I think this is glorious.
We did a similar thing once, playing through a normal campaign with heroes, some of which died early-ish and had new characters replace them, but ultimately all but two of the player characters died (two in the last session).
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New campaign rolls around, and its a "dark souls" inspired home campaign in which we rolled up entirely new characters that were trapped in limbo and being offered the chance to return to our old lives if we completed an epic quest to bring down the ruler of the plane.
Sounds simple enough? well given that it was "dark souls" inspired we soon realised that we werent the only souls trapped here, some of which had gone mad. Including, it seemed, the souls of our characters from the previous game, which we needed to lay to rest (slay) on our way to overthrowing the plane's ruler. Long-story short: It was pretty satisfying disemboweling the old group's bard as he cackled madly in rhyme.
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Wow, i thought germans didnt do Homemade campaigns ... ahahaha jk where i played pfs in Germany they have never done one.
This is a really nice idea, though I would have kept the secret about this bad characters being the endbosses for the next campaign, but i understand. Made some similiar idea in a homebrew and it worked perfectly.
Where in Germany do you play this glorious campaign?.
Regards!.-
Think of the XPs!!!!!
I think a short evil campaign could be fun.
Since you know it's only for 5 sessions or so, maybe let them level up each session? Then they would 19th level, CR 20 by the end, which is perfect for the Big Bad Evil Guys at the end of the next campaign.
AND you get to GM good monsters for a change! You can make unicorns and solars and paladins, oh my!
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So, not sure what advice specifically you're looking for, but I'd recommend having a discussion about how evil you want to be. You don't want one person playing Snidely Whiplash while another person is eating babies. You might have had a similar conversation about the kinds of things you're willing to have villains do in your usual games, but it can get somewhat more intense/uncomfortable when the baby eater is on your team.
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Where in Germany do you play this glorious campaign?.
Regards!.-
We are playing in the area around Kaiserslautern, in the southwest of Germany.
But it´s true, a lot of people i know, that play pathfinder only play pregenerated campaigns. ;)
I thought about keeping it a secret, but in my innocence I thought they would consider what kind of monsters they create if they have to fight them later on. Wow was I wrong.
Oh nice, do you play in English ?, Would you consider having one more player for your good campaign?. Im dieing to play a homebrew campaign.
Also I live in Mannheim, it is a bit too far, but who knows hahaha.
PM me pls!
Regards!!.-
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But it´s true, a lot of people i know, that play pathfinder only play pregenerated campaigns. ;)
I'd say that's an international issue. There just aren't enough hours in the day to make your own world once you get out of school and have a job and family. But when I was young, I loved crafting worlds. I guess I still would love to do it, there's just things in my life I love even more.
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So, let's set aside the "evil" bit for a moment, you already have some work cut out for you...
You have 25-pt characters.
*so stats are going to be relatively crazy
You are apparently allowing leadership.
*so action economy is something that may turn crazy, especially if you allow one of your "power gamers" to custom-build their character's minions to complement their character
You are allowing templates of up to +2 CR
*so "relatively crazy" stats may go to bug-nuts crazy and now you have to also figure out how the monstrous abilities work in conjunction with the character levels, spells, and other "standard" PC abilities.
You are starting at 14th level
*so there is very little "cement" for the backstory of your characters before starting and all will probably be super-optimized with perfect equipment for their starting level
I HIGHLY recommend that you do at least one "Slot Zero" session with everyone sitting down and working out their character backgrounds and how they interact in advance.
... going back to team evil, now.
Having evil characters adds another dimension to the normal "social contract of gamers" especially as many feel it adds additional threat / risk of PvP.
Pathfinder is not optimized for PvP (though you can do so). Make sure that before you start, your players know where they stand on PvP and what all of you are comfortable with. DO this again with the shades of evil everyone will be engaged in and you may want to drop hints about where you think that they will end up or what sorts of combined goals (barring world conquest) that they are interested in.
I'm not sure what your experience is with any of the combinations of the above factors, but that is a LOT of moving parts.
Take a LOT of notes, both before and during game play. Notes not only about what happened, but about what spurred the actions and reactions - this is something you can use later when writing your 2nd arc campaign when the current PCs are your Big Bads. It will also let you make sure the tone of your game is something you and your players are in agreement with.
Involve the players in the world design a bit more than you normally might. They are starting at 14th level, which is higher level than many PCs ever even see after years of gaming. The characters should know who a lot of the movers and shakers are and have a somewhat clear idea of how their world works by now.
Make sure the evil characters have clear cut goals and that you have a way to communicate their perceived progress to them, otherwise this is going to go VERY off the rails and you are trying to start and wrap in very few sessions.
Give them someone or something to hate.
Generalities time: Good PCs are often motivated by altruism, good-roleplay opportunities, and chance to advance their characters and goals. Neutral characters are similar, though often more greedy and think a bit longer term. Evil characters want to live forever and see their enemies utterly destroyed in a manner that will be a lesson for all those who may even think about opposing them in the future. Write something to support that.
One of my biggest concerns with the bad guys is our Antipaladin. He´s also our youngest player (somewhere in his early twenties while the rest of us is over 30) and while the group knows each other quite well (we are playing pathfinder for 5 years at least now) he seems a little eager to wreak havoc. Also he is unbeliveable tough (we are talking 300+ Hp, Ac 40 and saving throws above +16). All the other characters are either lawful or neutral evil which is way easier to handle than chaotic evil in my opinion.
Not surprising... throwing together the template and points you gave, I'm betting either a base 24 STR & 28 CHA or vice versa, with Toughness as a Bonus Feat, and a +7 Natural Armor bonus that will just go up as he levels, and DR 10/- with immunity to cold and electricity (so he can hang out in cold & electricity AoE's) and that's a pretty tough nut to crack. With the right magic items, he's pretty much only going to be worried about touch attacks or accidentally charging into a pit he can't easily escape.
So what sort of advise are you looking for from those of us who have Black Hat play experience?
While AC40 and Saves +16 are reachable, 300+ HP is a lot, even with Thoughness and a high CHA.
With PFS-style "max at 1st, average thereafter", toughness, a 28 base charisma, a +4 cha headband, and his FCB in hitpoints, he'd hit 256. If he gets more than average or has a higher cha than 32 with gear, I can easily see them hitting 300+.
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[quote =Alakallanar]
Pro forma: You are aware that, due to a recent FAQ (that I personally dislike) his +CHA on saves from being undead and from being an Antipaladin don't stack?
Could you link this FAQ, please?
Undead don't get their Cha on saves; they use cha instead of con on Fort saves. Antipaladins get a bonus on their saves equal to their charisma modifier.
Why stop at holy mortals? You have the relatively uncommon opportunity to attack the evil PCs with all of the angels, archons, azatas, and so forth that go into the bestiary, but PCs never fight because of their alignment.
If you're concerned about the antipaladin, maybe try to get him to play the Tyrant Antipaladin archetype? It's mechanically very similar, but lawful evil instead of chaotic evil. They get lawful spells and effects instead of chaotic ones, but are otherwise almost the exact same. And most people work better with lawful characters than chaotic ones.
The archetype is in Ultimate Intrigue and online here
There's an FAQ about the tyrant here
Part of the fun of an evil campaign is doing all the stuff you normally can't or would be impossible.
Be prepared to let them wreak havoc. At that level be willing to throw cities and entire Golorian nations under the bus.
I recommend thinking through how much wealth they can potentially pilfer and loot, entire cities filled with loot are likely to come under their influence, be ready for consequences.
Also be clear on what countervailing forces exist, essentially don't let them assume their big bad will survive, hopefully this will curb some plans, ie they don't all teleport to Absalom and proceed to torch the place.
evil eats evil, all those deals with devils and demons and daemons should feel like their balanced ln a knife edge that could turn at any moment.
Have fun building some 'PCs' to try and fail in bringing down their BBEGs
This is really interesting, and it'll probably be pretty fun. I would love to know how this turns out. At that level of power, these characters will have a lot of influence on the world around them. One thing about being bad guys is that they can turn anyone into an enemy, so they themselves might take out a big bad guy and become the heroes of some little area. Of course, they'll probably immediately exploit that.
This is really interesting, and it'll probably be pretty fun. I would love to know how this turns out. At that level of power, these characters will have a lot of influence on the world around them. One thing about being bad guys is that they can turn anyone into an enemy, so they themselves might take out a big bad guy and become the heroes of some little area. Of course, they'll probably immediately exploit that.
Using the fame and infamy rules from Ultimate Campaign could be fun. They could kill the baddie and become even more feared. Like if Voldemort murders a henchmen. Plenty of other fun stuff as well.