RPG Superstar 2009™ Round Three Assignment: Design a Villain Concept

Design a villain for a fantasy campaign world, as might appear in a published adventure or campaign sourcebook, for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta Release. Your villain should be designed for standard-level play, not Epic (in other words, CR 20 or less.) The submission form includes fields for subject and body.

The subject field should include only the villain's name and, optionally, a brief descriptive tag. (Example: Karzoug, Runelord of Greed.)

For this round, contestants must design a villain for a fantasy campaign world, as might appear in a published adventure or campaign sourcebook, for use with the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta Release. The submission consists of:

Part 1: A descriptive entry for your villain, using the same criteria as Round 2:

The villain's name and descriptive title (essentially, the title of your submission). Include gender, race (human, elf, pit fiend, and so on), and (if it has class levels) class and level.

A description of your villain.

The entirety of Part 1 (including the name and descriptive title), must not exceed 500 words.

You may refer to your or another's Round 1 wondrous item as part of your villain's gear (you do not need to include the item's description and stat block).

Your villain must be CR 20 or less.

The following content MUST be included in the description portion of Part 1: physical description, motivation(s)/goal(s), and schemes, plot, and/or adventure hook(s). Aside from this mandatory content, everything else is up to you within the given word limit.

Note: Part of the RPG Superstar process is showing growth over the course of the contest. To encourage the best submissions possible, your villain for Round 3 does NOT have to be the same villain you submitted for Round 2. You may use your Round 2 villain as-is, you may make minor or major changes to your Round 2 villain, or you may discard your Round 2 villain and present an entirely new one. (Whichever you choose, your villain must still follow the Round 2 submission rules.) You may not use anyone else's round 2 villain. No matter how much or little you change, you must include a stat block (see Part 2) for whatever villain you submit for Round 3.

Part 2: The villain's stat block:

This part has no word limit, but you may NOT use the Tactics section or other sections of the stat block as a way to avoid the 500-word limit of Part 1.

In the stat block, you must "show your math," meaning that for any calculated numerical entry or other calculated information, you must include your calculations in brackets with a brief list of the various bonuses or penalties that led to the final number, as needed. You do not need to list things that contribute +0 to a statistic. For example, in this 2nd-level fighter's saves line:

Fort +5 [+3 fighter, +1 con, +1 cloak], Ref +2 [+1 Dex, +1 cloak], Will +1 [+1 cloak]

You do not need to show your math for the +0 to Reflex saves from fighter levels, the +0 to Will saves from fighter levels, or the +0 to Will saves from the fighter's Wisdom score.

You are not allowed to explain design choices or provide additional details other than to show your math.

You must use the blank formatted stat block (see below).

Part 3: One (and only one) new Rule Element associated with this villain, such as a feat, spell, use of a skill, or magic item:

Example new Rule Elements are a new feat, spell, use of a skill, or magic item. See the sample stat block format for the specific stat block to use for these Rule Elements.

You may not use a magic item from Round 1 as your new Rule Element; if you choose a magic item as your Rule Element, it must be a new item. Remember that your Rule Element must be associated with your villain in some way; for example, if your villain is not a druid, don't create a magic item that only works for druids.

No prestige classes, templates, or new monsters.

Your Rule Element, including the name, must not exceed 300 words.

All other aspects of the Rule Element must follow the Round 1 rules.

PRESENTATION:

A blank formatted stat block can be downloaded here. This stat block includes all BBCode necessary for your submission to display on our messageboards with the proper boldfaced headers; just update it with your villain's information. Failure to include proper formatting may be grounds for disqualification. If you aren't sure how to use a particular part of a stat block, refer to recent Paizo adventures for examples.

Note: A general rule for character stat blocks is that if the creature doesn't have an ability, don't list an entry for that ability at all; for example, most constructs don't have feats and skills. Rather than listing

Feats --
Skills --

in the stat block, eliminate those lines from the stat block.

You MUST follow the accompanying sample stat block format as closely as possible for your particular villain, though we acknowledge that each villain will be a bit different and may require slight variances. Failure to use the provided stat block format may result in disqualification.

ALLOWED SOURCES:

Apart from your own original content, you are limited to using or referring to the following sources:

• Paizo's Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta Release, and officially released web enhancements to the Beta
• The 3.5 SRD as presented at d20srd.org
• Published content from Paizo's Pathfinder Chronicles campaign setting
• Content from the Wondrous Item round of this year's RPG Superstar contest (whether you created it or not)
• Content from the Villain Concept round of this year's RPG Superstar contest (but only the villain you created)
• Content that is in the public domain (such as mythological references, etc.)
• You may NOT use or refer to Open Game Content (or any other material) from other publishers.

INAPPROPRIATE CONTENT:

We know that villains are vile and evil; they often do bad things to motivate the PCs to act. Nevertheless, we require that your submission not include salacious sexual references; not show a prejudice against or disrespect for existing real-world minorities, nationalities, social castes, religious groups, genders, lifestyle preferences, or people with disabilities; not portray current real-world religions and religious groups and/or practices in any way that promotes disrespect for these religions or their participants; and not include gratuitous and/or excessive gore, sexual violence or violence towards children.

DISQUALIFICATION:

Contestants may be disqualified for the following reasons:

• Submission is not a villain
• Submission does not conform to the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Beta Release
• Submission is not designed for standard-level play
• Submission exceeds 500 words for Part 1 or 300 words for Part 3
• Submission does not contain all required information
• Submission doesn't follow the mandated format for presentation
• Submission is copied from a previously published source
• Submission uses material from sources that aren't allowed
• Submission violates restrictions regarding inappropriate content
• Submission is not submitted by the deadline
• Submission does not generally use correct English
• If, in the sole discretion of the judges and/or Paizo, a submission is deemed a "joke" or otherwise fails to meet the minimum requirements of the competition or other contest rules, it will be rejected
• If the contestant posts in his or her entry thread during the voting period for any reason other to acknowledge feedback or to encourage people to vote for his or her submission, the contestant will be disqualified

Entries must be submitted through the submission tool at paizo.com/rpgsuperstar and must be received by 2PM Pacific time on February 6. Fan voting for Round Three begins February 10, and ends February 16. The eight (8) contestants advancing to Round Four will be announced February 17.

All prior contest rules apply, except as modified above. Full contest rules can be found here. The RPG Superstar FAQ can be found here.

Round Three Rules FAQ

For FAQs on Part 1, please see the Round 2 FAQ.

Do we REALLY have to use that stat block format?

Yes.

What do you mean when you say "you may NOT use the Tactics section or other sections of the stat block as a way to avoid the 500-word limit of Part 1?"

The stat block part of this submission has no word limit. However, we expect to see only content in the stat block that you would normally find there. The stat block is not a place to cram content that should really be in Part 1 or Part 3. The greatest place for abuse is likely the Tactics section, but it applies to any portion of the stat block. Please refer to recent published adventures. You will rarely see more than a brief paragraph regarding villain tactics in a published stat block. If you are doing more than a short paragraph you are likely running afoul of this restriction. Don't get cute. If, in the sole discretion of the judges and/or Paizo, someone is abusing the stat block by including content that normally is not contained in a stat block, or in amounts not normally contained in a stat block, with the apparent intent to avoid the word limit for Parts 1 or 3, the submission will be disqualified.

I want to include detailed round-by-round tactics. Can I do that?

Remember, we are asking you to design a villain, not an encounter. Tactics are meant to be short references like the ones you see in published works. Five paragraphs on tactics is unacceptable.

How about minions, allies, cohorts, mounts, animal companions, familiars, etc., and henchmen or other followers? Can we provide stat blocks for them?

You are not allowed to provide separate stat blocks for these types of creatures. You only get to provide a stat block for your villain. While we know that bad guys often have these sorts of hangers-on, this round is about designing a villain. If your villain has cohorts from the Leadership feat, mounts, companions, familiars or other similar creatures from class abilities, feats or other abilities or features that are a part of the villain itself (in other words, that are calculated in your villain's CR), then include that material in parenthesis after the feat or ability in the stat block, such as: "Feats: Leadership (Aarog, 10th-Level Human Wizard Cohort)" or "Class Abilities: Animal Companion (Fozzy, Brown Bear, X HD)." Keep it short.

How do we "show our math?"

Any numerical entry or other data that begs the question of how you arrived at the particular entry must include that information in brackets with a brief list of the various bonuses or penalties that led to the final number, as needed.

Yes, this applies to everything—from CR to Base Attack Bonus to Initiative to Saves to Skills to Save DCs for spells, etc. All of it. You calculated it, so show us how you did it. And put all of that work in brackets.

Why brackets for the math, not parenthesis?

Other content in stat blocks sometimes uses parentheses. Nothing else uses brackets. That makes it obvious that anything in brackets is your "math."

How about hit points—do I need to show what I rolled for each hit die?

No, for hit points you can just give the number of hit points. We aren't that sadistic/masochistic. That is the one exception to the "show your math" rule. Of course, we still expect the hit points to be correct given the HD and bonuses.

OK, the stat block format provided doesn't provide XXX, and I need it! What do I do?

That form is pretty thorough. But if there is really something that it didn't include, look to other published Paizo products for guidance. As long as your stat block follows the template, we won't punish you for a minor discrepancy that is consistent with the rest of the template.

I am not the best at stat blocks. Can I have a friend or someone else review my stat block and math for me?

No. The stat block, and all of the entry for that matter, must be your own work. We realize that this rule is essentially unenforceable except by the honor system but we all believe in the honor system so we feel it is sufficient.

Can we use software such as HeroForge or PCGen to check our stat blocks?

Sure. So long as you do it yourself. But you should be cautioned that we haven't examined these applications' implementations of the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game mechanics, and note that they may also include content that is not in the SRD. You, and only you, are responsible for following the contest rules and complying with them. It won't be a defense to your rejection to say "...but HeroForge had it in there!"

Is there a gold piece limit on gear for our villain?

Use the Heroic Level column of Table 14-9: NPC Gear in the Pathfinder RPG Beta (page 338) to determine an approximate value for your villain's gear. That said, it is certainly fair comment by voters if someone feels that a submission has way more gear or value of gear than is appropriate.

How about treasure?

Well, treasure wouldn't go in the stat block, since it isn't gear. You could include that in the description portion if you wanted, but it would go to your word count limit. Remember, you aren't designing an encounter, you are designing a villain.