D&D Designing Villains
- Thread starter Hussar
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Lord Zardoz
Explorer
The 2nd Edition complete book of Villains was a pretty good source for ideas in construction villains. It had nearly no crunchy bits, but had plenty of ideas and suggestions for creating memorable Villains.
The one thing I will suggest is that for any Villain that you want to keep alive, plan out the way they plan on escaping when crap goes wrong for them. Ideally, give them a few ways out. In many cases, Fly + Invisibility will do quite well, but there are plenty of other ways to manage a good escape.
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The one thing I will suggest is that for any Villain that you want to keep alive, plan out the way they plan on escaping when crap goes wrong for them. Ideally, give them a few ways out. In many cases, Fly + Invisibility will do quite well, but there are plenty of other ways to manage a good escape.
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pawsplay
Hero
This is a good point, although I wonder if his thoughts on the subject are the same is mine.
My take on the subject:
http://rjgrady.livejournal.com/13018.html#cutid1
I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
Y'know, for me, the whole "fly away laughing maniacally" or even "teleport away" is kind of cheap-feeling.
I prefer to have them slay the villain, and then have his minion come along and resurrect him.
'cuz every good Villain needs at least three good minions, namely:
Butt-saver: Someone who he can trust to restore his body when he gets in over his head, or that can get him out of there in a hurry.
Bodyguard: Someone who can take damage instead of him.
Far-seeing eyes: Someone to tell him what the PC's are up to so he can plan around them.
I prefer to have them slay the villain, and then have his minion come along and resurrect him.
'cuz every good Villain needs at least three good minions, namely:
Butt-saver: Someone who he can trust to restore his body when he gets in over his head, or that can get him out of there in a hurry.
Bodyguard: Someone who can take damage instead of him.
Far-seeing eyes: Someone to tell him what the PC's are up to so he can plan around them.
Ry
Explorer
Motives are important - but intentions seal the deal. A villain isn't a villain because he's the tormented, hateful younger brother of the Duke. A villain isn't a villain because his alignment is Chaotic Evil. He's a villain beacuse he's trying to get the duke killed in warfare and poison the duchess.
Kamikaze Midget said:Y'know, for me, the whole "fly away laughing maniacally" or even "teleport away" is kind of cheap-feeling.
I prefer to have them slay the villain, and then have his minion come along and resurrect him.
'cuz every good Villain needs at least three good minions, namely:
Butt-saver: Someone who he can trust to restore his body when he gets in over his head, or that can get him out of there in a hurry.
Bodyguard: Someone who can take damage instead of him.
Far-seeing eyes: Someone to tell him what the PC's are up to so he can plan around them.
The current villain in my game has a slight advantage/disadvantage, he's an imprisoned devil. As things stand he can't directly affect the PC's, nor they him. Pretty much all his minions take all three roles at the moment as they and the PC's are running around looking for the key to his prison. They have defeated some sub-villains but haven't actually run across more than a couple of his minions. Most of the things they've run into.
Villains at the moment:
Imprisoned Devil: Center of the metaplot.
Motive:Freedom, destruction of Asmodeus, rulership of the Nine Hells (and everything else)
Minions:Cult led by his Diciples, mercenaries, ect
Advantages:Immense power, ability to affect dreams, untouchable while imprisoned, genius, guardians of prison are extinct subrace of elf.
Disadvantages:Imprisoned, PC's are not the only things working against him, Key to prison is lost, only members of the Guardian's subrace may use the key.
Caiaphas: Master Transmuter
Motive: Obsession with recreating lost races in order to create a 'perfect' companion out of their traits.
Minions: Harlaquin(see below), golems, golems, oh Pelor the golems(on the order of 30), his 'creations'
Advantages:High level Master Specialist transmutation(PrC Complete Mage), Most minions obey orders without hesitation and will fight to the death. (until recently he was also in a hard to reach area of jungle and possessed a Daern's Instant Fortress, along with a huge amount of other gear.)
Disadvantages:Insane, god-complex, obsessive. Minions are for the most part dumb as toast, his 'sample' of the guardian race (a skeleton) is (unknown to him) contaminated with Far Plane energies, all attempts at cloning have died or have Aberrant Blood feat (at minimum), (recently lost his fortress, gear, and best golems to PC's) Cult has been stealing his clones of the guardian race.
Halaquin: Lucky Scoundrel, minor villain
Motive:Working all sides against each other to get as much out of this as possible.
Minions:Borrowed from which ever other villain he works for
Advantages: Caiaphas made him into a unique werecreature (weredisplacer beast) and so far no one has noticed, extremly lucky. has manged to keep juggling all sides against each other. Has no qualms about throwing the minions to their deaths to escape.
Disadvantages: No where near to power level to take on the other villains, no personal minions.
Thomas Percy
First Post
What a discovery! Villains need a motivation. 
Speaking of the teleport away thing, one of my favorite villains was an evil wizard who wore a pair of ruby covered slippers...
One of my favorite villains from recent years... He entered this setting: The campaign was set up to favor good characters, and I gave them enough time to realize the local orc leaders were willing to work towards peace. (The main scenario was an orc village 4 miles from a human village - in the event of war, both assumed they would be trashed regardless of the larger outcome.) The characters were sent in as a local police force representing a larger empire that had recently gained control of the region. They began forging ties with local humans as well as orcs, and starting finding their way around. Just as they had worked out how to maintain peace in the area, the military commander for the entire region showed up. As a representative of larger empire, he outranked all the PCs, annd he was a LE variant of Paladin. His intention was to exterminate all the local orcs, outright genocide. The cost to local human inhabitants was of no consequence to him (they were conquered people too). ...This really was the major villain of the campaign, not the orcs, and he could only be dealt with politically. It took the characters close to a year to set up a battle where they could fight him directly. Until then, they had to engage in some real sneaky deals to undermine the guys plans. If he could have ordered them on a suicide mission, he most certainly would have. Preventing that from happening took all the manipulative skills teh players could muster.
One of my favorite villains from recent years... He entered this setting: The campaign was set up to favor good characters, and I gave them enough time to realize the local orc leaders were willing to work towards peace. (The main scenario was an orc village 4 miles from a human village - in the event of war, both assumed they would be trashed regardless of the larger outcome.) The characters were sent in as a local police force representing a larger empire that had recently gained control of the region. They began forging ties with local humans as well as orcs, and starting finding their way around. Just as they had worked out how to maintain peace in the area, the military commander for the entire region showed up. As a representative of larger empire, he outranked all the PCs, annd he was a LE variant of Paladin. His intention was to exterminate all the local orcs, outright genocide. The cost to local human inhabitants was of no consequence to him (they were conquered people too). ...This really was the major villain of the campaign, not the orcs, and he could only be dealt with politically. It took the characters close to a year to set up a battle where they could fight him directly. Until then, they had to engage in some real sneaky deals to undermine the guys plans. If he could have ordered them on a suicide mission, he most certainly would have. Preventing that from happening took all the manipulative skills teh players could muster.
Lord Zardoz
Explorer
Kamikaze Midget said:
As a player, I would be more pissed off at the villain who wont stay dead then the villain who legitimately escapes. The trick is to avoid denying the players victory when you do this. It is one thing to have the villain disappear every time you show up. Its another for him to have to bugger off and escape because the players have completely derailed any evil plan that the villain may have had.
Then again, I am a DM more often than a player. I could be wrong.
When a villain loses a climactic fight, he should suffer some obvious setback that sticks around for a while. The loss of key henchmen or magic items is a good place to start. Also, the players should have a reasonable chance to circumvent the escape route. If the escape hinged on using the fly spell, and another player bags him with a Net, then things get dicey.
I try to run fights so that the players always have a legitimate chance of losing. The same must apply to your villains. If all your going to do is have your bad guy teleport into the campsite, throw a few fireballs, and teleport away, then you should not run that fight.
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