How do you build your villains hordes?

[Loki_42]

This question occurred to me recently, and I just felt like asking it. It's hard to phrase exactly what I'm asking, but here goes nothing:

Do you follow the rules of the game(any system) when designing a villains resources. Examples, say you have a villain who has a right hand man/dragon type lieutenant under him, and then numerous rank and file troops. Do you give the NPC Leadership and stat it out that way, or do you just give him the troops? Or, you have a necromancer, do you only give him undead he could make, and keep it within his control cap, or are there just zombies chilling in his dungeon?

The same question can be asked for physical goods. Traps, buildings, hired goons, stocking his mooks with weapons and armor, does it come out of wealth-by-level, or is it just there? I assume this part could be justified by all the scams there usually are to get near infinite wealth in various systems, but I'd still like your opinion.

I've usually just given the villain whatever resources they would likely have, unless it was on them and they would use it in a one-on-one fight, in which case I paid for it out of their pocket, but some cases seem like it would be best to take it the other way.

So, opinions?

[horseboy]

Yes, no, kinda sorta. I'll work with the system, but not keep great notes. If I want the villain to have a giant gold plated space station I'll give him the 6 in Rich so he can afford it, but I won't "balance" it with an additional flaw. He may not be in charge of "all" the minions, but he will be in charge of all the "officers" who share the burden of the organization. So, the skeletons in dungeon, being weak undead, might be under the control of a couple low level lieutenants who in turn answers to me...or else.

[Mastikator]

I prefer not to have explicit villains. But in my last campaign, I had a tribe of savage barbarians that worshiped wolves and used cannibalism as a form of magic, these barbarians attacked the PCs on sight.
I also had a Jarl who was building an army for the purpose of defending his land from the barbarians, he sent the PCs on dangerous missions and then stabbed them in the back so he wouldn't have to pay them for their service (hehehe).
I also had an ancient imprisoned wizard troll (imprisoned in his staff) and a imprisoned demon (imprisoned in a tome) (foes with each other) that the PCs encountered and brought to a treasure hunter magician.

[Loki_42]

I prefer not to have explicit villains. But in my last campaign, I had a tribe of savage barbarians that worshiped wolves and used cannibalism as a form of magic, these barbarians attacked the PCs on sight.
I also had a Jarl who was building an army for the purpose of defending his land from the barbarians, he sent the PCs on dangerous missions and then stabbed them in the back so he wouldn't have to pay them for their service (hehehe).
I also had an ancient imprisoned wizard troll (imprisoned in his staff) and a imprisoned demon (imprisoned in a tome) (foes with each other) that the PCs encountered and brought to a treasure hunter magician.

Yes, but do you follow the same rules as the PCs when building your NPCs resources?

[Mastikator]

Ohh, yes. I do. But I play class- & level-less games so there's very little of WBL rules to consider, wealth is more social context based than some abstract variables from a character.

When I play D&D I usually just throw WBL and the like out the window. Usually there aren't game mechanics for the amount of resources. If you want to play a member of a royal family then you'll have 1000 times more than the average peasant, but you'll have to do prince like stuff.

[Seharvepernfan]

I prefer not to use the leadership feat at all.

For instance, say the NPC in question is a hobgoblin blackguard of Maglubiet, the hobgoblin warriors and templars that follow him aren't his "followers", but they chose to follow him because of the rewards and their religion, or he bullied them all into it with the intimidation skill, persuaded them via diplomacy, or just used his superior abilities to threaten them into it (I'll kill you if you don't - which is separate from intimidate).

The NPC could be ridiculously wealthy, say for instance an evil king, who might have millions of gp at his disposal, he just can't use it all on himself and his minions though.

A lair of whatever kind might be used by the NPC, but that doesn't mean it was built by him, so all those traps might have been put in by the previous owners and never used (or they reset), and the NPC may have added a couple of specific ones himself with his own gold (which is subtracted from his WBL). However, some of my NPCs have ranks in craft traps, so they can make them at half price.

Sometimes I just decide to ignore the WBL rules in regards to some things. For instance, the pcs are going after a very capable NPC high level NPC wizard who crafted his flying transdimensional crystal tower himself with his spells, and then also has WBL from his own adventures. Sometimes the NPC is just lucky and finds an abandoned dragons hoard, while already packing full WBL.

So no, I pretty much just give them whatever I think they should have, and find reasonable justification for it (that is backed up by their stats and abilities), but I do lean towards them having less rather than more.

[Kol Korran]

i don't use leadership at all. if you want followers, earn them in play. the villains are assumed to gain their followers according to their personality, abilities, background and what not.

material resources are dealt with in a similar manner, though i tend to follow the wealth for NPCs guidlines for personal equipment, and WBL for PCs for the major villains.

note: this does not mean the villain can have whatever they want. the minions/ lieutnenets and material resources a villain can utilize are determined at the start of the campaign. some of their goals often revolves at gaining more such resources, usually special ones, where the PCs can interact to prevent. look at the giant's villain building article (in the gaming section), i tend to follow these guidlines. in general the PCs could come to know what forces the villain is likely to wield against them (though a few surprises never hurt )

Kol.

[Oracle_Hunter]

Villains have whatever is appropriate to their background. I don't even try to build them up like PCs since that is way more trouble than it is worth.

In 4e I do try to limit the Level of baddies they have at their disposal, but usually I find fudges for that too. For example, when the LV 8 PCs were dealing with a local organized crime family I didn't just give these guys a bunch of high Heroic thugs -- high Heroic (in my world) means elite forces like the king's bodyguard. Instead I gave them a few LV 8 "boss" types (trading the Elite template for extra levels) and filled it out with a bunch of minions. To make the bigger battle interesting, I formed "wrecking crews" which were Swarms and made up of dozens of thugs.

[Knaight]

I don't build as if designing PCs at all, mostly because I play systems where you can just have any combination of attributes/skills/traits/whatever you want if you put enough points into it.

[Yora]

There's a system for it, and it's called money.
Pretty much everything that exist can be bought for money, and those few things that can usually can be created by someone you can hire to do it for you.
You really only have to worry about where the evil boss got all his money from. All other resources can be paid for with that money.

[Friv]

In D&D, wealth by level is a design tool to keep PCs at the right challenge level. It's not meant for every NPC out there, and you shouldn't use it that way. Otherwise, every aristocrat would be born at Level 10 or 15, and things would just fall apart from there.

I follow the rules inasmuch as there need to be reasons for people to have followers, and if the game has stats for that I use them. If I'm playing Exalted, for example, I give the villain the appropriate Backgrounds. But since NPCs have whatever experience totals are required to make them an appropriate threat, that's as far as it goes.

[FatJose]

In D&D, wealth by level is a design tool to keep PCs at the right challenge level. It's not meant for every NPC out there, and you shouldn't use it that way. Otherwise, every aristocrat would be born at Level 10 or 15, and things would just fall apart from there.

Pretty much that. Also, I always considered Leadership to be a PC only feat to balance them with the other PC's, considering the feat gives him/her extra hands. Still overpowered if abused like Summoning but they (sort of tried to) balanced it with a Feat tax.

My villains can be anything really. I go into detail in how orcs are organized in comparison to kobolds and in detailing their lairs. Mechanics, not so much. I can pretty much just use the standard human mook as the stats and just factor in any extra traits like darkvision or small stature. I'm lazy, they don't see my rolls usually and a "kobold's underhand thrust of the spear" or "Orc bandit's swift swipe of the dagger" are the same 15/20 2/6 roll. I'll fluff my villains with whatever but I still keep them in the appropriate power level.

[Morithias]

I do follow the rules for PCs when building my villains. However I do not follow the rules FAIRLY. You see many of my players (make that players in general) have no idea how to do things like munchkin a shopkeeper, or how to make money outside of "kill things". (I have NEVER seen a single character outside of my Lupin 3 build that used the profession skill except for a prestige class).

So like the famous test in star trek, the test IS fair, but the computer cheats with outside the box thinking.

For example, I want my villain to have a trap that costs WAY more money than he could have and still have his best equipment.

So I give him the landlord feat. Now the trap is free.

A lot of stuff that players ignore like the landlord feat, merchantile background, and so on and so forth is VERY powerful when in the hands of a villain.

Plus a lot of people forget that the PCs travel in groups. "Wait we already fought his cohort, how can he have a dragon minion".

"None of you have cohort and there's 4 of you isn't there?"

So yes, there is one major big bad, but in reality it's built with probably 2 or 3 PCs against you.

Hell one time, I used a very munchkin build to have the big bad call up Dispater to fight them. Suddenly a single wizard becomes, a single wizard and an archdevil.

So yeah, I use the same kind of cheap stuff the PCs use, but I do have one key rule. I will never use against my PCs something that I would ban them from using (with the exception of a bonus boss as an optional sidequest or something like that).

[SowZ]

For necromancers, yeah, I give them a legal number of zombies. But that's because the zombies are built into the casters challenge level. A leader type doesn't need a feat to have followers, but that is because the followers have their own challenge level.

[Machinekng]

I never have my villians follow Leadership rules. If the villian has followers, they are gained by his rank or position. In addition, I although I try to stick to WBL for a villian's personal equipment, I disregard it for things like hiring mercenaries or assassins or building traps or strongolds.

[Kymme]

A sort of related thing, but i let my characters, and villians, take the leadership feat. Not the one in the players handbook, though, they take the one in the players handbook 2, and found a faction. It makes quite a bit of sense, at least in my eyes.

[Hiro Protagonest]

When I play D&D I usually just throw WBL and the like out the window. Usually there aren't game mechanics for the amount of resources. If you want to play a member of a royal family then you'll have 1000 times more than the average peasant, but you'll have to do prince like stuff.

That's terribly unbalanced. Why does the runaway prince with a price on his head for alive have more money than the former bandit with about 3/4 that bounty for dead or alive?

[Mastikator]

Because he's a prince.
Though if he's runaway and stuff then he may not necessarily have access to his wealth, but a non-runaway non-wanted-dead-or-alive non-hiding prince will be essentially economically independent.

[Morithias]

Because he's a prince.
Though if he's runaway and stuff then he may not necessarily have access to his wealth, but a non-runaway non-wanted-dead-or-alive non-hiding prince will be essentially economically independent.

You do realize that taking the noble birth feat gives you a mere 300 gp, and that using the "upkeep" rules as a guidline that living a prince's life is a mere 200 gp a month?

Being a prince shouldn't be giving him Bracer of armor +8 at level 5.

[Hiro Protagonest]

Because he's a prince.
Though if he's runaway and stuff then he may not necessarily have access to his wealth, but a non-runaway non-wanted-dead-or-alive non-hiding prince will be essentially economically independent.

A runaway who took the fine and/or magical equipment his parents commissioned the dwarves to make for him?

Sure, it makes some sense RP-wise, but it encourages certain types of backgrounds and puts the players who aren't-former-nobles/don't-have-ancestral-heirlooms/just-want-to-play-a-guy-with-a-sword-he-could-barely-afford-and-a-self-taught-style at a disadvantage, and possibly makes them irritated.

[Volos]

I would have to say both yes, and no.

When it comes to those directly under the control/leadership/rebuke-undead/magical-geas/ect of any given NPC, I use the rules. My BBEGs have leadership, as do many of the independent baddies throughout the PC's adventures. I only allow them to directly control as large a horde as the rules allow. I do this partially to be fair to the PCs, but mostly I do it so that I don't have to guesstimate how many baddies to give them. As for the example where the BBEG has undead just chillin in his dungeon, I don't see why he can't. If he rebukes some undead, then leaves them in a dungeon and runs off to rebuke more... who's to say the undead know how to unlock dungeon gates? You ever notice how dungeons are always locked and trapped? Might be to keep the extra (a.k.a. uncontrolled) undead in, rather than to keep adventuer's out.

When it comes to those who are not directly undeer the control/leadership/rebuke-undead/magical-geas/ect of any given NPC, I use storytelling. My BBEGs are crafty. They like to manipulate people into doing things that they don't even realize are to the best benifit of the BBEG. Sometimes these people are NPCs themselves, but if I play it right it can be the PCs themselves. Usually I use storytelling to direct who is under in-direct control because it is a more fragile chain of power. If the PCs make the City hating Druid NPC realize that destroying City A will let the BBEG take over the region then she's likely to think twice about what she is doing. Whereas if the PCs try to tell the BBEG's second in command how the BBEG killed his whole family, he's not likely to believe them. PCs don't have many means of taking followers and/or cohorts from the BBEG or other powerful NPCs. But they can take away people who are being controled indirectly.