How Do Your BBEGs Live to Fight Another Day?

[ArcanistSupreme]

What is the best way to create a recurring villain for a campaign? A lot of times I'll spend hours creating an NPC, tweaking his stats, making the perfect selection of equipment, all the while reveling in how awesome this campaign is going to be. Then he spends 4 rounds with the PCs and I need a new BBEG. How do you plan your encounters, especially at lower levels when teleport magic is unavailable, so that he isn't splattered all over the wall before he can exit stage left? Do you just build him stronger than the PCs? What about the manipulator BBEGs that are specifically noncombatants?

[Crake]

What is the best way to create a recurring villain for a campaign? A lot of times I'll spend hours creating an NPC, tweaking his stats, making the perfect selection of equipment, all the while reveling in how awesome this campaign is going to be. Then he spends 4 rounds with the PCs and I need a new BBEG. How do you plan your encounters, especially at lower levels when teleport magic is unavailable, so that he isn't splattered all over the wall before he can exit stage left? Do you just build him stronger than the PCs? What about the manipulator BBEGs that are specifically noncombatants?

Simulacrums, Ice assassins and (for the outsiders) aspects. I like using these options because if the player actually does manage to beat the "BBEG", they'll realize immediately that it was a fake, but they'll also get the loot from the copy.

[IslandDog]

Especially if he's a manipulator, he'll be prepared for anything. If its low level or low magic, you could do mundane things like escape trap doors and passageways that he activates if he's in danger of dying. If you have high magic, I'd suggest illusions everywhere. You can even make him rely on items to give him various concealments - if it's low levels the characters will probably have a hard time breaching even the simplest concealment type stuff.

[Silva Stormrage]

If he is a non combatant he shouldn't ever be FIGHTING the pc's in combat. If he is in a situation like that then he should chug a potion of invisibility or similar item and vanish. Or he should place himself in a situation where if the PC's attack they get arrested or similar effect (have him in the good grace of the guards and then have him make the PC's appear to be blood thirsty marauders or similar)

[Tessman the 2nd]

Through the players own mercy, after defeating him in combat he called for mercy and they sought to put the BBEG under lock and key after gathering sufficient evidence. Now i'm devising a way for him to escape and take revenge upon the PCs, hopefully I can come up with a non contrived reason.

[Slipperychicken]

Through the players own mercy, after defeating him in combat he called for mercy and they sought to put the BBEG under lock and key after gathering sufficient evidence. Now i'm devising a way for him to escape and take revenge upon the PCs, hopefully I can come up with a non contrived reason.

His minions learn his location via magical divination, then teleport in to save him?

Maybe the minions sneak into the detainment facility and try to let him out with a stealthy prison-break?

[Glimbur]

I don't have the BBEG fight the PC's until I am ready for them to maybe kill him/her/it/etc. Minions, lieutenants, and so on work just fine. Taunts can be left via illusion or note. Alternately, meet at neutral ground (the middle of the Senate, for example) and exchange pleasantries that hide a double meaning. Sometimes the BBEG has style.

[Phelix-Mu]

Craft Contingent Everything Spell. It's quite awesome, extremely vague, and eminently affordable. Every villain worth their salt has at least 2-3 of these, and uses them instead of action-based healing. Complete Arcane.

Astral seed is another good thing for a rescue plan. Also, fiery discorporation.

[wayfare]

Believing himself a perfect being, he hasd created a clone army, led by "strategos" that are actually mindless husks he can control at will.

BBEG is working through intermediaries that are mindaltered to belueve they are the true threat.

BBEG only thinks he is running the show. The real villian in the Dragon ( tvtropes it)

[Deophaun]

The basic rule of D&D is never put something in front of the PCs that you aren't willing to have killed. So the BBEG is the encounter at the end. He's the guy who the players know has been working against them behind the scenes for the past ten levels. He's the one who leveled their hometown while they were off retrieving the MacGuffin from the plane of dread. In that sense, they have narrative motivation for wanting to fight him.

But the one the players really want to fight? Well, he's one of the BBEG's lieutenants. He's not the only lieutenant the BBEG sent against the party, but he is the only lieutenant who has, through sheer luck, managed to avoid the nat 20s and nat 1s of all the unintended engagements the party forced, done his evil right in front of their well-armed faces, and lived to fight another day. And for that, the players want him dead.

[Erik Vale]

Teleportation and Burrow speeds. Access to incorporeality. And, most importantly:

They avoid contact with the PC's.

[Telonius]

Play him as a Darth Sidious/puppet master type. He's a high-level baddie; he didn't survive that long without knowing when to delegate. Ideally the PCs should follow a trail that leads back to him, but only rarely get a glimpse of him.

[Phelix-Mu]

In my opinion, the most enduring hatred is reserved for that guy you desperately want to kill, but with whom you instead find yourself cooperating in order to stave off some much worse thing. Hate those kind of npcs. Ever since one of them essentially orchestrated having my druid unintentionally eat her own animal companion.

[Tommy2255]

Through the players own mercy, after defeating him in combat he called for mercy and they sought to put the BBEG under lock and key after gathering sufficient evidence. Now i'm devising a way for him to escape and take revenge upon the PCs, hopefully I can come up with a non contrived reason.

Ha. Good one.

...oh. You were serious...

I would totally kill an evil warlord in real life if I thought I could get away with it. Let alone in a game with no real lasting consequences.

That said, at low level the BBEGs usually don't really merit the title. You get a few sessions of questing after a bad guy, then you kill him, and then you find some hint that he may have been working for some more powerful leader. I don't mind having to put the effort into building them because I actually enjoy building characters, and once you get high enough level to fight the real BBEG, then teleports are an option. And as long as the hint is a "du du duuuun" dramatic foreshadow rather than a gloating "haha, you didn't get the real villain", you can make it sufficiently satisfying to kill minibosses for a few levels. Obviously you have to be careful to avoid a "your princess is in another castle" deal, but it's more plausible not to Deus Ex Machina the villain to safety, and it's more satisfying to stab the bastard.


In my opinion, the most enduring hatred is reserved for that guy you desperately want to kill, but with whom you instead find yourself cooperating in order to stave off some much worse thing. Hate those kind of npcs. Ever since one of them essentially orchestrated having my druid unintentionally eat her own animal companion.

I'm starting to think my group may be atypical. We almost had one of those. In fact, our first mission was that we were hired by this slimy bastard (that's not just unnecessary cursing, I've since taken over as DM and I can confirm that his character sheet says "Name: Beluchi the Silmy Bastard") to clear out some rats and goblins and such. But then he was a ****. Then we shot arrows at him for being a ****.

[Techwarrior]

At the low levels Arcane Lock, Hold Portal, Obscuring Mist, Tumble, Invisibility, Withdraw actions, and Dimension Hop are all really useful for a recurring villain.

[Zaydos]

Normally I don't till I'm ready for them to die. The time I did...

1st time: Contingent Teleport spell when at less than 1/4th health. They actually almost killed him despite this getting him to like -4 hp I believe.

2nd time: He showed up about a minute before the PCs, realized his minions had messed up and jumped the gun on the god-killing monster summoning ritual. Laughed that the nearby town was doomed, and ran away from the thing his minions had summoned.

3rd time: He had a giant pit in the back of the room. The PCs were prepared with a dimension lock effect, but he jumped down the pit, fell 300-ft and then teleported. The guy with a dimension lock aura tried to follow after him and fell to the bottom of the pit.

4th time: Enemy mine situation where they didn't actually fight.

5th time: A duel for the fate of the world enforced and prompted by the gods. He didn't make it.

Oh and somewhere in there: Talked to them in an interdimensional inn which prohibited violence of any sort.

[TheMonocleRogue]

Have your BBEG send other BBEGs while he sits comfortably on another plane of existence. Send some lackeys through portals to do his bidding. Once the PC's get to a high enough level to identify the BBEG and/or travel to his plane of existence you should have an all-or-nothing final battle between the PC's and the BBEG.

I made a campaign like this once that spanned for almost a year. Everyone involved had a blast.

Edit: On the other hand, if you wanted a consistent BBEG in your campaigns, extra-dimensional travel and raise/resurrection/reincarnation are your friends.

[iceman10058]

what i did is after the pc's defeated him wen i did not want them to, i let a year in game pass of them doing other stuff then they hear rumors of a cult trying to bring said bbeg back to life, or in my case unlife. this gave the game a whole new twist and they had no idea that he would be back like that.

[OldTrees1]

Dungeonscape allows BBEGs to open/close secret doors as a free action and automatically bypass traps.
Move, Open Trapped secret door, Move through, Close Trapped secret door.

[kirerellim]

Make sure that when the heroes meet him, its on /his/ terms. He set it up, he's ready for them. Gives them an uphill battle in the first place, plus he's safe to have an escape route. A good one for this is ranged fighters with minions. He can stay in the same square shooting or casting, while they fight through his soldiers to get there. Once they do, boom, fog and when its clear he's gone. Sure, they'll find the hidden panel eventually, but by then he's already gotten on his hippogryph and flown far away.