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AslanCross
2007-11-24, 05:55 PM
How do you handle them? It's easy for Wizards or Clerics, because they can just cast Sanctuary or Teleport away. But what about warrior types?

I've already extensively planned out an encounter with a warblade/blackguard that my players will be fighting tomorrow, but I'm still not certain how to make her survive the encounter.

PsyBlade
2007-11-24, 06:01 PM
It's simply a matter of giving the recurring character a magic item that makes it easy for him/her/it to escape. Ring of Three Wishes, maybe?

Another way is to make the recurring character stronger than the team, but make the goal of said character something the PCs know about and can easily stop. Once the goal cannot be accomplished (or is accomplished due to PC stupidity), the recurring character has no reason to stick around (especially if there is a backup plan or said PC stupidity came into play).

J.Gellert
2007-11-24, 06:05 PM
1. Magic items that duplicate escape spells
2. Other forms of movement (Maybe he has +15 jump to get over that chasm the PCs will never cross in time?)
3. Allies to get in the way and stall the PCs (particularly spellcasters - perhaps swarms of fliers)

If all else fails, keep a very-detailed description nearby, about how the guy melts to snow and water once he is killed - He was only a simulacrum, after all! If you keep it well-written in advance, your players can't accuse you of doing it on the fly to save him.

deadseashoals
2007-11-24, 06:05 PM
In other media, the villain shows up, often from a physically inaccessible spot where he can monologue from, but then leaves without fighting, delegating the killing to his mooks. You could always do that for a low level party. Otherwise, you need to give them a teleportation item.

Dhavaer
2007-11-24, 06:22 PM
You could use a profaned unicorn horn, or whatever it's called, from the BoVD. Replicates a word of recall spell, IIRC.

Idea Man
2007-11-24, 06:50 PM
A non-caster villain can have a caster stooge (ally, henchman, whatever...) to whisk him away if the going gets tough.

I did the simulacrum thing once. My players were really scared when they killed the 14th lvl wizard and got a pile of snow. :smallamused:

mostlyharmful
2007-11-24, 07:02 PM
Lots of Hide and Move Silently, then one level of shadowdancer. if they can do it to wizs and Clerics then its fair game.

or else just have them beat the living hell out of the party for nonleathel damage. sooo annoying if your ultimate foe cant even be bothered to use the sharp bit of the sword:smallfurious:

Ganurath
2007-11-24, 07:07 PM
Aquatic Subtype who raids coastal targets?

Escaping Panic Buttons from Complete Scoundrel?

Half-Fiend who flies to safety?

Flying Carpet and an Explosive Bow?

Between race and magic items, there are plenty of escape routes.

Also, indirect enemies who use law and politics to inhibit the PCs for the BBEG. Lord Kubota, anyone?

J.Gellert
2007-11-24, 07:15 PM
The problem with "Kubota-esque" style villains is PCs that would go all Jack Bauer on them, disregarding status.

Crow
2007-11-24, 08:12 PM
The problem with "Kubota-esque" style villains is PCs that would go all Jack Bauer on them, disregarding status.

Absolutely true.

Jack_Simth
2007-11-24, 08:32 PM
The problem with "Kubota-esque" style villains is PCs that would go all Jack Bauer on them, disregarding status.
The trick for that is to arrange for obvious, appropriate consequences and not-so-obvious, appropriate countermeasures - Party launches a volley of arrows at Kubota in court, Kubota's Contingency kicks in and he's gone.... and the party is now facing charges of assault with a deadly weapon, officially without provocation.

Essentially, the same basic reason people don't do that kind of thing in real life.

SadisticFishing
2007-11-24, 08:46 PM
Essentially, the same basic reason people don't do that kind of thing in real life.

Yeah, I hate when politicians I'm attempting to assassinate disappear in a puff of magic :P

Actually, the Kabuto-esque idea is very good. Lawful people in the party would have trouble dealing with it, and they'd have to cover up the assassination well - and there's MAGIC in this world.

daggaz
2007-11-24, 10:00 PM
depending on the level of interplay between good and evil forces in your campaign, you could set up meeting conditions where it would just be suicidal (or profoundly bad judgement) to attack the antagonist. Its not railroading if there are/were other options available, but if you set up this as an easy route, its not your fault either if thats how your players choose to meet your badguys.

greenknight
2007-11-24, 10:16 PM
I recommend the simulacrum approach Idea Man mentioned. Another lower level method is to use an Eversmoking Bottle to get cover, then open up a previously hidden passageway to escape. When the smoke clears, the PCs can search and find the escape passage, but the foe has long gone.

Sometimes jumping off a cliff and using a Ring of Feather Falling works, but you're more likely to find the character becomes a pincushion from all the ranged attacks the PCs will make.

AslanCross
2007-11-24, 10:20 PM
Thanks for the input, guys. I think I know what I'll be using.

I've already devised a political threat to the PCs. That's someone else altogether. The character they'll be fighting tomorrow is more of a martial threat.

Jack_Simth
2007-11-24, 10:59 PM
Yeah, I hate when politicians I'm attempting to assassinate disappear in a puff of magic :P

No, they just wear kevlar, hire very good bodyguards, make it very hard to figure out where and when they'll be, and even if you get them, you're still hung for murder one because of a very thorough investigation (if the assassin is not caught, more assassins will spring up as it is noticed as a successful tactic - and the other politicians can't afford that). Vanishing in a puff of magic is just one of the easy ways for the DM to make it work in D&D while still letting you interact with the politician.


Actually, the Kabuto-esque idea is very good. Lawful people in the party would have trouble dealing with it, and they'd have to cover up the assassination well - and there's MAGIC in this world.
Yeah.

Crow
2007-11-24, 11:08 PM
No, they just wear kevlar, hire very good bodyguards, make it very hard to figure out where and when they'll be, and even if you get them, you're still hung for murder one because of a very thorough investigation (if the assassin is not caught, more assassins will spring up as it is noticed as a successful tactic - and the other politicians can't afford that). Vanishing in a puff of magic is just one of the easy ways for the DM to make it work in D&D while still letting you interact with the politician.

Yeah.

The Secret Service assassinates the president all the time. Part of their job is to scout out any location the president will be at ahead of time and determine from where an assassin can strike, and how he can ingress and egress the area. Bodyguards in your campaign world should be doing this stuff too.

Jack_Simth
2007-11-24, 11:14 PM
The Secret Service assassinates the president all the time. Part of their job is to scout out any location the president will be at ahead of time and determine from where an assassin can strike, and how he can ingress and egress the area. Bodyguards in your campaign world should be doing this stuff too.
Well, they don't assassinate him so much as figure out how to assassinate him, so they can plug the holes that make it feasible.

But yest - it's what makes them very good bodyguards.

Kompera
2007-11-24, 11:42 PM
Lots of high powered advice. But for lower level parties things can be fairly simple and still be effective. A ring of Expeditious Retreat, an Invisibility Potion, or even simply having a mount handy when the characters are on foot (or their mounts are not right here, handy). The goal is to maintain the illusion that the NPC might have been defeated if not for some small advantage he had, while not resorting to a deus ex machina which will be harder to explain away in future encounters.

herrhauptmann
2007-11-24, 11:58 PM
Corner the villain in a tower room, then have him drink a potion of mistform. He can drift out the window and down to a groundlevel cave where he keeps his getaway stash.

Dervag
2007-11-25, 12:05 AM
One solution is to make the villain too powerful for the heroes to defeat (high and unspecified level, so the PCs can't easily take him down and so you can fudge his saving throw once or twice in a pinch). Instead, he is defeated by some other means than direct conflict. For instance, he sends his troops to fight the heroes but does not engage in person, and if they try to nail him with ranged attacks or spells, he'll be able to avoid or withstand them easily.


The Secret Service assassinates the president all the time. Part of their job is to scout out any location the president will be at ahead of time and determine from where an assassin can strike, and how he can ingress and egress the area. Bodyguards in your campaign world should be doing this stuff too.Although bodyguards weren't quite as well organized in premodern times, a big part of the reason was that assassination wasn't as easy (it's hard to get past an armed bodyguard with a sword). So that makes sense.

Doresain
2007-11-25, 03:19 AM
you could always follow the horror movie route...so long as you cant actually see the body, there is no guarantee that the BBEG is actually dead...

hey you didnt say they had to be good ideas

Talic
2007-11-25, 03:28 AM
Gaseous Form, for vampires.

Alternate forms of travel, such as jumping, climbing, or swimming.

Secret passages + high rate of movement, for barbarians

around a corner and hide, for rogues.

Trapdoors

Mirror galleries (glassteel'd for her pleasure)

Keyed portals.

Immunities (elf warrior using a magical sleep gas, for example) - only works if your man doesn't want to kill the PC's.

Third Party intervention - The party corners the rogue in a warehouse, and flanks him, advancing with weapons drawn... and that's when the town guard busts in and hilarity ensues. In the resulting confusion, the rogue escapes.

Foggy night.

room plunged into darkness.

dust of sneezing and choking.

etc etc etc

greenknight
2007-11-25, 04:25 AM
Secret passages + high rate of movement, for barbarians

around a corner and hide, for rogues.

On that note, why not Monk? They can do both of those things, and they're pretty good at surviving, from the mid levels anyway. I wouldn't recommend Monk for much else, but if all you need is a target who has a good chance to escape...

The_Werebear
2007-11-25, 04:45 AM
Archery from a hard to reach spot.

Cape of the Mountebank.

That winged cloak.

AslanCross
2007-11-25, 05:47 AM
I settled on the panic buttons from complete scoundrel. They're cheap and their effect is something that the PCs won't be able to counter right now. My original plan was a mount, but I figured that even if she whistles for her horse and rapid mounts it, they'd still be able to catch up eventually. It'd be quicker for her to just run away herself with a panic button of retreat.

Eshu
2007-11-25, 11:04 AM
Not that it matters now that you've decided, but nothing quite as much fun as fooling the PCs. Bad guy drops a vial down the stairs on their way out, which breaks and releases a massive green cloud. Henchmen below, on cue, begin choking and fall over "dead" below leading the players to think that the potion was cloudkill or something similar. Now, with any luck, the PC's won't bother sticking around to loot the corpses (especially if the fog is thick and slow to dissipate) so even the minions get away to harass the players again. :)

Nevermore
2007-11-25, 03:09 PM
I'm a fan of using hostages at the lower levels.

Ssiauhll
2007-11-25, 04:59 PM
In B5 there was one of the best, most annoying villains ever named Bester. Bester originally was working on the say side as the good guys. True no one liked him, but they were diplomatic about it. As time went on Bester quickly became a thorn in their side that the heroes simply couldn't kill. Not that they, didn't consider it. Eventually the illusion of working on the same side breaks down. Even then Bester would show up every now and then. When he did he had some deal that would require cooperation, and every time Bester got what he wanted and the heroes while not losing felt used and exploited.

Sstoopidtallkid
2007-11-25, 05:31 PM
Mazes are also good. Have the BBEG drop into the sewers or something, and say the running water makes tracking impossible. If the PC's follow, they have to make fort saves against disease, and by the time they get back to the hideout, half the loot has been stolen.

F.L.
2007-11-25, 06:04 PM
For a rogue, just have them vanish, and basically make 'em impossible to find. For fighters, have them collapse walls/building behind them with sunder.

Crow
2007-11-25, 06:08 PM
In B5 there was one of the best, most annoying villains ever named Bester. Bester originally was working on the say side as the good guys. True no one liked him, but they were diplomatic about it. As time went on Bester quickly became a thorn in their side that the heroes simply couldn't kill. Not that they, didn't consider it. Eventually the illusion of working on the same side breaks down. Even then Bester would show up every now and then. When he did he had some deal that would require cooperation, and every time Bester got what he wanted and the heroes while not losing felt used and exploited.

I hated that guy. That guy is one of the few instances on television where the bad guy evokes the exact audience response the writers intended. IMO

Also, don't forget this classic:

"Men, kill them!" Villian then grabs random rope in one hand, and chops another random rope with his sword. Huge chandelier crashes to the floor as the villian is wisked upwards to land gingerly on a balcony leading somewhere else.

Darkantra
2007-11-25, 06:58 PM
Also, don't forget this classic:

"Men, kill them!" Villian then grabs random rope in one hand, and chops another random rope with his sword. Huge chandelier crashes to the floor as the villian is wisked upwards to land gingerly on a balcony leading somewhere else.

I heard of a low-level game from a friend where the BBEG was holed up in a theatre, was blinded by the party's wizard and tried to do that trick. It was his theatre so he pretty much knew instinctively where everything was but the DM rolled a d10 to determine which of the ten ropes he had strewn up in the back he'd slash, then another d10 to determine which one he'd grab.

The DM looked at her roll, her sheets, swore and told them what happend. He slashed the rope holding the decorative chandalier like he had intended, but then grabbed a grappling rope connected to the bottom of the chadalier itself (placed there during the play by the dashing hero to fight the evil flying wizard). His last words were.

"You have played well adventurers, but I-."


One of my favorites is using the corrupted authority angle. When the party catches up to the BBEG and begins the battle the authorities arrive, with their corrupted figurehead. The guards show up with way too many men for the party to A) fight through or B) explain/hide their deaths. Most of the regular guardsmen are of good alignment but their leader is neutral or evil and has taken a big bribe to arrest the BBEG on some minor charge, in lieu of being killed.

The PCs can then choose to accept the judgement and loose their chance at the BBEG, or try to fight through a legitimate, though minor, arrest. This way they can do the good thing of stopping the BBEG but become villified by the authorities and perhaps the entire populace, or stew in anger afterwards.

EvilElitest
2007-11-25, 07:11 PM
The Secret Service assassinates the president all the time. Part of their job is to scout out any location the president will be at ahead of time and determine from where an assassin can strike, and how he can ingress and egress the area. Bodyguards in your campaign world should be doing this stuff too.

and yet why is castro still around?

But your right, any secret service could most likely handle any assination no problem


In my games i prefer none magical means of escape, secret passages, traps, tunnels ect. If i have a big guy fighting the party in a castle, he has enough hit points to fight then retreat, if the party doesn't know the layout, he free, no magic included
from,
EE

Crow
2007-11-25, 07:52 PM
and yet why is castro still around?

Because his guys do the exact same thing.