I'm in the process of preparing my first one shot as a way of trying DMing in a few weeks.
For one of the battles, I was thinking of having the PCs face an Animated Armor and a Flying Sword. According to the Dungeon Master's Basic Rules (page 9 and 20 respectively), both of these enemies have the Antimagic Susceptibility trait, part of which states:
If targeted by dispel magic, the [armor/sword] must succeed on a Constitution saving throw against the caster's spell save DC or fall unconscious for 1 minute.
After reading this, I thought it might be cool to hide a Scroll of Dispel Magic earlier in the dungeon, which could help in this fight. But having thought about it, I came upon some possible issues of confusion.
What is the effect of an enemy being temporarily unconscious during combat?
According to PHB page 234, the target of dispel magic is...
One creature, object, or magical effect within range.
So at most the Scroll of Dispel Magic would affect one of the monsters. Say a PC used the scroll on the Animated Armor and it was knocked unconscious for 1 minute (approx. 10 rounds of combat). Does the Animated Armor now act like a dead enemy (i.e. does it become non-targetable), or does it essentially just freeze for 10 rounds of combat while the PCs can attack it mercilessly?
What if the other enemy is defeated?
Same scenario as above, say the Animated Armor is hit with dispel magic and becomes unconscious. The PCs now focus on the Flying Sword. Upon killing the Flying Sword, all enemies are either defeated or unconscious, so would the combat now be done - and then the Armor would re-animate after a minute or less of non-combat and combat starts again? Or would combat continue until the unconscious Animated Armor is defeated as well?
Would including a Scroll of Dispel Magic break this fight?
Essentially I ask all these questions to see if including the Scroll would make this fight too easy/useless. The plan was for this to be the boss battle or near to it, so I was thinking that it could be nice to add something that could make the battle a little bit easier, but I don't want something that is going to turn the fight into a total joke.