Help me build an extremely annoying recurring minor villain.


Advice


The goal here is simple, I want to make someone that my party will encounter every now and then who only exists to mess with the party and slow them down as much as possible before escaping/fleeing before the party can pay him back for the annoyance. I want him to be irredeemably evil and ready to do whatever it takes to mess with the party.

My mindset is to have him be a sort of "Hit and Run" villain who stands behind a group of monsters or hired help, Dishes out a powerful/annoying attack or two and then flee's the moment things even slightly look like they're not going to end well, Ideally, this would be a character that is extremely cowardly but manages to get every single one of my players to want nothing more than to be able to track him down and kill him. I want him to have a high chance of being able to escape if the party is aiming their sights towards him. I want him to try and slow down the party in any way possible no matter how horrible, so he might somehow control children that were stolen away from the village and use them as child soldiers that he throws at the party, He may send them letters that explode if they read them. Just help me make someone everyone can universally hate.

The only rules in place for making this character is nothing about them can come from 3rd party, they can't be any higher than level 7, and they can't have any super expensive items that someone of their level has no business owning. Ideally, they're a core race as well.

Thanks in advance for the help.

Sovereign Court

You have to expect that the party will get lucky and crit/immobilize/somehow stop your villain from fleeing. So make that a tactic.

So I suggest the minor villain be a caster and use Familiar Melding. You may have an issue having to have the caster be within 170' of the familiar when it dies, but that's not too bad. Bonus points for Figment familiar or Improved Familiar into something that can change shape into a humanoid. If the familiar dies... well the time to replace the familiar makes sense for why the minor villain isn't harassing the party in the meantime.

At higher levels Duplicate Familiar gets around losing your familiar everytime.


Consider the skinsend spell combined with a cracked pearly white ioun stone which gives a little regeneration (3400 gp IIRC). Rather than the actual enemy that's actually a hollow animated skin throwing witch hexes or alchemist bombs at you. The real body is somewhere else nearby.

Variants on this tactic include the object possession spell line. Later on possibly magic jar or (non-object) possession.


Devils are perfect for this. Evil by definition, teleport at will, a wide range of potential abilities to pick from.


Depending on the level, I think a Reincarnated Druid would be a really fun reoccurring villian. By 6th they still have the various wildshape forms to run away when needed, summons to act as meatwalls, along with plenty of movement-imparing spells to frustrate the party.

At 5th, if the PCs finally manage to kill them, they come back to life (in a completely new and different body) after a day, and can sense where their former equipment (newly looted by the party) is located. Even if/when the players realize it's the same enemy they've killed 3 times, they can never be sure if the new friend they meet a few weeks later isn't carrying a grudge across multiple lives.


Take the 17 HD Bogeyman (CR 10).

Add the Nightmare creature template.

Now you have a 17 HD Nightmare Lord Bogeyman (CR 11).

If you want to be truly sadistic... ALSO add the Implacable Stalker template (CR 13).

If you want him to be the BBEG, pump him up to 25+ HD (CR 16-17+)... so any of his HD reliant abilities are still at least 5 HD above the party's no matter what.

If you increase his HD, don't forget to give him feats like Skill Focus Intimidate and Signature Skill Intimidate.

If you hate the party, then retrain some of his feats (or just give him bonus feats) so he can have Dastardly Finish...

Now he makes people cower in fear, coup de graces them in the most brutal way possible, makes everyone within 30 feet cower in fear, coup de graces them in the most brutal way possible... it's a viscous cycle.


Let me tell the tale of a despicable little man. Forty years ago he was a well respected sage. An adviser to the Emperor of Chilax. As with many such advisors, he made enemies. Some of those enemies grew in power and our great sage found himself fleeing for his life from his former colleagues.

He was chased out of many major cities. Took many disguises. Performed many shady deals. Killed many men to keep his secrets. Gathered secrets. Became an information broker. Became a greedy man. He decided to become a criminal mastermind and to invest in the most profitable of crimes.

But he doesn't want to be caught. He also doesn't trust anyone. So how does a powerful wizard protect himself but also run a criminal empire? The answer is he makes his own lieutenants.

let me introduce the Wise Man. He prefers to be known as the Wise Man. He does use other names, but all of the names are false and easily disposed of. The Wise Man is a 15th level Wizard who casts Mind Blank on himself daily. Your players may never meet the Wise Man, but they will run into his most loyal servants.

Who does the Wise Man trust? Only himself. And simulacrum of himself are completely loyal and he knows exactly what they are capable of. He places a simulacrum of himself in charge of every major criminal enterprise he invests in. Normally he likes to associate himself with the followers of Norgorber, and he isn't picky which faction he associates with as long as it does profitable crimes in this area.

The Wise Man's simulacrum are all 7th level Wizards that belong to the illusion school. Most of his simulacrum use disguises to appear different. Most of them only have equipment they have managed to earn themselves. After all, the simulacrum exist to send the master money, not the other way around.

In a large city there might be more than one simulacrum involved in different criminal enterprises. The simulacrum would know of each other and would support each other. All three of them might use a false name, but also insist on being called the Wise Man as part of their mystique.

The PCs might even use a Wise Man as an information broker or a fence. Of course he won't look like the others, and each of them will have guards and an escape plan.

Silver Crusade

Summoner. Send your swarm of summoned Lantern Archons to do your bidding, while you are invisible at a safe distance. When, and if, the party manages to deal with them, send your quadruped pouncing eidolon to do a bit more damage. When, and if, they manage to survive that as well, just retreat. Sleep and repeat. Our GM used this tactic and was the most annoying thing ever. We were so happy when we managed to finally kill that punk. It took forever.


Summoner was my first instinct, but if you want to mess with them and run away, then a spiritualist may be better suited.


My best suggestion.
Talisman Occultist. Necromancy, Evocation, Divination schools. maybe illusion for hiding
They have a few specific summons (not as many as a 9th lv caster or a Sumoner class). That can be pretty hard to kill if you put more resources into them. Its that construct 'undead'
They have a spammable familiar that can take Archetypes. So they can change that on command-or have a maurauder go with the Construct "undead" they make.
They can of course also make normal undead via spells to an extent. (as well as have a high amount sorta)

They can hand out specific spells as Talismans, which-their minions can use as a standard action. But occultists don't havea ton of spells so it won't beoverwhelming.
However, it does make for a very fun moment when a bunch of nobody zombies come storming in. Then a small familiar and one specific zombie both tear a sheet of paper and or throw one.*
The familiar throwing a 20ft range touch attack shocking grasp at the caster or heavy armour fellow. The other zombie growing larger.
When the construct zombie dies, it suddenly doesn't. (until the Occultist runs out of points anyway). Or at high levels they kill it and it splits into two.
You could even play at the Familiar being 'the boss' creature, that keeps coming back looking slghtly differently.
Or it could throw a necromancy debuff touch spell at 20ft.

All the while the Occultist is either hiding in an illusion nearby (or invisible). Or using the Divination's Mind Eye to observe from the floor above, or a dig out hidden room etc. Depending on range/how they're hiding, things like Grasping Dead 1st level spell to trip or grapple them mid battle using a dispatched zombie is quite amusing as well.

Basically. This is a fun build for an NPC. I've done portions of it as a PC but you can't really sink as much resource into it as a PC. but an NPC has GM allowances. I.e. they don't need to be the attacker, they can be the defender, or the ambusher, don't have the same group goal etc.

Also depending on how much you want to annoy vs kill. You could have them focus on numbers and debuffs rather than trying to murder one ala zombie hoarde.

Throwing in little hints of what is actually going on. a player rolling to realize its a familiar not some sort of mini deamon directing the zombie flood.

* infusing small tokens she crafts with psychic spells she knows that normally affect one or more target creatures (but not spells that target the caster, spells that affect an area, spells that create effects, or other such spells).
So I think Enlarge is valid. It can target the caster, but its target is not the caster (i.e. its not a personal spell etc). It normaly targets one creature. So pretty sure its valid.

EDIT: Also at higher levels. Etheric Shards is a great 'trap them in nonsense' ability


NihilsticBanana wrote:

...

My mindset is to have him be a sort of "Hit and Run" villain who stands behind a group of monsters or hired help, Dishes out a powerful/annoying attack or two and then flee's the moment things even slightly look like they're not going to end well, ...

I like how many suggestions are for remote "drone" attacks (summons, eidolons, simulacrum, familiars, etc...). Rule #1 for a villain to survive, be nowhere near the PCs. They will likely find a way to kill the villain if he shows up.


The benefit of the spiritualist is that the party may think they are just being haunted. Everyone seems to forget that the spiritualist exists.


Incredibly flamboyant vampire bard.

Boost the heck out of all the charisma skills.

Each time they encounter the villain, have them question their sanity as everyone else around them loves them.

Also, they only ever drink blood from willing people. Still a villain, but not in the classic vampire sense. Make them into a jewel or art thief. Break the status quo.


If you just want super annoying and hard to get rid of, use... their reputation.

UnRogue Charlatan-3/
Bard Brazen Deceiver-X

Key feats: Persuasive, Blustering Bluff, Rhetorical Flourish, and Confabulist (@lvl 9)

This menace just follows the party around spreading misinformation about their intentions/loyalties/alignments... and these untruths are quite difficult for the masses to disbelieve.

The party constantly has to prove themselves to unfriendly populations, time and time again.


Court Poet Red Tongue Skald 7

Inspired Rage/Insightful Contemplation is different from the comparable bard ability in that you only need to be heard, not seen. So you can stand a couple hundred feet away and still provide your Inspired Rage to everyone who is able to hear you. The Court Poet is able to give out Rage Powers without messing up ally spells and SLAs.

Here's how a typical encounter would play out.
The party infiltrates a spooky mansion in search of cultists, and what do you know, they find them. The smaller group of enemies they find in the outskirts seems to be easy prey, and they choose to engage. The skald has prepared for this by casting spells such as Alarm and Status to be alerted to the party's presence. Rather than relying on the party to trigger the Alarm spells, they can function as an "alarm bell" by instructing the mooks to enter the designated area when the party is sighted.

When this happens the skald casts Clarion Call and begins performing to give out rage powers (and one Rogue Talent, prob Combat Trick). As a skald you'd add your own Charisma modifier in place of your allies'.

Lesser Spirit Totem:
While raging, the barbarian is surrounded by spirit wisps that harass her foes. These spirits make one slam attack each round against a living foe that is adjacent to the barbarian. This slam attack is made using the barbarian’s full base attack bonus, plus the barbarian’s Charisma modifier. The slam deals 1d4 points of negative energy damage, plus the barbarian’s Charisma modifier.

Tarn Linnorm Death Curse:
The character channels the power of a tarn linnorm. The character’s melee attacks deal an additional 1 point of acid damage. If the character is knocked unconscious or killed by an attack or spell, the attacker suffers the curse of death (Will negates). A character must be at least 4th level to select this rage power. Curse of Death: save Will DC 10 + 1/2 character’s level + character’s Charisma bonus; effect target is no longer affected by healing spells and can’t heal damage naturally by resting.

So every time the party defeats an enemy they must make a will save or be unable to heal normally. They'll be unable to heal up between encounters unless they blow 3rd level spell slots on Remove Curse, the will saves hurts the martial frontliners the most, and everyone in hearing distance has been alerted to their presence.

Base perception DC to hear skald's performance:
-10 (hearing the sounds of battle)
-15 (Clarion Call)
+5 (through a closed door)
= -20 + distance/10 ft

So 200 ft away if the skald's allies can make a DC 0 perception check.

When the skald knows the jig is up (Status says the targets are dead or more Alarm spells), they'll let Lingering Performance cover for them while they use spells such as Invisibility and Urban Step to escape. A careful villain should be able to set up a couple teleport locations (preferable in a fortified room) with a Lesser Metamagic Rod of Reach and Urban Step for a 700 ft teleport. Just leave a single open window fluttering in the wind when the party breaks down the door.

====

Important spells:
Clarion Call (lv 1), Alarm (lv 1)
Urban Step (lv 2), Invisibility (lv 2), Status (lv 2, Spell Kenning)
Flexible Fury (lv 3)

Spell Kenning would also let you get very creative with what the skald can do. Animate Dead on orphans, Explosive Runes on a forged letter from the king, and so on.


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Let me walk you through the life of
Mr. Phaque Nooze, a career liar...

UnRogue Charlatan:

LVL 1...
Natural Born Liar (Ex)
At 1st level, when a charlatan successfully deceives a creature with a Bluff, that creature takes a –2 penalty on the charlatan’s Bluff checks for the next 24 hours. This ability does not stack with itself.

LVL 2...
Convincing Lie (Ex)
Benefit: When a rogue with this talent lies, she creates fabrications so convincing that others treat them as truth. When a rogue with this talent successfully uses the Bluff skill to convince someone that what she is saying is true, if that individual is questioned later about the statement or story, that person uses the rogue’s Bluff skill modifier to convince the questioner, rather than his own. If his Bluff skill modifier is better than the rogue’s, the individual can use his own modifier and gain a +2 bonus on any check to convince others of the lie. This effect lasts for a number of days equal to 1/2 the rogue’s level + the rogue’s Charisma modifier.

LVL 3...
Grand Hoax/Rumormonger (Ex)
Benefit: A rogue with this talent can attempt to spread a rumor through a small town or larger settlement by making a Bluff check. She can do so a number of times per week equal to her Charisma modifier (minimum 0). The DC is based on the size of the settlement, and it takes a week for the rumor to propagate through the settlement. If the check succeeds, the rumor is practically accepted as fact within the community; succeeding by 5 or more over the DC decreases the time it takes the rumor to propagate by 1d4 days. A failed check means the rumor failed to gain traction, while failing by 5 or more causes the opposite of the rumor or some other competing theory involving the rumor’s subject to take hold.

Community Size DC
Small town 18
Large town 20
Small city 25
Large City 30
Metropolis 35
......................................

Bard Brazen Deceiver:

LVL 4 (R3/B1)...
Deceptive Tale (Su)
A brazen deceiver learns the deceptive tale bardic performance, allowing him to weave magic into his lies and imbue the most fantastic claims with the appearance of truth. While the brazen deceiver maintains this performance, he takes half the normal penalty on Bluff checks for unlikely lies (rounding down to -2). At 5th level, this effect also applies to Bluff checks for far-fetched lies, and at 11th level, it applies to Bluff checks for impossible lies. Deceptive tale relies on audible components.

Shameless Scoundrel (Ex)
A brazen deceiver adds half his level (minimum +1) on Bluff, Disguise, and Stealth checks.

LVL 5 (R3/B2)...
Blatant Subtlety (Ex)
At 2nd level, a brazen deceiver has mastered the art of using magic without being detected. The brazen deceiver gains Spellsong as a bonus feat. Observers do not automatically recognize his bardic performances as anything other than ordinary speech or performance. Those specifically looking for abnormal effects must succeed at a Sense Motive check (DC = 10 + half the brazen deceiver’s bard level + the brazen deceiver’s Charisma modifier) to detect his performances.
.....................................

You said your villain is level 7, which is a good place for the party to try stop this person, before they go over the top.

At level 8 (R3/B5), Deceptive Tale applies to far-fetched lies. AND, Devil's Tongue (Ex) kicks in, allowing a 1/day Take 20 on a Bluff check.

If they have Skill Focus Bluff, Blustering Bluff, and even a halfway decent Charisma modifier they can pretty much convince anyone of anything... that's even without traits or racial bonuses.

The party will get really tired of being arrested by the city guards on sight for the crimes of rape, incest, and interspecies erotica...


There is an AP where the boss ocassionally harasses the party with far-reaching magic. IMO the best part is that the heroes can strike back and inflict a negative level on the villain.

Encouraging hate on an annoying enemy is a good thing, but it gets much better if your players get multiple moments of satisfication by vengeance.


So, minor recurring villain, so you want a bad guy with high survivability, but not a lot of personal power.

So, Hit-and-Run suggests to me some kind of teleporting/invisible/ninja-sniper. I have a build for a character like that.

"Irredeemably evil" and you are also talking about child-soldier-slaves. That's pretty low.

This is making me think something like a Succubus. The party might not even know what she is at first. Maybe the party rescues her heroically, then she charms her way into the town's royal court, whispering sweet nothings into magistrates' ears, inspiring them to play games with taxes, legalize slavery, get into unnecessary wars, etc. Perhaps she acts as a quest-giver for the party, and they end up doing her bidding without even knowing it. And when they figure out what she is really up to, she is legally untouchable, so if the party actually attacks her, the whole town runs them out of a rail, or if they actually expose her, she escapes to some other town...

Maybe even after they find out what she really is, she still sends them on quests, and manages to convince them that those quests are good, even if they do further her evil ends...


You want to annoy the players? Let me just fish out a monkey's paw for you, and we'll get to work on this...

A wizard who knows emergency force sphere fits the bill pretty easily. Make him a first world caller so that his familiar can become a humanoid for the bait and switch tricks if needed. You probably aught to make the familiar a valet, and spend a feat on lookout team so he's harder to surprise. First world caller also lets him summon a bunch of prickish fey like the Kelpie, Leprechaun, or Grimple. After the players have gotten gremlin lice a few times and been tricked into helping fake damsels at least as many times, they will be very annoyed.

If you plan on advancing him in power, have him worship the eldest and use their variant summoning list. Now, when he reaches 9th level, he can have a remacera bite him every morning so that the he instantaneously reincarnates if they ever do manage to kill him. This means the only way to kill the character is to heal him first. Good times.

That should annoy your players more than enough.


My favourite for a small time recurring villain is a necromantic wondrous item crafting wizard. He sits in the background churning out annoying and nasty necromantic items that he trades to various people for cash, favours, influence.
Items such as an amulet that allows the wearer to animate up to about twenty 1HD skeletons that retain 3-5 ranks of a craft or profession skill...such as mining. How profitable would a mine be with workers who need no food, sleep or pay? But where did the bodies come from?
What about a circlet that drains fatigue out of the wearer and dumps it on people within a certain radius. A sage or alchemist might trade all manner of favours in order to dispense with the need for sleep, who cares about the strange malaise afflicting his neighbors.
My favourite, though, is what I call a Thrall Mark. A magical tattoo or brand that gifts it's bearer with a couple of minor advantages, such as a small bonus to a couple of skills, perhaps use of a cantrip once a day, maybe a minor damage bonus. It also has two other spells bound up in it, a Cause Minor Wound that automatically zaps the bearer once a day to remind them who the boss is, and a single use animate dead that activates a couple of minutes after the bearer dies to animate their corpse in service to their Master. The fun bit is, that the cause minor wounds will continue to heal the undead thrall, and the other abilities of the Mark will also work for it. The Thrall will do it's utmost to avoid death, and leaves behind a nasty surprise for the players when they finally do kill him.

And in the mean time, the item crafting necromancer continues to build power and influence, possibly without drawing the eye of the players...


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I ran a game a while back with a goblin necromancer named Bitey Bones.
He used goblins, wargs and zombies to occupy the PC's, then set fire to the area (bonus if it's a hapless village or the like).
With obscuring mist + gaseous form and disguise self + making a bunch of his underlings dress up like him, he had decent escape routes on top of giving the party plenty of other things to deal with.
Then a liberal use of Fire Trap and explosive runes made anything they found during these encounters (or nearby. The door of an abandoned inn, a sign at the crossroads) a mixed bag at best.


Joe Mamma wrote:

Depending on the level, I think a Reincarnated Druid would be a really fun reoccurring villian. By 6th they still have the various wildshape forms to run away when needed, summons to act as meatwalls, along with plenty of movement-imparing spells to frustrate the party.

At 5th, if the PCs finally manage to kill them, they come back to life (in a completely new and different body) after a day, and can sense where their former equipment (newly looted by the party) is located. Even if/when the players realize it's the same enemy they've killed 3 times, they can never be sure if the new friend they meet a few weeks later isn't carrying a grudge across multiple lives.

+1 to this. Summons, animal companion, wild shape for getaways. And even if they DO manage to take him down, all they might find on him is some cheap leather armor and a spell component pouch. And a week later, he can harass them again with a completely new face.

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