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Infernum
2010-11-26, 02:25 PM
I have been running a bandit plot line in my game for the past few weeks, and now the party is nearing the end of said plot line and now i am trying to see how to wrap things up which will take them from level 5 to 6.

The Bandits are lead by a powerful Assassin(Rogue4, Fighter1, Assassin3) who is a very tactical minded person who has a lot of influence over his men. His number one is a warlock with some tweaking so he can do magic item creation and rituals more than combat and his second in command is a Military man(Fighter4 Rogue2). The organization is designed so that the lower people have no idea who the boss is, only a few high ranking people and the bosses personnel know who he is, everything else is handled via magical communication and letters run to the bandit cells.

So, the party will find the number two, question him(either alive or speak with dead) and learn where the boss is. Now i am unsure whether or not the party to actually be able to fight the boss on equal terms seeing as how he will know they are coming(his warlock has an orb of scrying). What i have planned, is for him to take the vast amount of his wealth and the like and leave. But he leaves behind his apprentice who is almost as powerful as him and has been brainwashed to believe that he is the boss(Just in case the party tries to speak with dead on him.) While they fight his apprentice the warlock observes them, learning their tactics and abilities first hand.

This way, the party thinks they have killed him and the real bad guy gets away to make a feature appearance since he is a powerful and smart bad guy.

Now my other plan is an epic show down that will probably(79%) kill a couple of them and he will still get away. I am unsure how to proceed. I feel like this bad guy deserves more credit than i am giving him since he has been able to kill everyone who knows his true identity i feel that he should be someone that the party should fear and that wouldn't let himself get caught in a fight unless he had a total advantage.

Any help or opinions will be appreciated.

CubeB
2010-11-26, 02:29 PM
Go with the apprentice thing. Make the party think they've defeated him for real.

Then... eventually... BOOM! He's back for revenge!

gbprime
2010-11-26, 02:53 PM
Yeah, the apprentice option is the more creative of the two. Later in the campaign the PC's can hear rumor of him again and roleplaying through the confusion could be cool.

"we hear you have experience fighting this fellow"
"experience? we killed him!"
"clearly not. but the question is, can you help us?"

And they'll be wondering who brought the guy back from the dead. :smallamused:

Infernum
2010-11-26, 03:01 PM
I did like the apprentice idea, he wont have all the magic items like the other has, but he will have temporary buffs and some potions. Then later, the real bad guy will arise, maybe even killing people the party holds dear.

JonRG
2010-11-26, 03:06 PM
I like the apprentice idea too. Reminds me of Batman Begins, especially if you keep it going. :smallbiggrin:

gbprime
2010-11-26, 03:08 PM
And the second time the PC's confront him, if they're not wise to the decoy bad guy technique, he could pull it again. Only this time, after the PC's kill his stooge and their buffs fade away, he shows up with some tough meatshields in person and chides them. :smallfrown:

"You people fall for the "fake boss" routine a lot, don't you?. Well, time to kill you now I suppose."

Infernum
2010-11-26, 03:19 PM
@gpprime: That is an awesome idea, they would hate me for it, but still amazing. I think i will do that, although the will probably die at that point unless they run, which would also be hard unless they had dim door or the like. Talk about a serious "Oh.....****." moment. And considering he is a Kukri wielding, sneaking on critical hit, re-roll ones on said dice son of a bitch, hes nasty, plus hes using poison.

If anyone wants his build, he is quite nasty in one on one or even two on one fights, although he has a lot of magic.

hmmm, should i do anything with the warlock(level 7) hes more of a bad guys assistant. But he is a leveled bad guy, he has more utility invocations though. Any ideas for him?

Gnaritas
2010-11-26, 05:08 PM
@gpprime: That is an awesome idea, they would hate me for it, but still amazing. I think i will do that, although the will probably die at that point unless they run, which would also be hard unless they had dim door or the like. Talk about a serious "Oh.....****." moment. And considering he is a Kukri wielding, sneaking on critical hit, re-roll ones on said dice son of a bitch, hes nasty, plus hes using poison.

If anyone wants his build, he is quite nasty in one on one or even two on one fights, although he has a lot of magic.

hmmm, should i do anything with the warlock(level 7) hes more of a bad guys assistant. But he is a leveled bad guy, he has more utility invocations though. Any ideas for him?

He has a 4d6 ranged touch attack he can cast every round. That's around 14 damage that will hit almost every single time. Considering some of your lower HP-players probably have around 30 hitpoints, that's a mayor threat without considering invocations or some cheap items that can improve his blast.

The level 8 boss should be able to be handled by 4 level 5 players if they are on even grounds and no lackeys are involved.

But if you make the fake-boss fight a hard one, and then bring out the boss with some lackeys, the party should realise that they are not ready for this fight. If they do fight, consider giving them an option to surrender, ONE option. Gives you another new quest to escape.

That said, as a player i would think "ok, so why would you let us kill your fake-boss and then come out, why not come out before we kill him and make the fight even easier for the bandits to win, it's not like bandits want to make it a fair fight..."

Runestar
2010-11-26, 06:50 PM
You can give your warlock the mortalbane feat from BOVD. This will add +2d6 to his EB 5/day. There's also empower (MM) or maximize SLA (CA) to squeeze that extra bit of damage.

Don't feel guilty - at that level, wizards are throwing scorching rays for 2x4d6 (or 8d6 damage total).

Infernum
2010-11-27, 03:15 AM
@gnaritas: As for the why show up after boss is dead, so all there buffs are down and he doesnt care about the apprentices and will come out with like 4-8 other people in tow so it still wont be an fair fight, in fact, they will probably have to surrender. Since they wont be able to escape or most of them wont. So they are hurt or some what healed and out of spells, mini boss is dead or unconscious, there are 4-8 4-6 level fighter rogue combos a warlock and the BBEG, against at this point....7-8 lvl PC's. And the warlock and BBEG at this level are high them selves.

@Runestar: He already has Maximize SLA, so hes fine there. Besides that, hes got flee the scene, invisibility, see the unseen, the one that acts as sending and the eldritch spear. He is no joke himself. But i wasnt sure what else to do with him. As for magic items....eh, his are mostly things like crystal ball and other non combat stuff.