Creating a party nemesis

[bovinelightfoot]

I have a party of 5 a warlock, a fighter, a ranger, a druid and an artificer. So little backstory they dont know fighter is unnaturally drawn to protect artifcer he is a merc that did the line survivor and it was his fault. Well heres the spin. He actually died and was reconstructed by the artificers master who made a deal with The Fiend to be able to reconstruct dead people and make them look real.
Heres what i want, i want to create a nemesis who used to be in my fighters merc band and has been recreated by this guy. Want him to be a pali wuth a small dip in warlock or maybe an eldritch knight who can heal... so how do i create him. Party will be lvl 4 when they first meet. And i want him to be challenging not deadly yet. Later on The fiend and lolith (drow spider goddess) will combine powers to try and take over the world. So i may add another to fight along side sir darven baneshammer is what i named him

[bovinelightfoot]

Oh also any combo of classes works so long as he can wear heavy armor and look like a bad ass deathknight with a giant hammer. So cleric fighter pali and be able to cast eldritch blast. So i guess his pact with the Fiend can do that

[RazorChain]

Nemises' evolve.

Trying to script a nemesis is hard as the player must make someone his PC nemesis and by that you must evoke hate. The player must love to hate that NPC.


One PC in my group has a nemesis. But the player made the nemesis himself and included him in his characters background. The nemesis has thwarted the groups plans twice now and the player has started to really hate him, direct showdown will follow later.

[S.H.I.N]

Nemises' evolve.

Trying to script a nemesis is hard as the player must make someone his PC nemesis and by that you must evoke hate. The player must love to hate that NPC.


One PC in my group has a nemesis. But the player made the nemesis himself and included him in his characters background. The nemesis has thwarted the groups plans twice now and the player has started to really hate him, direct showdown will follow later.

This. The important part is that it has to feel genuine.

In my current campaign i have two kind of nemesis: one was put into one the backgrounds, and it's that player personal nemesis (it's actually more than one guy, but you cantch my drift) like RazorChain's one. The other is a villain now unanimously hated by the whole party, one that I initially haven't given much more attention than i give to other bad guys. However, for some reason, the players were really into hating this guy, so i developed him further and made him the one and only BBEG of the campaign, and the players loved it.

[Geddy2112]

Instead of a solo nemesis, why not do an entire rival party?

A solo nemesis could be ganged up on by the party and easily beaten, so they at least need mooks. I would figure make a rival party with a rival class and opponent for each player.

[LibraryOgre]

This is likely quite edition dependent, but...

As mentioned, nemeses evolve, and a lone character gets slaughtered by the action economy. So, I would lean towards powers that let him have allies... summoning aspects of himself, perhaps, or pieces that went into his creation.

[Lvl 2 Expert]

Instead of a solo nemesis, why not do an entire rival party?

A solo nemesis could be ganged up on by the party and easily beaten, so they at least need mooks. I would figure make a rival party with a rival class and opponent for each player.

Unless it's about 4 levels higher than them. Because that would give a party of 4 or 5 PC's the same encounter difficulty as him.

Dangerously high chance of PC deaths though.

[Thinker]

Be prepared to allow this nemesis to die. If there are stats and there's a direct conflict, either your players will lose (and die, thus ending the game) or your nemesis will (which will make the players happy). My advice is to have a lot of indirect conflicts - the party saved a group of lost bugbears a week ago? Well, now they've been slaughtered. The party is hired to reclaim the Wand of Awakening from the Tomb of the Sarleth? Someone got there first and has used the wand to sow terror on the countryside. A good nemesis should practically be a story unto himself - his actions shape the events of the PCs' world. Then, you get one fight where the PCs put him in the ground. Much later, he resurfaces, gets up to his old antics, and the PCs put him in the ground again for good. And that's the end of the nemesis so you can move on to new plots.

[AceOfFools]

The key to a good nemesis is to make the party interact with them repeatedly. They can't walk into the game and face the PCS in a fight to the death. Either they kill the party, die, or hurt the suspension of disbelief by contrivence sparing one party.

The most effective nemesis are ones who probject threat and cause failure without presenting a target that can be killed. They don't attack the PCS directly, but steal credit (and rewards) for their accomplishments, disrupt the PCS long term projects using intermediaries and minions, weaken the PCs' base of support by attacking, intimidating or bribing their weaker allies, ransack their bases while they are elsewhere, mock them via means or locations where attack us impossible or unwise.

You can have direct conflicts that are short delaying actions, interrupted fights, or tangential engagements (e.g tradding a few pot-shots as their dragon mount passes by).

All this assumes that neither party has an easy way to cheat death, as that greatly complicates the calculus...

[FreddyNoNose]

Instead of a solo nemesis, why not do an entire rival party?

A solo nemesis could be ganged up on by the party and easily beaten, so they at least need mooks. I would figure make a rival party with a rival class and opponent for each player.

I agree with this. Plus some of those NPCs can get killed by our heroes and cause the enemy to be more revenge oriented.

As to just the idea of nemesis: I think it is often overused and poorly executed. The escaped from the party at the last minute is especially cliched and kind of low level GMing. It is ok for the party to capture/kill the nemesis despite your plans as a GM.

Edit: To add to this. I often have enemy groups in dungeons for the players to face. It doesn't have to go to the level of nemesis but it can be fun! Plus a nice source of magic items for players.

[bovinelightfoot]

Instead of a solo nemesis, why not do an entire rival party?

A solo nemesis could be ganged up on by the party and easily beaten, so they at least need mooks. I would figure make a rival party with a rival class and opponent for each player.

I am doing this. They just beat cragmaw castle in the starter set. All fairly new to 5e some new to dnd all together. So their first encounter is actually someone I talked with my lock about making because he was need a rival. But I'm making it more intricate binding him with my artificer and fighter. As the story goes i am planning on giving him evil allies who want to see the same outcome of lilath and the fiend coming to the liv8ng plain and taking over. The end game will be the party ending the ritual or having to fight basically 2 gods

[bovinelightfoot]

Thanks all for the help. I have it plotted out in my head and a little on paper. Looking forward to how this works out.