How to introduce an Anti Party?

[thefish42]

So I am taking over as DM for my current Pathfinder Game and the players challenged me to make an anti-party such as the Linear Guild


So there for I have built the following

Players are on the left - Anti Party on the Right

Magus- Wizard (Evil Collegiate Arcanist(refluffed))
Cavalier- anti-Paladin
Alchemist - Rogue
Oracle- Inquisitor
Druid - ?



The Anti-party main motive is to become divine via the Test of The Starstone, where the final battle of the campaign will take place.

The campaign is piracy/crusader based



My issue is how to bring them into the campaign

I want to bring them in one by one and then at level 15 set them together as the final boss for them at level 20?


Any ideas?

[angry_bear]

It's a bit dangerous to have them brought in one at a time; the party could very easily take any one of them down too soon if you're not careful. I suppose the easiest method would be to have each of them running, or a part of a gang when the party finds them. They might not even realize that the rogue who just left his boss to die is a future BBEG.

Also I'd have an evil druid as the last remaining enemy. A good aligned druid is a scary thing, an evil aligned one who sees destroying that good aligned druid, and his compatriots as a necessity of balance is outright terrifying.

I think that Inquisitors and Anti-Paladins have enough in common that it'd be feasible that the two would be working together from the start right? Maybe have those two in a different evil adventuring party as the initial encounter of the Anti Party. You kill their allies while they're away, and they swear vengeance on them. Makes sense from a narrative standpoint, and the good guys would get an idea of how evil/hardcore they are based off of who their allies were.

[Red Fel]

The problem with villain team-ups is that there is an inherent flaw in the villain team-up: To wit, if the villains have to team up to overcome the heroes, it suggests that, on their own, the villains are unsuited to the task. It requires a certain self-awareness and pragmatism that most villains lack. So before you can bring them in, ask yourself, why are they working together in the first place? Do they plan to backstab each other? Are they genuinely friends, colleagues? Are they under orders from some greater (evil) being?

That said, as to how you bring them in, I recommend foreshadowing. It's a great tool, although some players see through it if you do it poorly. (Of course, there are times you want them to see through it - makes the reveal more satisfying.)

Here's one example. One of the villains - say, a big dumb one, or at least one who plays big and dumb well - ambushes the heroes on the way to Destination X. He is, of course, soundly defeated. The heroes either let him escape, or he escapes, or the heroes capture him and drag him along. Whichever works.

When they reach Destination X, they meet another of the villains, playing the "local friendly" card. This one can either be the crazy one - and sipping tea with someone you later find out is batcrap crazy can be one heck of an attention-grabber - or it can be the lawful or neutral one, who generally has nothing against the heroes, but nothing personal, they'll have to die. Maybe he announces this, or maybe he's just friendly.

And so on, introducing the villains. Some are aggressive, some friendly. Each one is secretly a skill challenge - one social, one combat, one intimidating, one games, and so on. Each of the villains is introduced one at a time, so that when the big reveal comes, they mean something. Each villain, except for the leader.

Then you have the protagonists about to do something important. Say they left Destination X, and are headed to the Tower of Y, the Dungeon of Z, or the Lost Island of Aleph. Whatever. They reach the temple at the heart of the dungeon in the bowels of the mountain below the valley of pain, etc., and there before them... Is the big guy. He's been harassing them throughout this mission, but he's always seemed like a bit of a joke. They expected him. Then, each of the people they met along the way steps out as well. Don't be afraid to drop a little exposition. Stuff like "You didn't think I'd come alone, did you?" "It really is a shame we have to kill you." "I never liked you anyway." Stuff like that. Explain that every encounter, every interaction, they were being studied. And THEN introduce the Big Bad. Smug it up. Then you can fight.

At that point, it's up to you how you play it. The villains could lose, but escape. The villains could win, either by chance or by fiat, and leave the players empty-handed. Either way, you've just created a group of memorable enemies your players will hate, fear... maybe even pity, in some cases.

However, one key point: If you use this method, a single massive battle seems almost anticlimactic. Your heroes have only just learned that the villains are a team; to beat them at that point feels like a let-down. But for them to return? That's quality. That's the mark of fine storytelling.

Just my 2cp.

[Qc Storm]

Arent Blighters pretty much anti-druids?


However, one key point: If you use this method, a single massive battle seems almost anticlimactic. Your heroes have only just learned that the villains are a team; to beat them at that point feels like a let-down. But for them to return? That's quality. That's the mark of fine storytelling.

How do you manage an escape for an evil party?

[TroubleBrewing]

Anti-druid can go one of two ways.

I'm personally a big fan of Dread Necromancer. Undead and Druids generally don't play nice.

Warmage is my other go-to for an anti-Druid. Treehugger? More like blackened, scorched earth lover. :smallfurious:

[Red Fel]

How do you manage an escape for an evil party?

Oh, plenty of ways. There's the direct application of power: Have an arcane contingency, magic item, or rescue by something they've tamed/enslaved. There's the indirect, which usually involves activating some sort of trap, or using a minion as a diversion. Then there's the fiat, which is the classic "Suddenly, the ground opens, and they fall in," or "The ceiling begins to cave - you can either pursue your enemies, or the treasure!"

Bottom line, if the GM wants something to happen, it can happen; if he's a good storyteller, it can happen in a satisfying way.

[Gemini476]

Oh, plenty of ways. There's the direct application of power: Have an arcane contingency, magic item, or rescue by something they've tamed/enslaved. There's the indirect, which usually involves activating some sort of trap, or using a minion as a diversion. Then there's the fiat, which is the classic "Suddenly, the ground opens, and they fall in," or "The ceiling begins to cave - you can either pursue your enemies, or the treasure!"

Bottom line, if the GM wants something to happen, it can happen; if he's a good storyteller, it can happen in a satisfying way.

Or, for higher levels,the classic "It was an illusion/Dominated Ice Assassin/Astral Projection all along!"



Another piece of advice for people making anti-parties - but not for you, OP, you seem to get this - is to go for concepts rather than classes. Don't necessarily go Paladin vs. Anti-Paladin, go Divine Bruiser vs. Divine Bruiser With Goatee. Or Divine Fighter vs. Arcane Fighter. Or Meatstick vs. Meatstick. Like the linear guild did.
Oh, and a bunch of PrCs were meant for BBEGs and such but got stupidly powerful/stupid in the hands of players, so having one of the enemies be a Thrall of X or Frenzied Berserker could work.

Oh, and remember that enemies don't need to worry about prepared spells and such to quite the same degree as players, since 100 slots aren't going to be used in one encounter. And x/day abilities are more like x/encounter when they are only in one boss fight.
But don't forget to flesh out the important spell lists, in case your players surprise you. There was a guy whose BBEG got his Disjunction countered leading to a fiat that "no, that didn't happen", and that sucks when that happens.

[Arael666]

Personaly, I like introducing each member of the the anti party individualy, as BBEG of minor quests.

Then, I like to link all the background from the previous quests in a "small pieces of a big puzzle" maner, so the PC's can figure out by themselves that the BBEG's were working toguether all along.

[Craft (Cheese)]

How do you manage an escape for an evil party?

My preferred way to let a villain escape is to make it a choice for the players: They can either fight the villain, or accomplish some other goal that's more important to them. They begrudgingly let the villain go to fight another day, or they attack him now and likely regret it later.

[thefish42]

Thank you
I think I'm going to make the bbegs want divinity and slowly come together under the inquistor.

[Azoth]

Another classic get away strategy is to create a barrier between the two forces by the actions of team evil. Ice wall, wall of iron, collapsed rubble by BSF smashing down support beams... and then a group teleport.

[Saintheart]

Arent Blighters pretty much anti-druids?

They are, but they're woefully bad mechanically. They get a few random druid spells a level down from where they otherwise would be, but to get them you're stuck with an undead wild shape, and the blighter spell list is horrendously curtailed compared with open druid casting.

Me, it'll sound a bit odd, but I like an Ur-Priest better as an anti-druid. Fluffed right, he can function as the opposite of a druid - he doesn't honour nature, he takes what he wants from the natural world (spells) and uses it for his own evil purposes.

[Zubrowka74]

How about a gravewalker witch to oppose the druid ? Or some kind of mechanical golem.

[thefish42]

Perhaps a construct clockwork druid. With a clockwork animal companion

[G.Cube]

Artificer is the anti-druid. :)

[kaminiwa]

Warmage is my other go-to for an anti-Druid. Treehugger? More like blackened, scorched earth lover. :smallfurious:

Now I want to make a druid who is tune with a different natural world. Thermoacidophiles are people too! Down with cities, up with volcanos!

[HalfQuart]

The way my current DM introduced the anti-party (which we have since vanquished) in our campaign was by having the leader hire us for a job... it wasn't until the completion of that mission that we realized the guy who hired us wasn't who he said he was... which lead us to try to figure out who he really was.

And then he started popping up in various other places, but we didn't actually encounter him or his goons for long time... everything they did was off-stage. First we heard rumors, some of which proved to be wrong. Then they'd do things to harass our party, like kill an oracle we hired to find out some information about a side quest. We slowly learned about the other members of the leader's party, based on what the few witnesses of their gruesome crimes were able to tell us. I have no idea if the DM started with the anti-party fully fleshed out, or if he developed it as he went along... but it was a really fun way to build up the suspense for us.

[Grayson01]

Contingenacy Psionic Tatoos of teleportation set to trigger when the NPC reaches a set number or % of current hit points lost and or a over seer with the resourses to cast true ress, wish and the such.


Arent Blighters pretty much anti-druids?



How do you manage an escape for an evil party?

[NichG]

Or... the villains don't individually escape. The leader is a necromancer. Then you can have the tragic villain, a former friend of the party who was raised/controlled by the necromancer and forced to fight them.