recurring side villian development.

[Darth Stabber]

So my players just had their first run in with a new side villian who will definitely be coming back. Trag the goblin gym leader (goblin swordsage7). In this first installment he had 4 goblin trippers (lvl2 fighter with imp trip, comnat reflexes and spiked chains) and an ogre hulking hurler. The strategy involved the hulking hurler throwing goblins (via fling ally feat from a 25' cliff) into the fray with his knockdown ability, then the tripper goblins keep the pcs locked down while the ogre throws trag who is wearing a chainshirt with +1throwing returning armor spikes and has manuevers readied to attack before he snaps back (yoyo of pain, trag is mostly tigerclaw and setting sun focused), while the ogre throws a javelin for his iterative. Total encounter CR = 9, the parties ECL = 7, not bad for a miniboss.

Well during the fight the low level trippers die pretty quickly to the DN's wights + bugbear skeleton + negative energy burst. The psion spams ego whip on the ogre, while the swordsage shadow teleports up there. The psion ego whips again, and the ogre throws the sword sage at him (also has fling enemy). The psion gets back up to ego whip the ogre into negative cha. The goblin having a good wisdom modifier has the good sense to run away into the forest. The party, showing unusual restraint avoids killing the unconcious ogre and instead hit him with a wand of lesser restoration to bring him back to conscieseness. They find that the goblin is the owner of the gym/martial temple that the parties Swordsage just joined, in addition to being a mercenary, and was hired by a paladin of heironeous to deal with them. They find this odd since they have had frequent problems with a paladin of pelor, but the heroniens have little presence in the region. They let the ogre leave, and go on to continue the main quest.

Now I need some advice on how to toughen up trag's strategy for the player's next encounter with the party (when they will be a lvl higher and a new player will join the group).

[deuxhero]

Either get him an ally that will resurrect him, or be sure not to expect Trag to be able to return a third time.


As for advancing Trag, if the player(s) know ToB wellish, prehaps give him access to one of the many homebrew disciplines out there (for the confusion)?

[Darth Stabber]

Either get him an ally that will resurrect him, or be sure not to expect Trag to be able to return a third time.


As for advancing Trag, if the player(s) know ToB wellish, prehaps give him access to one of the many homebrew disciplines out there (for the confusion)?

Actually, Dracodei came up with the always amusing falling anvil discipline.

Trag as a mercenary employed by a religious order could gain access to some form of death denial fairly easily. The players know where Trag lives now, but since he lives in the town where they currently live, I assume they are smart enough not to go down to his gym and murder him within city limits (especially since the pcs live with a city cop, and frequently work for the lord mayor). If they confront him verbally in town (where he has a gym full of fighter types to back him up), he will offer them a truce of no violence within 2 miles of town, but he will not give up the contract. Even if the PCs befriend him (given how the same players got things done SWSE it seems likely) he is going to continue out of professionalism (he's a very lawful goblin).

I'm looking for an amusing way to build on the strategy of their first scuffle. Something that will seem similar, but with a deadly surprise twist, especially since Trag already spent the money on the armor spikes. The PCs are adept tacticians (most of their encounters are at CR = ECL+3 with few expended resources despite there being only 3 of them). I have no idea what to expect from the new player, having never met her before, but this will be her first game of D&D (odd for a first game with this being an evil campaign).