Matriarch Wyyyschokk, Kashyyyk, Arachnophobic! Reader

Also in AO3

Chapters: 1 – 2 – 3 | Previous: Part 4 | Masterlist

5 of 5

You landed on the soil with a cat-like posture and lightness. You and Cal—though still immobilized—watched the spider rub its face, soothing itself from the pain of your kicking. Once relieved, the spider locked all of its eyes solely on you.

“I think you’ve made it angrier,” Cal attempted to lean closer to your earshot.

“Yeah, well, I did cut her leg off. And kicked in the face. So yeah, I guess you can say I pissed her off!”

Before the Wyyyschokk could skitter back to a closer distance, you threw your lightsaber to its direction, searing the top of its hind abdomen and came bouncing back at you. If this abomination could speak, she would definitely have said something along the lines of “I am tired of dealing with you two children!”

Those words, albeit not exact, echoed in your mind—as if the Wyyyschokk had communicated withyou. But you can’t afford a moment to reflect.

It was time to fight.

“Okay,” you huffed, psyching yourself up. “You can do this...”

The Wyyyschokk screeched at you. You squeeze your hilt with both hands.

“Probably,” you shrug a shoulder during your short pep talk with yourself.

The Wyyyschokk close din on you this time, it probably remembered you amputating it—recognizing the color of your lightsaber as well—and got more aggressive in its approach. It wasn’t the slighest bit intimidated by a stick of light that you swing around, and so it proceeded to crawl towards you.

You dared not to run, even if that’s your initial impulse whenever you’re head-to-head with your own phobia. You planted the soles of your boots to the soil—balanced and erect in your erect. When the Matriarch Wyyyschokk was close enough, you swung your saber the other way, completely removing the other leg she had used in holding Cal. Her once-pointed foot was nothing more than a limb with a charred stub. The Matriarch looked at her leg stump, the pain and the anger boiled altogether into one drum-busting wail—rattling her entire body and the cavern, possibly alerting her spawns.

Covering your ears did so little in muffling out the noise, both you and Cal winced until the spider stopped screaming.

Cal continued to wriggle his way out of the cocoon, but to no avail; meanwhile, you try your best to fight off the Wyyyschokk. You transitioned from aimless swinging to more calculated attacks—although basic strikes, as they were—and evasive maneuvers. One of the objectives was to not get impaled by her other intact legs with ends as sharp as spearheads. With your size versus the Matriarch’s, you’re capable of avoiding her wide-ranged attacks and parrying the lunges. The hide of the creature’s rotund abdomen was surprisingly tougher, your slashes could only singe the shell, but not totally maim or subdue it—that’s when you realized you have to drive your saber through its weak spot: the exposed flesh on the peak of its abdomen.

She’s too fast! You observed in your mind. The only way to solve that is to completely cut off all of her limbs—you’ve taken out two of eight so far, you’ve six more to go.

There was a burst of energy seething within you, it’s probably from the adrenaline; whatever its origin, you made use of it to your advantage. The Matriarch can still attack you like normal, though her pair of leg stumps do less damage than before when they were still whole. Elusively sliding to its side before it could turn around to face you, a violent push hurtled it against the wall, bringing the Matriarch lying on her side and her grotesque feet scrambling to stand herself up; being just one second behind, you come sprinting forward with the glistening beam of light primed for a stab. A clean sweeping cut to the right severed the last joints of the Wyyyschokk’s legs, your heels sprang up from the ground and sparks flew when your lightsaber met with the spider’s tough hide.

Tearing through the prismatic, shimmering shell of its rump, there was a bit of a struggle; though, with the Wyyyschokk disoriented and physically handicapped on one side, it afforded you some time to really deal some damage. Never mind the ear-drilling howls, you supported the pommel with the base of your hand when there was resistance coming from the Matriarch. You wager a guess that you’re driving deep into the organs while the set of stumps of her left-side slap and whip at your back.

Whne the clawing had become more violent, you withdrew from the beast. Both Jedi and the little droid, BD-1, watched the spider scramble back to its feet—it now stood slanted, her menacing gait was now a thing of the past as it was reduced to a humiliating hobble unfit for something named a Matriarch. Though, it was fueled by a primal rage of killing its prey to do itself some justice.

“This has got to be the most persistent spider I’ve seen!” you commented to Cal.

“Yeah, just to get back at you for chopping her legs!”

“Fair point,” you shrugged sarcastically. “Which makes me hate it back even more!”

You sprang back towards it, the burst of power remained undying. The Matriarch rears back an inch and the sorry remnants of her front limbs are lifted from the ground—you know this move, thus you retaliated with a successful parry. The spider was quick to follow up another attack, but you were quicker—parroting a particular move of Cal’s: a direct kick right after doding the next attack. You swerved to your left—the side where the last of this great Wyyyschokk’s limbs remain intact—and executed the kick to disorient it for a brief second. A move that required one to move in the blink of an eye.

You followed it up with  a duo of hard, heavy slashes that severed the left side of its body—the sternum, the abdomen—but it quickly shifted to face you, until the Matriarch attempted to redo the same attack that you parried, only this time, it won’t take a single parry to deter her. You felt the animal’s confidence of sorts that it’ll finally kill you along with Cal, reinforced by the same primitive rage that fuels its persistence, and you determined it to be its undoing.

Lunge. And then a parry.

This exchange of assault happened thrice. The third parry was the strongest, injuring the outer set of mandibles. With the Matriarch fazed after the third, you hopped on to her head like a stepping stone until you hover on the peak of its abdomen. The tip of the lightsaber aligns with the center of the fleshy, claw-shaped dermis and plunged it. You found it easier to penetrate the top than the side. Of course, the Wyyyschokk thrashed violently, you held onto your hilt as tight as you could and buckled your knees to plant your feet against its shell.

“Damn...” Cal muttered in awe as he watched, almost not minding the cocoon.

The movement became slower and more sluggish, the Wyyyschokk has depleted its energy on its dying throes, though you still held onto the hilt with the blade driven deep through the creature’s shell. In half a second, the Matriarch Wyyyschokk’s body finishes into a heavy thud on the earth, you joined the drop, your knuckles were swelling white as bone from the tightness of your grip, and then returned to its color when you confirmed your quarry to be unmoving. The Matriarch’s remaining limbs clenched and scraped the earth until she finally gave up and loosed all tension in her body. A weak squeal escapes her mouth for the last time.

Silence for ten seconds past. Either Jedi anticipated something, but hoped that it was finally over. Cal squirmed around in his silken straitjacket.

“Umm... [Y/N]?”

“Oh...” you huffed. Your hand searched for the saber still stuck into the spider’s exoshell. It took some effort to tug it out, when you did, a vile mixture of cauterized bits of entrails and sparks spurted out of the orifice. You then dragged your knees to Cal’s direction, the tip of your saber hovered an inch above the mud; you knelt at a considerable distance from Cal—the heavy load on your entire body, pounded to exhaustion as the adrenaline wore off, felt relieving. You then founded the strength to hold your saber to eye level and carefully cut through the cocoon.

“Alright, now hold still,” your weak voice was almost a whisper.

“Gently now,” Cal whimpered.

You overlooked the evident doubt in his voice knowing full well you’ve been battered by the fight, “It’s fine, I can still hold it up properly.”

Cal could feel the heat coming from the end of your saber, but he can also feel the cocoon loosening up on his shoulders, and then to his neck; much later, there’s finally some wiggle room for his arms, you worked your way in cutting it downward until his kicked the cocoon’s flaps open. He rolled over and threw the rest of the shell off of his back.

“It’s almost like you hatched out of it,” you joked.

“Ha-ha, very funny,” retaliated the redhead as he dusted off the grass and dirt from his sleeves. His sarcastic tone mellowed and shifted into a warm, affirming tone, “Hey...”

Sensing the abrupt change of tone, you looked to him, wordlessly prompting him to continue.

He plants his hand on the top of your head, fingers slightly digging into your hair and rubbed lightly. “You did great back there.”

You let out one big sigh. Your foreheads touch.

“You did it, [Y/N],” Cal said this twice, whispering proudly to you as he squeezes your hand. He sneaks a kiss on your forehead and helped each other back up on your feet.

“Come on, before the kids find out their mom is dead,” you blurted.

Speak of the devil. Both of you had to move fast as neither of you can deny that the collective skittering and hissing of the lesser Wyyyschokks are starting to get a little louder—what seemed to start as faint noises lurking amongst the rock eolved into a menacing buzz that frightened even the little BD-1.

“T-Trill!”

“BD’s picking up a lot of thermal signatures in here all of a sudden!” Cal translated.

“Well, I’m not waiting to find out what they are in person!”

Gathering his strength, Cal punched the wall with the brass claws, starting with his right hand. When he got a feel that it’ll hold, he looked over his shoulder.

“Hold onto me.”

there was no time for argument. At the corner of your eye, you could see the moss-green of the Wyyyschokk’s body popping out of the shadows. You drape your arms around Cal and he begins scaling the rock wall. You lock your legs against his hips, and quietly promised you’d literally get off of his back when you’re at a considerable distance from the ledge.

You peeked down and Cal has brought the two of you pretty far up now, the collective hissing in the shadows have taken shape into a cluster of the lesser Wyyyschokks gathering round the carcass of their mother. Their fangs twitch as they touch the dead shell of the Matriarch, the feelers in their mandibles alert them that there isn’t anymore a sign of life within her—their sad curiosity morphed into a seething rage akin to their mother’s, rooted by their grief as a whole pack.

“Um, Cal? I think they’ve figured it out!”

“Figured what out?”

“That we killed their mom,”

“Hey, that’s all on you!”

The redhead attempted to pick up the pace, not letting the pressure get to him. You briefed Cal on your plan, so when he got to the top end of the wall, he drove the claws deeper and planted the tips of his boots for traction.

He peeked over his shoulder, looking down, and seeing that the Wyyyschokks scamper from the dead Matriarch to the base of the wall. His heart rate spikes.

“Any moment now, [Y/N]!”

“I’m working on it, hon!” you grunted.

Your free hand flicked the cover of the small switch that’ll send a wire flying from your right-hand gauntlet. Once done, you extend your right arm, fist facing forward, and then a hooked cord shoots right out of the narrow runway of the gadget. The tiny spines on the hook dug into ledge’s adjacent wall. With his free hand, Cal takes the loose end of the cord out of the gauntlet’s small hatch—revealing a toothed anchor—and stabs the rock wall with it. A few good, resistant tugs confirmed that the anchor’s been secured.

“Alright, it’s good to go,” reported Cal.

You scrambled for the pouch on your utility harness and produced a zipline slider. You literally got off Cal’s back, hooked the slider over the cord, and traversed the air—hanging about twenty feet above the ground with a colony of vengeful spiders below. Shortly after, BD-1 hopped over the cord, his forked feet clicked and transformed into the same fashion of a zipline slider—then Cal held onto the little droid and joined you on the ledge.

A few of the spiders have already climbed to a certain height of the wall, others have cut through the line and circled to reach the top end, a handful have crossed the gap by deliberately passing by the rock wall and towards you. Before any of them could examine the anchor—let alone, realize that it’s there—you twisted a thin knob on the hook-end. The anchor whipped and whistled, startling the spiders near it, and snapped as it conjoins itself with the hook. Cal watched with a child-like wonderment.

“That’s pretty nifty!”

“I know, I should make one for you some time!”

Once the hook and anchor mechanism had reduced into the size of a metal pod, you returned it to its small hatch on your gauntlet and prepared for a second shot—this time, as a climbing line from the ledge to the oculus.

You’re reminded of the disadvantage on your end, “I can’t zipline upwards. I’m gonna have to borrow BD.”

“Bee-bee-chirp!” the droid was happy to help and didn’t spare a second in hopping onto the cord.

Before you could even hold onto little BD-1, a single Wyyyschokk clung onto the rock above your heads and greeted you with its maws, strung with saliva and bile. It didn’t wait any longer for either of you to react, but the pointy end of Cal’s lightsaber beamed through the roof of its mouth and then through its skull. He thumbed on the switch while his weapon was still near its mouth, the rod of light vanished cleanly, scrolling downward into the emitter.

The Force lent him enough strength to carry and toss the Wyyyschokk off the ledge, but a few would soon follow.

“Uhh, [Y/N]...”

“I know, I know! I see them!”

That courage you had on the ground against the Matriarch Wyyyschokk seemed to have died with her. Your phobia was returning in each passing minute her legion of spawn cover nearly half of the wall. Your initial grip on BD was unstable, it took you a brief minute to adjust your grip that’ll reassure you won’t fall along the way.

Clamping your fingers tight around BD’s feet, the droid’s rotors went to work and delivered you from point to point. As soon as BD’s feet touched the end of the string, you buckled your legs and sprang upward, directly out of the oculus. You knelt by the rim of the hole and witnessed the spiders miss Cal by a hair. He leaped straight out, the three of you regrouped but it doesn’t stop there—one problem after another, the spiders were gaining and they’re already treading the cord.

“Step away!”

You cut the cord with your saber, the cord twanged and whipped as it lost all the tension from the anchor and hook. The spiders that were walking on it went down with it. A few have failed in attempting to make the impossible jump and fell from a higher drop.

“Here, help me!” Cal scrambled up to his feet and then faced his entire body towards a boulder.

Immediately getting the idea, you stood up and channeled the Force; gathering strength to lift the boulder alongside Cal. Together, the rock rose from the ground, leaving an indent on its former place since time immemorial, and—fitting like a glove—clogs up the cavern’s oculus from the surface, severing the leg joint of a juvenile Wyyyschokk in the process.

The amputated leg wildly twitched, hopped, and writhed by your feet, which you jerked back out of startled disgust. The two of your watched it until it finally curled and went limp. Finally, you and Cal can afford the breather that you so desperately wanted and needed.

“Come on, we have to get back to base,” you nudge at his shoulder.

“Yeah...” he exhaled. “Yeah, let’s.”

You chuckle at his lazy bum. Your arms couold not take up his weight as you take his one hand with both of yours. He initiated to stand up when you landed on your bottom after trying to tug at him, the roles reversed, and you distanced yourself from the clogged hole of the underground cavern.

Cal clicked the button of his comlink.

“Sierra Unit, do you copy?”

A couple more impatient clicks on the gadget and he was answered with static. BD-1 tried to help by popping out his tiny satellite out of the top plating of his head, the little dish spins at a speed while the droid’s owner continues his desperate attempt.

The device finally beeped, an ecstatic male voice answers.

“Hey now, I thought for sure you were goners in that Wyyyschokk pit!”

A grin stretched across Cal’s freckled face. A huge relief befell him when his shoulders voluntarily relaxed. You shared the same sentiment, except you hid your desperation for a response on the other end of the comlink.

“Is it too early for a pick-up?” chortled Cal.

“Not at all! Just send us your coordinates and we’ll be right over... Over!”

After the transmission, you were drawn to the crashing sound of water, thus you followed it; you walk up to the more open area of the forest—finding yourselves on the side of a river, at the edge was a waterfall. The scenic view at the ridge was breathtaking. Fresh, crisp air welcome itself into your lungs, the loose fringes of your hiar whipped at the torrential wind from such an altitude, and the mist of the water tickled your cheeks and neck.

This was a wholly new area to both of you.

“Cal, over here!”

The redhead approached where you stood. He, too, was astounded by the view. Treetops and mountains that were greener than his emerald irses, and a sky that was so vast and blue; the Shyyyo Bird made an appearance, gliding over the treelines. The spray of the rapids at his left-hand side landed on his freckles and fogged BD-1’s optical lens. He realizes that there’s so much that everyone—except the Wookiees—hasn’t touched yet: Imperial or otherwise.

Not long after appreciating the view, a gray speck dotted the sky in your north, at the edge of the waterfall. Squinting through the horizon with your hand over your brow, the gray speck in the sky takes on size. The rotors of a retrofitted LAAT gunship mingle quite well with the roaring rapids—faintly, at first, until it got louder as they got nearer. A foot soldier peeked out of the doorless side of the ship and waved his free arm at you. As a response, you ignite your saber and wave it in the same manner as the soldier.

Just when you thought you were saved—the spiders have made a team effort in pushing out the boulder used to block off their exit. The thumping sound of the rock caused both Jedi to swing around and watch as the Wyyyschokks spring out of the hole. The foot soldier saw the quick transition from your glad expressions to an impatient, anxious one.

“Hurry, drop down the ladder!”

“Come on! They’re coming!”

Confused, the foot soldier was partially panicking and taking his time—unsure of the sudden mood change. He scrambled inside the ship looking for the rope ladder while the vessel lowered itself slowly. Alternating between the soldier in the ship and the rock being moved by the spiders in a collective effort, Cal locked eyes with one lesser Wyyyschokk while you clawed the air—pleading the soldier to kick down the ladder.

“HURRY!!” you cried.

The ladder was still untangling itself in mid-air when you clumsily caught a rung.

“Cal, come on!”

You manually straightened out the rope ladder and started climbing, Cal followed suit. The foot soldier shouted at the pilot to bring them up while the two Jedi were still clinging onto some rungs. The juvenile Wyyyschokks never got close to your heels; by the time they’ve completely gotten out of their den, the LAAT gunship has already carried you. The creatures curse the wind and the metal bird for refraining them from avenging their mother.

Again, you catch your breaths while the foot soldier checked on both of you.

“You’re alright, you two. You’re safe now,” he reassured. “What happened down there anyway?”

Cal nodded sideways, pointing to you, “Believe it or not: [Y/N] here killed the Matriarch.”

The soldier’s eyes widened and his jaw dropped altogether, “No way?”

The Jedi boy countered, bemusingly, “Way.”

“I don’t believe it. Well, that’s a story to tell around the campfire back at base!”

All you could do was smile. You were exhausted. There was nothing to say, but you appreciate the affirmation. The least you could do right now, after facing your fear all caged inside a rock, is reward yourself with rest.

[xanth-the-wizard]

[Part 1] Hello, hi. Me again (I was first time dm'er if you remember) anywho! I'm dm'ing another one shot again on Saturday because half our party won't be around to continue our ongoing campaign. So I'm writing a one shot right now and I have a 14 challenge final boss. But there is also a possibility of their being a 11-19 challenge encounter (with a lovely homebrew scroll I found) and also another encounter prior to that with a level 15 sorcerer...

[Part 2] and I want my party of 4 to be able to live. But not feel too overpowered, you know? So i was wondering on advice from you of possible suggested levels for my players? I was thinking maybe 10-12 might be suitable. But I'm not experienced enough to be confident in what to tell them without a second opinion. Thanks so much! 😊😊

First I'd like to say congrats! I hope your main campaign is doing well, I'm happy to help once again! Alright, so I've talked a little bit about encounters/difficulty rating recently and unfortunately my answer was more or less, "I'm not entirely sure."

There's been a lot of critiques of the challenge rating since it isn't an exact science and things could always go really well/poorly. And in addition to that, different players and party combinations may lead to encounters being easier since they have a great team synergy and can overcome a challenge a lot easier. Since your players will be playing completely fresh characters that means they probably won't be doing as well as they would with their regular characters at the same level. They need to learn all of their new spells and abilities so they not be fighting to their fullest potential right away.

Now specifically with four 12th level characters, I feel like the amount of higher encounters you are planning might end up being a little too much for them to handle. This of course, can also depend on how often they get to heal. If you match them up with what you have in mind now without any chances to rest, it may be too difficult and wipe them out before the final boss. So if they don’t have a healer in the party, give them short rests after each encounter. You could also try running an NPC Cleric (Maybe 5-7th Level?) who isn’t skilled in combat but can keep your party alive if things get too difficult.

Next I’d recommend that during the session you test them. Try setting a couple of 7 CR monsters to see how they fare before running a more difficult encounter. Since this is a oneshot, you only get a few chances to test them so make it count! If you discover that the challenges are too easy then make the boss a little tougher and vice versa if they are struggling. It’s okay to tweak things a bit as you go. More health, slightly more damage, etc.. Just be careful when you start making the bosses harder.

Another important thing to keep in mind is that numbers matter! Four players versus one boss can be pretty easy if the rolls are good. It’s 4-1, the odds are greatly in the party’s favor if they still have some good health. So maybe give your boss a few minions that swarm to their aid every few turns or are simply there at the start of combat. They can be one hit kill enemies but still even out the playing field if they do enough damage as long as they’re alive.

In summary: Give them opportunities to heal, test them out and adjust stats as needed, and numbers can make a big difference! Also not all combat encounters need to be solved with straight up attack rolls, you can always give them a chance to defeat their enemies by using their environment. A few loose stones that could crush the enemy, pushing an enemy into a river and using lightning spells, taunting the enemy so they lose their concentration, etc…

And here’s a really neat tool I use to see how my encounters might go (just switch experience to challenge rating in the enemy section for simplicity) when I’m really unsure. Make sure you are listing each encounter by itself, not combining all of the session’s encounters into one since it’ll definitely produce a different result!