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View Full Version : Genre Savvy BBEG (and general help)



Wraithy
2007-12-27, 06:37 PM
I'm Homebrewing an adventure at the moment and have decided that the BBEG will strictly adhere to the Evil Overlord List (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList).
Sadly this choice leaves the party knee deep in ****, as I know my group would charge head first to the first encounter, kill the bottom-rung minions, and activate rule 80 on the list (a CR15 encounter for a 5th lvl party? fun, but only for the DM)
So how -without violating the list- would I give the party a remote chance of survival without making the adventure a walkthrough?

The adventure so far is just an assortment of ideas, so ideas for the BBEG can be encorporated easily.
A mighty army has invaded everywhere in the lands except for one heavily fortified megacity, to which those fleeing the invaders flock to.
The party are among these refugees and the begginning of the adventure would involve them guiding refugees to safety.

As far as the BBEG goes, I'm completely open to ideas: The leader of the invaders? the ruler of the megacity? someone else?

Any help would be a godsend

Arbitrarity
2007-12-27, 06:39 PM
The PC's can't hope to defeat anoyone following the Evil Overlord list. That's the beauty of its design.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-12-27, 06:41 PM
They can, if they have more wizards than him.

WrstDmEvr
2007-12-27, 06:47 PM
Make him a really,really low level.

nerulean
2007-12-27, 06:56 PM
An evil overlord adhering to the rules absolutely cannot be defeated except by simply being more powerful than him and all the resources he has under his control. Your PCs best bet is to find lots of completely unrelated adventures to get XP from and come back when they're two levels higher than the BBEG.

Quellian-dyrae
2007-12-27, 06:57 PM
WrstDmEvr pretty much has it right (which is really rather ironic, I suppose). Maybe not really low level, but keep the BBEG and whatever forces it has access to at the time of a power level appropriate to the PCs, rather than making them a nigh-unstoppable force of terror that can only be defeated by their own incompetence.

Alternately, don't send the PCs into direct opposition to the BBEG at the start. Have them facing other adversaries, learning about the main villain in the background, and only putting them into direct opposition to its plans when they are powerful enough to cope (which is basically just doing the same as option #1, only without making the villain weak while the PCs are still low-level).

MammonAzrael
2007-12-27, 07:13 PM
OK, they kill some lackeys. News of this should take a bit to travel back to the BBEG. In that time get them to a town, and have them learn of the CR 15 team coming to kill them. That should give them just enough time to (maybe) flee the country, and start heroing elsewhere until ready.

Or just acknowledge that they aren't beating the Evil Overlord list. They'll be too busy surfing their unlimited free internet for pr0n.

Edit: Better yet, have them join the ranks, and move up the chain of command.

...that's it. No backstabbing the villain 20 years later. Just join him, and live "happily" ever after.

horseboy
2007-12-27, 07:23 PM
Well, they'd have to disassemble his organization a piece at a time. Win over his grand daughter, unionize his minions, set them on strike. Alternately, have him just starting the list, giving the party time to "out maneuver him. Like by posing as the architect that doesn't tell him about the one secret entrance the party will use.

LordLocke
2007-12-27, 07:37 PM
Simple- make the BBEG a considerably lower point in power then the party. Completely infuriate the party with an enemy they could totally curb-stomp if they could just get a fair fight with him, then follow the Evil Overlord list to keep putting obstructions, traps, and pratfalls in their way to make getting that fair fight extremely difficult. Well-trained minions, evil plans that succeed just as the heroes catch wind of them if someone isn't keeping up on their intel, a general distrust and hatred of the plucky liberating heroes by the local populace.

Starve them of support.
Keep them struggling for supplies.
Deny the fair fight.
Only when the party has finally assembled a plan, gathered their talents, and navigated their way through the backup plans, the backup-backup plans, the five-year-old advisor's final trick... then they can get the fight they desire.

Until they muck it up and the BBEG uses the first chance to get away. Or the BBEG they caught was really a polymorphed dragon who the BBEG gave a horde of treasure to in exchange for taking his place for the next two hours while HE'S really heading for Mexico to chill while the heat's on. If the villain is evil, resourceful, and interesting enough, your players might not even riot if this guy keeps one step ahead of them for the majority of a campaign.

Azerian Kelimon
2007-12-27, 08:04 PM
Also, something I think the list is missing:

I will never underestimate the possibility of the heroes' attempts at stopping me having been a clever ruse, and will never dismiss the posibility of them using Xanatos gambits and roulettes. By the boatload.

Animefunkmaster
2007-12-27, 08:07 PM
From a DM standpoint, give them the plans or the general layout of the overlords base. So they get the idea that high level monsters are here and here, and things need to be different than just bum rushin' in.

The plans came from a spy, possibly the employer (or some other such source of info)... or maybe instead of schematics they get some kind of info on what types of monsters are in there... so they know the danger and can start to work on bringing down the overlord.

RandomFellow
2007-12-27, 08:38 PM
I'm Homebrewing an adventure at the moment and have decided that the BBEG will strictly adhere to the Evil Overlord List (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EvilOverlordList).
Sadly this choice leaves the party knee deep in ****, as I know my group would charge head first to the first encounter, kill the bottom-rung minions, and activate rule 80 on the list (a CR15 encounter for a 5th lvl party? fun, but only for the DM)
So how -without violating the list- would I give the party a remote chance of survival without making the adventure a walkthrough?

...
Any help would be a godsend

Whenever you want to throw a logically unwinnable encounter at the PCs...build a DMPC allied with the PCs and introduce him a few sessions ago. Have the DMPC sacrifice himself holding off the unwinnable encounter while the PCs get the Job Done.

Fun times. Just don't over use it.

Douglas
2007-12-27, 09:14 PM
Easy solution, at least regarding Rule 80: There are many heroes and the BBEG only has so many of his strongest troops. That CR 15 monster? It's off hunting down a more powerful set of heroes. The PCs get to face weaker stuff because the really strong minions are simply too busy dealing with bigger threats.

Enlong
2007-12-27, 09:18 PM
Well, they'd have to disassemble his organization a piece at a time. Win over his grand daughter, unionize his minions, set them on strike. Alternately, have him just starting the list, giving the party time to "out maneuver him. Like by posing as the architect that doesn't tell him about the one secret entrance the party will use.

Ah, but if he is following the List, then he has no granddaughter, 'cause the List forbids him from having a daughter or a son in the first place.

Worira
2007-12-27, 09:42 PM
Rules 141 and 142.

horseboy
2007-12-27, 10:47 PM
Ah, but if he is following the List, then he has no granddaughter, 'cause the List forbids him from having a daughter or a son in the first place.

Yeah, #142 is my favorite




142 If I have children and subsequently grandchildren, I will keep my three-year-old granddaughter near me at all times. When the hero enters to kill me, I will ask him to first explain to her why it is necessary to kill her beloved grandpa. When the hero launches into an explanation of morality way over her head, that will be her cue to pull the lever and send him into the pit of crocodiles. After all, small children like crocodiles almost as much as Evil Overlords and it's important to spend quality time with the grandkids.

Yami
2007-12-28, 12:01 AM
I've found that having the BBEG pose as a member of The Forces of Good can solve this dilema. You just have your Cohort/Animal Campanion/Familiar/Mount as head of Team Evil, and can then explain small slip ups as you not being in direct control at the time due to being busy destroying the inner structure of Team Good.

Basically any time you need to go easy on the PC's (i.e. 'the wench you saved says something about an Adult Black dragon being sent after your level 6 party, she counsel's flight and cowering.') and allow them to escape the unescapeable plans, you then destroy or sour some force on the PC's side. 'Cause, you know, Big Bad was busy, that's why they got away.

Unless the PC's pull of something really spectacular or devious. Such thinking should be rewarded with the full brunt of the BBEG's ire. It is always nice to make them feel important.

Likewise a truely powerful BBEG might have multipule lieutenants, and perhaps you'r PC's are merely disrupting one of the less trusted ones. Said lieutenant then keeps the parties doings under-wraps, so as to not get killed for his incompetence. That way the PC's get to level up until the minion cannot cover for them anymore, and then you sent the game into hard mode.

kemmotar
2007-12-28, 12:11 AM
Well...simply the BBEG's power does not need to be in battle. He could have used subterfuge, money, blackmail and force of personality to create his organization in his pursuit for power. Thus you eliminate the undefeatable force of terror CR15 encounter for the lvl5 party. Or the BBEG could have bigger problems, maybe the party knows of a squad that kills potential adversaries outsidet the town so that they continually change locale, disguise themselves etc to remain unnoticed. Maybe give them a 1/week teleport item they can use to move around effectively...

EvilElitest
2007-12-28, 12:16 AM
The PC's can't hope to defeat anoyone following the Evil Overlord list. That's the beauty of its design.

my Villians are mostly PCs, while so are my heros, it is very interesting

But generally, my villians follow the evil overlord list, by my games are very realistic so it works out with a lot of pissed off PCs
from,
EE

Xuincherguixe
2007-12-28, 05:47 AM
Heavy Handed Deus Ex Machina. He's doing fantastic. Then all of the sudden something compleletly inexplicible happens that puts him out of his comfort zone.

Or, suddenly a god kills him.

It'll leave the players very unsatisfied.

Learnedguy
2007-12-28, 09:17 AM
Put up a phony force of higher level heroes somewhere else. That way you got a convenient excuse to why your party of heroes haven't yet faced the worst of what the Evil Overlord got to offer. He's simply to busy with the neighborhood chosen one and his ill-tempered love interest.

edit: Bugger, Douglas already said that:smallannoyed:

Swordguy
2007-12-28, 09:24 AM
Let your PCs get a copy of the actual Evil Overlord list - fluffed as his notes or diary or something. They can going through it looking for loopholes and figuring out exactly the kind of BBEG they're dealing with. Otherwise (playing just a regular game and springing the Evil Overlord-savvy BBEG on the) they'll die horribly, and it won't be fun for anyone.

Telonius
2007-12-28, 09:27 AM
Xanatos Gambit sounds like the way to go for your BBEG. The heroes escape because they were meant to escape. The goal is for their Obi-Wan to perceive the BBEG as a threat and move against him. This crucial shift in resources will allow the BBEG to [insert nefarious plan].

Telonius
2007-12-28, 09:37 AM
Let your PCs get a copy of the actual Evil Overlord list - fluffed as his notes or diary or something. They can going through it looking for loopholes and figuring out exactly the kind of BBEG they're dealing with. Otherwise (playing just a regular game and springing the Evil Overlord-savvy BBEG on the) they'll die horribly, and it won't be fun for anyone.

Hmm. Rule 74 seems like it would prevent that.


When I create a multimedia presentation of my plan designed so that my five-year-old advisor can easily understand the details, I will not label the disk "Project Overlord" and leave it lying on top of my desk.

Maybe have them break into his safe deposit box?

skeeter_dan
2007-12-28, 01:08 PM
I think having a low-powered BBEG is the way to go. Heck, give him only NPC classes: multi-classed Aristocrat/Expert, with Diplomacy and Bluff maxed. He's accumulated power through being a brilliant leader rather than the most powerful wizard in the land.

Perhaps he's not quite on the level of an Evil Overlord; he's only halfway there. Maybe he'll throw all his resources at the level 5 party that's threatening his power, but that only equates to a CR 7 or 8 encounter or two. While the party is dealing with this threat, he's off accumulating more power through clever treaties and agreements with other powerful people. Because of his skill at diplomacy, he always ends up getting the better of those he negotiates with.

Maybe he just hasn't had the time to put all his contingencies into place. He's genre savvy, but he still needs time to put everything together.