Adventuring Parties Good vs. Evil

[Vox Silentii]

So im running an evil campaign and i want to have this other adventuring party thats currently hunting the main group and doing quests and things that hinder the main group.
Then maybe 3-4 times in the campaign they will bump into one another and fight.
The thing is that i read somewhere that "pvp" combat in 5e was not good so my original plan of making just 5 new characters and making them the same lvl as my party was thrown into "the mind drawer".

So what would you suggest i do?

Make them characters but have them 1-2 levels behind?
Re-skin npc's in MM?

[hymer]

Re-skin npc's in MM?
Definitely this. Running four full PCs' worth of NPCs would be more than I would care to deal with. And you can use the CR calculation to raise the competence of the NPCs between encounters.
It may also be worth taking into consideration that there is a lot of rock-paper-scissors in PC vs PC combat. A party two levels behind the bad guy party might still take them down if they were built specifically to take advantage of weaknesses and negate strengths.

[Vox Silentii]

Definitely this. Running four full PCs' worth of NPCs would be more than I would care to deal with. And you can use the CR calculation to raise the competence of the NPCs between encounters.
It may also be worth taking into consideration that there is a lot of rock-paper-scissors in PC vs PC combat. A party two levels behind the bad guy party might still take them down if they were built specifically to take advantage of weaknesses and negate strengths.

My ideas where
Paladin
Ranger
Wizard
Cleric
Barb or Druid

What would you use for this?
I want to make the fight tough, but manageable. I want them as "recurring villains" in my campaign

[sophontteks]

If you want then to survive multiple visits with the party I would make then start out stronger then the party. Write an out as a precaution or what have you, but allow the party to get stronger and overcome the threat later on. If you start them as weaker versions of the party, they are just gonna die and won't be perceived as a big threat.

[Tanarii]

There's a problem with this plan: you're assuming the NPCs and the PCs will both survive the first encounter.

Never make that assumption. Players are very good at killing things. Especially BBEGs, or in this case BBGGs, you plan to be recurring enemies.



I'm assuming you've already carefully thought through how to handle things when the party tries to tear themself apart, burn down the world around themselves, or tries to conquer the world by force a bit too early? Because one or those is how evil campaigns almost always seem to end up. Of course, that could just be because those are the ones people post rants about on forums. :smallwink:

On that note, it just occurred to me a evil campaign might work if the players are all evil minions doing assigned tasks for the BBEG through the low levels. You'd have to come up with a character replacement scheme for when they off each other, botch a job, or good guys who are more powerful than them show up.

[Unoriginal]

My ideas where
Paladin
Ranger
Wizard
Cleric
Barb or Druid

What would you use for this?
I want to make the fight tough, but manageable. I want them as "recurring villains" in my campaign

What levels are your PCs?

Also, they're likely to die if they're "tough, but manageable". Unless if they flee or if the party is interrupted.

Adventurers are supposed to be able to handle tough but manageable fights at least three times a day.

[Vox Silentii]

There's a problem with this plan: you're assuming the NPCs and the PCs will both survive the first encounter.

Never make that assumption. Players are very good at killing things. Especially BBEGs, or in this case BBGGs, you plan to be recurring enemies.



I'm assuming you've already carefully thought through how to handle things when the party tries to tear themself apart, burn down the world around themselves, or tries to conquer the world by force a bit too early? Because one or those is how evil campaigns almost always seem to end up. Of course, that could just be because those are the ones people post rants about on forums. :smallwink:

On that note, it just occurred to me a evil campaign might work if the players are all evil minions doing assigned tasks for the BBEG through the low levels. You'd have to come up with a character replacement scheme for when they off each other, botch a job, or good guys who are more powerful than them show up.
Yeah their purpose is working for an even bigger and badder thing than they will ever be, they are the champions of that being. Come to basicly wreck the world.
I can always make a "deus ex machina" moment if need be. Neither of the parties will be killed in the end, they both have higher powers that look over them. (Mostly the good ones, they have some sort of gimmick to save them if need be.


What levels are your PCs?

Also, they're likely to die if they're "tough, but manageable". Unless if they flee or if the party is interrupted.

Adventurers are supposed to be able to handle tough but manageable fights at least three times a day.
My pc's are 5 at the moment and thinking about introducing the others at this level. And then again maybe ever 3-5 lvls depending on the plot

[sophontteks]

Well from my experience from OOTA, don't be afraid to send powerful things vs. the players so long as the difference in power can be apparent and the party can do something about it.

If the NPCs are weaker and simply leave through an act of god, the PCs aren't going to care. The NPCs will be annoying at best.

If the NPCs are stronger and the PC's need to escape or avoid the fight somehow, they'll care. It'll be very satisfying when they overcome this later on.

More importantly, don't be afraid to let the chips fall as they do. The PCs should be able to kill these NPCs and vice versa, otherwise it'll feel like you are forcing the narrative a bit too strongly. If the PCs lose, they can be captured and must escape, but there is still a chance that one could die, or that they even win. If they do win don't just have the NPCs vanish in a flash without a means for the players to circumvent it.

[Sception]

Putting equal enemies up against the party should, in theory, result in a 50% tpk risk, which is way higher than you should be aiming for in anything shy of end game climax encounters. Throwing anything weaker than that, and the enemy group probably wont live to bother the pcs again. It's a difficult balance, to be sure.

Environmental and motivational queues matter a lot here. Both sides need easy escape options, and reasons to flee when things *start* going bad instead of fighting through.

[Vox Silentii]

Well from my experience from OOTA, don't be afraid to send powerful things vs. the players so long as the difference in power can be apparent and the party can do something about it.

If the NPCs are weaker and simply leave through an act of god, the PCs aren't going to care. The NPCs will be annoying at best.

If the NPCs are stronger and the PC's need to escape or avoid the fight somehow, they'll care. It'll be very satisfying when they overcome this later on.

More importantly, don't be afraid to let the chips fall as they do. The PCs should be able to kill these NPCs and vice versa, otherwise it'll feel like you are forcing the narrative a bit too strongly. If the PCs lose, they can be captured and must escape, but there is still a chance that one could die, or that they even win. If they do win don't just have the NPCs vanish in a flash without a means for the players to circumvent it.


Putting equal enemies up against the party should, in theory, result in a 50% tpk risk, which is way higher than you should be aiming for in anything shy of end game climax encounters. Throwing anything weaker than that, and the enemy group probably wont live to bother the pcs again. It's a difficult balance, to be sure.

Environmental and motivational queues matter a lot here. Both sides need easy escape options, and reasons to flee when things *start* going bad instead of fighting through.

I dont mind killing my players if need be, they are evil, so they should in some manner expect to die. But i like the idea of the other group being stronger than they are. So will will need to flee if they don't want to die or be captured

[Cespenar]

The NPCs being human (and good), you should also consider giving the fight a chance to resolve into something other than a TPK on one side. Things like:

-A temporary truce offer, if the fight is going too equal and both sides give some casualties.

-A chance to surrender, if they are winning soundly.

-A chance to take the PCs alive, if they win.

-An offer of surrender, if they are losing and can't run away.

-The retreat of some NPCs or the whole group.

-Letting the PCs run away, depending on the NPCs' situation and mood.

[ImproperJustice]

Another possibility is to have the players feel the effects of the NPC party without facing them directly.

Example: Players next mission is a wild goose chase or trap, because enemy NPCs were diaguised as quest givers.

Or PCs return to hand in reward only to find quest giver dead as a result of NPC actions.

Build it up until the PCs have a chance to finally “catch them out in the open”, and have a satisfying throw down.

[Sception]

I dont mind killing my players if need be, they are evil, so they should in some manner expect to die. But i like the idea of the other group being stronger than they are. So will will need to flee if they don't want to die or be captured

Killing party members is fine. Killing the party is campaign ending. Every actually equal fatal combat encounter has a 50% chance of ending your campaign outright. If the PCs meet this group three times, that's down to only a 12.5% chance of the campaign still going after the third encounter.

Must flee encounters tend to go poorly. Players generally take such encounters as 'a challenge'. Even beyond that though, by the time an encounter is clearly too much for the players to fight through, one or two party members will already be down on the ground and those still up may not be able to escape without abandoning other party members, which further discourages fleeing.

The advice to have a non-fatal resolution if the party refuses to leave is good in this case, especially in the first couple encounters.

Even if the party does learn to run, then you get the problem where that's the lesson learned, and you may not ever be able to rely on them standing and fighting in tough encounters in the future. Be careful to make sure there's some sort of clear queues the players can pick up on to differentiate a 'hard' fight that's supposed to be a combat challenge from a 'too hard' fight that they're supposed to flee from. The difficulty of the encounter alone isn't really a sufficient queue, since by the time you can tell the difference in that case escape frequently isn't even an option.

This is extra tricky in the case of an 'anti-party'. A party of low level characters will likely know they're supposed to run and hide from a giant dragon, but an anti-party is just some dudes, same as most any regular encounter.


I'm not saying these are reasons not to use an anti-party or must-flee encounters or both together. Just that these are the tricky bits to be sure you have a handle on.