The Best NPC you ever created?

[Mr. Zolrane]

Hello again, to anybody here who remembers me!

It's been a few months since I last posted, due to school starting again, and I have missed this place.

But I digress. I'm near the end of my first experience DMing. I made some mistakes but I learned a lot, and my friends and I have had a great deal of fun.

One thing I learned about myself as a DM is that I like to have a good number of interesting NPCs. My favorite from this campaign, however, by a large margin, was a creepy little half-elven child named Caleus.

His story in the spoilers:

Caleus was the younger brother of our ranger, Da'al. In Da'al's backstory he noted his brother as having been poisoned to death by an entity known simply as "the Forest Man." The Forest Man as it turns out was an undead elven druid named Brechna'char (who ended up being the villain for the first half of the campaign) and had used Caleus as part of an experiment in creating a new type of free-willed undead. Brechna'char's goals are not relevant to this story, but I just thought I'd give that bit of background.

Anyhow, the party encountered the undead Caleus early on in the campaign and he was friendly, if unsettling. Turns out he and Brechna'char were at war with the fey, and the fey, according to them, were plotting to destroy the world. At one point, Caleus urges the Chaotic Neutral (but generally Good-leaning) Da'al to poison a spring to take out a fey village. Much to my surprise as the DM, he actually went through with it.

Fast-forward a bit, due to some circumstances beyond any of their control, Caleus is transformed into a monster and forced to attack the party. After he is defeated, he is transformed into a longbow (it makes sense in context, I won't bore you with the details) and became Da'al's new weapon.

As the campaign went on, Caleus constantly attempted to entice Da'al to violent, morally questionable actions, all in the name of saving the world. Additionally, he demonstrated the ability to possess the body of anyone who picked up the bow, no save. For these reasons, the rest of the party became increasingly fearful of and hostile toward Caleus, and a number of gloriously entertaining in-character arguments were had over what to do with him. Da'al's player really impressed me in these instances, reacting realistically and making excuses for him; he was his brother after all.

After a while, Undir the Chaotic Good summoner, trapped the bow in another plane, where he remained until Da'al's final showdown with his personal nemesis, a man named Zophran who had been holding his sister as his captive "bride" for over four years. The party in general found Zophran loathsome for a variety of reasons, even beyond the obvious ones, but Da'al and Caleus understandably had a special hatred for him. Da'al was forced to fight Zophran alone. Zophran had taken a jaunt into the other plane to give Caleus a front-row seat to him slaughtering his brother. He came close to winning, but Zophran was simply too powerful. He only came as close as he did due to a string of spectacular rolls. Before Zophran struck the final blow. Caleus' soul emerged from the blow and absorbed the attack, sacrificing himself in the process, and buying the rest of the party enough time to finish their errand and port in to save Da'al.

What made Caleus so much fun for me was RPing him: I loved doing the creepy little child voice, I loved being the "bad conscience" for Da'al and he got under the summoner's skin in a way no physical threat ever could (he was ridiculously high-op; his player is a great optimizer).

So yeah, there's my story. What'd you think? What's yours, DMs? What's the best NPC you ever created and why?

[Aegis013]

I haven't had a lot of time to flesh out a lot of the NPCs I've made. And I'm slowly stock piling them for various things.
One I like is a Phrenic Draconic Spellstitched Necropolitan Dread Necromancer who is going to be a recurring villain in a solo thing I'm doing for a friend. If I can pull it off, his personality will be something of a cross between Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog and Ice King from Adventure Time.

Kind of a bumbling evil villain who's always getting in the way and being annoying.

Since the player is playing a Draconic Cloistered Cleric/Warblade gestalt going for Saint template and is typically all serious all the time, I thought it would be good to have the bad guy be the epitome of evil. And moreso opposite by being kind of dumb and hijinks-y.

[Sception]

Vincent, lord of bees, insane neutral evil druid/vermin lord antagonist with custom swarm of vermin wildshape variant. Spoke with a buzz, prone to monologging on the inferiority of non-insectoid life. Doomsday plan was to awaken all the bees of the world, with each hive becoming its own hive mind. Silliness ensued. Terrifying Silliness.

http://www.lesspopmorefizz.com/img/Bees.gif
http://cdn.wg.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/not-the-bees.gif
http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_libuz03yBt1qbxdt7o1_500.jpg

[Lateral]

Oh, hey, Zolrane! Good to see you.

I think the best NPC I ever created was the right-hand man to the main villain in one campaign I ran. The villain was really your bog-standard manipulative BBEG; he had some cool character traits, but while he was a great BBEG he wasn't the most interesting ever.

His right-hand man, though? His setup was great. For about ten levels before they ever even saw him, the PCs were getting vague hints about this horrible monster that was supposed to be a horrific, mindless plague on the land. As they level, they find out more about it, and get hints that it's working for the BBEG. When they finally see it for the first time (at like 9th level), it turns out to be a horrific, black ooze-like creature with mucilaginous wings. (Yes, I used the word 'mucilaginous' in the actual description. The rest is paraphrased.) It curbstomped them- they barely escaped without casualties. Needless to say, they were scared ****less.

The best part, though, was that it could talk to them telepathically, and was totally playing mind-games and stuff with them. Plus, I did all of this without DM fiat. He was a Sentry Ooze (Dungeonscape) Half-Dragon Half-Amnizu (MM2, with variant half-fiend here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a)) Living Spell (MMIII). I don't really remember what spell it was, though. It had a 10 Intelligence, twentysomething Charisma, Wisdom, and physical stats, and ten levels of Telepath. It obliterated things.

[lord pringle]

Sex crazed Blue Dragon bard. He was the father of the half-dragon in the group. He beat his son while making bad jokes.

[Mr. Zolrane]

I haven't had a lot of time to flesh out a lot of the NPCs I've made. And I'm slowly stock piling them for various things.
One I like is a Phrenic Draconic Spellstitched Necropolitan Dread Necromancer who is going to be a recurring villain in a solo thing I'm doing for a friend. If I can pull it off, his personality will be something of a cross between Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog and Ice King from Adventure Time.

Kind of a bumbling evil villain who's always getting in the way and being annoying.

Since the player is playing a Draconic Cloistered Cleric/Warblade gestalt going for Saint template and is typically all serious all the time, I thought it would be good to have the bad guy be the epitome of evil. And moreso opposite by being kind of dumb and hijinks-y.

Hahaha, the goofy, yet still terrifyingly evil villains are fun. I had one that was along somewhat similar lines, Zophran, the one I mentioned from before. It was easy to forget that he was a casually homicidal rapist who happened to be the herald of a schizophrenic superdeity made up of the aggregate consciousness of seven slain elven gods when his boss theme (yes I sometimes play music during boss fights) was Miror B's battle music from Pokemon Colosseum (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAHHFc-gIeI).


Oh, hey, Zolrane! Good to see you.

I think the best NPC I ever created was the right-hand man to the main villain in one campaign I ran. The villain was really your bog-standard manipulative BBEG; he had some cool character traits, but while he was a great BBEG he wasn't the most interesting ever.

His right-hand man, though? His setup was great. For about ten levels before they ever even saw him, the PCs were getting vague hints about this horrible monster that was supposed to be a horrific, mindless plague on the land. As they level, they find out more about it, and get hints that it's working for the BBEG. When they finally see it for the first time (at like 9th level), it turns out to be a horrific, black ooze-like creature with mucilaginous wings. (Yes, I used the word 'mucilaginous' in the actual description. The rest is paraphrased.) It curbstomped them- they barely escaped without casualties. Needless to say, they were scared ****less.

The best part, though, was that it could talk to them telepathically, and was totally playing mind-games and stuff with them. Plus, I did all of this without DM fiat. He was a Sentry Ooze (Dungeonscape) Half-Dragon Half-Amnizu (MM2, with variant half-fiend here (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060630a)) Living Spell (MMIII). I don't really remember what spell it was, though. It had a 10 Intelligence, twentysomething Charisma, Wisdom, and physical stats, and ten levels of Telepath. It obliterated things.

Thanks for the warm welcome back, Lateral!:smallsmile:

That sounds pretty terrifying. That's way too many templates and general 3.5 bloatage for me to look up all of it, but it certainly sounds scary. Sometimes it's better to give them something they have to run from (unless of course they impress me enough with their playery wiles and kill it anyway).


Sex crazed Blue Dragon bard. He was the father of the half-dragon in the group. He beat his son while making bad jokes.

That sounds... colorful :smallbiggrin:. Gotta love the villains that can really get under the characters' collective skin (bonus points if they perturb the players IRL :smalltongue:)

[Waker]

My favorite NPC was an enemy Transmuter named Lancast Vinado. He was something of a mad scientist who spent much of his time creating new monsters and siccing them on the party.
His introduction was great. The party is walking through a forest which has been corrupted by aberrant forces and when they finally enter a clearing they see a throne surrounded on four sides by kneeling, full-plate ogres, group of servants tending a table of food and a man sprawled across the arms of the throne.
The party attempts a few long-ranged attacks to no avail until he eventually sends them a message to not waste his time. During the fight with his minions, the party occasionally hears him broadcasting the sounds of him eating and drinking, since he never turned the spell off.
The big thing that the party hated about this guy though? He never acknowledged them. He never took offense to any insults they hurled at him or showed annoyance at his monsters being slain. To him, the party were just a mechanism to test his creatures against.
Whenever he did show up with his entrance statement of "Well, well..." at least one member of the party would burst out with "I HATE THAT GUY!"

[Mr. Zolrane]

My favorite NPC was an enemy Transmuter named Lancast Vinado. He was something of a mad scientist who spent much of his time creating new monsters and siccing them on the party.
His introduction was great. The party is walking through a forest which has been corrupted by aberrant forces and when they finally enter a clearing they see a throne surrounded on four sides by kneeling, full-plate ogres, group of servants tending a table of food and a man sprawled across the arms of the throne.
The party attempts a few long-ranged attacks to no avail until he eventually sends them a message to not waste his time. During the fight with his minions, the party occasionally hears him broadcasting the sounds of him eating and drinking, since he never turned the spell off.
The big thing that the party hated about this guy though? He never acknowledged them. He never took offense to any insults they hurled at him or showed annoyance at his monsters being slain. To him, the party were just a mechanism to test his creatures against.
Whenever he did show up with his entrance statement of "Well, well..." at least one member of the party would burst out with "I HATE THAT GUY!"

That's marvelous. I'd be interested to hear more about this guy. What was his motivation? Was he evil or just crazy?

[Waker]

Was he evil or crazy? You say that as if the two are mutually exclusive. He was quite out there. His primary drive was to build a bigger, better monster. His end goal though was to create the perfect specimen to serve as an upgraded body for himself though, nothing occurring in nature or created by the gods was enough for him.
As for his personality he had a rampant ego and was completely dismissive of anyone aside from the leader of the cult he was a member of, not because he respected the guy but because he acknowledged him as one of the few people able to kill him. Anytime the party hurled an insult at him, he continued his monologue (as he rarely talked to the party, rather he talked at the party.) Whenever the party defeated his monsters, he would simply say "Back to the drawing board" or "Ah, I see what went wrong there." He never learned the names of any of the party members or even viewed them as a threat. Rather he would just sometimes show up (or left the party a surprise) and take notes while blood was spilled.
The party did eventually get to finally fight him and when they finally dropped him, they were ecstatic. Even though they knew there was someone more powerful than him at the top, they still acted as if they had won the campaign just because they finally shut this guy up.

[Mr. Zolrane]

Was he evil or crazy? You say that as if the two are mutually exclusive. He was quite out there. His primary drive was to build a bigger, better monster. His end goal though was to create the perfect specimen to serve as an upgraded body for himself though, nothing occurring in nature or created by the gods was enough for him.
As for his personality he had a rampant ego and was completely dismissive of anyone aside from the leader of the cult he was a member of, not because he respected the guy but because he acknowledged him as one of the few people able to kill him. Anytime the party hurled an insult at him, he continued his monologue (as he rarely talked to the party, rather he talked at the party.) Whenever the party defeated his monsters, he would simply say "Back to the drawing board" or "Ah, I see what went wrong there." He never learned the names of any of the party members or even viewed them as a threat. Rather he would just sometimes show up (or left the party a surprise) and take notes while blood was spilled.
The party did eventually get to finally fight him and when they finally dropped him, they were ecstatic. Even though they knew there was someone more powerful than him at the top, they still acted as if they had won the campaign just because they finally shut this guy up.

That is incredibly entertaining. If you don't mind I might like to steal appropriate that villain for use in a future campaign. Only with your express permission of course. That just sounds too delicious to pass up.

[Waker]

By all means go ahead. I don't have his stats on hand, but he was a Transmuter/Fleshwarper (Lords of Madness). As I said, he doesn't like getting his hands dirty, so much of his abilities at first will simply be defensive type stuff so he can avoid the party while his monsters wreak havoc. He also had a great deal of buff and debuff type spells.

[Mr. Zolrane]

By all means go ahead. I don't have his stats on hand, but he was a Transmuter/Fleshwarper (Lords of Madness). As I said, he doesn't like getting his hands dirty, so much of his abilities at first will simply be defensive type stuff so he can avoid the party while his monsters wreak havoc. He also had a great deal of buff and debuff type spells.

Oh, I don't need the stats, just the concept. I can build him myself by spamming the blue heck out of DM fiat. It's his personality and fighting style that I'm drawn; I can hash out the mechanics myself.

[DonutBoy12321]

My favorite NPC was a Karsite Ranger 1 (Enemy spellcaster as Favored enemy)/Non-casting Spellthief 19. Completely focused on killing spellcasters.
In the game, he was an assassin, with the specific capabilities to kill spellcasters. The problem was, he could never kill the party's archmage, and became obsessed with it. He tried starting a barfight to kill him in the chaos, ambushing him in his room at the end of the day, and even tried disguising himself as a guide and leading the mage down a hallway in a dungeon. The best part was, the Mage and him were at a standstill. The Mage could avoid him and fly far above him, but could never break his SR. When this NPC finally died, it was actually from slipping on a Grease spell (1 on Reflex save), and pouring a bucket of on-contact Constitution Poison on himself.

[Aegis013]

... When this NPC finally died, it was actually from slipping on a Grease spell (1 on Reflex save), and pouring a bucket of on-contact Constitution Poison on himself.

What a hilarious way to go, lol.

[Zeta Kai]

My favorite NPC (at the moment) is Gadil izra-Yusuf (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=11040587#post11040587), a Neutral Good Cleric/Bard that is a prophet for a growing religious movement based on his revelations. He is seen as a messianic figure by some, & a false prophet by others. He is a pacifist (which is rather difficult to statistically chart out in 3.5), he genuinely believes his own message of love & cooperation, & he's worried that his followers are starting to worship him instead of heeding his words. He's like Buddha/Jesus/Mohammed, but he's uniquely suited to the world in which he lives.

[Dr.Epic]

"DUDE! I'm Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! A most excellent paladin! Wanna go cruising for babes?"

[Wyntonian]

"DUDE! I'm Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! A most excellent paladin! Wanna go cruising for babes?"

....Oh hell yes.

[kulosle]

"DUDE! I'm Sir Arthur Conan Doyle! A most excellent paladin! Wanna go cruising for babes?"

No good sir. I reject your reality and substitute my own.

On another note, my favorite NPC was a group of three illithids one was a cancer mage, one was a body tamer, and the other was a shadow adept(or one of those shadowy illusion PrC) cleric. the party ran into them to early and they kept trying to kill each other in short side bursts and eventually one of the characters agreed to be a host for the cancer mage all the time. it was hilarious. especially because the illithid ended up killing her.

[Grommen]

Favored Enemy (Enemy Spellcaster). Is that even legal ? :smallsmile: I might use it though. "Favored Enemy (Those %$%$# guys!)"

My favorite bad guy was a dude by the name of Venthor. This swarmy parasite not only survived his first run in with the players, but thrived on thwarting their long term plans.

Best part....he was the same alignment as his arch nemesis the players mage. both Lawful Netural (So ya it was personal).

At one point they had purchased towers in the same town (Ok the party invaded and took over Venthors tower, but in return he managed to toss them into the abyss)....Anyway the party and Venthor proceed to engage in a "Who has the tallest wizard tower" contest that ended in nearly leveling the town with fireballs. One side hired dwarves to dig under the others tower and lower it a floor. Someone hired the local stone giants to toss rocks at the top of the other's tower. It was a hoot.

Then Venthor pays a rogue to sneak into the mists of the party wile they are out romping though a dungeon and steal the mages spell book. The rogue does and instead of the mage coming clean to the party he "Fakes" casting his spells though the dungeon. They clean out the dungeon and wile leaveing they of coarse run across who else? Yes a smiling Venthor. Why? Well wile they were dungeon hacking Venthor was learning all of the party mages signature spells.

So when they meat at the exit of the dungeon they get blasted by balls of Acid that up till then no one else knew how to cast. The resulting blast of Acid eats nearly every weapon, and piece of armor the party had, getting at least one bag of holding forever loosing everything in it (2nd ed was so wonderful in the day).

Venthor, "Now what I didn't just destroy with your fancy little spell. Hand over and I'll spare your life!"

"Ya you and who's army, were gonna open up a can of ....."

"I'll be dammed son.....He brought an army with him too. You want our stuff itemized or just send it over to ya?"

Man I loved that guy. He was a specialist transmuter. He turned their luck into crap all the time. :smallbiggrin:

Plagued a group with, "The Grand Father of Assassins" for a few years. What they didn't know was that he was killed by the cleric in the party who cast a glyph of death on a note they knew he would read. No one knew he was dead and the bad guys never let on. So they kept making plans to kill the grandfather. They failed, cause well... he was very elusive (also dead).

[Darrin]

"Davenport", a Celestial Mimic.

He was working for the party's employer as a spy. He'd sneak in ahead of the party and pretend to be some kind of furniture, usually for a big encounter where I was worried I'd stacked up more CRs than the party could handle. He'd also pass along tips or information from their employer, or conveniently had a potion of lesser restoration they could borrow, or drop some cryptic clues about some big nasty something-or-other they might run into in the future.

I think I spoiled the PCs a little too much, though... now whenever they go into an encounter and see any kind of furniture, they just assume Davenport is hiding in there somewhere.

Hmm... now that gives me an idea... maybe Davenport has an evil twin brother, Ottoman... now that could be an interesting surprise.

[DigoDragon]

My best NPC ever created was Miluda, a witch who stumbled upon immortality through an old artifact that was central to the campaign at the time. The immortality left her... well, insane like The Joker from "Batman The Animated Series". My players still talk fondly about her even though she was last used 5 years ago.

Miluda was well-loved by my players because anytime they stumbled upon a lair of hers, they knew it was going to be a crazy-fun adventure.

There was a telekinesis trap that flung chickens at the party one round before opening the trap door holding a pack of hungry dire wolves. Another fun trap was the "Half-Dragon Credenza" (Because as Miluda always said, you can Half-Dragon anything). The credenza was really just an animated object enchanted to fly and shoot Scorching Rays. I think my personal favorite were the Clockwork Horrors that had "Disintegration Rays" and self-destruct buttons. Quotes for obvious reasons.
Duck Dodgers: "When it disintegrates, it really disintegrates!"

Oh, and lets not forget her wide array of signature spells like "Cone of Lobsters" and "Wall of Vacuum". :smallbiggrin:

Despite the nuttyness, she proved to be one of the most challenging foes because of just how unpredicable she was. not to mention she didn't care about dying (If she died, her body turned to ash and she reincarnated as some harmless animal which would slowly turn back into her normal body after about a week).

She was so memorable thatshe's cameo'd in two other campaigns other GMs have hosted. Now that's immortality, eh?

[Brumski]

Cecil was the majordomo for the local lord/quest giver. I forget the particulars but the group loved him, probably because he was very friendly towards them, yet antagonistic towards their rival adventuring group. Unfortunately for him, I used this love to get them interested in taking on the area's lawful evil monk temple.

"You find a dead body in an alleyway"
"I Search it (rolls a 20)"
"Upon turning the body over, you realize it is Cecil, and that he has been beaten to death with precise kicks and punches."
"CECIL, NOOOOOO. I'm gonna kill those kung-fu sunsofbitches"

Every campaign I run now has a Cecil in it somewhere.

[Tjallen]

The best npc i ever used was a Gnome Wizard called Bluebeard. He was the captain of the Airships that flew around the world. Most of the party greatly enjoyed his company - except for one that summoned a giant owl to carry him away, which he critted for almost max damage with his spellstoring rapier.
Also he didn't have a beard.
And he had magical fruits that made people really drunk.
And a facination with Mangoes.
And being a gnome he of course invented a way to land the airship after he crashed it.

[Rapidghoul]

I'm very found of my Venerable Noble Salamander Artificer 3, Hephaestus (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222128), who was trapped in a volcano for hundreds of years.
A red dragon summoned him, trapped him, and forced him to forge armor and weapons for the army of orcs he controlled. He was going to be freed once the orcs defeated the sahuagin swarm attacking them, but the dragon died and the sahuagin killed off all the orcs. Now he's stuck in a forge in a volcano, randomly fighting off undead orcs and sahuagin. Made for great interaction with the party, and they've got a contact on the Fire Plane (and an expert balcksmith if they want to summon him as a planar ally).

[JadePhoenix]

Well, I have two.
One is the corrupt mayor of a small town, also somewhat of a crime lord. The party first met him while they were fleeing from said town after it was attacked by an invading army. While the party tried to save the people, the mayor would always try to stay rich - mainly hiding resources that could save the commoners. Every time the party caught him on this, he somehow twisted the truth enough that he seemed like a savior. The party hated him and they left him behind as a hero, about to be honored by the queen. When they next met him, inside an assassin's guild headquarters, they figured it was their chance and simply attacked before he could attack... and then realized this was the one time they really needed him, since he was there to offer them a safe way out. "He screws with us even after dead", they said.

The other came by accident. His name was Angelo, a 4th level elven fighter brought into existence because of the Deck of Many Things. Loyal, down to earth and quite the workaholic, Angelo was the perfect foil for his master, a gloryhound reckless warlock. The party as a whole really loved the guy. When a villain threatened to kill him, even the backstabbing pirate in the party was willing to hear what he had to say.

[Xaktsaroth]

Mine was a NPC called Deathless, in a campaign where ressurection was banned.

A small note: I'm an optimizer, and warned my players up front that I'm going to keep my NPC's at the level of optimization they bring to the table. If they go nuts, I'll follow suit.

So, most of them went nuts: Casters keep things fairly reasonable, but one melee guy went to the wall with a Ubercharger with some crazy multiplers on a charge.

I wasn't too worried about it, but my campaigns tend to have horror overtones and this guy wasn't very scared. Why? Because dealing out 600+ damage on a charge was liquidifying anything I threw at him. Varying the tactics didn't help much, as the casters would ghost touch his weapon if he was fighting ghosts, or flight if I made the combat aerial, so I decided to imploy some mind games.

Walking through a new town, the party hears a group of girls singing a strange skipping rhyme:

"When your faith is hollowed,
And your strength runs dry,
What can you truly do,
Against one who can not die?"

The rest of the party was mildly unsettled, since the entire campaign ran on the rule that you can't come back to life, they came to the conclusion that it was something like a ghost.

The Ubercharger was quite loud in his belief that charging would solve everything.

When they finally ran into Deathless a few sessions later, they found what appeared to be a warrior in evil looking full-plate and a greatsword.

Cleric turns undead: Fails - He's not undead.
Wizard chucks a dispel magic: Fails - He has no buffs.
Uber charges - Hits - Big rolls - About ~580ish damage.

Deathless doesn't even blink.

Rogue - "What's the skill check for retaining bladder control?"

Deathless - Single attack on Fighter for ~25ish damage, sword turns out to be flesh-grinding, so he lets go and moves towards the Cleric/Wizard.

Cleric/Wizard crap selves, and delay.

Fighter charges again, ~420ish damage, Deathless still doesn't seem to care. Fighter getting quite mad at this point.

Deathless casts an area spell at Wizard/Cleric/Rogue, does enough damage to annoy them, and then motions towards his sword. The sword glows green, and the Ubercharger dies a horrible death. Deathless then speaks a word, and the sword reappears in his hand.

Wizard/Cleric break delay, and unleash hell, blowing spells and slots like nuts.

Finally down Deathless, and for good measure, drive his own sword through him "For the Ubercharger".

Rogue has been fiddling with a strange door at the end of the room for the whole fight, Wizard/Cleric try to help him figure it out.

A few ROUNDS pass, and they hear something behind them.

Deathless stands up, and pulls his own sword from his gut. Starts walking towards them.

Wizard teleports away, Rogue jumps out window, and Cleric casts flight and follows the Rogue.

Ubercharger was quite mad at me, till I showed him Deathless's character sheet while he was dead, when he saw it, he was completely ok with this outcome.

My favourite part: Deathless was 2 CR lower then the party, and completely rules legal.

:D

[Rapidghoul]

The other came by accident. His name was Angelo, a 4th level elven fighter brought into existence because of the Deck of Many Things. Loyal, down to earth and quite the workaholic, Angelo was the perfect foil for his master, a gloryhound reckless warlock. The party as a whole really loved the guy. When a villain threatened to kill him, even the backstabbing pirate in the party was willing to hear what he had to say.

That's similar to something that happened in a game I'm currently playing in. My rogue and the cleric were being escorted around by a fighter guard NPC looking for the prince when some big natural disaster happened. He ran off to save the prince. We managed to save the fighter, but not the prince. Now he's our favorite character, and any time the DM / a BBEG threatens to kill him, we offer to let the orc barbarian (the third player) die instead.

[navar100]

Mine is a pseudo magic item I call "The NPC Of Three Wishes"

The party meets an old man who doesn't speak. He is able to answer "yes or no" questions by shaking his head, but he will shrug his shoulders if he doesn't know the answer. He is quite knowledgeable about things and is a means for me to give some information to the players that they want. That is useful enough that someone eventually asks if he's willing to travel with them, where as he shakes his head yes and does so. That was the intent.

The old man doesn't do anything aside from answering the occasional question. However, I pay attention to what the players say. I'm listening for a player to wish for something, specifically using the word "wish". It could be in frustration, casual conversation, joking, whatever. The wish is then granted, never intending to screw over the character. The players never know this was going to happen. After the first time this happens the players figure out the old man's purpose and usually use up their last two wishes quickly before he disappears, fortunately not for pure selfish reasons.

My favorite wish was in a 2E game. The party encountered a friendly werewolf. The paladin earnestly empathized "I wish I could cure your lycanthropy." Granted, expending one of his Remove Disease uses. The werewolf became a normal human.

[Lateral]

Mine was a NPC called Deathless, in a campaign where ressurection was banned.

A small note: I'm an optimizer, and warned my players up front that I'm going to keep my NPC's at the level of optimization they bring to the table. If they go nuts, I'll follow suit.

So, most of them went nuts: Casters keep things fairly reasonable, but one melee guy went to the wall with a Ubercharger with some crazy multiplers on a charge.

I wasn't too worried about it, but my campaigns tend to have horror overtones and this guy wasn't very scared. Why? Because dealing out 600+ damage on a charge was liquidifying anything I threw at him. Varying the tactics didn't help much, as the casters would ghost touch his weapon if he was fighting ghosts, or flight if I made the combat aerial, so I decided to imploy some mind games.

Walking through a new town, the party hears a group of girls singing a strange skipping rhyme:

"When your faith is hollowed,
And your strength runs dry,
What can you truly do,
Against one who can not die?"

The rest of the party was mildly unsettled, since the entire campaign ran on the rule that you can't come back to life, they came to the conclusion that it was something like a ghost.

The Ubercharger was quite loud in his belief that charging would solve everything.

When they finally ran into Deathless a few sessions later, they found what appeared to be a warrior in evil looking full-plate and a greatsword.

Cleric turns undead: Fails - He's not undead.
Wizard chucks a dispel magic: Fails - He has no buffs.
Uber charges - Hits - Big rolls - About ~580ish damage.

Deathless doesn't even blink.

Rogue - "What's the skill check for retaining bladder control?"

Deathless - Single attack on Fighter for ~25ish damage, sword turns out to be flesh-grinding, so he lets go and moves towards the Cleric/Wizard.

Cleric/Wizard crap selves, and delay.

Fighter charges again, ~420ish damage, Deathless still doesn't seem to care. Fighter getting quite mad at this point.

Deathless casts an area spell at Wizard/Cleric/Rogue, does enough damage to annoy them, and then motions towards his sword. The sword glows green, and the Ubercharger dies a horrible death. Deathless then speaks a word, and the sword reappears in his hand.

Wizard/Cleric break delay, and unleash hell, blowing spells and slots like nuts.

Finally down Deathless, and for good measure, drive his own sword through him "For the Ubercharger".

Rogue has been fiddling with a strange door at the end of the room for the whole fight, Wizard/Cleric try to help him figure it out.

A few ROUNDS pass, and they hear something behind them.

Deathless stands up, and pulls his own sword from his gut. Starts walking towards them.

Wizard teleports away, Rogue jumps out window, and Cleric casts flight and follows the Rogue.

Ubercharger was quite mad at me, till I showed him Deathless's character sheet while he was dead, when he saw it, he was completely ok with this outcome.

My favourite part: Deathless was 2 CR lower then the party, and completely rules legal.

:D

Do you have his character sheet? I'd quite like to see this.

[Xaktsaroth]

Do you have his character sheet? I'd quite like to see this.

Don't have his character sheet anymore, but I clearly remember the trick behind him.

Currently, in the process of updating him now that 3.5 ran its course.

I was planning on posting a few of my NPC's, since I'm a bit new to this board; Figured it'd be a nice way of introducing myself. I'll PM you a link when I get him finished.

[kardar233]

Me too, he sounds interesting.

[Mikeavelli]

The best was a Winter Fey called Niisha

She didn't even have a name or stats to start out with, and was just supposed to be an NPC that wanted to start trouble when the players were visiting a Seelie Court. She came to them during a party, bearing the message that the queen of this particular court was planning to trick them.

Niisha could get them what they wanted, but only if they killed the queen for her, so she could become the new one. They went ahead and did it.

She proceeded to become a recurring NPC across the whole of the campaign, providing them plot hooks, throwing kinks into the plot, and, oh, stabbing them in the back the whole time. As chaotic evil as someone can be without being stupid evil.

And for some reason they loved her for it. I never really got it, they were mass-murdering psychopaths who would kill just about any NPC for any reason, almost no-one with any kind of plot importance would live for more than a few sessions because death was the punishment for any real or imagined slight against the players.

But this fairy queen...

- Trapped them in the Fey world immediately after they helped her become queen of that particular realm. To the point where around 30 years had passed in the real world once they got back.

- Danced with the party bard at a party, and gave him a kiss, numbing his lips. Immediately before he was scheduled to sing.

- Slept with the manwhore PC (different from the Bard, which is weird I know) and gave him a magical curse/STD. At that same party. Even after he already knew what happened to the bard.

- Told one of the sons of the Mab (The Queen of Air and Darkness) that she'd love him if he brought her the party's heads on a Silver platter, leading to them getting chased by the Wild Hunt throughout a whole adventure. Lied about it when confronted by them. They believed her.

- Moved in on the power vacuum created by everyone else they murdered, causing the winter court to become so powerful in this world it started an eternal winter. Told them it would stop if they killed Mab.

------------------

And these are just the highlights. She was literally the caricature of "Important NPC gives you a quest and then inevitably betrays you" - who betrayed them over and over and over again, and never once got called on it.

[molten_dragon]

My favorite friendly NPC happened by accident.

I'm running Kingmaker (the pathfinder adventure path) and as part of it, the players end up ruling the country. Well, during one of the books, I happened to roll a random encounter of a female adult silver dragon. The party was I think 8th level at the time, so they were polite and respectful, inviting the dragon back to their capital city for a visit if it ever felt the desire for human company. Fast forward a few months, and I thought it would make an interesting kingdom event if the dragon actually did come for a visit. Well, it worked out better than I thought. The dragon was friendly, my wife's character (the queen, due to having a high CHA score) was able to spin it properly, and all the kids in town were having fun playing with the big scary dragon. Fast forward another couple of months, and the dragon has come back a few more times. My wife has been buddying up to her every time she visits. At the beginning of one of the visits, my wife says "I want to try to seduce the dragon". This quieted the table down immediately. Making a quick spur of the moment decision, I told her to roll a diplomacy check (our group doesn't go in for a lot of heavy roleplaying, and I didn't think it appropriate in this case anyway). She rolled something in the 30s, so I told her it worked. So that's how the PCs kingdom wound up with two queens, one of whom was a gnome sorceress and the other of whom was an adult silver dragon. The party got a huge kick out of it, and they even ended up having a kid later on, who became the crown prince.

And that brings me to my favorite enemy NPC.

A few in-game years after all this happened, the party had leveled up to 14 or 15 I think, and their kingdom had gone to war with an enemy kingdom. My wife had been bugging me to let her fight from dragonback, and I figured that a war would be a good time for it. I thought I'd surprise the party and give the enemy country some more support, since their country (and themselves) were pretty well optimized, and I didn't want the country they were going to war with to be a pushover. Back in the book when they had first met the silver dragon, they had also explored an abandoned cave up in the mountains and found a bunch of discarded red and silver dragon scales.

So I decided that the discarded red and silver dragon scales were from a battle between the dragon queen's mother and a red dragon. The silver had done something to anger the red, and the red had sworn to kill the silver and all her hatchlings, which he assumed he had done. One hatchling escaped and went on to become one of the queens of the PCs kingdom.

The red dragon (now ancient) learned that one of the hatchlings had escaped, and wanted to complete revenge. Realizing that he probably didn't want to take on an entire kingdom by himself, he allied himself with the kingdom that the PCs were at war with.

My PCs absolutely hated this dragon. He would frequently wait until the PCs had led their armies out to war, then teleport into their kingdom and raze one of their towns before they could get there to stop him. He was extremely disruptive to their war effort, and at one point was on the verge of shutting down trade within the PCs kingdom completely due to how much he was preying on road traffic within the borders. The PCs fought him 3 or 4 times, sustaining a few deaths, though one side or the other always managed to escape. He finally kidnapped the crown prince, and told the PCs that he would kill the baby unless the silver dragon met him alone in single combat and faced her fate. They agreed, though both sides lied about it. The rest of the PCs were on the ethereal plane, and the red dragon had brought invisible allies of his own. An epic battle ensued that lasted an entire gaming session (5 hours or so). 3 PCs died, but in the end, they were able to drop most of the dragon's protections and hit him with a dimensional anchor. I've never seen my group as happy as when they finally killed that dragon.

Too bad they forgot to cast trap the soul. :wink:

[Lateral]

Currently, in the process of updating him now that 3.5 ran its course.

...To 4e? :smallconfused:

[Madara]

My favorite NPC was the one from my most recent campaign in Eberron.(First one my group has had the patience to finish).

One of the Lords of Dust's minions, I made up some magic rules based on the Red Wizard class. He was supposed to be this big epic battle after the party gathered enough allies to retake Sharn(Which had been captured, and turned into 1984). However, the Party was dying in a dungeon of Tucker's Kobold's style, and decide to scry and die on the BBEG, and I went with it.

You'd think a high level caster would have feather fall, but the heroic sacrifice when the dwarf grappled him and jumped off the building was amazing. Everyone went away from it pretty happy.


But the fact that when he was first introduced during his "new era of peace" speech and all the players immediately hated the guy told me I made a BBEG right.

[Wyntonian]

The best was a Winter Fey called Niisha

*snip*



I'm not going to lie, that almost sounds like stupid gullible (Like, "Hey, did you know that if you say gullible really slowly it sounds like giraffe?" "Really? guuuuuuuulllllllliiiiiiiibblllle") party fail more than epic character creation win. Not to say that she wasn't awesome, but that particular character might not have worked with a more suspicious party.

[Xaktsaroth]

...To 4e? :smallconfused:

No. There were some 3.5 releases after I made him, so I'm checking through the books to make sure I didn't miss any awesome I can dump in him.

[Telonius]

Not so much created as vastly expanded from the Shackled City adventure path:

Beppo the fruit merchant. He changed into a cabbage salesman (a la the Cabbage Guy in the "Avater: The Last Airbender" cartoons). He eventually became the highest-level follower of our party VoP sorcerer, and ran the soup kitchen.

Also in Shackled City, Crazy Jerry. Altered his backstory for him to actually be a Silver Dragon, masquerading as a succession of King Jareds.

[Mikeavelli]

I'm not going to lie, that almost sounds like stupid gullible (Like, "Hey, did you know that if you say gullible really slowly it sounds like giraffe?" "Really? guuuuuuuulllllllliiiiiiiibblllle") party fail more than epic character creation win. Not to say that she wasn't awesome, but that particular character might not have worked with a more suspicious party.

I dunno, they're one of the most suspicious and genre-saavy (Nooo! Resist the urge to go re-visit tvtropes!) parties I've ever DM'd for, hence the merciless slaughter of all the other NPC's I intended to be cunning manipulators.

I never intended for this particular NPC to last more than one session before they realized she was bad news and commenced with the revenge-murder. I wasn't trying to trick anyone, and made her so blatantly over-the-top that, I dunno, maybe they assumed something was fishy and she wasn't how she appeared to be.

[gallagher]

best one i made turned into a PC in a later game.

Bard 1/Spellthief 11/Sublime Chord 1/IotSFV 7

[Razanir]

I'm going to handdraw an OOTS-inspired comic and my favorite two characters are a Dromite Magical Girl (Homebrew class from this forum) and the BBEG, a half-black dragon lycanthropic drow my friend thought up at summer camp

[gallagher]

best one i made turned into a PC in a later game.

Bard 1/Spellthief 11/Sublime Chord 1/IotSFV 7

also, i would like to say this is the most fun i have ever had as a caster, and is the best caster to not get 9th level spells (and much more fun than them anyway)

[herrhauptmann]

Favored Enemy (Enemy Spellcaster). Is that even legal ? :smallsmile: I might use it though. "Favored Enemy (Those %$%$# guys!)"

My favorite bad guy was a dude by the name of Venthor. This swarmy parasite not only survived his first run in with the players, but thrived on thwarting their long term plans.

Best part....he was the same alignment as his arch nemesis the players mage. both Lawful Netural (So ya it was personal).

At one point they had purchased towers in the same town (Ok the party invaded and took over Venthors tower, but in return he managed to toss them into the abyss)....Anyway the party and Venthor proceed to engage in a "Who has the tallest wizard tower" contest that ended in nearly leveling the town with fireballs. One side hired dwarves to dig under the others tower and lower it a floor. Someone hired the local stone giants to toss rocks at the top of the other's tower. It was a hoot.

Then Venthor pays a rogue to sneak into the mists of the party wile they are out romping though a dungeon and steal the mages spell book. The rogue does and instead of the mage coming clean to the party he "Fakes" casting his spells though the dungeon. They clean out the dungeon and wile leaveing they of coarse run across who else? Yes a smiling Venthor. Why? Well wile they were dungeon hacking Venthor was learning all of the party mages signature spells.

So when they meat at the exit of the dungeon they get blasted by balls of Acid that up till then no one else knew how to cast. The resulting blast of Acid eats nearly every weapon, and piece of armor the party had, getting at least one bag of holding forever loosing everything in it (2nd ed was so wonderful in the day).

Venthor, "Now what I didn't just destroy with your fancy little spell. Hand over and I'll spare your life!"



Yes. ACF in either Complete Mage or Complete Arcane.
So he was hitting them with orbs of acid, that also destroyed equipment? Or was it essentially a elemental substitution fireball?