Help me make a Recurring Villain

[Th3_Nak3d_Gam3r]

So I'm running a campaign in a custom High Fantasy setting with a party consisting of an Elven Scout, an Elven Wizard Conjuration specialist with a lot of Necro spells, an Elven Ranger, a Half-Elven Marshal and a Druid whom I believe is human. ... Didn't realize how much Elf there was until I wrote that out.
Anyway! A friend wanted in on the campaign but isn't able to join regularly so I decided to let him play a recurring villain. The thing is, he's not really comfortable with character design yet and I want to help him make something he'll enjoy playing as well as providing a decent challenge to the group.
Right now he really wants to go Blackguard which would work fairly well with my overall plot.
I want him to be level 5 and I've been doing WBL for the group, but as the villain he has essentially unlimited wealth because I'm the DM and I do what I want. We'd appreciate all suggestions and advice, with the request that you list the book(s) and page number(s) used so I can look it over and he can refer back to it for help later.
Thanks in advance!

* Almost forgot, I limited the party to the Complete books and Core books, but they can go outside with my approval (hence the Marshal who I wasn't exactly worried about breaking the game) I'd ask you guys to focus in that material but, again, I'm the DM and I do what I want.

[andromax]

Well, as a recurring villain the biggest challenge will be making him recurring. You will want to make sure he has plenty of escape strategies. Single use items can help make sure that incase he is accidently killed the player's wealth doesn't go up really high.

Single use ring of Fly.
Access to the Travel Domain will give him Freedom of movement for a number of rounds = cleric level.
Burrow speed (Burrowing Claws from Lords of madness, or Mineral warrior template) is a great way to escape.
Have a way for him to have some bonus (temp) HP going into the encounter.

If I were building a villain, and his primary objective is to be able to show up more than once in fights against the PCs, you will want to ensure you take steps to improve his odds of survival/escape.

[yougi]

I've been pretty successful at making a Recurring Villain who recently died on his 4th encounter with the PCs. Two things: first, he could fly (huge advantage when PCs can't), and second, he didn't attack alone. When he attacked, he'd make sure to split the party and send his minions against the largest group, and try to solo one of the heroes. When the rest came to help, he'd get a few last shots and flee.

That being said, can't have a blackguard at 5th level. If you mean CR5, then that's possible: pre-reqs of BAB +6 and 3 feats mean at least 6 HD. A kobold Brb6/Blackguard 1 would be CR5, but would not be very scary. Ogres, Gnolls, Lizardfolk and Bugbears could be Blackguards by CR6 (because of their racial HD) and be good in that role.

Do you mean Blackguard levels, or a blackguard feel?

[Alefiend]

Why stick to just one?

It might make more sense to have one recurring villain for the first several parts of the story, then defeat him/her only to find out there was somebody else behind it all, pulling the strings.

[ArcturusV]

Well, one thing that is helpful is making sure your villain has a method of scaling his danger. Particularly if you want it to be a constantly recurring villain. While escape means are important, ideally if you're going for a long term recurring villain... the players are going to want to run away from the villain at first, rather than the other way around.

And you want to make sure that if you do this, your villain has an obvious "I'm just playing with you" cue. If it's a blackguard you should include things that mechanically make sense, but show that he's obviously screwing with them.

So your blackguard might go and disarm one of the characters rather than stabbing him through the chest and killing him. He might smack someone with flat of his blade, doing non-lethal damage just to piss them off and rile up the PCs. Even take his gauntlet and slap a guy while laughing at them. Combined with his higher level and defenses, he shouldn't be getting hit all that often. That combined with the "He's obviously screwing with us and not taking us seriously..." is usually an obvious cue to players they might want to beat it.

Have your villain talk a lot while he's doing this. Taunt players. Try to have it so that he's playing it out, trying to get them riled up so he can have some fun before killing them. I don't mean talk instead of acting. Just throw in quips and such while you smack them around.

This makes sense for a Blackguard type as they typically would have somewhat decent charisma and are used to using their personality, quick wits, etc, to work over foes. Least in general. And again, gives them the time to run for it. If they don't run? Guy does that, "Sigh... I'm BORED" and finger snap summons up his minions and walks off. Which is very different from running away, using rings of Teleportation, etc. And gives the players a very different mindset on how the Blackguard as a villain looks at them.

[Krobar]

A couple of fun feats for a "toy with them" type, both from the Netbook of Feats (don't know if you're using this, but hey! You can do whatever you want!):

Taunt, which will allow him to make an intimidate check and, if he wins, force the other person to attack him, and Cutting Words, which allows him to make intimidate checks out to 100 feet by simply using the spoken word. These are good times in the making, if your goal is to annoy the party.

I like to occasionally use off-the-wall third party stuff so my players have no idea what's going on.

Dreadful Wrath (I think Forgotten Realms) is a good one too. Anytime he makes a full attack, or charges, or casts a spell with an AoE that includes an opponent, he would get Frightful Presence for that round. Combine with another fear effect, and suddenly people are fleeing before his mightiness.

[3drinks]

I find that if myself as a DM if my BBEG encounters the players head-on, it is a suicide mission as he gets slaughtered in action economy. So to combat this, it's okay to "break" some rules to make the fight special. I.E. make him Gestalt while the other characters only have their primary job, and try to set out a set attack pattern such as a speech, spell progression, then attacks, and draw out a soft line in HP where he would realize "Hey, I might need to leave now".

Also, use minions. The mark of a great villain is that he will only engage the players when there is no other choice for him to pursue.

[Noctani]

Possible Races

Orc/Drow/Ogre/Troll

Possible Classes

Forsaker really good vs low lvls
12HD, Good Saves, Damage reduction, fast healing, inherent ability pts, SR that stacks.

Downside: No flying, can't use magic items, 3 feats

Monk with feral template
increased armor, movement, improved grab, lethal damage or nonlethal damage, good saves, increased HD, if I remember correctly there is a altnerate monk in dragon magazine 310 combined with the argent fist that allows you to be a monk in armor, and keep your ac and unarmed damage. Your AC should be more than enough to not worry about melee.

Feral is good because you gain abilities as the creature increases in HD.

[ArcturusV]

Oh, Action Economy. Can't believe I forgot that staple. If you want a loner Villain? I always port over the old Heroic Fray rule form 2nd edition for them. Off the top of my head I can't exactly remember, but it mostly ended up as something like "If you're outnumbered at least 3-1, and you have over twice the HD of any enemy, you get an extra Attack Action for each enemy who engages you."

So your players want to go mob up a guy with 6 characters? He gets his movement, and 6 standard actions for spellcasting, attacking, etc.

Of course I let players use that as well if they're in some situation where a level 3 fighter is trying to hold off a swarm of Kobolds or something. So generally no complaints. But that's one easy way to get around that little issue. Never had any problem using that rule in general.... though it can get broken with Spellcasting if you're an offensive caster. I'd suggest doing something where spells take up more actions than normal if you do, I usually put it at something like each spell takes up 3 actions in that case. So your theoretical villain in the 6-1 fight gets to cast two spells on his turn. On top of Movement, Swift Actions, etc.

[ksbsnowowl]

I will soon be introducing a recurring bad guy that will be a Sepulchral Thief (cityscape) Telflammar Shadowlord (unapproachable east). This is a higher level game, and he will have two abilities that will allow him to cheat death.

[Th3_Nak3d_Gam3r]

Ok, thanks everyone! First of all ... good catch on that level restriction, definitely shouldn't have missed that... :smalleek:
Alefiend pretty much hit the nail on the head as that's essentially what I had in mind for this character from the beginning. At the point where he is finally defeated I have something set up so that the Villain player can keep being a villain, just a bigger better badder version.
All of that combined with what Arcturus said, which I really like by the way, makes me want to go with a Blackguard that is significantly more powerful than the PC's, probably around ECL 10(?). Enough to scare the pants off of them without just outright killing them. Combine that with a contemptuous attitude and generally being an annoying jerk, which my friend will have no problem with, and that has a really good basic concept nailed down.
Now, I'm currently thinking of a half-fiend (again, for story purposes) though that won't be revealed until the characters are closer in power to the Villain. And probably just human as the base. I think I'm going to make Blackguard a base class for this guy, which shouldn't be difficult. Replace Good with Evil and vice versa from the Paladin. Boom.
I'm also planning on starting him at a straight 10 levels of this Blackguard class. In addition, he'll be "evolving" half-fiend abilities and racial features as the PC's level, again, a story mechanic. As to the matter of the action economy in this initial encounter the Villain would be in the company of several minions and I can see how that goes for use in future sessions. Thanks again for all the advice, keep it coming!