|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
When the enemy appears before the party, he's going to die.
This is an assurance a good 70-80 percent of the time. The way the code of Pathfinder plays out and the way that villains don't benefit from the usual advantages of fiction for escapes almost assures this.
I was mostly interested in starting a discussion for methods of setting up recurring baddies who actively engage with the party on a regular, or semi-regular basis, and the potential risks and caveats thereof.
The initial place I see to go for recurring enemies is unfortunately, high level spellcasters. This is unfortunate because it limit the possibility of meaningful long-term interaction (its the high-level, not the wizard I object to.) The high level wizard just isn't threatened, leaving the party less with a sensation of defeating a foe in honest combat which he fled from, and more in that they just survived a DM inflicted cut-scene.
Two of themethods for the HL-caster type are of course.. The clone spell (ha ha, clone body), astral projection (I wasn't actually here!)
Simulacrum works to a point, but the fact the simulacrum is lower level and isn't actually the bad guy kind of blunts the appeal from a player perspective. Beating up a bunch of snowmen of the bad guy isn't the same as beating the bad guy. Its a doom-bot cop-out.
The undead are another option for recurrance.
There are a few undead who pull the 'defeated, but will return' shennigans: the little mermaid ningyo, lich, graveknight, ghost, and a few others.
You can defeat them, but they come back, admittedly with a severe equipment loss. The ghost doesn't even have an equipment loss, but they generally don't range around. In the case of the ningyo, its just a freaky little monkey mermaid thing and isn't really 'recurring villain' material.
Ghosts are arguably more of a pain in the butt then liches because they 1.) Are dangerous no matter what class they were, 2.) Take half damage intrinsically from damn near everything except ghost touch weaponry, and 3.) Can still get DR if you're an evil, evil DM.
If you guys have any other ideas on methods for recurring that aren't these guys and can be done starting at like CR 7, I'd be glad to hear it and add it to my DMly knowledge base.
Now some of you I expect to argue the benefits of the expeditious retreat spell, flight spell, dimension door (which I argue is absolutely worthless for escaping from a party), getaway , teleport or word of recall. And these are good for allowing a villain to poke the party and then come back, but require a mid to high level guy, and typically a high level wizard. The word of recall is useful, but requires a lot of pre-planning and also generally the heroes are already attacking the cleric's stronghold when that sort of stuff goes off.
|
Although a bit of a higher level spell a contingency matched with either dimension door or teleport set to trigger when his HP reaches 10% or death. This way he keeps his gear on him. Vampires have a get away but ist a two mile range maximum.
One method os to have a stealth character stand next to the BBEG and use a scroll of teleport on both when boss says so. This does have the flaw of the stealth guy getting noticed but if he has max ranks, invisible, 18 dex, and skill focus at level 5 he is looking at a pretty nice +55 bonus to stealth so he is not getting seen until a see invisibility or true sight shows up (or alternate senses)
I think you seriously underestimate the effectiveness of both escape plans and surrendering.
I also have no problem with Simulacrum as the players get to go "Wait, the real guy is even more powerful than that?"
3.0 had a spell that let you take your heart out and so long as it remained in tact you couldn't actually be killed.
I once had a DM that had a demon I killed come back living in my character's mind, but that was related to the way I killed the Demon.
Just start reading through the various undead, they arise as undead for reasons, and it shouldn't be hard to find a kind that corresponds to your villain in some way. Being BBEG should be enough to warrant some kind of advanced and intelligent version of the undead beastie. All else fails Revenent works as they arise to as a produce of murder to kill their murderer.
|
|
I think you seriously underestimate the effectiveness of both escape plans and surrendering.
I also have no problem with Simulacrum as the players get to go "Wait, the real guy is even more powerful than that?"
3.0 had a spell that let you take your heart out and so long as it remained in tact you couldn't actually be killed.
I once had a DM that had a demon I killed come back living in my character's mind, but that was related to the way I killed the Demon.
Just start reading through the various undead, they arise as undead for reasons, and it shouldn't be hard to find a kind that corresponds to your villain in some way. Being BBEG should be enough to warrant some kind of advanced and intelligent version of the undead beastie. All else fails Revenent works as they arise to as a produce of murder to kill their murderer.
Escape plans are useful to a point, and I agree on the simulacrum thing. At least for the first time. But escape plans can be very, very easily bolloxed up by the party. I've seen my players utilize d-anchor as a matter of course on mages they run into, and rogues and martials (and other 'walking classes') and monsters don't usually benefit from that. Monsters have it doubly rough as some of them just straight up can't manage the speed to disengage.
I still have little respect for dimension door as an escape tool, as the distance just isn't really that much of a huge limitation. Teleport is a 'get you out of dodge,' dimension door puts you like..700 feet away at best, which is fine if the party is keen on giving up a pursuit after you zot away or if you can misdirect them. It's abjectly useless for fighting on open field and in other environments you still have to escape by more conventional means.
For simulacrum though.. After the second or third snowman, the party is likely to move from 'oh man he's tough' to being irate at having to keep expending resources on chumps.
The barbarian, fighter, cavalier, rogue, and similar baddies have issues with figuring out how to get away, as in most cases its tough to manage the action requirements for it.
Even if I have a secret door, I have to move to the door and then expend an action to open said door, and then another action presumably to secure said door else I have PCs on my butt.
If I have followers? The heroes typically will ignore them to smash me. Folks these days have realized that tabletop rpgs are one of the few venues where, to use a tv tropes ref, you can thwart stage 1, and therefore if the villain is there (I envision a bad guy more on their level for this scenario), they want to put his butt down, not let him say some parting words and leg it.
Maybe you could use the reincarnated druid archetype? Their perma-reincarnation kicks in at level 5, so it could be used for lower levels, too.
Illusion - Have an image of the character going into a dimension door, and appearing at a higher level of the chamber and escaping. Then when half the party goes off and chases, you can have the villain attack those who are left behind, or those who are incapacitated, which might make things REALLY personal.
Barred Door Cheap Trick - Have a villain simply walk through a door that is easily barred from the other side. Then characters have to take time to chop through it. This one is really unfair, but if you want to have the villain survive... the barred door leads into a room with a hallway. They either assume the hallway was the path the villain took, or hid in the room. Whichever they choose, he did the opposite. Maybe there was a secret escape door in the room.
Hellgate - Is your Villain a demon? Have a hellgate opened. A small one... secret. The Villain can die... respawn in hell... come out again... and then the goal for the party is to close the gate.
Summoned - Villain could be a demon again, and a mage is summoning him. The mage is more powerful really, and is using the demon to perpetrate his goals, that are the same as the demons. Then you kill the mage summoning him over and over again.
Uninterested - The Villain uses some mooks to handle the party because whatever he was doing in the current adventure has already been done. He got his Maguffin so he can just move on. Maybe throws a couple of spells for his mooks to deal with you more easily.
Special Travel - Swimming is slow. Boats are fast. Villain escapes on a row-boat through a cavern exit. Ever seen the Three Musketeers with Charlie Sheen? The Cardinal would have totally gotten away on that boat.
Wall of Stuff - Wall of Force, Stone, Iron. All great ways to simply stop a PC for a few rounds. Even an illusion of these will work.
Self-Clone - I have an NPC who has the ability to clone himself, but with each clone he has active at any given time, his individual power is weakened. Kind of like the Movie 'The One'. However - each clone isnt a perfect clone. They have mildly different personalites which has caused the character to shift from being a villain to... well a villain, but also a neutralish villain, a madman, and a sorta good guy, but only because he wants to kill the evil that created him.
Anyways... there are a ton of ways to do it.
You can always raise dead on a villain if they can recover the body. Or other means, without the body.
IMHO, the best way to ensure bad guy survival is hordes of mooks, associated with teleport/word of recall, on a scroll if the evil genius in question hasn't got the spells.
Astral projection. Etherial projection. wall spells, even illusory wall spells.
Or... just let 'em die. And let there be another layer of onion skin, with another BBEG hiding in the wings.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 4; Contributor; Publisher, Legendary Games
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
This is actually a great place to lift a bit from the mythic rules for Pathfinder, regardless of whether you actually use the mythic rules for the rest of the campaign or for your player characters. This is doubly true if your villain has made some kind of deal with the devil, or has pledged to serve some dark deity or forgotten power or whatever their origin story. There are a number of things in the existing mythic rules that you can easily apply to villains to make them harder to kill, but Legendary Games is actually going to be releasing a product today called Path of Villains that is all about making your villains memorable and uses the mechanics of the mythic rules to show a ton of ways to do that.
As an example, it includes mythic powers like...
There is an assortment of additional abilities that help a villain avoid death or come back from it in various ways:
Clone Arranger - The villain creates or obtains a simulacrum, clone, or even just a corpse that looks like it (and has illusory duplicate equipment) that it can switch places with.
Your Children's Children - The villain returns years after its death (it can reduce the interval by spending more mythic power) with a curse on those that killed it and any of their descendants that makes them susceptible to the villain's divinations, curses, and mind-affecting effects.
Blood Pact - The villain returns as a vampire 3 nights after its death.
And more! This product will be available on our website later today and in wide release (including here at Paizo) starting next week.
Again, even if you're not using the mythic rules in your campaign, the mechanics in those rules can provide a great toolbox for GMs to add a selection of special dirty tricks to their villains in a systematic way, so that it doesn't feel like straight GM fudging.
Previews for the product can be found here and here.
Hope that helps!
A few ideas:
In the 3.5 Eberron setting, there was the idea that the quori (a variety of outsiders from the plane of dreams - Dal'Quor if I remember right) had bred and conditioned humans to allow the quori to possess them. These humans were known as the Inspired, and since it was possession, the human host could be killed without harming the quori spirit (who would go back to Dal'Quor - the quori could not actually come to the Material Plane normally, so they used the Inspired as intermediaries).
There might be some way to do possession based on magic jar that would allow a villain to keep possessing different people and "coming back" when dead. Alternately, play on the idea of the ghost who is dedicated to protecting his/her remaining family, which just happens to be the villains the party is 'really' going after - you could have the ghost possessing people to hinder the party, initially wanting to hide the fact that it is a ghost.
If you deal with the afterlife, maybe the villain is bog-standard normal but is used as a servant for some infernal power. Or the villain manages to escape or get brought back by someone else who is researching the actions of the PCs and how to stop them (ie - "I'll give you information, but I want something in return").
Maybe change the idea of the villain - have the villain actually be a sentient magical weapon with an ego score and an evil alignment (possibly disguised to appear normal). Hope the party sells it or puts it in a spot where it can pass on to someone else and slowly corrupt them. Though the party would have a chance to deal with the weapon/item initially.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
At lower levels, the Run feat is sufficient for many baddies to get away. Yes, I actually suggested the Run feat. Other movement enhancers (Boots of Springing and Striding, Scroll of Longstrider, etc.) are a huge boon, as well.
Strategically place your baddies and set up reasonable ambushes. Survivor baddies can use Alarm to alert themselves to interlopers so they can prepare the ambush. Have an exit plan. Utilize terrain to your advantage. Ranged baddies are more likely to survive than melee.
ITEMS! Caltrops, Marbles, Shard Gel, Sneezing Powder, Foaming Powder, Tanglefoot Bag, Smokestick, or Smoke bomb can all assist with the ambush and retreat.
SPELLS! You would be absolutely amazed how much Silent Image and screw with a party. Fake walls, especially. Obscuring Mist and co. are also solid. Deeper Darkness, Create Pit, Entangle, etc. There are a TON of low-level spells to mess with players and assist with escapes.
Mid-level: Dimension Door or Teleport, especially with Contingency. Confusion, Wall of (whatever), Fly, Gaseous Form, Spike Stones, Tree Stride, Word of Recall, Symbol of (whatever), Greater Command, Hallucinatory Terrain, etc. There's a TON of spells to use to assist with the initial escape. Nondetection and other anti-scry options will assist with staying gone.
Have some minions. Even fodder can slow opponents enough to get away.
Maybe you could use the reincarnated druid archetype? Their perma-reincarnation kicks in at level 5, so it could be used for lower levels, too.
It is also useful for infinite uses of the "IT WAS ME ALL ALONG" trope since they have a different body everytime.
When you have the party watching the sheriff, the weapon merchant, the local hunter, and the town drunk with eyes of suspicion from the moment they meet, then you have succeed in your job as GM.
There is always the make the plan the bad guy just set into motion so bad the plays can't ignore it to kill the villain.
Evil Lord McBadguy, just bribed a Red Dragon to burn the City of Helplessandburnslikeamatchstick to the ground. Sure the players can chase down McBadguy and kill him, but the destruction of the city and death of thousands will be on their hands if they don't take the time to stop the Red Dragon.
A successful Villain always has their escape plan well planned out and certain to work. You're not trying to hard if your players are stopping escape plans.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I have built a campaign not log ago where the villain is an actual rebel cabal against the current government, they all wear a very distinct mask that change their voices and physical appearances to match each other. When killed the mask breaks as it cast the Spell "sculpt corpse" to make the body look the same every time. The second time the group actually traveled back where they buried the first villain only to find the tomb empty. The mast also cast death kneel upon the wearer if he us just knocked in the minus HPs.
The cabal love keeping the illusion that their leader is immortal and transcend time. They will actively try to recuperate the corpses of all their previous "leaders" and destroy any proofs of his demise. So at moment the cabal leader would be a high level fighter some other time he would be a powerful cleric, at high level they fought a synthesis summoner version of him! that was very confusing for them! They finally managed to capture one alive and uncovered the whole mystery Scooby-doo style!
At low levels, the BBEG turns out to be a simulacrum. At medium-high levels the BBEG is using Clone or escape contingencies. At high levels, the BBEG is a lich or an astral projection.
These could all be the same bad BBEG utilizing multiple simultaneous backdoor options.
Maybe you could use the reincarnated druid archetype? Their perma-reincarnation kicks in at level 5, so it could be used for lower levels, too.It is also useful for infinite uses of the "IT WAS ME ALL ALONG" trope since they have a different body everytime.
When you have the party watching the sheriff, the weapon merchant, the local hunter, and the town drunk with eyes of suspicion from the moment they meet, then you have succeed in your job as GM.
Add three levels of Green Faith Acolyte and those pesky negative levels can be slept away. :)
Or simply make a magic item that automatically casts Breath of Life and teleports you away when your hit points fall below 0 - should be sufficient for escaping low level parties. That way the villain doesn't have to be mythic or a caster.
One of these days I'm going to use an antipaladin lich as the BBEG of a campaign, just to see how long it takes them to figure out why that 'death knight' keeps coming back. :)
A fun idea that I've myself considered in the past, but wouldn't it be foiled by something as simple as a successful Knowledge: Religion skill check?
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Maybe you could use the reincarnated druid archetype? Their perma-reincarnation kicks in at level 5, so it could be used for lower levels, too.It is also useful for infinite uses of the "IT WAS ME ALL ALONG" trope since they have a different body everytime.
When you have the party watching the sheriff, the weapon merchant, the local hunter, and the town drunk with eyes of suspicion from the moment they meet, then you have succeed in your job as GM.
Even better than this: if you have a wacky time travel campaign (which I am planning on running at some point), you can have one of the villain's special powers to be IMMUNE TO PARADOXES.
For example, the PCs walk into a town. The villain has collaborated with himself all across the timestream so that nearly 1/5 of the residents is him reincarnated, just a few days before the PCs meet that incarnation for the first time.
The villain has got an aura of mind wipe all over the town: very specified in the fact that the villain's version is that the PCs can't remember what any of the villain's incarnations looked like. Of course, the PCs automatically know that something is up, sending them into a series of paranoid delusions: especially when he hops them forward a few moments forward in time, covering everybody in immediately detectable "wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey," sending each PC into hysteria as they rapidly accuse each other of being the villain in disguise.
Being evil is fuuuun.
One of these days I'm going to use an antipaladin lich as the BBEG of a campaign, just to see how long it takes them to figure out why that 'death knight' keeps coming back. :)A fun idea that I've myself considered in the past, but wouldn't it be foiled by something as simple as a successful Knowledge: Religion skill check?
Could happen, but the DC would be a minimum of 15+CR. Depending on the party, that could be a pretty difficult check. Technically, 15+CR is for rare monsters (like the Tarrasque), so you could reasonably bump it up for a unique foe.
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
A while back I came to these threads with an idea and they helped me to refine it. I'm still designing the custom campaign around it slowly, but here's the general idea.
The demon lord of greed once made an extremely potent intelligent item. It was a coin. It looked like any other gold coin in circulation. Somehow the coin gets out on its own, and is taken to a treasure hoard where it stays for quite some time. Eventually it will be part of the players treasure. When they spend it, the coin will attempt to control the merchant. The players may eventually fight and kill the merchant, passing the coin to someone else, and again it will take over, possibly trying to get itself into the hands of various powerful people to control. I'm not going to tell the players about the coin, but they may learn about it over time. So essentially, the coin is the villain, and it recurrs because the players make it happen.
I'm actually quoite stoked for this campaign, even though I've not gotten much written for it. (Time + no experience making encounters, only writing fiction = bumpy ride)
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
How about the infinite character noble scion that takes a version of himself as a cohort who does the same at infinitum. I'd though about playing this guy once flavored as a iterations of himself trough time and dimensions.
Edit: Noble Scion
Greater Leader ship is the trick to having a cohort of your same level.
Think of him as the infinite king despite all attempts to kill/hide/displace, he just keeps showing back up.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Ideas
1) Don't make the BBEG be a single person . Make it a cult, an organization, a guild, hell even a family. That way, if one tentacle of the beast is lost, there will be plenty more.
2) Have the BBEG be an impossibly strong and despicable Evil Sealed in a Can, that can only free itself in limited ways by possessing hosts, that serve as its avatars. That way you can fight numerous incarnations that are each different, but some essence of the central villain will always return. (Of course, your players don't have to know this from the start- let them figure out the dread truth for themselves, a little creepy hint at a time.
3) Offer the group a choice, go after the sweet lewt or whatever mcguffin they're going after, or take down the fleeing bad guy- they've probably got time for one, but not necessarily the other. (This one has worked for me several times.)
4) Give the bad guy a useful role, making them potentially more useful alive than dead. Or let them grow sentimentally attached to the villain (that is, a love/hate view of the villain.) Of course, this will come at a cost- your villain will sometimes need to be useful/beneficial to the party. This strategy may be the most difficult to pull off a-priori, but on the other hand, it allows for the most spontaneity (that is, if things go a certain way, you can just play it up as things go on and let them evolve.) It can also be one of the most enriching things from a player perspective- I've had this one used on me. It can be really great to have an ongoing fre-nemy that evolves more or less naturally through game play