How Do I Keep My Bad Guys Fresh and Nutritious!

[ondonaflash]

Okay, summary: I have two primary villains, one of whom is the Avatar of Darkness, and has a ready made excuse for his survival, basically, Pre-Destination, he has to live long enough to fight the Avatar of Light, so he's more of a plot element than a villain, and direct PC interaction with him will be severely limited.

The problem I have is with his "Guardian", a sort of Virgil to his proverbial Dante. The Guardian of Darkness is supposed to be a berserker, who was made to fight battle after battle, while under the influence of drugs and brainwashing (Like the Persian Janissaries in a way) so that he occasionally goes into uncontrollable battle rages when exposed to loud noises, bright lights, the sounds of drums, the color red, you know how it goes.

The Guardian is meant to be the real "Boss Fight" for the PCs, who are Guardians to the Avatar of Light. The end result should be that while Light is fighting Darkness, the Guardians are also engaged in mortal combat.

So the crux of the issue, sort of the sub text of the title, is this: How do I make my Berserker Last. How do I keep him alive long enough to disappear, and what powers does he need to be able to pose a significant threat to the PCs?

D&D 3.5 is the system.

I figure I'll need three encounters with the bad guys, an Introductory Encounter, so the party knows who's who, a Drubbing encounter, where the bad guys beat seven kinds of hell out of the PCs, and then a final encounter, where the PCs get revenge, show the bad guys that Its Better to Light a Flamethrower in the Dark then Stand there Cursing the Darkness, and live happily ever after... until Satan arrives, but that's the next campaign.

[NEO|Phyte]

Depending on what sort of abilities your players can dish out, a Frenzied Berserker's Deathless Frenzy would certainly keep him in play until the frenzy runs out/they tag him with something that bypasses it. Also sounds like it'd fit with this battle frenzy stuff. Hard to say for sure unless we know more about what the Guardians of Light can do.

[Innis Cabal]

Ziplock Green Seal bags always seems to do the trick for me. You can store em in the fridge for a week or more without them spoiling. Pick em up at your local mini-me mart.

[Starscream]

If your not afraid of a little Cheapness, Contingent Spells can make an excellent emergency escape hatch. Teleport, Word of Recall, etc, triggered whenever his HP drops below a certain level.

Players don't like it when you do this, though. It feels like there was no way to really "win". Generous XP rewards and having the dude drop some of his gear accidentally can help smooth things over.

I'm personally fond have having some other NPC show up to save the day. Helps if it's someone the PCs have met but had no reason to believe was in cahoots with the villain. "That's odd, why would the grand vizier show up to teleport that dude to safety?" And then have the answer be something far more complicated than "Guess he's a bad guy then". Mess with their heads a bit.

[Just_Ice]

Multiple actions per round and throwing houses is not a bad start. It's pretty hard to kill a berserker when half the party is dodging debris. If houses aren't available, stomping to create earthquakes works too. Balance checks penalize the heavily armoured, though.

It's DM cheese, but six on one or whatever isn't exactly fair either. Also, if you're going to have him teleport out, you should have him teleport in. Maybe he can turn into shadows, or something.

Starscream's NPC suggestion could work, or you can always give him a healer or minions or something. Since he's a berserker, he could probably jump off a cliff or into a waterfall or something to escape, it would be understandable for him to have a chance to survive.

[Cyrion]

As a single foe, he's going to need to pick his battle location carefully. Limit the ability of the PC party to get to him in multiples and limit line of sight/line of effect. Sometimes simply having to fight around a corner in a narrow hall can be a pain for a party. Add frilly bits to suit the actual abilities of the party.

How paranoid and prepared are the party? Would they be vulnerable to an archer spamming high damage ranged attacks from a bluff? The wizard goes down in the surprise round and the party keeps bleeding until they force the Guardian to run.

[Oslecamo]

Shameless self promotion to my temporary boss template, wich is aimed at making a single creature a tough battle for the whole party.

[DarkEternal]

Honestly, I would make them defeat said Berserker every time they fought him. When they do, let the corpse disappear, maybe leaving some good loot as reward for their defeat, and in the next encounter let him come back, somewhat changed physically, stronger then before. Similar to Doomsday in Superman comics. You can defeat him, but he is always reborn, and each time he is reborn he is stronger then before(and theoretically immune to the way he died the last time).

[Calimehter]

Why not have the Avatar of Darkness just cycle through multiple Guardians, abandoning any given one at the first sign of its impending defeat? It strikes me as a very in-character sort of thing for a being like that to do, and makes a nice contrast to the Avatar of Light, who will presumably make some effort to keep the PCs alive while they are guarding him.

[Boci]

Frenzied beserker with exstended rage can be unkillable by hitpoint damage for a number of rounds equal to 8 + his con modifier.

[Arakune]

A ring of continuous Beastland Ferocity and that other spell. That makes him unkillable by HP damage period.

[Boci]

A ring of continuous Beastland Ferocity

Is that RAW, or are you using the guidlines for magic items creation?

[Loren]

the Shadow Hand discipline in Tome of Battle has some ablities that might fit your character, such as disappearing or teleporting. Depending on level it may be a stretch to have all the maneuvers/stances you'd want and the furious rages... but I think DMs can alter prestige class prereq's if need be (I know I'm a heretic, but it makes enemies that can offer unique challenges). For instance, a swordsage x/frenzied berserker 5 or so (gives him 3 frenzies per day). Since he'd be using frenzies instead of rages I'd be inclined to drop the rage feats as prereq's

Or a gestalt Swordsage/babarian, lots of hit points full bab, good saves plenty of skill points, manuevers, and rages. Gear/drug this guy up and unleash melee havok. Aim for the Gloom Razor feat to give him more unique ablities.

On top of the items/allies suggested, an item of Cure Serious or Critical, posibly even Heal (say 5Xcharges, activated with a command word) or higher would give him alot of resilience.

[Arakune]

Is that RAW, or are you using the guidlines for magic items creation?

Guideline. Then again, it's for a BBEG.

[jiriku]

Some good suggestions here. But whatever you do, create a backup plan for how the story unfolds if the players do kill him. Implicit in the social contract of good DMing is that if you present the players with a bad guy and say "roll initiative", they have permission to kill said bad guy. Even if you think he's invulnerable to everything, there's always going to be some wiseass in the party who casts dominate person and says "kill yourself".

[Admiral Squish]

Maybe the narcotics and drugs are potions of dominate person and rage? It doesn't even have to be a barbarian anymore.

[ondonaflash]

Why not have the Avatar of Darkness just cycle through multiple Guardians, abandoning any given one at the first sign of its impending defeat? It strikes me as a very in-character sort of thing for a being like that to do, and makes a nice contrast to the Avatar of Light, who will presumably make some effort to keep the PCs alive while they are guarding him.

Well, see, they're in love. The Avatar of Darkness is supposed to be a tragic character, and I have a few major plot points that sort of revolve around that fact, not the least of which is that once the party kills the Guardian, the Avatar just gives up on life. The party is sort of around the Avatar of Darkness since before his tragic fall.