Group had expressed interest in a re-occuring villian. This was in response to series of novels, movies, and video games where that seems to happen alot.
Now having the bad guy get away and come back again tends to be hard to do in PF. {This is not the point of this thread so please no arguments about it here. I am already planning another thread to discuss this later.}
So I was thinking of using someone that the characters actions have inconvienced but they haven't actually met. So he sends someone after them. Party survives. He sends another group. Party survives. Now he is getting annoyed and his reputation is suffering. So he investigates and sends a group that he thinks will handle the party based on what he finds out. When that fails he starts really spying on them to find their strengths, weaknesses, and common tactics. So he sends a group specifically tailored to this detailed info. Etc...
Now this is not something I have tried. It was just a discussion. But several people in the group seemed to feel very strongly against the villian tailoring anything to their group. That would be the GM cheating and starting a players-vs-GM situation.
As far as I could tell, they seemed to want a re-occuring villian, but they did NOT want that villian to do anything to counter them specifically. They wanted the intelligent mastermind to just keep sending more powerful but generic teams at them.
Would you react this way?
Would it out-of-character anger you that the in-character bad guys had some spells to banish all the summoned creatures you contatntly use, through a couple of rust monsters in front of your heavily armored melee line, had some counter spellers to shut down you spell caster heavy group, etc...?
I mean I certainly can (and probably will) do what they are apparently wanting. It is in fact easier to just make higher level groups of the melee, ranged, divine, and arcane. But to me it would just seem contrived and simplistic.
I would actually like them to have a better set up. It forces your character to become more diverse.
Well you can have things happen where the big bad sends his minions, who often speak of him "sauron bids thee welcome"
and so he 'appears' and the battle with him is foreshadowed but no ability to destroy him.
then later on they catch a glimpse of him, but cant wade though his cronies before he word of recalls back to his lair. Maybe let him dowse them with flame strike and hassle them with some summon monsters before he makes good his escape.
Other ways are to give him a constant means of escape, he's on horse when they are not, etc.
Eventually they will catch up to him in power levels so his escape will be prevented, they can cut him down....only to find he's the apprentice, not the master, his liege finds his remains, and resurrects him. In the same way Sidious "rebirths" Vader. Obi Wan was pretty much counting that whole thing to be over.
The Villain would begin again, reestablishing his base of power, drawing minions to him, blah blah blah.... the characters would hear of a very familiar sounding villain terrorizing a not too distant countryside, and bang he's back. but this time with better minions and more goodies to boost his power.
Other ways to do it is Daughter of Urgathoa, Grave Knight, Lich, etc.
But I like this one, because it gives the players the feeling, oh crap we barely brought this guy down last time, now he's back and we are hearing something about a 'master'??
The reocurring villain doesnt really gain momentum unless he does real damage, kill a PC or two, sunder some decent magic items etc etc... hes got to pi$$ them off.
I would actually like them to have a better set up. It forces your character to become more diverse.
That's what I thought. They seemed very offended that I would even consider it.
Watch some episodes of Gargoyles. That might give you some ideas.
Neverheard of it, I'm might give it a search. But the questions was:
"...Would you react this way?Would it out-of-character anger you that the in-character bad guys had some spells to banish all the summoned creatures you contatntly use, through a couple of rust monsters in front of your heavily armored melee line, had some counter spellers to shut down you spell caster heavy group, etc...?"
Well you can have things happen where the big bad sends his minions, who often speak of him "sauron bids thee welcome"
...
The reocurring villain doesnt really gain momentum unless he does real damage, kill a PC or two, sunder some decent magic items etc etc... hes got to pi$$ them off.
Those are some decent ideas of other ways to do a re-occuring villian. But like I said, that wasn't the point of this thread. This thread was supposed to be the question:
"...Would you react this way?
Would it out-of-character anger you that the in-character bad guys had some spells to banish all the summoned creatures you contatntly use, through a couple of rust monsters in front of your heavily armored melee line, had some counter spellers to shut down you spell caster heavy group, etc...?"
I do intend to start a different thread in the advice forum to chase down other ideas about doing a re-occuring villian since the group didn't like this one.
Would it out-of-character anger you that the in-character bad guys had some spells to banish all the summoned creatures you contatntly use, through a couple of rust monsters in front of your heavily armored melee line, had some counter spellers to shut down you spell caster heavy group, etc...?"
No, because it breaks verisimilitude if the villain doesn't take steps to counter the players. Why wouldn't he/she/it?
A party with a cleric and a paladin? Maybe it isn't the best idea to send waves of evil undead at the party. Perhaps summoning or dominating an animal or beast would make more sense.
In general, a villain preparing for the PCs should follow this basic pattern.
Step 1: Villain sends generic mooks that make sense for the villain in question. A necromancer sends skeletons and a thieves guild sends some low level thugs.
Step 2: Villain sends mooks he has access to in order to counter the party. The necromancer sends his turn resistant undead if fighting clerics and the thieves guild sends hitmen armed with poison that exploits some known weakness of the party (e.g. con damage the super frail old wizard man).
Step 3: Villain puts in effort to configure his forces to better fight the party. The necromancer recruits some living mooks (who are probably necromancers themselves, antipaladins, bones path oracles, etc.,) to also send at the party with access to channel/turn undead. The thieves guild sends a spy that the PCs think is an NPC who attempts to assassinate them as they sleep since the PCs have proven themselves to be good at smashing but not at intrigue.
The only issue with step 3 is making sure it is believable. If the thieves guild starts sending ice elementals to counter the party's pyromancer... well, that would be annoying. Maybe, however, they invested in some anti-pyromancer gear to equip their more important soldiers. That would be realistic, imho.
I agree with PG. Also I would say; why limit it to sending mooks?
Does your mastermind live in a swamp? If so, is there an evil fungus there that spreads like a disease and is capable of killing? If yes then Go To...Falcon's Hollow and Hollow's Last Hope.
Use your villain's talents just as much as the heroes. Arcade in the old X-Men comics always struck me as a great idea terribly executed. Your mastermind creates a bunch of seemingly random, disparate "dungeons" and just simply watches the PCs, toys with them, confident he/she can snuff them whenever they want.
You can annoy or grind on your players w/out them ever seeing the villain. In the case of the disease, have someone close to the party or an actual PC get sick and die. Then after the whole thing's over have the villain send flowers and condolences to the grave, with a reminder that this will keep happening if you meddling heroes don't back off.
As to the OP question: if you're asking if I'd be cheesed off that a villain built up, slowly and reasonably, a knowledge of my character to use against me in an epic battle the answer would be no. If on the other hand I went through a bunch of disconnected random adventures and suddenly BAM - this guy shows up who knows how to counter EVERYTHING I do and wipes the floor with me then yeah, that'd be a Dealbreaker ladies.
On the other hand, speaking as a GM, I think it's LUDICROUS for the players to request the villain NOT eventually learn from their mistakes. Tell them to go read some old Spider Man comix. Why do you think the Webhead came up with different kinds of webbing, learned to use his spider sense to navigate when blind or generally think his way out of death traps? B/cause the goblin, Ock and others learned what his BASE powers were and how to counter them with mists that ate his webbing before it hardened, oils to ruin his wallcrawling and others.
If The players ask for it they should reap what they sow. If they don't want the hard part and expect just the easy part, then tell them to go watch the Gummi Bears cartoon instead.
As to the OP question: if you're asking if I'd be cheesed off that a villain built up, slowly and reasonably, a knowledge of my character to use against me in an epic battle the answer would be no. If on the other hand I went through a bunch of disconnected random adventures and suddenly BAM - this guy shows up who knows how to counter EVERYTHING I do and wipes the floor with me then yeah, that'd be a Dealbreaker ladies.
+1
As an addedd bonus, I find the following two things to be cool about recurring villains:
(1) If the counters turn into a back and forth. Villain does x, so PCs prepare y. Villain sees y in action and turns to plan z. This really engages the PCs and turns the villain into a robust character. It also extends and teases out the eventual climatic battle or encounter and allows the PCs and villain to both have access to realistic amounts of information about each other and thus plan accordingly.
(2) If the PCs hear about or discover how the villain is preparing for them. This will only work with certain villains, in certain campaigns, with certain players, but, damn, is it good when it works.
... As to the OP question: if you're asking if I'd be cheesed off that a villain built up, slowly and reasonably, a knowledge of my character to use against me in an epic battle the answer would be no.
That is exactly what I had been planning. After standard groups don't work, people spying on the party. Questioning their friends, survivors, rescuees. Looking at the reports to their employers. Eventually spells like scry, clairavoyance, and detect thoughts.
...If on the other hand I went through a bunch of disconnected random adventures and suddenly BAM - this guy shows up who knows how to counter EVERYTHING I do and wipes the floor with me then yeah, that'd be a Dealbreaker ladies.
I had no intention of doing anything like that.
... On the other hand, speaking as a GM, I think it's LUDICROUS for the players to request the villain NOT eventually learn from their mistakes. ... If they don't want the hard part and expect just the easy part, then tell them to go watch the Gummi Bears cartoon instead.
Anytime I've tried to get at all tough with this group, I just get a bunch of whining. most of the people on these boards say I should try and provide the adventure that they are looking for, so that is what I have been trying to do. But sometimes I find it hard to tell what they are looking for since it doesn't always seems to match what they say.
This conversation with them seems like they want a re-occuring villian and the fights can be really tough, but not because the opponent is ever prepared for them specifically. Just generally more powerful.
... As to the OP question: if you're asking if I'd be cheesed off that a villain built up, slowly and reasonably, a knowledge of my character to use against me in an epic battle the answer would be no.That is exactly what I had been planning. After standard groups don't work, people spying on the party. Questioning their friends, survivors, rescuees. Looking at the reports to their employers. Eventually spells like scry, clairavoyance, and detect thoughts.
...If on the other hand I went through a bunch of disconnected random adventures and suddenly BAM - this guy shows up who knows how to counter EVERYTHING I do and wipes the floor with me then yeah, that'd be a Dealbreaker ladies.I had no intention of doing anything like that.
... On the other hand, speaking as a GM, I think it's LUDICROUS for the players to request the villain NOT eventually learn from their mistakes. ... If they don't want the hard part and expect just the easy part, then tell them to go watch the Gummi Bears cartoon instead.Anytime I've tried to get at all tough with this group, I just get a bunch of whining. most of the people on these boards say I should try and provide the adventure that they are looking for, so that is what I have been trying to do. But sometimes I find it hard to tell what they are looking for since it doesn't always seems to match what they say.
This conversation with them seems like they want a re-occuring villian and the fights can be really tough, but not because the opponent is ever prepared for them specifically. Just generally more powerful.
It sounds like you and your players want different games?
...
(1) If the counters turn into a back and forth. Villain does x, so PCs prepare y. Villain sees y in action and turns to plan z. This really engages the PCs and turns the villain into a robust character. It also extends and teases out the eventual climatic battle or encounter and allows the PCs and villain to both have access to realistic amounts of information about each other and thus plan accordingly.(2) If the PCs hear about or discover how the villain is preparing for them. This will only work with certain villains, in certain campaigns, with certain players, but, damn, is it good when it works.
I had planned for them to hear that people are asking questions about their exploits. Notice a wizard casting detect magic to tell what gear they are wearing. A spy got caught trying to read the reports they had given. Etc...
... It sounds like you and your players want different games?
Not really, I enjoy most styles of gaming at least enough to keep playing with a group of decent people. I've played and had fun with everything from a 'monty haul' dungeon crawl to incredibly complex intrigue games with almost no combat.
My problem is that I am having a hard time figuring out what they want. They say they want something, I try to provide. They didn't like it. We have a discussion about what they didn't like. After a whole bunch of questions and answers I find out what they asked for was not what they really wanted.
Like this instance. They said they wanted a re-occuring villian. It was a good thing I carried the conversation a whole lot farther and basically gave a bunch of spoilers. Otherwise I would have had the villian learn from his errors and set up to fight them specifically. They apparently would have been so upset about this it might have broke up the group (or at least got me un-invited) since they considered this very offensive. I would not have been trying to bother anyone. But it never would have occured to me that a re-occuring villian would NOT try to specifically counter the PC's.
I am sort of the secondary GM. I only run about 1/4 to 1/3 the time at most. I really am running only when the primary GM gets tired of or too busy to GM and wants a chance to run a PC for a while.
And before you say it, no I don't seem to be able to just run like the primary GM. Because that is part of it. He says he wants some thing different, a change of pace from what he is running.
KDM: I hear you. I had a bunch of gamers tell me they wanted more exploration, then stayed in the same town for 3 sessions; later they said more dungeon delving in megadungeons so I gave them one - they delved once and ran off, never to return.
I followed the advice of many posters and had a frank conversation with this group. After I thought we were on the same page they pulled the same switcheroo. I have a new gaming group now.
Back to the villain though, most of my recurring villain tropes (if you couldn't tell) come from comic books. My favorite is the best friend/villain trope. Have the party get to know the villain, maybe even sympathize with them. If you have really dedicated RPers I mean.
Then, once the villain has them on the hook...start dropping some hints. Maybe their "friend" whistles the same tune the villain does; perhaps they find the villain's signet ring stamped on one of their friend's missives.
Play cat-and-mouse for a while and really try to get them back on the villain's side. If you can pull this all off you're my hero. Then, once you've FINALLY got them back on the villain's side once more, drop the hammer. Their "Friend" is standing there, over the corpse of a dear NPC or on the altar about make the final sacrifice.
"You don't understand" the villain screams, "I'm doing this FOR you, and the whole world. Once I complete the rite and summon the Old Ones, all our dreams will come true! Don't you see? Once this throat is cut, no one will ever have to be afraid again..."
Oh man, be sure and post as your villain develops!
I think your players are asking that you do not challenge them. Doing so would be doing them a diservice. ...
Like I said I am finding it hard to tell what they want since it doesn't seem to match all that closely with what they say. But this conversation sounded like it would be ok to be really challenging. I could throw pretty high level groups of thugs at them. But it would be unfair, mean, wrong to throw even low level groups that had skills or plans specifically to counter them. I still don't understand why, but they were pretty insistant about it.
... Tell them that if NPCs have IQs, then you are oligated to make sure said NPCs use it. NPC are not mindless drones they should reason. ...
That is apparently not acceptable, to much of this group.
... That being said, you cannot use GM knowledge to tailor the monsters, you must use the NPCs knowledge. If he plans on gathering information on them, then you must roleplay this. If the NPC asks around town, there should be a chance that the players hear about it. If he sends someone to watch the characters fight, roll perception checks for the characters. Roll gather information checks secretly (probably during your prep time), and also create the possibility of gaining inaccurate information. Maybe someone saw something incorrectly, or heard a terribly inaccurate rumor. Spend some time thinking about what the NPC knows, or thinks he knows. Think about how he may misinterpret things. After a while though, through his own mistakes, he should know them very well. I think Whale Cancer is also right on the mark, spend some time thinking about what he has at his disposal. Don't send tailored bad guys that said NPC would never have access too. Also keep in mind how much time NPC has at his disposal. He probably has other things going on, and at first this is something he will likely spend minimal time planning
That actually follows fairly close to what I was intending. I won't be doing that now as that is very much apparently not what they want.
KDM: I hear you. I had a bunch of gamers tell me they wanted more exploration, then stayed in the same town for 3 sessions; later they said more dungeon delving in megadungeons so I gave them one - they delved once and ran off, never to return.
I followed the advice of many posters and had a frank conversation with this group. After I thought we were on the same page they pulled the same switcheroo. I have a new gaming group now. ...
I really would rather not go through the headache of trying to find another group. Last time I went through 3 or 4 groups over most of a year with people I just could not stand to be around for any real length of time.
... Back to the villain though, most of my recurring villain tropes (if you couldn't tell) come from comic books. My favorite is the best friend/villain trope. Have the party get to know the villain, maybe even sympathize with them. If you have really dedicated RPers I mean.
Then, once the villain has them on the hook...start dropping some hints. Maybe their "friend" whistles the same tune the villain does; perhaps they find the villain's signet ring stamped on one of their friend's missives.
Play cat-and-mouse for a while and really try to get them back on the villain's side. If you can pull this all off you're my hero. Then, once you've FINALLY got them back on the villain's side once more, drop the hammer. Their "Friend" is standing there, over the corpse of a dear NPC or on the altar about make the final sacrifice.
"You don't understand" the villain screams, "I'm doing this FOR you, and the whole world. Once I complete the rite and summon the Old Ones, all our dreams will come true! Don't you see? Once this throat is cut, no one will ever have to be afraid again..."
Oh man, be sure and post as your villain develops!
Mostly, they are not 'really dedicated RPers.' Two of the 5 have been trying to get more into that aspect but they are still developing. The other 3 don't really seem to have any consistent desire to increase the RP level.
If I change 'friend' to 'employer' I might be able to pull them into something like that. Employers seem to be the only NPC's they are interested in talking to any significant amount or more than once. I will try to think about a way to bring something like that in.
The reason I was proposing the strategy I detailed above was because it was nearly identical to what was used in one of the novel series they were discussing. (Specifically the Dresden series.) All I was really talking about changing was take out criminal mastemind and put in lich-priest. But while it was ok in the novel, it would not have been ok in our game.
Is not everything the GM does tailored to the group? Does a GM not make sure that the Ice Wizard gets to fight an occasional Fire Demon? Does he never ensure that the grappling monk gets a Medium-sized foe now and again?
I'm confused by your players. Adventure need to be tailored to be challenging. You should never make EVERY encounter resistant to the player's preferred strategy, but likewise you cannot make it work perfectly every time.
If it's a group of one-trick ponies then realistically, someone is eventually going to catch on and figure out a way to counter them.
I think I'd be incredibly annoyed by this group of players if I were GMing, possibly to the point I'd pass the GM baton to someone else. They claim to want hard mode, except no, not really. Geez. Are they the sort of group that never runs from an encounter, because they never expect to face anything they should have to run from?
I cannot even fathom what sort of villainous mastermind they think they'd like to face. One who never learns? Are they shopping for bargain basement villains, a la the Linear Guild in OOTS?
Anyway, even without tailoring an encounter specifically to their characters, you can still throw perfectly reasonable tactics their way, tactics that will work against the majority of adventuring groups.
For instance, Silence spells on grapplers who charge up to your casters. Net wielders. Trips. Poison. Greater Invisibility. Sleight of hand attempts in the marketplace that administer Sovereign Glue to your party's main melee character sword scabbard before a planned ambush. Tanglefoot bags. An invisible sorcerer located in an upper window spam summoning groups of creatures throughout a fight (doesn't break invisibility). Summon Swarm spells.
You can throw groups against them that actually work as groups. For instance, a gang of rogues with Outflank is pretty unpleasant. Give them Gang Up while you're at it and/or let some of them have the Sap Adept and Sap Master feats.
I have no idea what the composition of your group is like. But some, at least, of these tactics would be likely to have some usefulness in fighting them.
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On a side-note.
RUST MONSTERS ARE EVIL.
And I don't mean alignment evil. A GM that uses a rust monster is evil. That's not building an encounter to challenge your players. That's throwing a tough monster at them that can destroy their really expensive, hard earned treasures quite easily. Don't use them unless you really want the players to figure out a way to get around it, not through it.
Well as a player I may find it irritating if everything thrown at me is meant to make what I do best (fighting, magic, etc...) useless, but I'd really only get irritated if done too often. I'd ask myself why bother playing a character if he's going to be negated at almost every turn.
How to go about it? Make sure the background big baddie isn't solely focusing on the heroes. Have the minions be prepared for the heroes in some way sure, but only attack them directly every so often. Super villains tend to only attack the heroes when they get in the way.
Villain tries to murder business partners because he's trying to take over their business or he sends a group of minions to steal a vaults worth of gold. Heroes intervene in some way. The main bad guy may very well send some minions to attempt a kill, but he wouldn't stop business for them (well most of them wouldn't).
Could use that as an advantage. Have the villain set up a basic theft that the heroes are bound to go and try to stop and it happens to be decoys for a murder or something like that.
TL;DR: Maybe make it so that the recurring baddie isn't focused solely on killing this particular group of people. Make sure not to negate the heroes skills / abilities too often or it may become aggravating.
Just a suggestion though, I'm sure you'll figure out how to work what you need. Good Luck.
I think I'd be incredibly annoyed by this group of players if I were GMing, possibly to the point I'd pass the GM baton to someone else. ...
None of the other players are currently willing to be a secondary GM. I happen to agree that the primary GM deserves a break now and then. There is one who might be working up the nerve to take a try at it, but I know he doesn't have much prep time. So I don't know if that will happen or not.
... They claim to want hard mode, except no, not really. Geez. ...
Sounds like it can be hard, just not tailored.
... Are they the sort of group that never runs from an encounter, because they never expect to face anything they should have to run from? ...
Well, they rarely run away. But it is not because they think they can take anything they face. It is because the way the PF rules work they rarely believe there is a significant chance of successfully running away without sacrificing at least several slower members of the party. The will run when they know it is possible (slimes or molds that can not move, water creature in the pond, undead tied to the location, etc...).
... I cannot even fathom what sort of villainous mastermind they think they'd like to face. One who never learns? Are they shopping for bargain basement villains, a la the Linear Guild in OOTS? ...
That was kinda my opinion. To me it breaks any realism when the bad guy keeps behaving like an idiot. {shrug}
... Anyway, even without tailoring an encounter specifically to their characters, you can still throw perfectly reasonable tactics their way, tactics that will work against the majority of adventuring groups ...
and
.... Make a plan to counter the most common abilities of adventurers, not necessarily the PC's personally. At least some of the countermeasures in place should be obvious or poorly kept secrets, which will let the PC's plan and get the upperhand. Let the villains adapt, but make it clear that they are not the only threats out there. ...
Yeah, that is the kind of thing I will be doing.
On a side-note.
RUST MONSTERS ARE EVIL.
And I don't mean alignment evil. A GM that uses a rust monster is evil. That's not building an encounter to challenge your players. That's throwing a tough monster at them that can destroy their really expensive, hard earned treasures quite easily. Don't use them unless you really want the players to figure out a way to get around it, not through it.
That was just an example. I don't think I've actually used them in years except when the players can see them soon enough to eliminate them at range.
... If it's a group of one-trick ponies then realistically, someone is eventually going to catch on and figure out a way to counter them.
They are actually not one-trick-ponies. They have made pretty well rounded characters that have lots of options. (Well except for the heal bot cleric, but he is a noob and healing is almost always at least kinda useful.)
They don't always use good tactics but they do try different things when the usual seems like it might not work well.A couple of times they have even intentionally used poor tactics when it is appropriate for the particular PC's personality.
They are actually pretty good players when in the game. I'm just having a hard time getting a handle on what they want and how they will react (out of game) to different things.
I fully admit I am not a terribly empathic person, but I find myself often surprised but what they expect or get upset about.
Well as a player I may find it irritating if everything thrown at me is meant to make what I do best (fighting, magic, etc...) useless, but I'd really only get irritated if done too often. I'd ask myself why bother playing a character if he's going to be negated at almost every turn...
I had no intention of doing anything like that. I believe I made that clear to them. I was planning this to be a series of occasional extra encounters alongside the standard progression of the AP.
Well then, while they may have said "no don't" you could always just do it anyways and let them find out in game that it's not what they might have been thinking it would be. If they still hate it, then you know for sure. If they like it, then you have something to work off of. Since it's going to be a side thing, unless a PC dies, it's not something that should hurt your overall game.