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There's plenty of threads about fighters as PC's, but how about antagonists? TOo often I see them as just a lackey or bodyguard to the lich/archmage/evilsorceror/skeletor/thulsadoom type magical super villain thats behind the scenes of the adventure path, but how about a FIGHTER villain? A high level badass that makes whole kingdoms cower at the sweep of his blade?
Dungeon masters, how do YOU run your Fighter villains?
Players, what death defying clashes have you had against Fighter villains?
This thread might get more responses if you expand the premise to "Martial class" rather than just Fighter.
I can think of a few good BBEGs who were Martials. Can't think of any I'd classify as straight fighters though.
The BBEG of a short 3.5 epic (level 30) game I played in was a fighter (with some prestige classes I don't remember). We curbstomped him in one round. The rune giant Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil we fought earlier would've been a much better big bad.
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Uh... Does it count if it was a Balor with 2 Fighter levels?
I think part of the reason straight-up fighters (and some other martials) make sub-par BBEGs is that they are meant to be able to do fairly well over a long period of time. They don't have per-day resources, so their abilities have to be balanced enough to be able to use fairly constantly. Casters, on the other hand, have to be more mindful of their resource usage. However, NPC casters usually only fight once before they die, so they can use their most powerful abilities without worrying about it too much. Thus, casters (once they are at a certain level) seem to make better NPC enemies.
However, fighters can still make good final enemies at lower levels, and if you take a monster and give them fighter levels, they can be pretty interesting and powerful. Or you could just give the fighter special unique abilities to spice him/her up a bit. So, there's ways to do it, you just have to work a little harder at it I suppose. That's my take anyway.
I think a cavalier can make great make great big bass, especially if they have minions to back them up. Still not a fighter though. Fighters tend to have low will saves making it easier to one-shot them.
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Not strictly "fighter", since it's very rare that I will actually build an important NPC like a PC, rather than just fill in the important things they should be able to do, and the stats which will interact with the players' rolls, but I've had the equivalent.
To dispel the above point about how they don't "value" Int or Cha, that's only important with PCs. With NPCs, your BBEG could be 18 18 18 18 18 18 before racial/level based/magic item modifiers, and it won't matter much, since you don't have to worry about Point buy or any of that. Especially with BBEGs, where their level will cause more variance than anything you do with their stats. Moreover, even if you do care about having their stats follow the book, there's no reason you couldn't roleplay them as a genius or a charismatic leader, since the players will never see the stats.
I will admit, it requires more DM fiat to handle than other classes, but honestly, all BBEGs require a deal of DM fiat, by their very nature.
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I think Order of the Stick made an excellent fighter BBEG. Even if he wasn't the main villain, he had a whole story arch devoted to him.
I just can't see a Fighter as a BBEG, ever. As the Dragon, the second in command, the Gneral, sure.
But Fighters are too martially oriented to really be the leader, but not physically super-human enough to be the Warlord (that's a Barbarian every time in my book).
They make great mid-level bad guys, lackeys, and even high level rivals (especially if coupled with a template like Vampire, Graveknight, some kind of Demon/Daemon/Devil etc.) but not BBEGs. It just doesn't make sense for there to be a Fightin' Man as the BBEG in this game past like level 5. They're too vanilla and not imposing enough on a grand scale.
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They're too vanilla and not imposing enough on a grand scale.
Strange, my BBEG fighter's normally have a dragon mount. So the casters are normally the lackeys.
Actually now that I think about it, I have never had a full caster BBEG. The closet I got was a bard. Maybe a 3.5 sublime chord counts.
Fighter is my go-to class for Overlord BBEGs.
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Yeah, Fighters aren't end game threats. Unless they're loaded down with magical gear to negate the party's strengths, it's too easy to muck up a Fighter's game plan with a spell. Maybe if he's next to a lieutenant who's already buffed him to high heavens against anything the party has, but beyond that it's just too easy to take one out of the fight.
I actually had a Martial BBEG, but it was a custom class TOB user who also had a 10 foot Dead Magic zone around him to stop casters from instantly breaking him in half.
I'd pick a Barbarian, Anti-Paladin, even a Cavalier before I picked a Fighter as an overlord.
The latter two because they're charismatic and/or infused with the power of super-evil, and the first because sheer holy s+~* crazy makes up for a lot of shortcomings.
Also, why would a dragon ever submit to being the Fighter's mount?
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Yeah, at the end of the day he'd have to have some form of magic to boost his Boss-power. I don't think "the greatest swordsman in the world" without any catches would work very well. He'd need to be decked out way more gear than the PCs could be expected to have (combined even), have an incredible trap waiting for them, or an artifact of some sort making him much more powerful.
Spellcasters make easier villains.
I think the evil, cunning general with its army of pillaging warriors is a strong enough trope to merit a strong fighter BBEG. What you do need for that is a way to reliably remove disabling spells (even the barbarian BBEG on a certain AP had an intelligent item to dispel magic on himself).
Maybe change things around and have a caster lackey using spells on him - an wizard or a high priest of an evil religion. That guy could be protected by a few spells and buff/heal/dispel magic on the BBEG while he/she/it wreaks havoc on the party.
Also, why would a dragon ever submit to being the Fighter's mount?
Because the fighter (and his army) is stronger. Or they are buds.
Either way the fighter took leadership.
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They're too vanilla and not imposing enough on a grand scale.Strange, my BBEG fighter's normally have a dragon mount. So the casters are normally the lackeys.
Actually now that I think about it, I have never had a full caster BBEG. The closet I got was a bard. Maybe a 3.5 sublime chord counts.
Fighter is my go-to class for Overlord BBEGs.
A question here: Why not have the dragon be the BBEG? It is in literally every way imaginable more powerful than the Fighter in every way that could ever conceivably matter in a fight.
I mean I guess for story reasons it could be the Fighter, but when you're throwing a dragon into the mix, it's hard to consider the Fighter a threat.
They're too vanilla and not imposing enough on a grand scale.Strange, my BBEG fighter's normally have a dragon mount. So the casters are normally the lackeys.
Actually now that I think about it, I have never had a full caster BBEG. The closet I got was a bard. Maybe a 3.5 sublime chord counts.
Fighter is my go-to class for Overlord BBEGs.
A question here: Why not have the dragon be the BBEG? It is in literally every way imaginable more powerful than the Fighter in every way that could ever conceivably matter in a fight.
I mean I guess for story reasons it could be the Fighter, but when you're throwing a dragon into the mix, it's hard to consider the Fighter a threat.
The dragon is weaker than the Fighter.
Last time he was a BBEG? He wasn't much; I 1v1'd him as a Fighter myself, and while the fight was even, it ended before he could really do anything. The Cleric BBEG was a bigger threat, considering he had an artifact of doom and sadness we had to destroy.
Point is, Fighters are weak as a leader or BBEG, because all a Fighter does it make melee attacks. At least Barbarians can sunder any sort of Debuffs or Offensive Spells you throw at them, as well as have some nasty Pounce. (Anti-)Paladins have Mounts and Supernatural powers. Cavaliers also have Mounts, and have great teamwork/leadership class features. Rangers have Animal Companions, Spells, and Favored Enemy/Terrain to keep the party on their toes. Monks have Ki Points and can slaughter people with Maneuvers. Rogues can create traps, use stealth to their advantage, and have crazy burst with their increased Sneak Attack Dice. (Plus, several Rogues are organized criminals, if not criminal organizers themselves.)
What does a Fighter have? Armor/Weapon Training? Weaksauce. Bravery? If your BBEG has to have a Class Feature to not be afraid, he's a bad BBEG. Weapon/Armor Mastery? Not until the endgame, which is still weaksauce, given what every other class has/can do at that level. Maneuvers? Overclassed by every other class in the game.
If they weren't such a junk class who could do something other than make melee attacks (that's what mooks are designed for), then sure, it could be a worthwhile BBEG. But as they're designed now, it better be a Fighter with a bunch of magical gear in a low-magic campaign, or he's not worth your time.
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People seem to forget almost every BBEG featured in Paizo's AP has had a LOT of help regardless of class. Even the big 20th level wizard has one dragon and THREE spell-casting giants in the encounter.
I think if you're gonna do the BBEG fighter, do what a fighter does best - invest in a feat-heavy chain. Make it Crane Wing or area control with a two-handed reach weapon. Also remember he's not alone in a vacuum. He probably has a lower-level cleric or wizard to deal with debuffs and a bodyguard to tank some damage. He has the resources of a true BBEG (in most APs this means PC-level wealth, and THAT IS WHACK!).
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A fighter can indeed make a good BBEG if you use him properly. Greater sunder with some sort of adamantite greatsword or something simular? Big traps put in place. Proper support like traps and magical buffs placed on him by his lackeys? How about one armed with a luck blade with 2 wishes left? If you play your high level BBEG as a fighter with a high tactical IQ (which i would think he should have) then as a DM you can plot all sorts of nastyness for the party.
Yeah, this extends to Barbarians, Rangers, maybe rogues too. Any "class that doesnt rely on magic as a class feature" class really.
I got this idea 'cause Conan is basically the endboss for the villains he faces against, who often team up against him.
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Fighter, Monk, Barbarian, etc. can be fun things to strap onto a monster big bad, such as an awakened iron golem, or vampire or similar undead. Even making the fighter a drow can provide much-needed spell resistance.
Without a creature type providing some immunities (as you'd get from being undead or a construct), or templates like half-fiend (that add SR, as well as some immunities), or a situation / location that provides a measure of protection (fight occurs in a wild magic area, or in a sandstorm or whatever that forces concentration checks on casters, but doesn't affect him) a single fighter has problems with being taken out by an unlucky roll against magical offenses he's got no innate defense against (particularly those affecting will saves or reflex saves, which he probably won't excel at).
Reversing the traditional encounter, with a big bad spellcaster surrounded by expendable non-spellcaster mooks, and having the evil warlord surrounded by a cult of expendable adepts and low level clerics or oracles, using their spells to support / heal / buff him (and hinder foes) could be a fun twist. I had an encounter with a hobgoblin chieftain whose tribe captured goblins and forced them to study to master adept spellcasting. Those who failed (90% of them, easily, even after several generations of trying to selectively breed the successes and improve the odds), got killed in front of the others as 'incentive.' Those who succeeded were taken away and treated like kings (by goblin standards, anyway) and encouraged in the development of their adept abilities. Once their learning seemed to have plateaued, they were led away to the hobgoblin spellcaster in charge of this program and ritually killed in such a way that their little bodies became bulb-headed staves with tiny withered arms, retaining their spellcasting abilities, and usable as some combination of stationary 'healing stations' or carried around as 'magic staves' by hobgoblin spellcasters (who never brought such items into the goblin 'training area,' because they didn't want the goblins to figure out the endgame...), or, for the chieftain, strapped to his breastplate, so that as he fights, a pair of 5th level undead goblin adepts fused to his back are casting buffs and cure wounds on him.
That's just one (macabre) way a single class fighter could have some low level spellcasting support, without necessarily having actual spellcasters standing right next to him.
Other means could include possession (ranging from demonic to being the host of an intellect devourer), or having an intelligent magic item that casts a few useful defensive or abjuration spells, or that can counterspell and 'eat' magic thrown at it's host 1/round, like a magical version of Deflect Arrow.
The last time I used a single class Fighter as a 'big bad' was in 3.5, running through a Freeport-centered series of adventures. He used a reach weapon that caused bleeding wounds, combined with Combat Reflexes (to get lots of AoOs), Combat Expertise (to 'turtle up') and Whirlwind Attack (to open bleeding wounds on everyone in the area). A small encounter area meant that almost everyone was in reach of his Whirlwind Attack and / or Attacks of Opportunity, and defensive items (cloak of resistance, ioun stone of absorbing a few levels of spells), combined with poison and cure potions and smokesticks, meant that he tried to get everyone bleeding and / or poisoned, and then go defensive while they took damage from those effects (punishing them with AoOs if possible, even when not taking attack actions) and throw down a smokestick and eat some potions under the relative safety of concealment, if he took too much damage.
It was a reactive encounter, by design, meant to involve stamina and preparation on the part of the villain, as I'd been burned earlier in the campaign by all-or-nothing TPK-in-a-bottle encounters with color spray or sleep spells against 1st level parties. I wanted something that wasn't just 'Round 1! You die, or it dies! Round 2, argue over loot!'
Reversing the traditional encounter, with a big bad spellcaster surrounded by expendable non-spellcaster mooks, and having the evil warlord surrounded by a cult of expendable adepts and low level clerics or oracles, using their spells to support / heal / buff him (and hinder foes) could be a fun twist.
I like it. Gonna have to try this sometime.
Every big bad evil guy is modified in some way.
A fighter or some martial type is usually a BBEG in low level modules. The first or second module in an AP will have a fighter or martial BBEG, usually a humanoid tribal leader.
Recently in the fourth module of an AP a fighter was one of the BBEGs. He was an undead creature.
BBEGs vary a great deal.
Does an eldritch knight count? Otherwise no, just support/mid tier bosses.
Thematically, I think a fighter BBEG would work. I wouldn't expect a hobgoblin general to be anything else. Just look for a culture that prizes martial ability and tactical prowess. Roy Greenhilt is a good example of a fighter who uses the strategic mindset fighters are best-suited for to lead very effectively.
That being said, I'd probably go with something with more options. Fighters just don't have enough going on to make a compelling boss battle, though it does depend on the situation. If I did make a fighter BBEG, he'd either have caster minions or lots of magic items.
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Been running games since second ed; I've never used a straight fighter as the main villain. Plenty of fighters as second in command, enforcers to the main bad guy, that sort of thing, but never as the bad guy. The closest I've come is a monster (like a giant, or a demon, something already powerful in its own right) with added fighter levels.
The fighter is in a lot of ways, the generic man, the average joe adventurer. Average joe is a well known hero trope, rising up from obscurity to unite the nations against the evil arch villain or some such. But average joe is not a villain trope. Also, in a world where giant monsters devour entire cities and crazed magicians raise armies of the dead to crush nations, one angry guy waving a sword just doesn't warrant that much attention.
Villains are people willing to break all the rules to get what they want. In a world where one can sell their soul to a demon for supernatural powers, or any other numerous ways of "cheating," how do you justify this villain remaining a mundane warrior. If he's not ambitious enough to seek out any of numerous ways of boosting himself beyond mortal abilities, then he's a lackey, not the main bad guy.
Having an artifact sword/armor is a good way to make the BBEG Warrior more imposing, AND give your PC warrior some sweet loot (and a quest hook to de-curse it)
My problem with most martial BBEG is that they tend to 1 round kill pc's...
It's usually the other way around, in my experience. It's why I don't use them for the big end boss.
The only time I have had a BBEG (meaning final boss) be a fighter is if the is just a martial unit.
Invading army, bandit warlord, etc...
Even then, I would usually give them something weird. Special race that has powers, muti-class with a bit of cleric, eldritch heritage, etc...
It's not that a fighter can't be dangerous enough. It's that they often don't seem special enough to be the BBEG.
I think the only way a fighter can be the main villain is if he is an evil generalof some sort. Otherwise It's hard to think of any type of villain to whom lots of combat training is of any use. My current campaign has four main villains, one of them a barbarian, i made each a class complementing the favored tools of one of the four horsemen, and gave each a mount (preferably one provided by the class, but for the blight druid I had to take the eldritch heritage workaround) and as far as mounted frontliners go the Barbarian and Cavalier are the only classes that have a way to get a scaling mount and the barbarian also has options that allow his mount to rage, which sealed the deal for me. I might have considered a fighter here if there were an archetype with a mount.
I dont built my BBEG on a point build thing but set there stats as i see fit. So in my game a BBEG figther can be both clever and charismatic without suffering in the hurting department. I have used all sort of BBEGs, the last time one was a figther, the party figther took him on in single combat and lost. The weakend BBEG was then electrocutet by the sorcerer:)
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I had one notable encounter with a fighter as the end-boss. Paired adamantite weapons and some sunder pretty much broke up the party very quickly. Most of his magical gear was in shoring up obvious weaknesses (mostly the will save)
It was a smaller group who, IMHO probably should have been better armed knowing their foe, and probably would have benefited if they had not been weakened by perimeter defences first (one trap, a trio of adepts with burning hands, a zombie Chimera and his loyal defenders)
Incidentally...it was a TPK.
Batts
I think Order of the Stick made an excellent fighter BBEG. Even if he wasn't the main villain, he had a whole story arch devoted to him.
Yes, and he might make a good inspiration for a fighter BBEG. That said, he's clearly a very unusual character: high Int, high Cha, and at least a respectable Wis. Tarquin doesn't seem to have any dump stats. In PFRPG terms, he's likely a 25 point build or more.
Further: Tarquin isn't really a BBEG. He's part of a high-level evil adventuring group, and he certainly couldn't have reached his current position without the combined efforts of himself, the late Malack, Laurin the psion, the Queen of Blood, Miron the sorceror and so forth. He gets to be the warlord and public face, but as he himself acknowledges he arrived as part of a package deal ("buy a high priest, get a warlord free!").
If you look at the fights Tarquin has been in, they've consisted of (1) defeating Nale and the original Linear Guild, way back when, in party-vs.-party combat; (2) defeating Elan (who is lower level than he is, and also a bard) in single combat; (3) fighting the Order of the stick to a draw by himself, outside the pyramid; (4) getting ambushed and beaten by the Order in a second fight, with the new Linear Guild, inside the pyramid (5) killing Nale (who is already badly injured); (6) sending his army to kill the Order; (7) going after the Order himself with Laurin and Miron (is winning when Julio Scoundrel shows up and tips the balance) and (8) going after the Order on the airship with Laurin and getting spanked.
Phew! Anyway, the point is, Tarquin is a terrific recurring villain. But he's not a solitary BBEG, at all; most of the time, he's either encountered at the head of a government and an army, or as part of a group.
Doug M.
BBEGs dont need to be solitary and they can have a story that explain why they are not. And NPCs dont need to be on a point buy.
I would just point out that a BBEG does not mandate a high cha, int, or even wis. For one thing a BBEG might be more of a solitary villain that leading a huge organization. Even if not, it doesn't require high stats, those just help. Though he probably shouldn't tank all 3.
There have been some moderately successful leaders in history that were not particularly intelligent, wise, or charming/inspirational. At least they were leaders in the short term. And we do want them to eventually lose to the party.
In terms of game mechanics. Could have an advisor that handles diplomacy or a headband of intellect to get extra skill points into diplomacy, sense motive, knowledge, etc...
Could have improved iron will, mind shielding magic items, and other save enhancers so he can't be easily dominated.
Intimidating prowess and rule through fear rather than swaying them to your point of view with inspirational words.
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Okay, going down the list here:
-- Fighters tend to dump Int and Cha, making them less plausible as bosses
-- Fighters don't DO much except make melee attacks. This makes them both less plausible as bosses, and less interesting as BBEGs.
-- Fighters tend to have one or more glass jaws, such as low Will saves.
-- Fighters are built for deivering damage over long periods, not at the sort of explosion of one-use and dailies we want in a BBEG fight.Gotta say, that's actually a pretty damning list. People don't generally use fighter BBEGs, and /there are good reasons for that/.
Doug M.
Perhaps it's playstyle differences, but I fail to see how any of that can't be overcome.
--They don't need to follow Point buy or anything like that, so their Int and Cha are whatever you need them to be.--PC fighters don't do much other than Melee attacks, but that's because the RAW makes everything else pretty worthless in comparison. However, with NPCs, you don't need to work strictly with the RAW, so tactics which would be impossible to base a character around as a PC are viable.
--The Will save issue is a more difficult one, but, honestly, is easily fixable by boosting it. It's not a PC, so you don't have to be a slave to the numbers on the chart.
--The one-use or daily use conundrum is another place where not being a slave to the charts helps. It's not a matter of not having use/day issues, what matters is looking at the single encounter and making sure they match up with the power level expected of a BBEG boss. This can be done without giving them anything more than at-will abilities, just so long as those abilities are sufficiently powerful for a BBEG type enemy.
Sure, by RAW, those are problems, but that requires being a slave to RAW when making your BBEG, which I don't think I've ever done, even with casters.
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"Dump Stats" doesn't strike me as a good reason not to have a fighter BBEG.
When building a BBEG you don't need any dump stats. This is the villain of the story - he's exceptional enough to pose a huge threat to the party (and the kingdom/world/etc.). He's that 1-in-a-million that has great primary stats and great Int/Charisma/Wisdom.
The BBEG also doesn't need to be able to fight the entire party single-handed. Pathfinder really isn't made well for this. Instead he can be the spider behind a massive web that eventually pulls the party into its conclusion.
As with Order of the Stick's Tarquin the BBEG fighter can have an entire party of his own or even a nation under his thumb.
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A fighter as the boss is certainly possible, and it makes sense if you look at real world examples. Look how many ex-military guys end up as presidents or dictators around the world. The ability to perform well in battle and/or wars has often led to a position of power.
But if this fighter ends up at the top of some vast power structure, he's not going to allow the party to just take him out with a well-chosen spell in the final battle. He's going to have been under threat from magical attacks for years before the party gets to him, and he's going to have set the parameters of the battlefield heavily in his favor. He's going to have paid for magical protection (i.e. protective spells cast on him, protective items he carries, magical assistants who are there to cover his weaknesses). He's going to have acquired the best weapons (possibly intelligent in their own right) and armor.
And, he's going to want to take on any challengers in a setting that plays to his strengths. When your party shows up, he's going to want to take them out with his own sword, to show all the underlings who is the boss. So how would he set up the battlefield in order to play to his strengths? A few magical employees on the sidelines readying actions to dispel any magic aimed at him? How about trying to split the party up and take them out one by one?
A martial NPC facing a party with a bunch of magical PC's is very likely to employ skirmish-based tactics to drain the party of resources. It's especially appropriate if he uses non-magical tactics as much as possible. Something as simple as having a bunch of employees wearing full plate armor that is identical to his own.
Anyway, just a few thoughts on the matter. Hope that helps.
I agree completely with Sunbeam. Major villains need narrative power to fulfill their role. A class with the built-in ability to influence the narrative will have an easier time being a villain than a class which only gets the ability to hit things really hard.
Um, no. Not even hell no, but donkey punch no. I could see a weak possibility if you open it up to martials in general, but even that stretches my sense of a consistent game world.
Fighters are the dumb lugs with the pole-arms out front guarding the door. Fighters are the rank and file of the mercenary company used to keep the commoners in line. The person in charge? Sure, they might have a level in fighter, but more than half? BWHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAAAA
Fighter: I can hit things really hard with this sword.
Wizard/Cleric/Druid: I'm not even going to dignify this with a responce.
Bard: I can charm you into hitting yourself with that sword.
Rogue: I can start a rumor that makes everyone think you like to use that sword on children.
Aristocrat: I have the money to buy a dozen men half as good as you.
Expert: Man, even the rogue is laughing at you dude...and yeah, I can probably afford to buy at least four guys half as good as you.
Commoner: Hell, you got me cowed!
I did not state that fighters make the best BBEG. I don't think they do. I usually use at least hybrid/partial casters.
I've never been in a group that played to the timestop or army of demons levels. But I still usually have an easier time of imagining the bad guy as a caster.
However, I have used them for the leader of the military invasion or bandit warlord a few times. It seemed most applicable and worked fine.
I was responding to the oft repeated statement that to be the BBEG he has to have good int and cha.