How powerful should I make the villain?

[An Enemy Spy]

I'm a relatively new DM and in my adventure, the players are going to come to a ruined castle where a ghost named the Pale King rules. After making their way through his castle fighting skeletons and dreadguards along the way, they will enter the throne room and deal with the Pale King himself.
He is an elven ghost, and I'm worried that he will be too powerful for a party of 2nd-3rd level adventurers to beat. What level should I make him?

[veti]

I'm a relatively new DM and in my adventure, the players are going to come to a ruined castle where a ghost named the Pale King rules. After making their way through his castle fighting skeletons and dreadguards along the way, they will enter the throne room and deal with the Pale King himself.
He is an elven ghost, and I'm worried that he will be too powerful for a party of 2nd-3rd level adventurers to beat. What level should I make him?

What system are you playing?

What attributes does he need to have (any particular class, any particular spell he needs to be able to cast for plot reasons...)?

How experienced are your players?

How much attention do they pay to optimising their characters?

[An Enemy Spy]

What system are you playing?

What attributes does he need to have (any particular class, any particular spell he needs to be able to cast for plot reasons...)?

How experienced are your players?

How much attention do they pay to optimising their characters?

D&D 3.5. My players are either first time players or haven't played in years. This game was created when one of them mentioned that he's always wanted to play D&D and I said that I have all the books we need.

[zinycor]

D&D 3.5. My players are either first time players or haven't played in years. This game was created when one of them mentioned that he's always wanted to play D&D and I said that I have all the books we need.

then make the villain kinda weak, but a have him have some kind of funny trick that he relies on, that way the players will have fun thinking on how to defeat him.

A one-trick dude would be great to introduce the players to new mechanics and new possibilities

[veti]

For a low-level party of novice players... just "being a ghost", with no levels at all, sounds quite fearsome enough. Likely half the party can't touch him at all, unless you've gone out of your way to give them each a magic weapon.

I'd have the ghost appear and yell abuse and taunts at them for a couple of rounds. If they (at least, those who make their saving throws...) can think of anything effective to do to him in that time - then great, the fight is on. If, as seems more likely, they can't, then it would just taunt them and stalk off. Give them a chance to come up with some better ideas for next time.

As to "how powerful to make him" - that's tricky. He's a king, so he can't be a 1st level drone, but the more special you make him, the tougher he gets on top of an already challenging template. I would suggest, a 6-7th level druid. Then he can do cool druidic stuff that makes it obvious why he was a relative badass in life, but the 'ghost' thing - and the indoor location - severely gimps him now. (You can rule that being indoors means about one-third of the druid spell list just doesn't work, and being undead - and therefore out of touch with "living things" - screws another third, and means no animal companion. And of course most physical enhancers are utterly irrelevant. That leaves him pretty limited.)

[TandemChelipeds]

You should probably also give the non-casters something to do. Perhaps there are several relics keeping him anchored to the Material Plane, and they can be sundered for a quick victory.

[HammeredWharf]

I'd make the king relatively easy, but give him a bunch of guards.

[Firest Kathon]

You could also combine the ideas of HammeredWharf and TandemChelipeds: Give the King a few undead guards (e.g. Zombies or Skeletons). They are what keeps him bound to the plane. The more they kill, the weaker the king will get. As veti said, they will not be able to fight effectively agains a ghost due to the incorporealness.

The King himself could be a more powerful character, but only do things to help his guards (e.g. heal them with negative energy) or hinder the party (entanglement, fear effects, affect the environment such as making parts of the ceiling come down to create difficult terain etc.), but not harm the party directly. Once they find out that killing the guards will get rid of the ghost (e.g. he gets more transparent or some other obvious effect, maybe it also lowers his combat strength), they should be able to finish this encounter without too many problems.

[DM Nate]

Have them fight a projection or a lieutenant of his, have him escape while shaking his fist angrily, and make him a recurring thorn in their side, until such time as they are his CR.

[Segev]

For 2-3 level characters, the ghosts Moan ability alone is enough to end an encounter, generally.

Do you intend him to be a recurring villain, or one they beat and are done with?

[An Enemy Spy]

One and done.

[Segev]

Then I'd definitely go with the zombie "bodyguards" who also serve as his links to this world. Don't bother with the ghost template or even building him. Instead, come up with a list of buffs he can cast on his minions and just have him use them as spell-like abilities. If you have the Spell Compendium, Snake's Swiftness 3/day and Mass Snake's Swiftness 1/day would be good as a start. Zombies with extra actions get kinda creepy.

[Mastikator]

For a low-level party of novice players... just "being a ghost", with no levels at all, sounds quite fearsome enough. Likely half the party can't touch him at all, unless you've gone out of your way to give them each a magic weapon.

I'd have the ghost appear and yell abuse and taunts at them for a couple of rounds. If they (at least, those who make their saving throws...) can think of anything effective to do to him in that time - then great, the fight is on. If, as seems more likely, they can't, then it would just taunt them and stalk off. Give them a chance to come up with some better ideas for next time.

As to "how powerful to make him" - that's tricky. He's a king, so he can't be a 1st level drone, but the more special you make him, the tougher he gets on top of an already challenging template. I would suggest, a 6-7th level druid. Then he can do cool druidic stuff that makes it obvious why he was a relative badass in life, but the 'ghost' thing - and the indoor location - severely gimps him now. (You can rule that being indoors means about one-third of the druid spell list just doesn't work, and being undead - and therefore out of touch with "living things" - screws another third, and means no animal companion. And of course most physical enhancers are utterly irrelevant. That leaves him pretty limited.)

He can easily have been a 1st level aristocrat. Having wealth and social status does not equal levels. The level system is clearly a matter of personal combat power and combat experience.

[jiriku]

I'll also upvote the idea of a "puzzle"-type combat encounter. It would be useful if perhaps the Pale King is restricted in where he can go (bound to the site of his death or his throne or somesuch) and the guards and minions in his encounters move no faster than the slowest character in the party. This lets the players run away if things get too tough.

A good rule of thumb would be to make each guard 1-2 levels lower than the PCs, with the king about twice as strong as the average guard and a number of guards equal the number of PCs + 1.