My players are progressing through AoW nicely, but they have not killed Kullen and his gang, Filge the Necromancer, or the lizardfolk band-leader (from the optional intro created by other DMs and posted elsewhere on this board).
I would like to make sure that I use these NPCs well if in the future my players want to go back and deal with them (the party is mostly good, but as each of these examples are evil-ish I am willing to entertain the idea of future encounters). How do other DMs handle things when the PCs level past the NPCs being a threat? Do you level up the NPCs, or simply retire them and move things forward?
Thanks for your thoughts and ideas!
A sure fire way to get your pc's jaw to drop is to take defeated memorable foes and add undead templates to them. Skeletal Champion and Juju Zombie templates can go a long ways
I think whether or not you progress the NPCs depends wholly on what they've been doing since. For example, has Filge been cooped up doing research? Probably isn't going to gain more than a level or two (though he could have an unusually strong undead creation if you wanted to pose a challenge). But if he's been dealing with a lot of heat from the guards and had to elude them, fight some off, and generally go on the run, he could easily have kept up with them.
It's a small thing, but having the NPCs be at a different point in their lives than when the players last encountered them makes it all the more memorable. I know a lot of people on here have mentioned moving Filge to Alhaster, either as a potion seller, or perhaps another of Zeech's guests. Definitely a good place for him to hide, though he'd have trouble practicing necromancy there.
As for Kullen, I actually did run a second encounter with him. Perhaps built a bit too much on coincidence, in retrospect, but I had the party stumble across him and his thugs living in the Mistmarsh while en route to the Lizardfolk.
If you're interested, here's how I wrote that encounter (I didn't bother leveling them up, as they were tough enough still to prove a reasonable challenge but wouldn't be too lethal).
When the PCs are about twenty feet from the house…
The door swings open and you see a familiar face. (Show Kullen's picture) It is Kullen, the albino half-orc and one-time thug in the employ of Balabar Smenk. Behind him are the other two surviving members of his gang. You recognize the long haired man as Rastophan, and the other as Todrik.
Kullen walks aggressively towards the PCs, angry at them for destroying his "good" life in Diamond Lake. Without some seriously good intimidation he won't step down without a fight, but he's aware of what's been going on with the PCs and isn't keen on a duel. He'd prefer to challenge a champion to one on one combat.
I believe my party got into a heated argument and Kullen was killed, but they managed to dissuade his allies from bothering them any further. You could just as easily use this basic setup for if they tried to track him down, just make it elsewhere in the Mistmarsh (or the Carin Hills, perhaps) where they won't stumble across it so easily.
|
I had Balabar Smenk become a recurring villain that plagued them through to The Prince of Redhand.
Since Smenk had been selling rotten food and such to the Ebon Triad, I decided to make the Faceless One's vengeance on the mineboss more extreme, and memorable.
He had his kenku/tengu henchmen kidnap Smenk and drag him down into the labyrinth. Smenk was tied up in the inner sanctum and magically tortured and changed.
For the record, I was incorporating rules from the 3.0/3.5 Heroes of Horror supplement. I had Smenk become a tainted raver, and set loose to hunt the PCs.
Eventually, Smenk was killed, but came back as a revenant. He stalked the party, and ambushed them at opportune moments.
The players at the table actually cheered when they finally destroyed him for good.