I am going to DM a new campaign for my friends after years without being behind the shield. I am writting a homebrew setting and most probably a great deal of the campaign will happen in a small region, so no long jorneys would be required and encouraging fast travel between locations.
However, here is the trick. My idea is having my players moving constantly across the different places of the region solving the numerous problems that happen in this lands, and because of that, the chance of encountering assaultants during some of this travels should be high. That got me thinking, that I don´t want to just roll a random monster at them, and instead, create a dedicated antagonist they could face from time to time. And so, The Hyena Bandit International was born.
I think of the Hyena as a funny foe that appears from time to time to meddle with the players, assaulting them, robbing them, or as a plot convinience to puss the story foward. Think of him as a mix between The Zorro, Jack Sparrow and Iñigo Montoya. He is a thrill seeker, a presumptuous and adorable bastard, silver-tongued and cunning, and whose life priorities are his confort, his security and his profits.
So, to summarize, I want him to be like a Bandit King without a Kingdom, because he will backstab anyone and anything to be safe, but because he is charismatic to a fault and crafty as a devil he always ends up on top and getting himself new allies and opportunities.
What do I need? Well, some help creating the stats for this kind of character. I would want him to stick to as a non-magic user but do not discard completely that he can do some tricks, but his main focus should be more like a skill-monkey/face type. However, He needs to be able to hold his own on a fight. He fancies himself as the best swordsman ever as well (yeah, he is kinda arrogant too) and this fits pretty well with the inspiration samples I mentioned earlier.
He does not need to have one class only, as he is multitalented. Of course, Swashbuckler, Rogue and even Bard comes to mind, but I want to read your advise and would even ask for some sample builds. Don't go above 10th level and don't worry about ability stats, but for balance shake use 20point buy.
So, anyone up to the challenge?
Sleuth investigator + 1 level dip in swashbuckler gets you a largish pool to use with parry/riposte, excellent skills and some unusual tricks. Kinda vulnerable to magic, especially fort save effects admittedly. No magic in his own right.
There are a ton of builds available. Bard, Swashbuckler, etc all seem possible.
My advise is don't spend a ton of time building him out though, becuase if you do one of two things will happen. Either your PCs will kill him off in the first encounter, or you the GM will end up making him virtually unkillable, removing player agency and probably lowering, perhaps greatly, the fun in the game.
I have learned it is best not to love an NPC until the players have already become interested and vested in that NPC. Then you can expand on it, build it more completely and add focus.