New DM with an evil campaign YIPPEE!

[Pavlik91]

Well after being a PC in numerous campaigns over the last 5 or so years ranging from 2nd-4th editions, I've finally decided to try my hand at running my first campaign and apparently an evil one at that, considering that's what my players have their hearts set on.

I've come up with a pretty basic idea of how the campaign is going to run. I planned on starting them off on with a ship journey, as guards for free passage, where the ship is stopped at sea by a naval ship and is searched for contraband, which of course is found :smallamused:

They will fight a short battle against over leveled human NPCs which will eventually over power them and have them subdued to be transported to jail. A jail break of sorts will most likely be arranged and a chase following there-after.

I plan on having a TPK after the chase where the soldiers kill the party and the party is somehow resurrected by a Lich who promises them revenge, riches and power if they help him in his attempt to overrun the world with all manner of undead ghouls.

I felt this a necessary step in order to keep the evil party moving together and on the same track. I figured I could have them placed under some sort of spell by the Lich in which they had to follow his orders, which will be vague at best so they still have free will to do the job as they see fit, but must complete the job.

So at some point they'll end up running into the soldiers again, but this time around the bad guys will prevail... hopefully :smallbiggrin:

I've also worked up a bit of a side quest where the party will run into a group of soldiers transporting a crown/ring/symbol of power, that they will kill and steal the object them. Then have the Lich enchant it with a controlling spell of some sorts, and the PCs deliver it themselves pretending to be the original group of soldiers. This way the ruler that the object belongs to is put under the Liches control and turns the town into an evil town of sorts for the PCs to base their operations out of..

That's about as far as I've made it. I have plans for them to eventually overthrow the Lich and become the rulers themselves, but figured that'd be much farther down the road.

Things I still need to work out:

The levels which this whole plot will take part over. Too low and I may run out of ideas quickly, but too high and they may feel compelled to try and over throw the Lich far too early.


Why/where are they going on the ship. They have to have a reason for getting on it in the first place.


Should they undergo some sort of stat change after the resurrection? Maybe a -2 to Con and a +2 to their main stat (Have to figure something out for Con based classes)


Basically what I'm looking for is a bit of feedback on my Idea/storyline thus far, maybe what you like, what you'd change or ideas for tweaking it a bit. This is my first campaign I've ever thought of so any tips would be much appreciated.

[Laserlight]

They will fight a short battle against over leveled human NPCs which will eventually over power them and have them subdued to be transported to jail.

I plan on having a TPK after the chase where the soldiers kill the party


Players HATE to be captured. You should probably tell them straight out, beforehand, "I'm expecting you to get captured, but the better a fight you put up, the easier it will be for you when you do your inevitable jailbreak."

Same deal with the TPK. Have the fight, but tell them (before or after, depending on how much you want to jerk them around) "the title of this chapter is They Return From The Dead, More Powerful Than Ever" or something of that sort.

[Pavlik91]

Players HATE to be captured. You should probably tell them straight out, beforehand, "I'm expecting you to get captured, but the better a fight you put up, the easier it will be for you when you do your inevitable jailbreak."

Same deal with the TPK. Have the fight, but tell them (before or after, depending on how much you want to jerk them around) "the title of this chapter is They Return From The Dead, More Powerful Than Ever" or something of that sort.

Yeah I figured they weren't going to be happy about either situation, but overcoming them would feel rewarding and hopefully outweigh the negative feelings they had at first.

I was preparing to explain the TPK to them as it happened and narrate how their bodies are found by servants of the Lich and resurrected. I'm only hoping that they'll bare with me as I explain it and not rage as they die one by one hahaha.

[obryn]

Your first post seems like so much railroad.

I hate to say it, but start over from scratch. Scrap everything past the setup, or pick your favorite part and make THAT the start of the campaign.

As a DM, your job is to set up situations, and play to find out what happens. Your players deserve agency.

[Pavlik91]

Your first post seems like so much railroad.

I hate to say it, but start over from scratch. Scrap everything past the setup, or pick your favorite part and make THAT the start of the campaign.

As a DM, your job is to set up situations, and play to find out what happens. Your players deserve agency.

I know exactly what you mean, I feared the whole railroad thing. I really don't want to force the players to do anything, but at the same time I really like the main concept behind the campaign and would hate for them to miss out on the whole thing because something simple, like they refused to ride the boat or whatever.

Maybe it might be better to start off the game where all the PCs are already dead and are being resurrected as the game starts and have the first encounter be the group of traveling soldiers with the relic. That way I dodge rail roading, and the chance of them getting angry about being put in jail/the TPK, but still keep the same basic plot line.

[obryn]

Yep, that's a perfectly fine starting point!

Your antagonists need to have plans, and the world needs to turn without the PCs, but never plan outcomes where the PCs are involved. :smallsmile:

[Pavlik91]

Awesome! Thanks for the input!

I could always try and put the whole ship scene in later when the party is higher level so that way they have a chance at beating the naval soldiers, then they can choose to commandeer the ship or continue on with whatever they were doing, whatever their evil tormented minds come up with haha.

[Kimera757]

Well after being a PC in numerous campaigns over the last 5 or so years ranging from 2nd-4th editions, I've finally decided to try my hand at running my first campaign and apparently an evil one at that, considering that's what my players have their hearts set on.

I've come up with a pretty basic idea of how the campaign is going to run. I planned on starting them off on with a ship journey, as guards for free passage, where the ship is stopped at sea by a naval ship and is searched for contraband, which of course is found :smallamused:

Sounds cool so far.


They will fight a short battle against over leveled human NPCs which will eventually over power them and have them subdued to be transported to jail. A jail break of sorts will most likely be arranged and a chase following there-after.

Not so cool, barely tolerable in an inherent bonus campaign and not tolerable otherwise.

The plan for using overleveled opponents probably won't work either. PCs will fight to the death, literally, rather than be overpowered. Expect to see PCs throw themselves off the ship to drown. And the PCs might win anyway. (I've seen a level 13 PC beat a level 17 soldier by himself.) At the very least, more at-level opponents will work better; less swingy, and PCs won't be frustrated by missing a lot.

Making matters worse, a ship combat is a "closed system". You won't have any reinforcements for the "good" guys. PCs can knock NPCs overboard pretty easily (as they won't care about drowning good guys).

And even if you "win", the players will be enraged. I will explain this in this format. What is the difference between an intelligent person and an educated person? An intelligent person learns from their mistakes. An educated person learns from other people's mistakes. You sound like an intelligent person, but have probably not made this mistake before. Many people here have made that mistake, or have been through that mistake, and are educating you about that - don't do it.


I plan on having a TPK after the chase where the soldiers kill the party and the party is somehow resurrected by a Lich who promises them revenge, riches and power if they help him in his attempt to overrun the world with all manner of undead ghouls.

Sounds like backstory stuff. At the very least I hope you told your players about that beforehand.


I felt this a necessary step in order to keep the evil party moving together and on the same track. I figured I could have them placed under some sort of spell by the Lich in which they had to follow his orders, which will be vague at best so they still have free will to do the job as they see fit, but must complete the job.

I'm currently running an evil 4e campaign right now. I've converted the fantastic Pathfinder Way of the Wicked campaign for this purpose. The campaign has lots of railroading during session 0. It even comes with a player's guide PDF that tells them what they need to know before they start playing:

*They must be lawful evil or neutral evil (just evil in 4e terms)
*They want revenge against a country, and will try to conquer it
*They will have a boss
*They will sign a contract that prevents backstabbing and other common flaws in evil games
*They will start in jail. (Fortunately, 1st-level PCs aren't terrible dependent on their equipment, and the jail wasn't Alcatraz. The 4e version is a little better IMO, because you can more easily make Thievery checks, probably the most frustrating part of Pathfinder battle reports I have read.)
*Unplanned, but one PC died after the jailbreak, and their patron resurrected him. So now the PCs (who were level 1 at the time) felt some real loyalty to their patron.

The players know all this ahead of time, so players who think it's too much railroading should vote "nay".


So at some point they'll end up running into the soldiers again, but this time around the bad guys will prevail... hopefully :smallbiggrin:

A victory for the side of good doesn't have to be a total TPK/TPC. For my campaign, the PCs fell into a really hard fight. The four of them, disguising themselves as a good evoker (multiple copies of him), faced a greatsword-wielding elite who had two levels on them, two town guards (one level lower), and two crossbowmen (one level lower) while trying to escape from the town after setting fire to its rookery (communications hub). While they hadn't planned on doing right now, the PCs had to kill the greatsword guy, and if they fled now their secret passage would be discovered.

The greatsword-wielder was a brute, and kept missing due to poor rolling, but had so many hit points that it took the PCs six rounds to almost kill him. Meanwhile the town guards died fast and the crossbowmen really laid on the hurt. Then the PCs heard reinforcements at round five. The crossbowmen tried to flee at this point (on Mr. Greatsword's orders) but the PCs turned on them for a turn. This turned out to be a mistake.

The evoker himself arrived. He didn't really an Insight check to see through their disguises but made it anyway. He was accompanied by an ice golem (a soldier). The PCs had just gone through a hard encounter that they technically hadn't won, and now came another one. The evoker was higher level and an elite artillery piece. The ice golem was their level and was an elite soldier. Two enemy AP later, and several PCs were dropped by fireballs (along with Mr. Greatsword, oops!) and frozen in place by the golem, who beat one PC to death (no KO, death!). One PC was captured, and the other two managed to make their escape. They lost, and not just the battle. They lot strategic surprise. People knew details about their illusory disguise ability too. There was a cleric who could perform Speak with Dead on the dead PC.

The jailbreak was hard because two named characters (a paladin and the above-mentioned cleric, both of whom needed to die for plot reasons) were interrogating the captured PC. The PCs got smacked down hard and after one round facing a powerful paladin gave up trying to kill him and ran away (with the captured PC though, who got most of his gear back but not his magic armor).

The PCs lured these two named characters into separate ambushes and killed them individually. Revenge!

They were stymied by the evoker yet again in a skill challenge (high Intelligence and the Religion skill was his chief weapon), and when they sneaked back into the watchtower set off a magical alarm and fought him again along with a group of town guards. The PCs were burning with a desire for revenge. After getting their cleric dropped by the AP-fueled Fireball barrage, they revived him and then finally killed the evoker. Finally they made one of them look like him, took command of the watchtower, and went on to an easy victory.


I've also worked up a bit of a side quest where the party will run into a group of soldiers transporting a crown/ring/symbol of power, that they will kill and steal the object them. Then have the Lich enchant it with a controlling spell of some sorts, and the PCs deliver it themselves pretending to be the original group of soldiers. This way the ruler that the object belongs to is put under the Liches control and turns the town into an evil town of sorts for the PCs to base their operations out of..

This sounds pretty interesting, and it gives the PCs a direct social benefit for carrying out that mission.


That's about as far as I've made it. I have plans for them to eventually overthrow the Lich and become the rulers themselves, but figured that'd be much farther down the road.

Make the lich much higher level to prevent early overthrow. The campaign sounds so much like Way of the Wicked I recommend giving that AP a try.

[Pavlik91]

Thanks for such an awesome response and very detailed write up. I went and looked at the Way of the Wicked campaign a little bit, might be something I could use as a supplement to help flesh out my story a bit.

I think I'm going to drop basically the first 2 scenes of my original Idea, The ship journey and the jail break. Instead, I think I'll have the campaign start with the characters being dead and being resurrected by the Lich. Like in the Way of the Wicked campaign I would have them come up with a back story as to why they are dead.

After the resurrection I think the first encounter will be the stealing of the symbol of power, and impersonation of the soldiers for it's delivery.

[Living_Dead_Guy]

Its good to see you learned from others mistakes. Railroading is never fun. Anyway here are some more ideas.

Make sure to read the players backgrounds and have them write a list of goals. I suggest 3 goals the characters wish to attain and three that the players have. Then allow them to gradually attain those goals. This requires flexibility in the plot design but once you have the list post them and people can help out.

Another thing to be aware of is that different people have different ideas of evil. One character may be wanting to take control of the tri-state area while another just wants to get rich at any cost while another likes to inflict pain to innocents. The widely varying goals of evil players is in part what makes running an evil campaign so difficult. If possible have the players create their characters together so that they know each other and can perhaps work on common goals.

Anyway some campaign ideas:

The PC's start imprisoned, forced to fight in gladiatorial arenas. Preferably by letting the players group in pairs against NPC's and then as an entire party. Don't make the mistake of pitting them against each other. This of course need to be forewarned and the reason they are imprisoned can be part of their background stories. This starts the campaign off with combat and tension. Then if the players win the lich offers to buy them and set them free, if they are willing to perform a simple task for him. If the players lose the lich resurrects them and offers them continued life for a price. Either way the lich can have them sign a magical contract that prevents in party backstabbing, although this is also a form of railroading and should be avoided if the players have little to no infighting as of yet.

If the players were killed then the winning gladiatorial team and or monsters could become reoccurring villains/heroes.

Allow the lichs designs to change based on the players ideas of evil and goals. If everyone wants to take over the kingdom then the lich could try that. If the players want to steal and kill everything the same plot could work and they can work up to becoming commanders of the the lichs army. If on the other hand the players just want to get rich a different course might be needed.

Just some ideas anyway.

[Pavlik91]

Those are some great ideas. I'll definitely consider them when coming up with my next few encounters. In particular I like the idea of letting the Lich's plans change based on what the players want. I can pick up hints as we play and from their backgrounds as to what they want and try to steer the campaign in that direction.

As for the campaign, we plan on starting next weekend. So far I have them starting off dead and being resurrected by the Lich, who places them under a sort of control spell that makes them do his bidding. I plan on setting a DC for this and when they get high enough level letting them occasionally roll a will check to see if they can over come his influence.

The players have selected their classes and they're not exactly the best of options, so I'm hoping it all works out. We have a Druid, Warden, Seeker, Sorcerer, and a Warlord. Three of them are very nature based, so I'm gonna have to find a way to work that into my campaign.

For their first assignment, the Lich has tasked them with retrieving a scepter belonging to the lord of Loudwater. They will encounter a small caravan transporting the item with a guard of 5 humans. I took 1 Human Guard directly from the MM and then had to fashion up 4 regular soldiers. I basically used the Iron Circle Brigand as a template and then just dropped the trait ability. From here I'm hoping they win the encounter and return to the Lich with the item, but I suppose anything is possible.

Providing they return with it, They will be instructed to get the scepter into the hands of the Lord. Whether that mean impersonating the guards or coming up with some other tricky plan I have yet to foresee haha. If they decide to impersonate the guards, I planned on doing a little noncombat encounter where the party will have to pass some bluff/disguise checks and such in order to pass themselves off as the guards.

I have a couple ideas for some future encounters.

A dungeon delve for some sort of evil artifact that helps the lich with his plans. If they take over the town the artifact will be used to set up an evil temple.


An Encounter in Loudwater once the surrounding towns discover what is happening and react to the players taking over the town. This encounter will probably be later down the road.

Obviously none of these plans are set in stone considering the players could do anything, including setting the town ablaze, which they've been known to do in past campaigns.

[Kimera757]

Taking a look at the brigand, I would not recommend taking away the trait. Or you could replace it with some other punishing ability. The brigand has no encounter or recharge abilities and no way to boost its damage. It also has high AC. It's kind of boring and grindy without a punishment ability.

On another note, just in case you have high AC PCs (probably not, but some warlords are really tough), I would change the Drive Back attack to +4 vs Fortitude, giving the brigand options against different opponents.

Last minute though: if those human soldiers are in fact soldiers (and not brutes or some other type), you will be presenting the PCs with numerous opponents all of the same type, with the same strength (high AC) and overlapping punishment abilities.

I would recommend something like this: 1 leader type that the PCs might want to focus fire on (an elite warlord works here), two guards or brigands (IMO, the de-leveled Monster Vault town guards are much better creatures than brigands) and a couple of "men-at-arms" (brutes using polearms). The brutes could literally stand behind the guards and pound melee PCs flat. If you're feeling really mean, toss in a crossbowman or archer or two. For some reason, ranged opponents slaughter my PCs in every campaign I've run, so I'm starting to think it's not their fault. :smallbiggrin:

[Pavlik91]

Ok I never really looked at it that way, but yeah multiple creatures all of the same type doesn't seem like the best of ideas.

The reason for the nerf to the brigand was just to make it slightly easier on the players. With 4 of them the ability could get out of hand, dealing up to 12 damage to a PC every time they attack. Also seems we find a way to make every encounter either a really close call or end up dead. They only way we manage to do ok is if the encounters are either under leveled or we have magic items that make us slightly over powered. As an example in one of our past campaigns I played a cleric and ran him as a pacifist healer with all healing/buffing abilities. I basically couldn't deal any damage outside of just making a basic melee attack. We still found a way to kill off 2 players in the very first encounter.

I'm not sure if this is poor technique on our part or something the DM is messing up. This being my first time running the game I want to see if I can figure out what's causing this issue.

As for the mob suggestion I'll look over those picks and see if maybe they might be a better option. I'll definitely be changing the mobs though for more variety.

I've never had to De-level a creature before, is there some sort of chart/table for that or maybe some tips you could give me on that?

[Kimera757]

As an example in one of our past campaigns I played a cleric and ran him as a pacifist healer with all healing/buffing abilities. I basically couldn't deal any damage outside of just making a basic melee attack. We still found a way to kill off 2 players in the very first encounter.

Pacifists are a bit of a trap, but Astral Seal usually makes up for the lack of damage, at least when it comes to at-wills. But pacifists lack encounter and daily power damage, in exchange for an extra 1d6 + Cha hit points of healing, usually twice per encounter.


As for the mob suggestion I'll look over those picks and see if maybe they might be a better option. I'll definitely be changing the mobs though for more variety.

I've never had to De-level a creature before, is there some sort of chart/table for that or maybe some tips you could give me on that?

This forum doesn't have attachment capabilities that I can see, so I can't show off my own NPCs. I suspect human archers are kind of rare. You can always reskin monsters though. (An elf archer, deleveled from 2nd to 1st-level, will do for a human archer. Remove Elven Accuracy and give it Heroic Effort instead.)

For de-leveling, there's numerous charts. Details here: http://slyflourish.com/calculating_monster_damage.html

That's for calculating monster damage from scratch. If you're using a MM III or later monster (the ones that have a well-designed action table, traits, standard, move, minor, triggered actions) just reduce basic damage by 1 per level, or 1.5 for encounter or recharge abilities, and the reverse to gain levels. Also decrease AC and NADs by 1 per level (or +1 for every level increase). Hit points usually go up by 8 per level (so -8 per level if de leveling). If you're changing a creature's level by more than 5, you really need to start from scratch.

If you're modifying an old monster, recalc AC, attack bonuses, and damage from scratch by yourself.

If you have the offline monster builder, the stat blocks will look good, but you will need to increase brute attacks by 2 and reduce soldier attacks by 2.

Edit: Found a better Sly Flourish link. PDF: http://slyflourish.com/master_dm_sheet.pdf - but seriously, read that site. There's a lot of good 4e DM advice sites out there.

Dead PCs? Well, let's look at what you have.


We have a Druid, Warden, Seeker, Sorcerer, and a Warlord.

I'm assuming no Essentials stuff here. An E-druid or sorcerer is very different from the AEDU variety.

Controller: druid. Druids aren't very strong controllers, and usually minor in striker or defender to make up for that. This requires some careful planning. You might want to direct that player to a charop board. Druids benefit from very strong flavor.

Defender: Warden. *Sigh* Wardens can be decent defenders with the right power selection, but fighters and knights are better defenders right out of the box (good for new players, in other words), in large part because they can punish shifts and, in the case of the fighter, literally stop movement. Wardens must have strong flavor. They don't excite me, but I see them everywhere.

Striker: Sorcerer. Decent but unless you're an Essentials sorcerer not great. Chaos sorcerers are almost more controller than striker, and draconic sorcerers need to put their low hit point/AC selves up front. Only melee rangers seem to match draconic sorcerers in the lame AC department. They get better at 3rd-level with Flame Spiral though. I found sorcerer AoE damage to be disappointing; they don't even have anything that matches Scorching Burst. (Well, there's a "radiant" sorcerer power, but that's not flavor-matched.)

Strikers have a lot of variety. The best striker in terms of raw damage is probably the melee ranger, but it's so weak at defense and skills that I won't recommend it. The best melee striker overall is probably the barbarian, but the slayer is great for newer players and also more accurate (take Berserk Charge as a stance). The Essentials thief is also really good at this role (take Ambush Trick and Tactical Trick; do not avoid these). The best single-target ranged striker is the archer ranger (PH1, not anything from Essentials), and the best magic striker is the Essentials fire sorcerer, which is mainly single target. I'm not sure if there are any good ranged AoE strikers, sadly, but the monk is spectacular in the melee AoE striker good.

Leader: Warlord. Probably the best leader, although I have a soft spot for the devoted (non-pacifist) cleric. Reasonably tough, and using a sword they're accurate enough to hit and get cool effects. Not too great on healing though, at least not without a non-core feat that only inspiring warlords find useful. New players should avoid warlord builds that aren't in the PH1. The bravura warlord, for instance, has a lot of powers that depend on PCs missing or monsters doing certain things.

None: Seeker. I can literally give no advice beyond what won't be followed, which is to drop this PC and pick up something worth playing. Preferably a striker, or if you're really worried about PCs dropping, a devoted cleric.

One of the problems with 4e is the later books have really inconsistent and often poorly-designed classes, with a few (vampire, bladesinger, seeker) completely failing at their role. This is unlike 3e where adding extra books to a game tended to raise the power level, sometimes substantially. Because 4e is fairly well-balanced compared to previous editions, it can fool players into thinking they should only pick what looks cool and play that. So many players feel they must use the Character Builder, which of course gives access to so many weak options, that restricting players to "good" classes becomes difficult.

Tell your players to each take an expertise feat. Remind them to do this until they say it's annoying them, and then keep on doing it.

[Pavlik91]

All of their characters were built using the character builder on WotC's website. I paid for the subscription to insider so I have access to the encounter build and compendium as well.

Most likely I'll do a compendium search and find some mobs that fit what I need for the encounters and reskin/tweak them a bit to fit my plot. That's what I did to find the iron circle guys so I can do the same again but just find a better variety.

My biggest problem being, they build characters exactly how you said they probably shouldn't. They play what they think is cool instead of playing what is viable. I tried to limit them, telling them that I want 1 of each role, but other than that I don't want to tell them no you can't play that class. To me that seems almost as bad as railroading a campaign, it'd be like railroading their character.

If I absolutely have to I'll keep building under powered encounters and letting them scrape by on those. I'd rather do that than tell anyone they have to re-roll because they made a poor pick. They're relatively new players so they get overly attached to their characters.

[ScubaGoomba]

Some advice:

As has been said by countless posters above me, the players aren't going to enjoy being set up in a fight they're designed to lose and calling it a narrative technique won't soften the blow. If it's imperative to the story that the players die in order to be signed into the lich's pact, why not start the game at that point? They all wake up in a dark chamber together and start with the lich there.

If you want them to really resent the lich, then have it send them on menial tasks or suicide missions. Consider that, because they're all essentially "undead," death isn't death, it's just shooting them back down to whichever plane the lich has bound them.

The biggest difficulty I've found in running an Evil campaign is that the players need to be proactive. Good campaigns are, generally speaking, reactive. The heroes vanquish the dragon that's threatening the town, the heroes subdue the orcs that have been kidnapping children, etc. As Evil characters, the PCs are now the people to whom the heroes react. While it's well and good to say "You guys are Evil PCs!," if the only different between an Evil campaign and a Good campaign is "our boss is Evil!," then you may want to consider doing something to make it Evil.

Granted, in early levels, giving them some kind of a boss is good because it will give them a chance to settle in and develop a supporting cast of allies and enemies (and, let's face it, in an Evil campaign, allies can easily become enemies) upon which to base their future actions.

When it comes to plot planning, less is more. The players will absolutely come up with things that interest them in the most random places and it's far better to roll with their punches than try to stick to a plot you've worked up. I usually plan my sessions just a few days before we meet because it allows me to go with the flow on their side and find ways to work what they're doing into whatever I would like them to do. The less you have planned outside the broad strokes, the more flexible you become.

[Angel Bob]

So far I have them starting off dead and being resurrected by the Lich, who places them under a sort of control spell that makes them do his bidding. I plan on setting a DC for this and when they get high enough level letting them occasionally roll a will check to see if they can over come his influence.

Big no-no. Uh-uh. Not a good idea. Railroading in the extreme. Don't do it. :smallannoyed:

How about, instead of using heavyhanded railroading IC, talk to the players OOC and make sure they understand that the game will be more fun for everyone if they avoid backstabbing and instead work as a coherent party? This solution will cause much less resentment and hatred from the PCs. See, the moment you explain to them "This lich has magical control over your characters", their objective turns from "Conquer the world and do fun Evil things" to "Kill this goddamned lich who thinks he can make me his bitch". And that will be no fun for anyone.