Constructing Stats for the Big Bad Evil Minions/Guy

[CollectorOfMyst]

Hiya; so I've got a bit of a issue, as you can probably tell. I'm attempting to run a homebrew campaign, which, as a novice DM, was a lot more taxing than I thought it would be. I started running it sometime in August, I believe, but put it on hiatus before October, though I don't remember the exact dates. The main reason I did this is because I was having trouble with defining the goal and the villain. The goals, I now have. It's now the villains I'm having trouble with.

There are five 'major' enemies that I currently have planned - the Duke of House Delmegan, and his four sons from different wives. The Duke is endgame; he won't be directly confronting the players unless he has no other choice. The four sons are each supposed to faintly 'mirror' the PCs - a fighter, a rogue, a sorcerer and a bard (except the sorcerer player is mirrored by a wizard). For reasons I don't think I need to explain here, both the players and the villains are after a treasure that has been all but lost - and it's a race to solve the clues leading to it.

Now, my players have all agreed on one thing - their characters won't kill people. I can safely assume that, unless stated otherwise, whenever they drop a humanoid (or other intelligent being) down to 0 Hit Points, they have done so non-lethally. This does allow for these characters to become recurring villains, should they still be running around and not locked up somewhere. Subsequently, these sons of the Duke may be getting stronger as they continue, especially if the players run into them again.

Except that I don't know how to go about this. The most obvious solution would be to build them as though they were PCs - subclasses and all; and I do want them to have some of the abilities of their respective 'classes', but this doesn't make them viable mini-bosses, especially given HP gains for player characters are much lower than those of monsters. The party will meet the 'rogue' first, Fabian, a (feral) tiefling that will have the 'Athlete' feat. My first draft of him, following that format, is this;


Fabian Hellstrun
Medium Humanoid (tiefling), Chaotic Neutral
AC: 15 (studded leather)
Hit Points: 72
Speed: 30ft, climb 30ft.
CR: ???

STR 10, DEX 17, CON 14, INT 9, WIS 12, CHA 14

Resistances: Fire
Saving Throws: Dexterity +5, Intelligence +1
Skills: Athletics+4, Deception +4, Insight +3, Perception +3, Sleight of Hand+5, Stealth +7
Senses: darkvision 60ft, passive Perception 13

Traits

Infernal Legacy: Fabian knows the Thaumaturgy cantrip. He can also can cast the Hellish Rebuke spell as a 2nd-level spell, and the Darkness spell, once each with this trait and regains the ability to do so when he finishes a long rest. Charisma is his spellcasting ability for these spells.

Cunning Action: Fabian can use his Bonus Action to take the Dash, Disengage, or Hide action.

Ear for Deceit: If Fabian makes a Wisdom (Insight) check to determine whether a creature is lying, treat a roll of 7 or lower on the d20 as an 8.

Eye for Detail: Fabian can use a bonus action to make a Wisdom (Perception) check to spot a hidden creature or object or to make an Intelligence (Investigation) check to uncover or decipher clues.

Insightful Fighting: As a bonus action, Fabian can make a Wisdom (Insight) check against a creature he can see that isn't incapacitated, contested by the target's Charisma (Deception) check. If he succeeds, he can use his Sneak Attack against that target even if he doesn't have advantage on the attack roll, but not if he has disadvantage on it.

This benefit ends when 1 minute has passed, Fabian is incapacitated, or he successfully uses this feature against a different target.

Sneak Attack: Once per turn, Fabian can deal an extra 2d6 damage to one creature he hits with an attack if he has advantage on the attack roll, or he has used his Insightful Fighting trait against the target.

You don't need advantage on the attack roll if another enemy of the target is within 5 feet of it, that enemy isn't incapacitated, and you don't have disadvantage on the attack roll.

Actions
Multiattack.Fabian makes two melee attacks, one with his shortsword and one with his dagger.

Shortsword. Melee attack, +5 to hit. On hit, deals 1d6+3/piercing.
Dagger. Melee attack, or ranged attack (20/60), +5 to hit. On hit, deals 1d4+3/piercing.
Shortbow. Ranged attack (80/320), +5 to hit. On hit, deals 1d6+3/piercing.

Now, currently the party is level 2 - but this feels both like a lot and not enough. I have no idea if this current iteration of Fabian will actually prove to be too powerful, not powerful enough, or if I'm going down the entirely wrong path. His Hit Points are double that of a level 3 rogue, but with an additional 2 hit points per level. Would this even begin to be a conceivable path to follow, and what else could I do instead?

[CTurbo]

I like to build actual characters to use as NPCs and villains instead of using defaults out of the monster manual. But I can slap together characters really quick and easy. I even give them feats sometimes.

For starters, the villains need to be a few levels higher than the PCs at all times. I would level them up each time the PCs level up. Always keep some minions around if the party is going to face only 1 or 2 of them. Always have an escape plan. You're not going to be able to let them fight until somebody has won all the time. Sometimes the villains need to run, and sometimes the players need to know when to run. I will flat out tell my players at the beginning of a campaign that fighting is not always going to be the answer and that you are not going to be to defeat everything you come across. Period.


Another thing you COULD do is build the character, and just don't bother giving him hit points. He has how ever many hit points you need him to have for the story. If you want him to lose, he goes down on the next big hit. If you want him to win, he just fights on until he wins. This always works unless the PCs do something crazy like the Assassin pulls off a huge 1st round shot, then the Paladin blows his smite wad on a nova, then the Tempest Cleric maximizes an upcasted Call Lightning spell all before the guy even gets a turn. lol

[Beleriphon]

Don't build the badguys like a regular PC. They are way, way over powered because monsters are only expected to last one combat, while PC classes are designed for multiple combats in a row. The DMG has suggestions for how to apply PC like abilities to NPCs, I'd suggest using those and applying them to either customer built "monsters" or upscaled NPC statblocks.

[Gastronomie]

This might seem irrelevant to the topic directly, but if anything you should focus not on a single boss, but on the minions to give to that boss. Any boss will, no matter how much energy you put into creating it, be beaten up to a pulp if you don't give him appropriate minions.

[CollectorOfMyst]

I like to build actual characters to use as NPCs and villains instead of using defaults out of the monster manual. But I can slap together characters really quick and easy. I even give them feats sometimes.

For starters, the villains need to be a few levels higher than the PCs at all times. I would level them up each time the PCs level up. Always keep some minions around if the party is going to face only 1 or 2 of them. Always have an escape plan. You're not going to be able to let them fight until somebody has won all the time. Sometimes the villains need to run, and sometimes the players need to know when to run. I will flat out tell my players at the beginning of a campaign that fighting is not always going to be the answer and that you are not going to be to defeat everything you come across. Period.


Another thing you COULD do is build the character, and just don't bother giving him hit points. He has how ever many hit points you need him to have for the story. If you want him to lose, he goes down on the next big hit. If you want him to win, he just fights on until he wins. This always works unless the PCs do something crazy like the Assassin pulls off a huge 1st round shot, then the Paladin blows his smite wad on a nova, then the Tempest Cleric maximizes an upcasted Call Lightning spell all before the guy even gets a turn. lol

I'm a bit of a believer of not fudging HP - unless there's a chance of a deadly encounter. As for minions, I'll admit I hadn't put too much thought into it, but it does make sense. And I will make sure that if things 'turn bad', then there's going to be an escape plan ready.


Don't build the badguys like a regular PC. They are way, way over powered because monsters are only expected to last one combat, while PC classes are designed for multiple combats in a row. The DMG has suggestions for how to apply PC like abilities to NPCs, I'd suggest using those and applying them to either customer built "monsters" or upscaled NPC statblocks.

The only reason I say that I'm 'trying to build them like PCs' is because they are meant to feel like they're the fighter, bard, rogue and wizard classes. I know that they're not going to be the classes, or they'll deviate from it at some point, but but for now that's my best guideline. Also, could you give me the number for the DMG page that you mentioned? I'll admit that I don't remember such a page.


This might seem irrelevant to the topic directly, but if anything you should focus not on a single boss, but on the minions to give to that boss. Any boss will, no matter how much energy you put into creating it, be beaten up to a pulp if you don't give him appropriate minions.

As above, I hadn't really considered minions that much - or, rather, I dismissed them because I was envisioning them as being a group that worked only with each other - but if what you're saying is true, then I probably ought to give them some backup.

[Man_Over_Game]

Backup can be ignored, but keep in mind how 5e balance is. Each action has roughly the same value as every other action. That is, your boss's singular action isn't much better than a player's.

And if your boss's team is dishing out 1 action a round, and your players are dishing out 5 actions a round, that means your Boss needs 5x as much effective health and needs to be able to dish out almost 5 actions per turn to keep up.

Providing a crazy ton of actions for him to perform on his turns will mean that he could burst-fire a player to death in a single round without the players being able to prevent it. Additionally, as a single target, he'll be easily susceptible to many kinds of debuffs, so there's some finesse needed to make it all work.

A few suggestions:

Effective health
We need to bump his HP to be at least 5x that of a player's. A few things that can do this:

Resistance to most applicable damage types.
A magical item/drink that increases his fortitude by granting him regular temporary HP, such as Heroism.
Shield-esc deflection abilities.
Different forms. Rather than dealing with 1 boss, you gotta deal with him 3x in a row.

Combine these to give him the effective health you need for a final boss, but make it believable. Why does this Baron have 3x as much HP as the group's Barbarian? Because dark magic. Because of his Mr. Hyde potion. Because of something powerful. Make it temporary, or the players may find a way to abuse it throughout the campaign.

Damage
The core rules have a mechanic to mitigate this called Legendary Actions, which gives a creature as many actions as there are players, which definitely evens the playing field. His attacks should be limited and brutal. Keep them limited to allow players to find ways to mitigate damage, make it brutal so that players recognize how big of a mistake they made and to "incentivize" planning around the boss's abilities.

Debuffs
So the players are going to launch almost every one of their debuffs at this guy, hoping they stick. Magic Resistance (Advantage on saving throws, halved damage against magic damage) and maybe even a Legendary Resistance (auto-save against a certain number of saving throws) or two could really help here.

You could also balance it out by saying that his Magic/Legendary Resistances requires him to lose his next legendary action, which means that players can reduce his overall damage by slinging debuffs at him.


Summary

Most DMs struggle with creating an effective singular boss, but as long as you keep these points in mind as you design him, you'll do great.

As a side note, it's always good to have something in your back pocket if the fight goes too far in either direction. If the boss is too strong, have some kind of explosion or event to temporary distract him or something that saves the players and helps them retreat. If the boss is too weak, he fully gives in to the "dark power" or whatever, or calls in his backup plan to support him in the fight. The goal is to get the players as near death as possible while having them still survive, and sometimes that can't really be done without some fine-tuning.

[Kadesh]

NPC stats are in the appendices o f the MM and VGtM, as well as a few other more racially oriented ones in MToF. What of those do not match and cannot be modified to fit what your goal is?

[CollectorOfMyst]

NPC stats are in the appendices o f the MM and VGtM, as well as a few other more racially oriented ones in MToF. What of those do not match and cannot be modified to fit what your goal is?

I don't have Volo's, for one. As for what the problem behind them is - none. But the CR on the non-spellcasters stops at around CR3, iirc, and that's my main concern.