Recurring villans

[Cowboy_ninja]

anyone got some sort of how-too guide for putting recurring villans in my dungeon?

i think we can sort our villlan ideas into two groups:

1) villans who high tail it outta there BEFORE they die. so villans with plenty of escape plan options
- shadow dancers
- proper spells ( any way of making searching for spells easier would help)
-other prestige classes

2) ways of them coming back from the grave (preferably on their own).
- perhaps spells that make them temporarily dead once they reach -10?
- good story reasons?

[pestilenceawaits]

I love reoccurring villains I would make liberal use of running away and teleport at higher levels. Escape tunnels or waiting transportation are good ways to have them get away also. The great thing about reoccurring villains is once they have escaped once they can taunt the party through illusions, notes, minions etc. when They finally do catch up to them and take them out I love the idea of bringing them back one more time as some form of undead to get that last word in before the PCs destroy them for good.

[Zaggab]

There's also the category of villains that are recurring villains, except you don't have any oppurtunity to really interact (fight) with them.

Like watching a villain kill a friend, but somewhere he can't be reached until he has gotten away, or forcing the party to flee before they die

Or they only know who he/she/it is, and sees what he does, but never actually meets him. (perhaps more fitting in a detective style adventure - like a serial killer perhaps).

Then there's the powerful villains who take the party prisoners, tortures them and then for some obscure reason fails to keep them inprisoned. (more bbeg maybe, like Irenicus)

And the villains you meet in places where you can't attack them (court, out in public, during negotiations). Or clearly evil dudes that you know are villains, but must work together with to reach a goal. But of course they betray you.

There's A LOT of ways to do recurring villains. I would advise against using villains that flee for their lives, or villains that come back from the dead. Even though maybe a lich can be a cool opponent, it gets old to kill him again. And villains that can be beaten aren't that threatening anymore. Plus that the players get more powerful all the time, and even though you're totally free to advance villains after each encounter, it's not that "logically" justifiable that the villain always is a fair match for the players, every time they beat him.

[Thomas]

The easiest kind of recurring villain is the one that avoids direct confrontation (like, say, Doctor Moriarty). You fight their thugs, lieutenants, traps, and plots, finding out or knowing who's behind it all, but never even come face-to-face with them (except, perhaps, in a situation where combat is not possible; across an unbridged chasm, in the king's court, etc.).

The other option is villains who shouldn't be killed. Maybe they're needed alive for a trial or for some information they have; maybe there's a great big ransom offered; maybe the social customs are such that killing them would actually be a crime, and despite being a rival and an opponent, they haven't actually broken the law.

Then there's the indirectly "recurring" villain; you take out the crime boss, but his henchmen - or his boss - become your enemies now. A sort of a legacy of rivalry.

Being a RuneQuest fan, I also do like villains who recur even if you beat them. Divine Intervention, easy Resurrection, and various death-cheating magic and hero powers make for opponents you can't just cut down. (Of course, it's easy as anything to get around that: don't kill them, just disable, incapacitate, or imprison them in some grand, more or less permanent way.)

[Maxymiuk]

I support the idea of non-interactive villains. Maybe have the characters repeatedly arrive somewhere too late to do anything but witness the devastation he left behind. A whole village dead for no adequately explained reason. Or even better, simply gone, with food still warm on the table. Something like that scares the crap out of players. Fear in the eye of the beholder and all that.

[Nerd-o-rama]

1) Pick up the Eberron Campaign Setting.
2) Read the section on recurring villains.
3) Wonder why it was never written up in a non-associated source like a web or Dragon article.
4) Profit

[Turcano]

You can also use the Rules of Dramatic Villianry to your advantage, notably the rule that if the protagonists didn't see someone die, they didn't really die. That means that you can construct villains in such a manner that the PCs are forced to defeat them though means other than killing them outright, like pushing them off a cliff, and bring them back with a contrived escape/survival monologue. However, you should do that sparingly, as it gets really old when overused.

[Thomas]

1) Pick up the Eberron Campaign Setting.
2) Read the section on recurring villains.
3) Wonder why it was never written up in a non-associated source like a web or Dragon article.
4) Profit

You forgot "???"

[Ravyn]

If you want them to get in a fight, there's always coming up with some form of possession in which the BBEG can only use a fraction of his power. Explains the power scaling and why he's still alive and laughing at them a while later. If you really want to creep them out, make sure that as soon as "he" dies they find out exactly what happened; perhaps the magic included the person he was possessing looking like him, and the appearance fades away as the person dies. (That trick, of course, is also very good for getting rid of people... with an optional side of angst. Depends on how much you like messing with your players.)

[oriong]

Vampires and Liches are pretty much tailor made to be reoccuring villians like this. Vampires will turn into gaseous form once reduced to 0, automatically fleeing and becoming immune to damage in the process. It's a great way to lead the PCs into the dungeon (the mist flies down a hallway and slips under the cracks of a big door the PCs then have to figure out a way to open).

Lichs will restore themselves within a matter of days after being slain, probably near their phylactery.

Both can also act through proxies (possibly even 'projecting' some of their powers through them). For instance a party might first encounter a vampire simply as a dominated human who they don't learn is dominated until he is slain (meaning that the 'true' villian hasn't been defeated). The lich could do the same, or possibly even use 'imbue spell ability' to give the proxy some spellcasting ability.

[ken-do-nim]

Plus that the players get more powerful all the time, and even though you're totally free to advance villains after each encounter, it's not that "logically" justifiable that the villain always is a fair match for the players, every time they beat him.

My DM did worse to me. I was in a party of 3, and we ambushed the BBEG and her minions. The other 2 party members were first kept busy by a summoned monster, then chose to run away. So it was my 5th level bard up against a 6th level cleric (the BBEG), a 5th level rogue, and 2 2nd level warriors. As it turned out, the DM also equipped the enemies better. What did my bard have going for him? He had a quaal's feather token, he had mirror image, and he really truly believed that tasha's laughter had to work sometime on that rogue. As it turned out, he had to hightail it out of there (I think the DM fudged rolls to let me do it) and it was very discouraging.

The DM then awarded me xp and I levelled to 6. I started talking about how next time I ran into these baddies I'd be better prepared, when the DM told me that all the badguys had just levelled up too.

[Thomas]

Vampires and Liches are pretty much tailor made to be reoccuring villians like this. Vampires will turn into gaseous form once reduced to 0, automatically fleeing and becoming immune to damage in the process. It's a great way to lead the PCs into the dungeon (the mist flies down a hallway and slips under the cracks of a big door the PCs then have to figure out a way to open).

Vampires are great, you're right. They can dominate people, they can create spawn, they can escape death... they're perfect in every way.

[gaymer_seattle]

if you have a re-occurring villain, likely you have some sort of story arc that is involved. So in the long run, the villain needs to fit into that story. if the story is going to be catered to the villain you have more freedom.

either way, mystery is your villain's friend. the less the party knows about them, the more threatening he/she becomes. always being seen as a shadowy smoky figure in mirror or demonic face that appears in a fire keeps your players from being able to meta game too much. Have the villains will be done through powerful minions. Maybe even ones that cannot be defeated by the party. an intelligent iron golem or runic guardian who is the representative power of the true villain. They can be engaged multiple times, and maybe even finally put down. They become a ferocious mask of the real evil

[Dhavaer]

Being completely invincible, but uninterested in actually fighting the PCs.
A very high AC/Defence and damage reduction will normally accomplish this.

[Viscount Einstrauss]

The present BBEG in my campaign is a powerful warlord looking for a way to achieve godhood and take his beloved from the afterlife by force. At first, the PC's merely heard whispers of his name and exploits, making everyone uneasy. Then they started encountering some of his army. Eventually, they fought against fuller brunts of it, and in the onslaught one of them met and dueled the BBEG, who easily overpowered the player (higher level, better gear). He was taken prisoner and tortured for information involving the player's NPC boss, a mercenary leader who was proving himself to be the warlord's most capable and cunning adversary. The PC escaped imprisonment later with the help of a couple mercenary allies.

What the player has yet to learn is that the warlord actually engineered his escape, and has been keeping track of him ever since to try and locate the mercenary leader. He's actually been in unseen mortal danger ever since he set foot outside of that fortress.

Outside of this, the players also don't realize that the warlord's plan is godhood. They know about bits and pieces of his plan- places he raided, things he stole- but they haven't pieced together how it all fits in yet, or why he's taking it all north into the deadly winters instead of holding or marching south to take warmer kingdoms. And if they don't stop him (I try to never railroad my tracks, I leave every option open as possible), he will actually obtain the godhood he seeks and become an epic villain for my players, far more dangerous then he is even now.

Basically, the other good recurring villain is one which the players just can't defeat.

[Thomas]

Being completely invincible, but uninterested in actually fighting the PCs.
A very high AC/Defence and damage reduction will normally accomplish this.

That's a pretty cheap way to do it. I'd not recommend that. It's almost always implausible, and unfairly frustrating. ("Darn! He got away!" is fair and a little frustrating; "What, he's immune to everything we can do?" is unfair and very frustrating.)

[Dhavaer]

That's a pretty cheap way to do it. I'd not recommend that. It's almost always implausible, and unfairly frustrating. ("Darn! He got away!" is fair and a little frustrating; "What, he's immune to everything we can do?" is unfair and very frustrating.)

Implausible how? I admit that the guy I did this with was far more powerful than his CR indicated, but it was a completely legit and non-munchkined build. More accurately, a build taken from a sourcebook and given more reasonable abilities.
It's not necessarily frustrating, either. The PCs fought this guy for a total of perhaps four rounds spread over two encounters, there simply wasn't time for him to get frustrating.

If someone's not supposed to be beatable, there's no real point in artifically making them defeatable just so they can be beaten.

[Deathcow]

I had a plan for a recurring villain onetime who was the psyche of a wizard who had been bound into a sword, and could Dominate it's wielder. It didn't really work out, though... the PCs beat the current wielder, took the sword, figured out that it had some sort of weird enchantment (the intelligence), and had it Disjunctioned. Sadness.

[MaN]

Another type of recurring villian is the one who is too strong for the characters to defeat until higher level.
Since I had just purchased a gargantuan blue dragon "mini" I, of course, had to put it to use. Too bad the party in the game I DM is only level 6. Until they are high enough level to take him on they'll just have to continue paying him tribute (the dragon heard about some wealthy adventurer types and decided to cash in).

[Jarlax]

good ways to run reccuring villians include:

Litch - as long as that phylacary is safe so are they there is no rule that says the phylacary must be nearby or even on the same plane as the litch himself, therefore as long as it is hidden and safe they can return again and again.

undead templates - i like using these on sub bosses, creatures that would be valuable to a BBEG, so much so that if defeated by the PCs a BBEG would spare no expence to return them to life, undead templates simply bring them back in a manner that increases their CR for the next encounter.

Raise Dead - it costs about 5450g to have a caster bring someone back with raise dead (450g for the casting by a 9th level caster and 5000g for the materials) or 6125g for a scroll of raise dead. or just 5000g for a cleric who is part of the organisation. truely a bargain for the result.

createive templates - just because a template give a flavor text for how a template is gained doesnt mean its the only way to get that result. a evil ranger and his wolf companion are killed by the PCs. in a desperate move to save his master the wolf passes what life he has left to his master. the wolf dies and the ranger lives only now the spirit of the wolf also resides in the ranger's body. this new effect restores the ranger's life and alters him with a effect that mimics a werewolf template.

outsiders - depending on how you choose to play it some outsiders(like devils and deamons) cannot be killed off their home plane, instead they are banished back to their homes when sent below 0 hp, the perfect location for them to plan their revenge and the perfect location for the PCs final showdown with the BBEG the heart of his lair on his home plane, the only location where he can truely be killed.

[Green Bean]

Remember, even defeated villains can still become threats. A vampire that is now too weak to be a threat to the party could secretly Dominate a local lord and having him send the PCs on a suicide mission, or start creating spawn like crazy to build an army. An good villain can easily make a party miserable without ever getting into direct combat.

[Rockphed]

Wise villians always fight on their own turf, and often include a trap. For instance, Pull 1 lever, drop the party into a pit with a hydra they can easily beat, but will take a few rounds to do. Pull lever 2 and 50 orcs pour into the room, keeping the party at bay just long enough to run away. Pull lever 3, and every part of the room gets targeted by 5 traps that won't target the villian. All cheap, but all doable. Plus, if the party actually gets the guy, they feel really, really good about it, and you can have his leutenant, who they were supposed to thrash, take over the organization and attempt to avenge his master.

[Dareon]

Another good option is along the same lines as the lieutenant taking over after the boss goes, but with a more minor character.

As an example, in our most recent session, we just got done kicking the crap out of and extracting information from a ninja mook. His boss shows up, and while we're dealing with the boss, the mook makes his Escape Artist check and slips away. Assuming he doesn't decide to take revenge for his shattered naughty bits immediately next session, I wouldn't be at all surprised to run into him later on down the line.

But you shouldn't really plan for a villain to be recurring. Giving him a Contingencied Teleport is fine, but you always have to assume the party's most-damaging critical will hit the guy you want to escape. In which case the contingency activates and teleports him away, but the heroes later battle into a tower full of undead, reach the inner sanctum, and discover a rotting corpse laying on a specially-prepared teleport landing pad. Which could be amusing in its own right.

Another option for a recurring villain is movement rate. If the entire party is clad in medium-heavy armor or otherwise has a speed of 20 feet, a typical lightly-clad foe could easily outdistance them and use scenery to avoid the archers and mages in the ranks. Otherwise you have monks, the Dash and Run feats (among others), Expeditious Retreat, magic items, and a host of other options from more esoteric splatbooks.

[Ashy]

One of my favorite ways to include a reoccuring villan is to make him appear to be an ally of the PC's.

You know that barkeep that always seems to have the scoop on the best treasure hoards? Make him the villan in the end...

Or maybe the friendly janitor that always seems to know what neafrious plans the bosses are up to up on the 13th floor? Make him your reoccuring villan...

Have the "friend's" suggestions slowly lead the PC's on increasingly dangerous missions, and sprinkle clues slowly about the true nature of the party's "friend"... Watch their faces when you finally reveal who has been pulling their strings all along! ;)

[Stormcrow]

I'm a big fan of the "shakes fist" "Inspector Gadget" type Villain. "Next time gadget, next time" as he runs off.

An overlooked trump card is the clone spell, can't remember the name but if the villain is wealthy enough, high enough level or has some powerful friends then he can die and wake up in the body of a clone.

Another favourite is a minion of the villain using raise dead on him after the PCs leave for SELDOM do they bury/burn the corpses of people they kill.

[Thomas]

An overlooked trump card is the clone spell, can't remember the name but if the villain is wealthy enough, high enough level or has some powerful friends then he can die and wake up in the body of a clone.

Manshoon of the Zhentarim was pretty legendary for the clone-thing. Of course, now he's even more legendary because all his clones woke up at once and started fighting over who gets to be the "real" Manshoon...

[Cowboy_ninja]

THanks for all the tips everyone!!

[prufock]

Sentient dungeon with moving parts. There's a recurring villain.

[Ninja Chocobo]

Vampiric. Illithid. Liches.
Vampirillithiliches.
Gaseous Form AND Plane Shift AND a Phylactery

[Woot Spitum]

Vampiric. Illithid. Liches.
Vampirillithiliches.
Gaseous Form AND Plane Shift AND a Phylactery

Vampiric Mindflayers, unfortunately, lose most or all of their sanity upon becoming vampiric, leaving them as merely feral killers with no more than a certain low cunning.

A good tactic for the recurring villain is to have him mentally controlling the more visible ones. The PC's may take down the evil warlord, but a servant manages to get the Brain-in-a-Jar (the REAL villain) to safety.

[DaMullet]

I just thought of a wicked high-LA villain.

A Vampire lich whose phylactery is his coffin.

The PCs kill him, and he goes gaseous, returning to his coffin. The PCs follow him, stake him, decapitate him, douse him in holy water, whatever.

They leave, call it a done job.

1d10 days later, he's back right where they left him.

[nivek1234]

In one of my campaigns, we accidentally released the BBEG (ANCIENT black dragon) as a quest at level 8. He TPKs us and we are sent to face the gods who send us back to right our wrongs.

[DaMullet]

That sounds like a big chunk of no fun.

Did the DM specifically tell you, "this is where an ANCIENT black dragon was sealed away" Or did he say, "There's a coffin thingy over there. It's got some markings on it."?

[nivek1234]

Actually we were hired to obtain an orb (I forget the name) by the leader of our mercenary guild. The orb was in a deep cave full of lizardfolk. The "room" with the orb was had a pool of lava in it (where the dragon was sealed). However, the orb (and it's position) were what had been used to seal the dragon away. As soon as our rogue picked it up, the seal was broken and the dragon started to regain it's strength. He kills us within 8 rounds. Some of it was obviously intentional.

As stated before, we were sent to face the gods who were not to pleased with our actions. They sent us back to our home city, but with some templates applied to each of our characters. Each of us had a template applied that boosted our primary character purposes (e.g. the half-orc barbarian got the half-dragon template, the human wizard received the Lich template).

[Josh Inno]

Then there's always the wackamole type of recurring villain. No matter how many times you kill them, they NATURALLY come back.

Such as high charisma ghosts.

[Josh Inno]

I just thought of a wicked high-LA villain.

A Vampire lich whose phylactery is his coffin.

The PCs kill him, and he goes gaseous, returning to his coffin. The PCs follow him, stake him, decapitate him, douse him in holy water, whatever.

They leave, call it a done job.

1d10 days later, he's back right where they left him.

Now that is just some awesome kind of cheese.

[Monseigneur]

Hmm. While these are good ideas and stories, I have never been fond of recurring villains. I usually keep the main evil-doers cloaked in mystery before the fight with them. The PCs are aware of their presence and actions, but they have no idea of what they look like.
~Pre-spoiler note~
Typing this thing up has made me want to revive the campaign mentioned inside. If you are interested in playing, (Sign-ups coming right away) do not by any means open this tag upon punishment of fzehrglefication. You don't want to know what that is.
On the topic of a villain I am particularly fond of...I recently finished up a campaign called "The Final War". The king of the big evil empire was not one king, but a huge Adamantine Golem that contained the souls of all the rulers. (I.e. when the next king was selected every 30 years, their soul would enter the golem and rule with the predecessors to advise him/her/it.)

[Nevermore]

Reminds me of the bad guy in one of the campaigns I was in... turned out the leader of the Bounty Hunter, Rogue, and Assasin guilds were all the same aging, sneaky bugger.

[Lo-Alrikowki]

Heh, if you want to be completely absurd about your recurring villain, have the supposed one archvillain be identical quintuplets, each with their own class niche. The party will have brain hemmorhages trying to figure out how you multi'd their adversary so effectively if you only let them see one at a time. At low levels, you can just make them think it's one wizard with Mirror Image. As the party kills off more and more of the siblings, some freaky magical hoodoo makes their spirits retreat into the body of the most magically inclined, allowing him/her to switch between personalities (and hence classes) whenever it's necessary.

[Phoenix Talion]

Hehe. I like that.