Evil Twists: Give me your Evil DM Ideas for monsters to subvert player expectations

[MaxWilson]

I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for ways to mess with players in ways that they have to admit afterwards is totally fair game and 100% logical, but subverts their expectations for how things will play out. For example, if you know from rumors that a Beholder is working with some Hobgoblins, you're probably prepared to fight Hobgoblins inside an antimagic zone while a beholder floats slowly along behind them providing cover and zapping anyone who leaves the zone. You're probably NOT prepared to fight Hobgoblins within an antimagic zone while a Longstridered, Hasted Beholder Dashes 120' through the air over your heads and zaps you thrice before landing between you and the exit, so that now its antimagic zone is covering both you and the hobgoblins but anyone who forces their way past the Beholder via Overrun/Evade/etc. can be freely zapped. And yet, it's totally something a Beholder and a Devastator would come up with together.

Another example could be a red dragon using Disguise Self to look green from afar, to draw the wrong kind of countermeasures and make the PCs spend their concentration / spells / actions unwisely. Or even to look silver and thereby gain surprise.

Give me your Evil Pants! Er, Plans! (Phone typo but I'm leaving it.)

[Jon talks a lot]

During one session only, role a die every 20 minutes or so. Look at it, laugh or sigh, then say, "sorry, what's your passive perception?" Once they answer, slowly say "ok" as if thinking about something

[quindraco]

An enchantment that inflicts a will save and literally doesn't do anything, so no matter what the players roll, you don't say anything. As a great example of where to put this, the foyer of an enchanter's tower, ideally ornate af and full of things that could be trapped. The whole place registers with detect magic as enchantment, since there's an enchantment spell on it.

Some people are veteran enough roleplayers that this won't do anything, as reacting to a failed save is metagaming, but many a person I've played with would freak out and obsessively investigate everything in the room. Of course, it has no traps in it.

Double-plus bonus points for putting an honest-to-goodness, perfectly mundane, utterly nonmagical trap in the fifth statue down the ensuing hallway.

You can do the same thing with an illusion and an intelligence save, mind you.

[Unoriginal]

I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for ways to mess with players in ways that they have to admit afterwards is totally fair game and 100% logical, but subverts their expectations for how things will play out. For example, if you know from rumors that a Beholder is working with some Hobgoblins, you're probably prepared to fight Hobgoblins inside an antimagic zone while a beholder floats slowly along behind them providing cover and zapping anyone who leaves the zone. You're probably NOT prepared to fight Hobgoblins within an antimagic zone while a Longstridered, Hasted Beholder Dashes 120' through the air over your heads and zaps you thrice before landing between you and the exit, so that now its antimagic zone is covering both you and the hobgoblins but anyone who forces their way past the Beholder via Overrun/Evade/etc. can be freely zapped. And yet, it's totally something a Beholder and a Devastator would come up with together.

Another example could be a red dragon using Disguise Self to look green from afar, to draw the wrong kind of countermeasures and make the PCs spend their concentration / spells / actions unwisely. Or even to look silver and thereby gain surprise.

Give me your Evil Pants! Er, Plans! (Phone typo but I'm leaving it.)

- On top of being able to affect reality within a certain perimeter of their Laid, a Beholder can dream things into existence. In theory, using the Dream spell on a captured Beholder could let the caster spawn oniric creature and modify the landscape.

- Most of a Monk's powers are not affected by antimagic, which gives them an edge if fought with a Beholder on their side.

- Having Insivible Stalker or Skulk assistants can let a trickster pretend to have powerful telekinetic powers, or to pretend they're attacking a certain way while their invisible allies actually deliver the blows (ex: to cheat in a duel and acquire a reputation as a super-fast swordmaster)

- A Boggle can use its Dimensional Rift to drop heavy or dangerous items on top of the PCs

- Any Dragon whose breath isn't fire, acid or poison can team up with a Venom Troll or several, for big results. The Dragon can use their Breath on the Venom Troll when the troll is in contact (or even grappling) with the enemy, and force said to take poison damage (which means most PCs won't be prepared against it when they thought they would fight, for example, a white dragon).

- A Bodak's power become much stronger if placed in a House of Mirror, or any room where the walls are covered in reflective surface. Same is true for most monsters who have effects based on the PCs looking at them

- Barghests can cast Pass Without a Trace, and can hypothetically be used as mounts. Meaning you could have a very stealthy mounted Blackguard show up, for example.

- Antagonists who don't have blood can keep Stirges in cages and break the cages when the situation call for it. The Stirges will go for the PCs and hinder them, while the antagonists can harass them and keep them too busy to remove the blood-sucker (or make them spend an action removing it, at least).


An enchantment that inflicts a will save and literally doesn't do anything, so no matter what the players roll, you don't say anything. As a great example of where to put this, the foyer of an enchanter's tower, ideally ornate af and full of things that could be trapped. The whole place registers with detect magic as enchantment, since there's an enchantment spell on it.

Some people are veteran enough roleplayers that this won't do anything, as reacting to a failed save is metagaming, but many a person I've played with would freak out and obsessively investigate everything in the room. Of course, it has no traps in it.

Double-plus bonus points for putting an honest-to-goodness, perfectly mundane, utterly nonmagical trap in the fifth statue down the ensuing hallway.

You can do the same thing with an illusion and an intelligence save, mind you.

What if the actual purpose of this effect was to make the "uninvited visitors" be registered by the tower's Detect Magic-based security system?

[Christopher K.]

My players recently got thrown for a loop by a lower CR enemy that just made liberal use of cover. While that "boss" was ducking behind ruin walls, the party got swarmed with will-o'-wisps that took the help action before the first foe hopped out and started picking them off with a crossbow and what was effectively sneak attack damage. It wasn't a major change, but it really pushed them to rethink their approach when the melee fighters weren't able to just go smush Target #1.

[MrStabby]

I'm trying to brainstorm ideas for ways to mess with players in ways that they have to admit afterwards is totally fair game and 100% logical, but subverts their expectations for how things will play out. For example, if you know from rumors that a Beholder is working with some Hobgoblins, you're probably prepared to fight Hobgoblins inside an antimagic zone while a beholder floats slowly along behind them providing cover and zapping anyone who leaves the zone. You're probably NOT prepared to fight Hobgoblins within an antimagic zone while a Longstridered, Hasted Beholder Dashes 120' through the air over your heads and zaps you thrice before landing between you and the exit, so that now its antimagic zone is covering both you and the hobgoblins but anyone who forces their way past the Beholder via Overrun/Evade/etc. can be freely zapped. And yet, it's totally something a Beholder and a Devastator would come up with together.

Another example could be a red dragon using Disguise Self to look green from afar, to draw the wrong kind of countermeasures and make the PCs spend their concentration / spells / actions unwisely. Or even to look silver and thereby gain surprise.

Give me your Evil Pants! Er, Plans! (Phone typo but I'm leaving it.)

Why use hobgoblins when you can use werewolves/wererats etc.? Antimagic field plus enemies immune to non-magic weapons is bad times.

[Dork_Forge]

One of my groups is currently up against a vampire arc boss, you might expect a vampire to come to the party one by one in Strahd fashion, mine took a different tactic:

A charmed peasant was sent to within range of their camp, armed with potions and scrolls to get close and channel the Vampires influence through an amulet. Each character apart from the Paladin (who had just switched to Oath of the Watchers the session before, so seemed appropriate to leave out) received a dream with people they have met and know offering them power to take down the vamp. Each dream had something a little off, but they all accepted the power.

And now 3/4 of them have Orochimaru style curse marks, that can offer them minor abilities and periodically offer Wis saves to affect their mood. The Paladin does already have a cursed war horn that's caused tensions, and with the Ranger and Fighter failing their Wis saves so far...

Well long story short the party only vaguely know what's happening and I've turned them all against each other, just before they hit a city full of political intrigue.


My other group just went to meet a city's court mage to discuss military plans, excpet they had to go to a seedy bar and the Barbarian proceeded to lose a somewhat bareknuckle brawl to him. No one expects a court Wizard to be a buff Dwarf that cage fights for his vacations.

[Unoriginal]

yet, it's totally something a Beholder and a Devastator would come up with together.


Now that I re-read it:

Not sure about this in particular. A Beholder would certainly think of it, but Devastators are specifically trained as Evocation-using damage-dealing beatsticks. So maybe having it be a plot point that the bad guys have been acquiring magic books and the like one way or another to help the Devastator grow in versatility would be good?


Why use hobgoblins when you can use werewolves/wererats etc.? Antimagic field plus enemies immune to non-magic weapons is bad times.

Quite true. Although it's in those cases a DM should be prepared to do rulings about strangulation. And even you rule strangulation out there's still mundane fire.

[Segev]

A hag coven with pet cockatrices. They like to polymorph high-constitution types with probably weak Wisdom into frogs, then let their pets pack them to inflict petrification while their Con scores are artificially low.

The ruined temple they dwell in has many statues and carvings of frogs. This is far less suspicious than a hall of statues of people.

[RogueJK]

- A Bodak's power become much stronger if placed in a House of Mirror, or any room where the walls are covered in reflective surface. Same is true for most monsters who have effects based on the PCs looking at them


Even better, put a Bodak at the center of a 30' radius circular labyrinth that's lined with mirrors on every surface. The PCs then have to spend several turns navigating the House of Mirrors labyrinth, all while taking damage (no save) from the Bodak's Aura of Annihilation from being within 30 feet of it (no requirement for them to actually see it). Then once they stumble their way to the center, somewhat damaged already, they then have to contend with the Bodak itself at the heart of the labyrinth with its various Gazes being reflected along the mirror-lined surfaces.

[GentlemanVoodoo]

Most evil idea I came up with was in a campaign based in ancient middle eastern tales like Aladdin, Sinbad, etc. Short of it was a cabal of wizards were trying to take over the kingdom by disposing of the Sultan and his family.

The key weapon in all of this was a magic lamp that had the most powerful genie bound to it. But prior it was established in the world's lore genies only granted 3 wishes when bound to an item and they do not reveal what wishes have been granted by prior masters. The main wizards and their cohorts managed to steal the lamp and made one wish of which my players were not able to figure out after having several clues dropped. As the party was chasing down the thieves which were the cohorts, the wizards made a brazen movie to kidnap the Sultan and the royal family. Prior to this the cohorts were able to pull off one wish in that the royal family was to look and act exactly like them for a period of 24 hours. Essentially being effected by the True Polymorph spell while under powerful mind control.

The royal family in their new forms were freed but given the order to go steal the lamp again. Since they were to act as the cabal's minions they did just that and were captured in the process. The false minions were made the most terrible of people causing a public trial to be held and them being sent to the gallows. By the time they were hanged and confirmed dead the 24 hour period had passed revealing the sultan, his wife and two children. As the players were key speakers in the trial to sway the judge's verdict they were made public enemy number one.

The reaction was as I expected as all were upset they got outsmarted and the villains were not the usual cartoon bad guys they were used to playing against.

[Thunderous Mojo]

-
- Barghests can cast Pass Without a Trace, and can hypothetically be used as mounts. Meaning you could have a very stealthy mounted Blackguard show up, for example.
Barghests can also be excellent at abduction since Barghests have access to both the Suggestion spell and the Dimension Door spell.

A successful Suggestion spell with the prompt of "You will ride on my back, peaceably, taking no actions, and making no sounds, until I tell you to dismount" can suffice.. Follow this with a 500' Dimension Door spell and you have the start of a frantic Chase Sequence.

I've used this against a PC that had a big target on their back due to possession of an Artifact. In actual play, I left a loophole in the wording of Suggestion, so the abducted Arcane Trickster PC could use Firebolt or other actions to leave a more visible trail....(being abducted sucks enough, being able to do nothing about it would send many players 'over the edge').

A Lich could theoretically use the Clone spell to make a younger, non-decayed body, to inhabit and be a "Juicy Liche", and thus conceal their undead nature.

I've had a Lich NPC, Magic Jar a PC and then proceed to to "Liche Ride" the PC's body through a day of debauched revelry, just before embarking on an important venture.

The PC awoke with missing time, hungover and still inebriated, (the poisoned condition), and had to piece together what transgressions the Lich had committed in their body. Waking up to excessive bar tabs and broken alliances and friendships after 'Missing Time' is a trope for a reason. 😉

The whole exercise was meant to inconvenience the group, and act as a warning to stop interfering in the Lich's plans.

[MaxWilson]

I've had a Lich NPC, Magic Jar a PC and then proceed to to "Liche Ride" the PC's body through a day of debauched revelry, just before embarking on an important venture.

The PC awoke with missing time, hungover and still inebriated, (the poisoned condition), and had to piece together what transgressions the Lich had committed in their body. Waking up to excessive bar tabs and broken alliances and friendships after 'Missing Time' is a trope for a reason. 😉

The whole exercise was meant to inconvenience the group, and act as a warning to stop interfering in the Lich's plans.

Out of curiosity, are you familiar with the book Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny?

[Thunderous Mojo]

Out of curiosity, are you familiar with the book Lord of Light, by Roger Zelazny?
I am familiar with it. I reread it several months ago, actually.

I had mentioned Lord Kama, as depicted in the Upanishads, several months back in another thread, and you quoted several passages from Lord of Light...which encouraged me to re-read it. I had forgotten how much I loved Zelazny's prose.

Are you thinking of Taraka?

[MaxWilson]

I am familiar with it. I reread it several months ago, actually.

I had mentioned Lord Kama, as depicted in the Upanishads, several months back in another thread, and you quoted several passages from Lord of Light...which encouraged me to re-read it. I had forgotten how much I loved Zelazny's prose.

Are you thinking of Taraka?

Bingo. Not exactly the same but somehow the debauchery rang a bell.

[Temperjoke]

You know, polymorph in general can be a great way to mess with the PCs. You could have something far scarier hidden in the form of a weaker beast that gets released the moment they "kill" it.

Another idea is pairing up golems with creatures that do area affect damage that boosts them. Like a Black dragon and Clay golems, the acid from their breath attack heals the golems.

[Thunderous Mojo]

I can't say I had Taraka, actively in mind when I developed the NPC, but in retrospect, their was a similar, jocularity in both characters.

As I have experienced numerous times over the years, players often fear NPCs that creatively inconvenience them, more than NPCs that baldly try to murder them.

The same Lich NPC character had a particularly libidinous PC marry an important Civic Figure's daughter while being 'Liche Ridden'.
After that, the group decided to make an uneasy alliance with the NPC Lich.

Hmm....as I write this, the Tanaka/Sam inspiration seems clearer....I must have subconsciously been cribbing from Zelazny.
(I also blatantly steal from him as well) 😀

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

They need to cross a rickety rope bridge on their journey. When they're about half way across one or more Gauths flies out of a hollow in the cliff and starts zapping them. Their push ray is particularly nasty for this setup, especially if the target was stunned by its gaze first.

[Unoriginal]

A nice one:


Kobold Inventors can destroy (or at least create a big hole into) anything non-magic made out of wood or metal, thanks to their pot of Green Slime, with a bit of time.

That includes ships' hulls, reinforced vaults, barrels full of liquid that can become a combat hazard, bridges the PCs are walking on at the time, castle doors during a siege, ...

[Segev]

If a party is dealing too much damage due to action deficit against an incorporeal creature, remember that they can still hide in walls, ceilings, and the ground. While they usually take something like 1d10 force damage for ending their turns there, this can be less than taking the party's attacks.

An illusionist with incorporeal allies can have his figments of incorporeal creatures be even more effective in such a case, possibly screwing up readied actions to hit creatures as they reach out of surfaces.

Remember to count being mostly submerged in solid substance as 3/4 cover, too.

[Unoriginal]

If the Hungry can see a creature regains hit points, it has advantage on its attacks and deal 4d10 additional necrotic damage on its bite. That works even if the creature is an ally, and also if they regains hit points thanks to Regeneration or similar.


The Orc Red Fang of Shargaas make a good team with any creature that can see through magical darkness or create it, including the
Draegloth.

Any creature that has a good Frightened-condition-inflicting ability works well with Howlers.

[A1sock]

My friend started a campaign with friends who were all experienced players, while he was quite new. Our first big combat was against a kraken, and before hand he had made a few comments about not knowing how challenge rating worked. The first few turns a few people were absolutely terrified, until one got hit by a tentacle and took something like 1d6 damage. We then transitioned from do or die combat mode to realizing it was like a puzzle where the main thing was interacting with the ship and its crew to control where the kraken would position itself and attack.

[Imbalance]

The party was sent to investigate reported disturbances at a cemetery. The crypt keeper there told them about overturned headstones, plowed soil, and broken caskets. The area has been plagued by necromancers in the past. They also discovered a rather large hole in one corner, where it looked as if something had clawed its way out from beneath. Strange sounds were heard coming from a mausoleum, and as they stealthily approached, holy water and radiant spells at the ready, the broken tomb door burst open. They watched in horror as a filthy yellow tentacle shot out from the shadows and grabbed one of them, then recoiled to drag him into the depths of the crypt.

Even more subversive? Otyughs have their own telepathic language. The victim received visions of an arrow and a wounded appendage, and actually waved the rest of the party off from the assault. A good perception check saw something protruding from the monster's back leg. They managed to remove it, heal the injury, and lure this thing back into the abandoned sewer that it had been dwelling in and cover the hole (they did not investigate the sewer any further, unfortunately, so the arrow turned out to have a powerful enchantment).

[Keravath]

Unexpected villains or ones who don't fit the archetype and are good at deception.

Example: Jane, the 12 year old female vampire from the Twilight series that inflicts pain.

In the right context, most parties won't suspect the 12 year old "child" when presented with someone more intimidating. This would be a decent back up plan for a villain that uses another creature as their puppet. Perhaps the child is a valued slave of the villain and the party can "rescue" them :)

The villain could be a centuries old mage in a young cloned body.

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Logical and sensible combat tactics. Villains don't go in for last stands. Keep in mind that they are usually selfish at heart and the smarter ones know that it is better to live and fight another day. This is particularly true for villains that might be near immortal either due to race or due to spellcasting abilities.

If things are not going ideally, the villain may bail. However, before that they will use whatever resources they have available to eliminate the problem and the smarter villains will not underestimate the party. This is actually one of the issues with set piece fights in some campaigns. The DM under powers the villain to be a reasonable challenge to the party but the villain would never have chosen to engage with the party knowing the odds were even.

If the party came up with a plan to surprise the villain and the villain was unaware of it then sure but attacking a villain in their lair when the villain is aware of the party and their capabilities should be almost like walking into a death trap OR walking into an empty and abandoned lair since the villain left before they could arrive knowing the odds weren't in their favor.

If the party is strong enough to defeat the villain and their entire organization then the villain isn't much of a challenge and they would either seek more powerful allies, come to some sort of agreement with the party if that was possible, or decide to leave and setup shop far away from the party and plot some sort of revenge from afar.

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As for tactics ... strong holds should be defended. Their should be glyphs with magical traps, regular traps and guards positioned to attack anyone who sets off a trap.

There should be sentries like flame skulls and golems that don't require sleep (depending on the nature of the villain and allies/resources available).

Villains should (almost) never fight by themselves.

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A really evil villain won't care about the world after they die. If they have fiendish allies they could create a bargain that if they die, their body becomes a gate allowing several pit fiends or other worse creatures onto the material plane. This way the killing of the villain actually unleashes a much worse fate which the party CAUSED by killing the bad guy. If the DM gets it right the party has to flee to avoid a TPK from the massive amount of fiendish reinforcements and then has to figure out how to rescue the lands from the fiendish invasion that they caused.

Any plot twist that is truly unexpected but logically consistent with the story can work well.

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[CapnWildefyr]

Ooooh...

1. Vampire with a simulacrum. Fight like heck, open his crypt, stake 'im through the heart, he... melts away...

2. Your beholder and the hobgoblins. Have two nests. The first is just a polymophed gas spore. Or hobgoblin. Maybe they think they've won, it was only hobgoblins, after all.

3. The party finds a village under threat from the undead. Women are being charmed, fed upon in the night by a bloodsucking monster. People going missing. Wolves. Zombies. Werewolves. People living under a curse, afraid to go out at night. The only safe place seems to be a part of town in the middle of the local small river (ie, protected by running water). People find dug up graves. Cattle and sheep disappearing. Ghosts in the night.

The bad guy is a living vampire wanna-be who also is a necromancer. He dresses like dracula, polymorphs self (using a ring or something), into a bat or wolves, has another item that allows gaseous form, has werewolf allies, makes zombies, etc etc. He'd need some minions, maybe giant spiders for flair (any they're bloodsuckers of course), but while he sleeps in real grave dirt in a coffin (with backups), his humble abode is trapped and guarded like any other paranoid, high-level necomancer's place. Maybe has some alliance with other undead? Maybe a mad, twisted love interest with some winsome village girl who hates his guts. Maybe he killed her and she turned into a ghost. Just thinking off the top of my head. Possible he engineers his own death by the party as a tragedy, so he can be cursed and actually COME BACK as a real vampire -- or worse, if he's been evil enough, ends up in "Ravenloft"/Shadowfell... with the players...

[CapnWildefyr]

Unexpected villains or ones who don't fit the archetype and are good at deception.

Example: Jane, the 12 year old female vampire from the Twilight series that inflicts pain.



At my table, we're paranoid. She'd be the first person we stake. :smallbiggrin:

But I agree with your premise. (For example, at my table, put a 9 yr-old who acts weird, looks pale, etc. next to her -- her real little brother. Then he looks innocuous and therefore more guilty to my players. Whatever works at your table.)

[Segev]

An overgrown garden full of twisted plants with what look like eyes growing in them surrounds a fog-shrouded manor with a single tall tower that disappears into the mist. An ominous shadow is vaguely visible above it when the sun is particularly bright and turns the fog a blinding white-gray, or when storms crack lightning high above where the fog becomes cloud-cover.

Inside, the overgrowth continues, and spherical shapes can be seen floating in the dim gray murk. Further exploration reveals glass tubes large enough to set up a tent inside with these spherical shapes contained within. Initial inspection seems to confirm beholders, but more examination and deduction can figure out they're gas spores.

Use plant monsters on the lower levels, combined with traps, and then have goblin, construct, and undead minions as you go up. Everyone refers to "the master" if interrogated or overheard running about their mad experiments.

At the top, it turns out there's a goblin artificer and his well-armed bugbear bodyguard, and a gigantic blimp hovering over the tower. The artificer is trying to attach the last weapons to it so he can "show them all!" his genius.

The blimp floats using hoards of gas spores or their extracted gas, and rupturing it is a massive AoE of gas spore exposure. Make it as plot-scale as you like to cause the PCs to have reason to be concerned for things they care about, like local villages or kingdoms.

[Corran]

1) Hmm, I'd seen this idea here in this forum some years ago and it has stucked with me. As a cunning idea to use for tricking your players it's not anything special, but I like it, so here it goes. Introduce an NPC, let's call him Inigo, whom the pc's will identify as a fighter. The trick of course is that Inigo is not merely a fighter, but instead he is primarily a caster who can put up a good fight with weapons though (so if Inigo was a pc, he would most likely be a bladesinger). Are we doing this to trick the pc's? Not really. We just want to lead to a dialogue scene mid combat that goes similarly to this:
Inigo: ''I admit it you are better than I am.''
Player(s): ''Then why are you smiling?''
Inigo: ''I am not left handed just a fighter.'' *proceeds to cast spell (I like the idea of tp'ing away when he would be close to being defeated)

Of course the whole idea can feel a little cheap, but perhaps it would be easier to justify in a world where antimagic zones cover entire areas (as I've seen you suggest). In this case having npc's who dabble in both magic and weapons wont be too uncommon. And it might also just be that Inigo has only been questing in such areas for the past few years, which would justify why it might be hard for the pc's to get a whole picture if/when enquiring about his skills.


2) This is totally not something that every (probably most) player(s) would consider fair game, and I also doubt it's going to be fun for everyone involved. It's also about tricking scr***** with the players on a metagaming level and not about challenging the pc's.

Introduce an oracle but probably also make it that they are not easily accessible. I like the idea of making the oracle a dead lead for some quest they pc's are attempting (eg because the oracle is away on vacation or something silly like this; the players just find the oracle's base empty and they wont know why unless they also have access to some divination magic), so that all the players get out of this is that they know the location where they might find the oracle if they were to try another time in the future out of their own free will (have it be that there is a fixed X% chance per day that the plane-travelling busy oracle is found at their den known by the pc's). It's also better if the pc's have learned that this oracle is pretty spot on about their predictions.

So now the trap is set in a way where it will spring only for the most determined pc's players. Which players are those? The ones who will want their pc's to learn their future. Because what would the typical player expect from the typical DM? I know what I would expect. The DM to tell me that they cannot possibly have the oracle answer to this question, followed by the oracle telling my pc how unusually cloudy my future is, or something along those lines (always assuming that I go for a legit oracle, and not for a charlatan). But you (the DM) dont do that. You are prepared. Because you've made a chart for each pc, from where the oracle will give the answer depending on what the dice roll. And from then on the pc's fate is as sealed as you are prepared to make it. You want to ignore rolls when it comes to it, ignore them. You want to have the prediction be an ongoing thing that will force advantage/disadvantage when it comes to it? Then you do that instead. You want to give the player a second chance, by telling them ooc something like ''Are you really letting me determing the future of your character? Because if you are, I am ready for it!'', then go ahead an warn them while totally subverting their expectations and making them rethink their clever idea.

All in all, something like this will surely detract from the fun of the game at some point (because just one roll will undermine/negate future rolls), no matter how easy or hard you go about enforcing the prediction (still, definitely something memorable). But would a player expect from a DM to be ready and willing to define (up to a varying extent) the character's future? I wouldn't. Metagaming and no necessarily fair game, also most likely not an enjoyable experience for any undetered players who go all in (they were asking for it though).

[CapnWildefyr]

Sneaky Nasty dragons - written for Red, but others can work.

1. The dragon has been active, and has been known to be raiding farms, destroying grain silos. (This one doesn't have to be ancient) You track it to its lair. It's very dusty, smells like yeast, or beer. As you approach or during the fight, dragon flaps wings down your tunnel. Grain dust rises. Breathes fire. BOOM. You see, this dragon played for years, breathing fire on grain silos. Sometimes, they'd go BOOM with a quite joyous explosion. It used to see how high it could blow the roofs into the air. Great fun. Then it decided to experiment until it could replicate the fuel-air explosion of the grain silo safely in entrance-way to its lair. It's been raiding grain silos to replace the old grain, then destroys the silo because, you know, it's fun.

Even if the explosion doesn't get you, you ought to have a serious DC save to not be stunned for a few rounds -- you were inside an explosion. Maybe blown back out the lair even. And the dragon can attack...

2. Dragons don't die of natural causes. So, your crafty and experienced ancient red dragon, well, it knows it's got a lot of time on its hands. So, its cavernous lair is booby trapped. Maybe there are wooden supports that hold up the ceiling, or maybe it's made the stonework unstable. Either way, if things get even a little dicey, it could care less. It dumps the cavern on the party, hopefully crushing them all to death, and uses its innate spellcasting to teleport out. It figures it will just have a little more treasure to dig out after the dust settles. It's got the time. Any wooden supports in this case are designed to be burned away quickly by dragon fire, or maybe they contain something that makes them explode and go almost instantly. (Chars maybe get 1 round to get out of Dodge.) A variant would be if the dragon uses an illusion to appear to meld into a great stone pillar if things are going badly for it. In reality, it already left. But a semi-clever party will think, "Gee, let's take out this pillar and kill the dragon! He can't use Meld with Stone to hide from us!" They will look around and see plenty of other pillars. If you fail your stonework check, or don't check the other pillars closely, you will not see that the other columns which appear to hold up the ceiling have been damaged and cleverly "patched up" to make them look sturdy, but they're not.

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In either case you have to add some level of DC checks or saves - so the party has some chance to suspect danger, perhaps a round to escape, perhaps a save to be trapped alive vs. dead and squished like a grape. The idea is not unavoidable TPK. Just really bad news.

[da newt]

I have a few simple suggestions, not really tricks just good plot (to me anyway).

Predator creatures ought to act like real predators. When a pack of wolves attacks a group of sheep does each wolf pick one sheep to attack? NO - all the wolves single out the one chubby sheep with a limp and gang up on that guy dragging him off to be eaten. Play your predatory creatures similarly.

I like BBEGs who lie. They should lie whenever they think it will benefit them. A clever BBEG might pose as someone looking for heroes to conduct a quest on his behalf - but the the whole story is BS, he's trying to get the party to go wipe out his enemy and steal their McGuffin for him.

As others have said, only a stupid foe will openly fight if they are not sure they will win.

Lastly, I prefer to avoid obvious good guys and bad guys - white team vs black team. That's not realistic. 99% of all people believe they are the good guy.

[Segev]

1) Hmm, I'd seen this idea here in this forum some years ago and it has stucked with me. As a cunning idea to use for tricking your players it's not anything special, but I like it, so here it goes. Introduce an NPC, let's call him Inigo, whom the pc's will identify as a fighter. The trick of course is that Inigo is not merely a fighter, but instead he is primarily a caster who can put up a good fight with weapons though (so if Inigo was a pc, he would most likely be a bladesinger). Are we doing this to trick the pc's? Not really. We just want to lead to a dialogue scene mid combat that goes similarly to this:
Inigo: ''I admit it you are better than I am.''
Player(s): ''Then why are you smiling?''
Inigo: ''I am not left handed just a fighter.'' *proceeds to cast spell (I like the idea of tp'ing away when he would be close to being defeated)

This is also a way to have a secretly high level NPC interacting with the players. He's a powerful spellcaster, but his combat skills are about on par with somebody 1/4 his level...and he's level 20 when the party is level 1-3 or so (and thus a level 5-seeming warrior is still quite fearsome).

This works even better in 3.PF, when BAB of a 20th level caster is still +10, yielding a second iterative attack at +5, but a +6 proficiency modifier and maybe a weapon of speed can make up for a lot.

[Amdy_vill]

evil necromancer building an army, after the party systimticly kills their way through the necromancers generals, they find out the necromancer is engaged in a war with another necromancer(the group that gave the heroes this quest) the necromancer offers all of them a reword of apport value if they leave him alone. notable the necromancer has never done anything outright evil, his army is made of captured undead for the other army or monster like goblins. they have never attacked civilians and so on. they are very much engaged in a private war with the other necromancer and have not gone out into the world and done damage. bonus points the necromancer offers the party roles in his army if they want to replace his generals.

his generals are not outright evil either, mostly hired lifelong generals, maybe some are angles some devils, and some rogue modron, with famous general heroes among them. build it up to be this evil army than to pull the rug out form underneath the party and reveal its a deeply personal war the while evil is present it is no more present than in normal war, might even be less present given the BBEG has not openly attacked towns and cities.

[Segev]

A serial killer - or at least mass murderer - whose M.O. is smashing the heads of his victims to an unrecognizable pulp. Clues are hard to figure out; while each victim had contact with the previous ones, leads that point to a particular killer seem to dry up when that suspect is found killed by this M.O. It's almost like the murderer is taunting investigators by killing those they suspect of the killings.

It turns out that the serial killer is actually an Intellect Devourer who explodes out of a host's head after picking a fight with his next victim to get defensive wounds and weaken him, then possesses that victim and smashes the head of the old host to hide the evidence of its egress.

[Joe the Rat]

Anything can be a Roper: Dead tree trunks, stone columns, saguaro cacti... It's taking your Advanced Mimicry and adding a 50' grapple.

Monster polymorphed into monster is good. Monster polymorphed into monster with a communicable curse that exposes anyone who drops it to 0hp in melee, and if they catch it they turn into the next creature they drop to 0hp in melee. Thank you minecraft mods...

Submersible Warforged Galleys.

[Darth Credence]

I have a high level illusionist who used Magic Aura repeatedly until pretty much everything in his tower appears to be magical.

I use beasts quite a bit, and my players are now used to them being tougher than they would think, because of the way I play them. As da newt said, they don't fight stupid. They find the one that looks weak, which tends to be a caster, and they try to take it down and drag it away.

[CapnWildefyr]

I have a high level illusionist who used Magic Aura repeatedly until pretty much everything in his tower appears to be magical.

Cool.

Gave me an idea. Evil wizard tower. When you enter the tower/environs thereof, if you don't know the password, you get sent to a random alternate duplicate world and fight the version of the evil wizard who is there. And the alternate "BBEG" could be good, bad, worse, or indifferent. or already deceased (dead or undead). And at some point you realize you're in an alternate world, and have to get back.

[Corsair14]

One of my favorites is some skeletons from old school Undermountain. PCs already expect any skeleton they see to rise up and fight. This fight takes place in waist deep water and skeletons teleport under the water and rise up behind PCs to strike from behind. They work together as a group to fight and can teleport every round when needed. Usual half damage from piercing and edged weapons. I haven't used that one on my current group, maybe I should when they get cocky. To make them really nasty let them have a rogue's sneak attack.

The other oldy I like is the Kobolds that fight from prepared positions in their settlement complete with hidden side hallways having camo'd arrow or spear slits, limited space to move and so forth. This BTW was designed long before that meme came out as a way to have underpowered critters actually be a threat to PCs. So lots of surprise attacks, no visible attackers. PCs are basically in a killing field with possibly no way to retreat.

[Skrum]

It has probably been more or less said, but playing monsters 1) to their intelligence, and 2) like they actually want to succeed at their plans goes a long way towards more interesting encounters. I recently ran an encounter and the basic premise is a bandit group is targeting heroes for ambush. They'd place a notice with the appropriate channels that so-and-so needs help, the heroes show up to do their thing, and boom, ambush.

The "stupid" way to do this is the bandits jump out from behind a tree and shoot bows. But why would they do this? They *know* they're going against great warriors, mages, etc. Simply shooting with a bow is going to get them killed in 2 rounds.

So instead they sprung their trap in a barn where they could take a position in the loft. And the ground was covered with hay that could be lit on fire. And the ground by the one ladder was covered with caltrops (hidden by hay of course). And they could easily escape out of the loft door if needed. Finally, they had a trap-ridden cave complex to retreat to if the heroes pursued.

The heroes (PC's) won anyway, but it was an exciting encounter. My ideal encounters tend towards "weak enemies who create favorable fights to challenge stronger PC's." And all it really takes is thinking "What would a reasonably smart, professional person who is trying to not die do in this situation?"