Need Ideas for a Criminally Insane Boss

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Essentially, the PCs need to go into the disused asylum to seek out an artifact they need. And besides the obvious multitude of traps, I want a big bad psychopath boss that guards their path to the artifact. They are relatively low level at the moment, but I can work with any ideas from any edition. Just have fun and make me a scary crazy guy!

[BRC]

Essentially, the PCs need to go into the disused asylum to seek out an artifact they need. And besides the obvious multitude of traps, I want a big bad psychopath boss that guards their path to the artifact. They are relatively low level at the moment, but I can work with any ideas from any edition. Just have fun and make me a scary crazy guy!

Is this boss an inmate at the Asylum, or just a squatter.

Either way, my suggestion is a Rogue, one who outlevels the party and had a good Hide/move silently score. He is very familiar with the asylum grounds and uses his knowledge to ambush the party, setting off traps or delivering a sneak attack before retreating. He'll try to isolate the PC's, separate one from the party in order to kill them. Provided he has plenty of shadows to jump out of, the PC's don't stand a chance. What they need to do is somehow lure or trick him into a direct confrontation, where they can overwhelm him, perhaps by playing on some quirk of his psychosis.

I don't picture this guy as very well equipped. He's insane, wandering around a fallen down asylum. His "Short Sword" is a kitchen knife tied to a metal bar. His traps are crude yet cunning, weakened sections of the floor that drop a party member into an ambush, or collapsing walls that cut a straggler off from the rest of the party. Or he'll rig a blanket or sheet or something to fall on one of the PC's heads, blinding them for a round until they can get it off. He dosn't engage them directly, but wears them down as they traverse the asylum.

To make things creepier, he's also a ventriloquist. He's fond of singing or taunting the PC's, but he throws his voice so you can't tell which direction he's coming from.

He should be tough enough that, when he's got a PC alone, or when he's disabled the party with traps/surprise, he can deal heavy damage, but weak enough to go down once the PC's cut him off from his support.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Thanks brt, I love all the ideas.
I had envisioned him as a rogue too, maybe even halfling. Maybe cut his own hand off to replace with a weapon of sorts. Love the ventriloquism, and the guerrilla fighting style. I figured hed be the baddest murderer in the whole place and thus earned a heavily trapped and protected max security cell. Maybe he created his own network of secret passages to get anywhere in the dungeon. Cool ideas though, can't wait for more

[Dire Panda]

Mentally ill villains don't always have to be straight-up psychopaths, especially if you're trying to go for a more subtle horror feel with your abandoned asylum. You'll have to build to it slowly for effective horror.

One idea, more suited for mature campaigns, is a dangerous person who's not evil, just ill. The last time I ran an abandoned asylum dungeon crawl, the "villain" was a mentally retarded man with necromantic powers that weren't entirely under his control. Due to his powers, he had no concept of life and death, and when his zombies hugged people to death he would animate them without needing to think about it. "Hooray, more friends!" By the time the PCs showed up, he'd amassed a fairly large army of undead patients, nurses, and 'fuzzy things' (woodland animals he'd asked his undead to retrieve as pets). They eventually managed to calm him down to the point where they weren't in immediate danger, but the moral argument about what to do with him lasted about an hour. They ended up purchasing a very expensive antimagic amulet to suppress his powers and had him locked up elsewhere.

Alternatively, for more mainstream D&D, maybe they end up betrayed by a former inmate they thought they could reason with? Imagine meeting a charming, personable, almost manically enthusiastic fellow in the asylum who offers to accompany your party. As you spend more time with him, his behavior becomes more and more eccentric - it starts with facial tics and odd noises and graduates to randomly bursting into song. All harmless stuff, though quite unsettling. Maybe your players will even bond with the poor guy. Then suddenly you walk into a room with something horrid inside - corpses come to mind - and he says "This is my room, make yourselves at home!" It's quite clear that he killed them, but he doesn't make any obvious attempts to harm you and is in fact still friendly. Maybe you can ramp up the creepiness factor by having him absentmindedly stab or toy with the bodies while he talks to you. Then have him start to react poorly to random things, like the words the PCs use or their facial features. "You! Yes, you with the blue eyes! I recognize you, you took my pie six years ago!" Clever or diplomatic PCs might be able to calm him down before he destabilizes further, at which point he'll return to his helpful self, but irritating him further or trying to leave causes him to spring traps or attack. This way you get a psychopath... eventually. The buildup should unsettle the players, and even once they've dealt with him they realize that they let him lead them into a very dangerous part of the asylum...

[BRC]

Thanks brt, I love all the ideas.
I had envisioned him as a rogue too, maybe even halfling. Maybe cut his own hand off to replace with a weapon of sorts. Love the ventriloquism, and the guerrilla fighting style. I figured hed be the baddest murderer in the whole place and thus earned a heavily trapped and protected max security cell. Maybe he created his own network of secret passages to get anywhere in the dungeon. Cool ideas though, can't wait for more

Other ideas

He's got a stash of potions somewhere, looted from the bodies of other foolhardy adventurers. He uses them to heal up between attacks so, no matter how much damage he takes before he escapes, he's always ready again.

The lore surrounding the Asylum states that he was left to starve in his cell when the asylum was abandoned, and that his ghost haunts the ruins, attacking any who dare enter. In reality he just escaped from his cell using the secret tunnels already mentioned.

Also, maybe you should just stick to this thread, rather than making identical threads in every possibly relevant subforum.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Hahaha alright, I just joined up today so I'm not ure of the etiquette. But I'm definitely digging your ideas and appreciate the input

[Waker]

What level is the party likely to be when they face this guy and what is the party makeup?

Some suggesitons I'll make are:
Scout (CAdv)- As many skill points as a rogue, but the scout skirmish ability encourages hit-and-run tactics more. ACFs like Go To Ground make you untrackable except by magic, Hidden Stalker means you can move while still hiding and Dungeon Specialist gives you a Climb speed. The first two ACFs can be found here
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20070228a
Dungeon Specialist is in Dungeonscape.
Beguiler (PHBII)- Highly skilled and has access to incredibly powerful illusions and enchanments. You could describe his illusions as delusions and his enchantments as his infectious madness. Has excellent potential to harry the party and hide behind illusionary walls, become invisible or whatever else comes to mind.
Psychic Rogue (online)- Another skillful opponent, but utilizing psionics. Between sneak attack and his potent psionic ability, the party will have trouble engaging him in a straight up fight. Here is a link to the class.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723b

Lastly, you might consider having them take the Dungeon Lord PrC from Dungeonscape. Your guy will know every square inch of the dungeon, know exactly where the party is, not set off any of his own traps, have a short ranch teleport and some more. The only issue is that you can play a standard humanoid race, so you may want to consider an unusual race or perhaps a template like Necropolitan (LM).

[nakedonmyfoldin]

At the time of the big final battle, I imagine level five. there's a human rogue, a human sorcerer, a halfelf ranger, and a dwarf fighter

[Waker]

Having that Go To Ground ability will be especially useful if there is a ranger in the party. When you do have the fight, you'll want to find a way to prevent the party from focus-firing him down to nothing. Whether that means utilizing illusions to make them waste attacks, separate them with traps/environment or have some small minions to distract them is up to you.

I did have another idea you could use. Druid or Ranger going into a class like Beastmaster (CAdv) might be amusing. Focus on smaller creatures like rats, bats, snake and the like to use as spies and distractions.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

All very cool ideas. I'll probably blend the rogue idea with some of those illusion ideas, and maybe give him some animal friends too. Living in the asylum all those years, he'd have to have some kind of companionship

[Flame of Anor]

You could try giving him that class where you summon abominations from the Far Realm. "Alienist" I think it's called.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Now I have a good idea of the guys class and abilities and whatnot, if anyone has any interesting ideas for his physical traits that may reflect or magnify his mental state?

[gallagher]

aww too late to suggest spellthief :frown: if you like the ideas of illusions and want to keep some rogue-iness, a spellthief/beguiler/unseen seer works well for a crazy guy.

well for traits, i suggest that you have him be a lucky SOB. the crazy guy always seems to get away at the last second, whether it is by some toy in his pocket, an ace up his sleeve, or a trap that was laid as a last-ditch-effort kind of thing.

bags of tricks for a bunch of surprise animals, stuff that gives him luck re-rolls, bonuses to charisma for long-winded monologues.

[limejuicepowder]

Instead of rogue I recommend cancer mage from BoVD. Easiest and fastest entry is something like ranger 2 warblade 1 (ranger and warblade have good synergy with the tiger claw maneuvers) cancer mage X.

The benefit of doing this is pretty great, I think. Cancer mage gives sneak attack and a very functional armor made from rags, plus a variety of other rather insane abilities (not insane broken, but insane flavor). Now your mental patient has real reason to talk to himself (cancerous companion) and more then just sneak attack to hit the players with, in the form of any and every disease you care to give him.

"The apparent source of the cunning traps, taunts, and mad laughter can only be seen as a shadow within a shadow; whatever it is it clearly knows the features of the forgotten asylum well. Slowly though, the creature steps in to the light.
Standing before you is something not immediately recognizable as a man, but something from a nightmare: stooped and misshapen, he appears to be wearing what may have once been a straight jacket, but has been patched and reinforced with countless other rags and bits of leather. The original color of his skin is impossible to determine, it is so covered with dirt, scrapes, bruises, boils, and rashes, and you can almost feel the heat of fever radiating from him. There are even bits of his skin that seem to be rotting off: part of his cheek is gone, exposing black and rotted teeth. Despite this, he seems to be in no real discomfort, and he clearly has no problem moving.
"oooh Mirrikh Mirrikh Mirrikh....."
When this name is uttered, the odd lump on his shoulder that you assumed was just part of his armor quivers slightly, as if it was responding.
"You always bring be such nice presents for me. I cannot wait any longer.....which one should I open first?"

[limejuicepowder]

Instead of rogue I recommend cancer mage from BoVD. Easiest and fastest entry is something like ranger 2 warblade 1 (ranger and warblade have good synergy with the tiger claw maneuvers) cancer mage X.

The benefit of doing this is pretty great, I think. Cancer mage gives sneak attack and a very functional armor made from rags, plus a variety of other rather insane abilities (not insane broken, but insane flavor). Now your mental patient has real reason to talk to himself (cancerous companion) and more then just sneak attack to hit the players with, in the form of any and every disease you care to give him.

"The apparent source of the cunning traps, taunts, and mad laughter can only be seen as a shadow within a shadow; whatever it is it clearly knows the features of the forgotten asylum well. Slowly though, the creature steps in to the light.
Standing before you is something not immediately recognizable as a man, but something from a nightmare: stooped and misshapen, he appears to be wearing what may have once been a straight jacket, but has been patched and reinforced with countless other rags and bits of leather. The original color of his skin is impossible to determine, it is so covered with dirt, scrapes, bruises, boils, and rashes, and you can almost feel the heat of fever radiating from him. There are even bits of his skin that seem to be rotting off: part of his cheek is gone, exposing black and rotted teeth. Despite this, he seems to be in no real discomfort, and he clearly has no problem moving.
"oooh Mirrikh Mirrikh Mirrikh....."
When this name is uttered, the odd lump on his shoulder that you assumed was just part of his armor quivers slightly, as if it was responding.
"You always bring be such nice presents for me. I cannot wait any longer.....which one should I open first?"

[Zonugal]

If you went ahead with the Cancer Mage idea you could have something like this:

Human Ranger 1/Archivist 1/Ranger 1/Cancer Mage X
Toughness [1st], Great Fortitude [Human], Poison Immunity [Flaw], Willing Deformity [Flaw], Scribe Scroll [Archivist1], Deformity (Madness) [3rd], Master of Poisons [6th]

[Mayito]

To take the best of all these my idea is to make that crazy guy a pure rogue scurrying through the passages and give him spider climb so he can come from trap doors in the ceiling. Problem is he isn't the BBEG, the gentleman who guided the party to the asylum is an enchanter/illusionist. For personality think Hannibal Lector, the rogue is simply a dominated /charmed inmate

[jackattack]

The Beast from "Kung Fu Hustle", a master fighter who gave up looking for a worthy adversary and simply checked out of society.

Or, in this case, camped out by the artifact so that the best adventurers in the world simply come to him.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

When you say 'criminal mastermind' plus 'Asylum', I can't help but put the word "Arkham" in front of the latter word and come up with the Joker.

Not necessarily the Joker Bard linked in my description, he's more of a Mastermind Xanatos Roulette type Joker, but Bard does lend itself to an insane boss that boosts his minions and lets them do all the hard work.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

I'm not familiar with the cancer mage but it seems very cool and applicable, I'll check in out and incorporate some of those skills as well. I love the description idea laid out by limejuicepowder, and the other ideas are really giving me a perfect idea for this crazy bastard. Any more ideas for abilities, spells, physical traits, or anything, I'm receptive!

[hoverfrog]

Not my idea but someone suggested a warforged nanny, an artificial person designed to care for the young. Unfortunately when the child she was looking after died she tried to "repair" it and seek replacement parts. A bunch of part undead\part construct servants are failed experiments that now add to the collection of parts to fix the broken baby.

Artificer is a good class for this as it gives versatility to do just about anything you like.

[ShadowPsyker]

Yeah... uh, maybe it's just me, but tricks aren't scary in TV or movies so i don't know if you want to play him like that in a game, especially if one good crit from an axe might end the fun. My humble suggestion is a tarmak (a human brute from Dragonlance) and then this;

Fighter 1st) Toughness
Human 1st) Roll with it (Savage species)
1st) Roll with it
3rd) Roll with it
6th) Roll with it

If you really wanna play it up; Make him fighter /Sorcerer /Human paragon (Unearthed arcana). He'll have a little bit O' Magic, an extra +2 on any stat and A bonus feat (Roll with it) for a total of DR 10/- and still be a CR 6.

I imagine he has become a bit of a masochist allowing his makeshift weapons to bite into his flesh whilst he seems rather unperturbed. Have him willing to knock out characters instead of killing (Desperate rescue anyone?). Too mundane you say? Add a level of barbarian so he's quick, and/or jump his CR by 1 when you add Gheden (That's half zombie. Yup... someone tried to bring him back from the dead, but they messed up). Lot's of immunities, 50% fortification, bonus Str, and when they do kill him; he gets back up as a zombie for a final fright.

[deuxhero]

Actually criminally insane or comic book criminally insane? There is a big difference.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Actually criminally insane or comic book criminally insane? There is a big difference.

I dunno... Dr. Lecter would make an awesome boss...

Criminally insane can include things like Sociopathy, Psychopathy, Schitzophrenia... all kinds of oddball things.

[Qwertystop]

the second thing

So much this.

Or make the asylum intelligent. There's a homebrew class for that, Dungeon Seed, that would do extremely well with minor refluffing. Say the structure was magically created, and absorbed the ghosts of inmates.

EDIT: Or say that it was created as a sort of omnipresent guard, but there was an especially convincing sociopath in one of the wards...

EDIT AGAIN: The class is here (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=197462). Turns out it's been abandoned a year and five days ago, due to a promotion, but there's a pretty good framework.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Also, the idea about "opening the presents" got me thinking, what are some other little one liners or phrases that the players would hear, whether it's a creepy thing from ventriloquism, or anything really

[dantiesilva]

If it was high level i would suggest a fallen paladin, but wprking it like this.

Paladinx/Rogue5/Shadowbaneinquisterx/Blackguardx

In the end you trade all your paladin levels for blackguard, and because you have shadowbane inquister it counts as paladin levels for the blackguard so you still get the abilities so it looks more like

Rogue 5/Shadowbane inquister 5/ Blackguard 5

Level 15 character that has a lot of sneak attack damage stacks your sneak attack and smite and has alot of abilities from the inquister. Not as good as a crazy bard or the cancer mage hands down but much easier to see crazy. A fallen paladin is the crazy that doesn't think they are crazy. Its like the malconvoker.

edit: O and

" Come come follow me being said from the shadows. Either one of two things happens PCS follow and get lost, or they don't and get led into a trap.

[nakedonmyfoldin]

Good idea, I did construct the asylum as kind of a Spiderweb of chambers to confuse the mapkeeper, so it'd be easy to get lost, especially with Maffer (the name I settled on) using illusions and whatnot

[Dark Kerman]

How about keeping it simple but brutal? Something like a barbarian that bludgeons people to death with an iron bar, whilst screaming various insults at his victims. Perhaps combine it with Frenzied Beserker? (So that when he rages, he *rages*)

Alternatively, if you like the concept of a ventriloquist, you could try an Effigy Master, who has a number of insane clockwork animals that hunts the party through the asylum while they're approaching him?

[Grimsage Matt]

He's insane right? Try using this

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122103

Xenothurgy. The whole thing is based of insanity. The crazier he is, the more powerful he gets:smallamused:

[nakedonmyfoldin]

With all the different ideas I'm getting, I'm contemplating doing a small group of surviving inmates that have banded together since the place went down