The Overpowered Villain

[dascarletm]

It is a trope I've seen time and again. The party meets the big bad (usually early in the campaign) and is utterly outclassed by him/her. They then move along with the game, perhaps meeting the BBEG along the way, and finally at the end of the campaign they are strong enough to defeat them. Only one problem:

How do I make these scenes, where the players are completely outmatched, not feel like railroading or unfun?

I've been thinking about it, and I have some poor DnD memories where I've met the BBEG, and have been completely outclassed. Most of the time I feel railroaded to an extent, some of the time I find it takes me out of the moment, but a couple times I've found it appropriate. I'm not sure what, but I was inspired to roleplay the feeling of being outmatched.
I was excited and slightly frightened. I felt the struggle of my character, and it was a very memorable experience. I however do not remember what caused it to be so well done. (All these the same DM mind you).

So I ask you all this:
How do you pull off this scene DMs? Do you have any tips or tricks? Or perhaps you've experienced such a situation. How did it feel? What made it feel that way?

Anyway, Thanks.

[Strigon]

It is very difficult.
First off, you can't make it a deathmatch. By pitting the one directly against the other, you're leaving two options open:
The players lose, they complain (rightfully) that railroading has occurred.
The players win due to a Deus Ex Machina, and complain (rightfully) about said DEM.

What you want to do is give the players a clear objective that isn't "Kill the guy". This objective could be escape, steal an artifact, survive X turns, protect an area for X turns, whatever - just make sure it's something the players can possibly do, but still gives them the very clear message that this fellow would kill you all in a straight fight.

[ExLibrisMortis]

You can include a minor challenge that targets the BBEG's weakness, such as Open Lock on a druid BBEG, when the party is full of rogues. The party can't kill the BBEG, or even do significant harm, but at least they can do something the villain can't! This way, you can also drop some hints about the BBEG's weaknesses.

[AnimeTheCat]

One way you can do it is to create encounters and then leave clues as to who the BBEG is before they even meet him (usually level 3-5 in my game) and then they have their first encounter with the BBEG around level 7-8 where he is talking to his general or whomever is supposed to thwart the party and before he turns the general loose on the party he has some comments then teleports away. The BBEG rarely, if ever, operates alone and will usually have lackeys do his bidding. This way you have a build up until he gets fed up and fights the party himself. Also, have different quest lines intertwine and lead to the same guy, giving him the appearance of being the actual BBEG, but in reality he's simply a high ranking official in the true BBEG's inner circle. That accomplishes a few of things:

1) makes the party actually seem like a threat. They're solving problems for the good and creating problems for BBEG.
2) creates an actual story you may expect to see in a game/movie/book/etc.
3) gives you the chance to introduce what exactly you want to about the enemy at your own pace.
4) keeps mystery about the BBEG and lets you tailor him to actually challenge the party

with all of that, you really start to flesh out an actual dire story instead of a railroad story. You make it something the PC's Want to do instead of something you want the PC's to do. Think original Final Fantasy. The heroes of light know that they need to restore the crystals, but as they go along they learn about the history and what's going on and that leads up to the final showdown with someone they fought at the beginning of the game and there's this big timey wimey wibbly wobbly climax at the end that you don't get the full picture of until you're there.

[Godskook]

1.I suggest against this trope in its standard form. Its explicitly a railroad.

But if you must:

2.First meeting with the big-bad is immediately after a fight in which he coincidentally mishaps a teleport directly into the PCs' camp or travel path. He's wounded, he's half-naked(ambushed in his sleep), and in the low-negatives. They heal him, put him back on his feat, and get him to a teleport scroll. The next time they meet, he doesn't kill them because this guy abides by the Evil Overlord's list.

3.Make him sympathetic. He's not evil, he's....trying to save his wife(insert better reason here). When the PCs first try to stop him, he's not on the clock and he doesn't need this stage of his plan to work. Setbacks are fixable. So he's not killing people yet, cause he can't justify it to himself.

4.He's wanting to get captured and brought to a particular dungeon. Maybe he's pulling a Xanatos-gambit and the PCs doing what they do is part of his plan either way.

Two rules though:

A)Never point a villain at your PCs that you're not willing to fully fire upon said PCs

B)Never point a villain at your PCs that you're not willing to have them fully fire upon.

[Darth Ultron]

There are lots of ways. It does not have to be ''evil villain kills the world''.

1. if the villain is high level, and the Pc's low...he won't even see them as a threat. A 15th level wizard just laughs at a group of 3rd level characters. He knows they can't hurt them, so why bother evening killing them?

2. The villain using the Pc's is the best one. As part of some plan he has the Pc's willing or not do or not do something.

3. The villain wants the challenge...''go ahead and beat me...if you can.''

4. Second best is not having the villain as a up front combat foe. So he simply won't fight the PCs.

5. They can be ''powerful'' and not be a murderhobo. The ''power'' can just be hard to kill. A lich or a person using the spell magic jar is a perfect example...the Pc's can ''kill them'', but not ''for real''.

It is really not anymore ''railroading'' then anything at all that happens in the game. The whole game is a railroad...you can deny it, but you can't avoid it.

[Barbarian Horde]

I usually use villian with his minions approach. Example a paladin always followed by his knights. Don't just introduce the bbeg without giving a proper setting.

[Honest Tiefling]

Make it so that if the players do this, they have done it because they felt like running over there and poking the BBEG, not that the BBEG showed up to flaunt his evilness in their faces. For instance, there's a fire, after the party hears rumors of a powerful and mysterious diabolist burning things and leaving arcane traps behind. Well, whose fault is it that you are now face to face with the BBEG and his army of devils!?

Seed in enough rumors about the BBEG, and it is the groups choice to go running after a threat that clearly outclasses them or not. You should make sure you and the party are on the same page with game expectations, else they'll think they're MEANT to go fight he BBEG and win it.

[Eldariel]

Well, the standard fare is having the players travel with some stronger NPC, have BBEG assail the party for Insert Plot Device Here, NPC recognizes they have no chance and engages in delay tactics giving the PCs the chance to escape (or alternatively try to fight in spite of the NPC's pleading and probably get obliterated together). Should the PCs escape, they know the NPC was obliterated, though of course they can try something to save said NPC instead (a good chance they all die but if they're creative perhaps they can pull it off). Perhaps the NPC, should he die, has his soul held captive and if the PCs had any sort of personal investment in said NPC, they now have a personal reason to try and find something that would enable them to topple the BBEG all the while staying on the run. This would be e.g. the initial setup of Baldur's Gate I.

Alternatively, yeah, the BBEG can be powerful enough to appear but not care particularly about them. A wyrm-level Dragon for instance. The party might bear witness to its power early on but they don't even register on its radar; it doesn't eat them because they ran faster than somebody else, or it doesn't bother to kill them because they aren't worth its time any more than killing every ant near its path is worth a human's. Few things are more brutal and drive the point home better than indifference, after all. Though of course, some PC may feel so slighted they want to give it a go anyways and end up charred as a result. That's their own prerogative.


Of course, the BBEG can also be sympathetic and not actually willing to kill the party but if they still come to blows, fight them off non-lethally and end up whisked away to safety, left there, imprisoned or whatever depending on the BBEG.

Or perhaps the BBEG can't afford to engage the party properly due to the locale or other powers bearing witness, and thus has to hide with only a fraction of his power but anyone actually adjacent using Detect X-effect can tell that his true power is far greater. Thus they can have a fight where the PCs are able to fight the BBEG off due to the limitation but they most likely can't actually kill him. E.g. think Cowled Wizards from Baldur's Gate II; some cities limit the use of magic within them and some organizations are powerful enough that the BBEG can't afford to tick them off even if he individually outclasses their members. It can occur in any locale with ambient powers (most planes, most inhabited locales). Or perhaps it's not possible to kill someone there and thus the players can be utterly defeated but at little risk to them. Even better if the world has such options and the players themselves are the power behind the encounter taking place in such a locale; that means it's all a result of player agency. In general, this can be accomplished by giving the PCs some tools to control the time and place of the initial encounter.

[Calthropstu]

The big bad can't be bothered to deal with the PCs, says hello, leaves behind someone for the PCs to fight that is level appropriate.

He begins casting meteor swarm and is counterspelled by a rival.

The PCs have accidentally awakened the bbeg... a lich. But it has no spells prepared because he has been asleep for 200 years, and needs to find his spell books.

Lots of great ways to do this.

[Barbarian Horde]

Another possibility is to give the PCs clue and hints through the story like a tapestry that depicts an epic battle, and the similarity between bbeg and the man in the tapestry being uncanny. Fortune tellers warn of a great evil. Diviners show you a glimpse of the future or past revealing how powerful the bbeg really is without you PC being able to interact with said illusion. Honestly there are so many ways to go about it.

[Flickerdart]

Imagine yourself, yeah? Imagine that you're walking through a forest. The forest is full of spiders, big spiders, spiders that catch nasty stuff like hornets and straight up eat their faces off. These spiders even eat other spiders, and think they're pretty hot stuff.

You walk into the web of the biggest, toughest spider in the forest. You go "ew gross" and keep walking through the forest, undeterred.

If you want to show a villain to be truly overpowered, have him walk through the PCs' web. His objective is to get some artifact, or go somewhere, or to do something else the PCs don't know about. When the PCs encounter him, they throw all they have at him...and he doesn't even acknowledge they're there. His AC is top-notch, his saves are bulletproof, spell resistance and immunities make a mockery of the party's spells. You bet your butt he has freedom of movement and dimension hop. Maybe he's straight up incorporeal.

And if they bug him enough, he might actually stop and swat at the spider before continuing on.

[Anthrowhale]

Maybe start out with BBEG and the party on the same side? Since they are on the same side, BBEG doesn't fight with them, but they do observe (and deal with) the fallout from BBEGs own engagements.

[Tvtyrant]

The big bad is always looking for new recruits, summons something suitably nasty and teleprots out. If the party wins they get a job interview invite in the mail, if they lose they are dead. Throughout the campaign they keep getting "I'm still interested" notes and increasingly creepy and stalkerish letters. The bad guy is clearly spying on them and becoming obsessed, and when you finally go to fight asks at least one of the party members to marry him.

[Honest Tiefling]

Imagine yourself, yeah? Imagine that you're walking through a forest. The forest is full of spiders, big spiders, spiders that catch nasty stuff like hornets and straight up eat their faces off.

But you make the spiders sound nice. I would totally try to befriend any spider that could deal with Japanese Death Hornets. You are just misunderstood, my eight-legged knights in shining armor.

You could have the BBEG initially appear nice and give them free stuff. PCs love free things almost as much as selling their parents. Or for a twist, a dummy BBEG steals something from the party, while the real one helps them recover it by offering them items. Drop in little hints that the guy is more powerful then they seem until the reveal.

[ekarney]

usually, i don't introduce them as a villain, rather a minor speed hump who doesn't need to be killed

Example: Cleric Johnson
Introduction: Part of a council in a town the PC's were operating from, they knew he was physically powerful, but losing his grip on the people.

Speed hump: Would often cause conflict between the PC's and Councillors they were trying to buddy up with.
Confrontation: Nearly destroyed the town by resurrecting a moon spirit to bring some more followers to his church.
How they dealt with him: The PC's were still underpowered so they enlisted the help of a local mercenary leader who had a grudge against him to help them get past his minions.


Alternatively

Introduce someone as a massive BBEG then have them become an ally instead of confronting them.

[Dravda]

You've already heard not to make it a straight-up deathmatch. Give the PCs an objective to accomplish, so they won't be LOSING the encounter: even if they get their butts whooped, they'll still be able to count it as a "win" by escaping (like they were supposed to).

Example I ran in my Star Wars game: BBEG (Darth Vytha) shows up when her troops are attacking a space station. The PCs have one of the last viable space transports and are trying to refuel it so they can flee. Vytha takes some troops to personally wipe out this annoying knot of resistance. Darth Vytha is at (PC level +3) and scales with the party. She will always be a severe threat, but beatable if the PCs work together to bring her down. The only reason she SEEMS invincible in this fight is because she brings a bunch of troops with her, so the PCs are dispersing their fire rather than wolfpacking her. While her CR never changes (relative to the party), I adjust the EL of her encounter to suit the needs of the adventure.

When the party finally confronts her later in the game, it will be with far fewer mooks, so the EL is appropriately winnable (albeit challenging).