Can I make a long dead necromancer BBEG?

[Gamereaper]

Hey everyone.

There is a bit of reading, sorry. If you want a stupidly short summary, I'll put one on the bottom labeled "STUPID SHORT SUMMARY".

I have come up with a character concept for a BBEG, one that I think isn't explored as often: A BBEG who is already dead well before the start of the game, but whose death was the catalyst for much worse to come.

I'm trying to see if there is any way to make something like this possible using what is available now without having to homebrew everything.

Basically my idea is to make a super extremely powerful necromancer who managed to make their soul upon death go to a demiplane they created instead. The demiplane also had with a copy of their spellbook, making them into a sort of pseudo demi lich, arch lich, or some kind of sentient supernatural force that can somewhat influence the world long after their death.

With the help of an army, they were eventually caught and were executed a long time ago. I was thinking they either couldn't be raised because it was too long with standard magic or see if the party could cleverly trick some cultists to ressurrect the BBEG in order to break their connection with the demiplane (by moving their soul) and then kill them to permanently kill the BBEG at the end before they can retreat and resestablish the connection.

Some things I feel I will have to homebrew such as "influence points". Influence Points represent their immense power. It stretches beyond the planar boundaries, but even then the connection is extremely weak to the prime material plane. They gain an influence point each week to spend or save (up to a limited amount) as they please.

These "influence points" can be used to raise various dead on the prime material plane all the way from their demiplane using a set amount of those points. They could even "possess" one of the bodies, upgrading it with points to be able to cast spells using spell slots based on how many points are invested in it.

The catch is that the weak connection means all dead raised this way are restricted to a 600 foot area from their original resting place, for up to 1 hour +1 hour per point spent in excess on the undead, and it can only be in an area with a high concentration of dead, such as graveyards or a battlefield.

As a consequence of this, the dead are either taken far away or burned. The living are terrified of the notion that anybody (any...body... haha) can suddenly start attacking people or worse receive a visit from the dreaded necromancer themselves as one of their loved ones, all to eager to turn a village into a permanent small army that can wreak havoc on settlements nearby.

All attempts to enter the demiplane to stop them have failed and probably always will fail. The demiplane is mostly a large forested area with a pitch black sky, visibility fades to an infinite darkness in the distance. The only notable feature is a taut red string intertwined around trees at around chest level as it leads to a cabin. This string can appear or disappear on the whim of the BBEG. Without this string, all who entered become hopelessly lost and unable to find their way back out of the demiplane or towards the cabin.

STUPID SHORT SUMMARY:

Powerful dead necromancer becomes ghosty boi and summons stuff from beyond the grave in private magic infinite forest demiplane. How can do?

END STUPID SHORT SUMMARY

With all that out of the way, how much of this is actually possible to do currently and how much of this sounds theoretically plausible in 5E?

[OldTrees1]

Yes. Yes you can. Remember that 5E has the DMG freely create NPCs in any way they want. None of this is impossible or even strains credulity.

[Sorinth]

NPCs don't have to follow the PC rules so you can give your BBEG whatever magical powers you want. So if you want to give them some weird animated dead like spell or ability just do it. If the PCs want to know how they the BBEG did it, well they can get their hands on the BBEG magical research notes and spend a couple years trying to understand it then maybe they can figure it out.

In terms of the story/plot I think a good option would be near the end of the campaign presenting the PCs with a choice. They acquire a McGuffin that can be used to either close the connection between the BBEG's demi plane and the prime material plane stopping the whole influence thing, or open the connection wider such that they could travel to the demi plane and take the BBEG on. Either can be considered a win, but in the first where they simply close the connection they can't be sure that the BBEG won't figure some way around it over the next a couple centuries. But if they open the connection further and fail to kill the BBEG, well now the world is probably F-ed.

[Angelalex242]

PCs love a fight, in my experience. 9/10 groups will choose to take the fight to him.

[Gamereaper]

Yes. Yes you can. Remember that 5E has the DMG freely create NPCs in any way they want. None of this is impossible or even strains credulity.

Very true, it is just papers and pencils after all.

I try to avoid homebrewing powerful crap for NPCs if I can help it. I put in a general rule of making sure most things are as close to the staying within the "rules" or "physics" of the game as possible or else I may end up having to deal with it myself if the PCs manage to get of hold of whatever it is.

PCs love a fight, in my experience. 9/10 groups will choose to take the fight to him.

I agree, the only problem is that the BBEG has control over an important aspect of their demiplane. They can just simply disappear in the darkness, sever the red string that ensures the PCs get hopelessly lost, and let the PCs starve to death.

There will be a point made in the lore that attacking them directly in their demiplane has made no progress and only leads to more dead soldiers, which means potentially more undead.

Essentially, both "sides" cannot directly attack each other because they either have limited power on the prime material plane (necromancer) or they cannot get to the other (PCs/everyone else).

Right now, one of the best (or easiest) ways to kill them is for the PCs to find a way to take the BBEG's soul out of the demiplane (such as by using some kind of ressurrection) to kill the BBEG permanently.

[Sigreid]

This sounds like a job for a Demi Lich.

[Gamereaper]

NPCs don't have to follow the PC rules so you can give your BBEG whatever magical powers you want. So if you want to give them some weird animated dead like spell or ability just do it. If the PCs want to know how they the BBEG did it, well they can get their hands on the BBEG magical research notes and spend a couple years trying to understand it then maybe they can figure it out.

In terms of the story/plot I think a good option would be near the end of the campaign presenting the PCs with a choice. They acquire a McGuffin that can be used to either close the connection between the BBEG's demi plane and the prime material plane stopping the whole influence thing, or open the connection wider such that they could travel to the demi plane and take the BBEG on. Either can be considered a win, but in the first where they simply close the connection they can't be sure that the BBEG won't figure some way around it over the next a couple centuries. But if they open the connection further and fail to kill the BBEG, well now the world is probably F-ed.

Very true, I can give BBEGs whatever I want. I just know that if I make something available in a game, who is to say that the PCs can't manage to get it as well without being like "no you can't do that for bull**** or plot reasons". I don't like to DM that way.

Imagine if a guy in real life found a way to make infinite money somehow, then on top of that do something completely unexpected (decide with their infinite money pay for everything that anybody ever wanted). We don't have meteors, dragons, police/FBI, or whatever all of a sudden just kill the guy because God (DM) doesn't like it. I feel it's the same thing with D&D, DM intervention like that breaks immersion and just makes you look like a ****.

The Macguffin idea is not a bad one either. My original idea would have been to trick an evil cult into ressurrecting the BBEG in order to kill them.

That's the beauty of D&D, rarely is there just one solution to a problem.

[OldTrees1]

Very true, it is just papers and pencils after all.

I try to avoid homebrewing powerful crap for NPCs if I can help it. I put in a general rule of making sure most things are as close to the staying within the "rules" or "physics" of the game as possible or else I may end up having to deal with it myself if the PCs manage to get of hold of whatever it is.

Ouch, bad news, the 5E DMG asks you to homebrew NPCs.

General rules to make it easier:
Any minion control is part of the encounter design, not part of the NPC's stats. Their control happens via their abilities but does not have to be put in their stats.
Likewise any location is part of encounter design, not part of the NPC's stats.

You have not given much details about the NPC's stats themselves. I would not include influence points in the stats. The rest of their stats could be a mod of Acererak

However the influence points would be part of campaign design. Basically you are setting a timer by having the BBEG gain points and spend points to act against the world/PCs. Set an influence point income. Define the limits on the BBEG's information gathering. Then decide what encounters the BBEG can spawn for how many influence points. This includes when they decide to attack somewhere the PCs are not (benefits of long reach is the PCs can't defend everywhere).

[Gamereaper]

This sounds like a job for a Demi Lich.

That could be interesting I just hope a demilich is powerful enough to stand up against a powerful necromancer. Perhaps they could get useful information from it that can help destroy the BBEG and then escape (because demilich evil).

[Sorinth]

Very true, I can give BBEGs whatever I want. I just know that if I make something available in a game, who is to say that the PCs can't manage to get it as well without being like "no you can't do that for bull**** or plot reasons". I don't like to DM that way.

Imagine if a guy in real life found a way to make infinite money somehow, then on top of that do something completely unexpected (decide with their infinite money pay for everything that anybody ever wanted). We don't have meteors, dragons, police/FBI, or whatever all of a sudden just kill the guy because God (DM) doesn't like it. I feel it's the same thing with D&D, DM intervention like that breaks immersion and just makes you look like a ****.

The Macguffin idea is not a bad one either. My original idea would have been to trick an evil cult into ressurrecting the BBEG in order to kill them.

That's the beauty of D&D, rarely is there just one solution to a problem.

I get it but at the same time it's reasonable to say that you don't learn how to spread influence throughout the cosmos by killing monsters you have to spend centuries doing magical research just like the BBEG did.

EDIT: It's really no different then the BBEG knowing the ritual required to become a Lich. That's not something the players can do out of the box either.

[Sorinth]

PCs love a fight, in my experience. 9/10 groups will choose to take the fight to him.

Which is why you really want to play up the power level of the BBEG. If it seems like the next step in the adventure then they'll fight, but the more you make it seem like it would be an impossible fight the less obvious choosing to fight will be. Ideally you'd also have "trained" the players in earlier parts of the campagin that at times they can't fight their way through anything.

[Gamereaper]

Ouch, bad news, the 5E DMG asks you to homebrew NPCs.

General rules to make it easier:
Any minion control is part of the encounter design, not part of the NPC's stats. Their control happens via their abilities but does not have to be put in their stats.
Likewise any location is part of encounter design, not part of the NPC's stats.

You have not given much details about the NPC's stats themselves. I would not include influence points in the stats. The rest of their stats could be a mod of Acererak

However the influence points would be part of campaign design. Basically you are setting a timer by having the BBEG gain points and spend points to act against the world/PCs. Set an influence point income. Define the limits on the BBEG's information gathering. Then decide what encounters the BBEG can spawn for how many influence points. This includes when they decide to attack somewhere the PCs are not (benefits of long reach is the PCs can't defend everywhere).

Their stats are not SUPER important just yet, but there is a general stat block. I'm thinking at the very minimum level 20 with both wizard and warlock class features (maybe if I wanted to go beyond the BBEG, then their patron could have made them study magic and eventually get into some kind of magic society or whatever too). I was also thinking I could just make them a level 28 necromancer (I don't recall any epic progression rules, but I was just thinking of just increasing HD, no "10th level spells").

I also don't have Acererak's stat block on hand.

The influence points are there to represent the gathering of power and magic reserve in the background of the story to be able to have a spell transcend the planar borders, requiring great effort.

There are inherit limits such as how many points each undead type costs for them to raise all the way from their demiplane, the range from that position they can move, and how long they will remain animate.

The necromancer has almost no way to tell what is going on in the prime material plane except for being able to "sense" near large groups of dead bodies. All the information the necromancer gets is from the undead animated or when they decide to temporarily control one of the bodies themselves (requiring lots of influence points to unlock spell casting capability in the body).

It's because of what the necromancer can do with these influence points that the world is scared to even have a single dead body nearby as the whole world is now the necromancer's playground. Now bodies are burned to prevent them from being used by the necromancer.

Again, it's mostly for story purposes. An example of this might be where the PCs may have to make a perception check to realize they are in an old battlefield, then suddenly they are attacked by both sides if the necromancer has enough influence points at the time, each group of undead getting progressively stronger as the story goes on.

If I got rid of these influence points, I feel as a DM the BBEG would be perceived as much stronger than they should be or I would make these events happen too often for it to feel special if I could just make anything dead just spontaneously attack. I just think it would get old fast.

i.e. I use the influence points as a check for myself.

[KorvinStarmast]

PCs love a fight, in my experience. 9/10 groups will choose to take the fight to him.

+1

It's really no different then the BBEG knowing the ritual required to become a Lich. That's not something the players can do out of the box either.

+1

I'm thinking at the very minimum level 20 with both wizard and warlock class features

Add epic boons to taste, see the DMG section on epic boons.

I also don't have Acererak's stat block on hand.

I can provide that via PM later today.

The influence points are there to represent the gathering of power and magic reserve in the background of the story to be able to have a spell transcend the planar borders, requiring great effort.

There are inherit limits such as how many points each undead type costs for them to raise all the way from their demiplane, the range from that position they can move, and how long they will remain animate.

I applaud this idea. Stealing the heck out of it.

i.e. I use the influence points as a check for myself.

+ many.

[Sorinth]

Their stats are not SUPER important just yet, but there is a general stat block. I'm thinking at the very minimum level 20 with both wizard and warlock class features (maybe if I wanted to go beyond the BBEG, then their patron could have made them study magic and eventually get into some kind of magic society or whatever too). I was also thinking I could just make them a level 28 necromancer (I don't recall any epic progression rules, but I was just thinking of just increasing HD, no "10th level spells").

I also don't have Acererak's stat block on hand.

The influence points are there to represent the gathering of power and magic reserve in the background of the story to be able to have a spell transcend the planar borders, requiring great effort.

There are inherit limits such as how many points each undead type costs for them to raise all the way from their demiplane, the range from that position they can move, and how long they will remain animate.

The necromancer has almost no way to tell what is going on in the prime material plane except for being able to "sense" near large groups of dead bodies. All the information the necromancer gets is from the undead animated or when they decide to temporarily control one of the bodies themselves (requiring lots of influence points to unlock spell casting capability in the body).

It's because of what the necromancer can do with these influence points that the world is scared to even have a single dead body nearby as the whole world is now the necromancer's playground. Now bodies are burned to prevent them from being used by the necromancer.

Again, it's mostly for story purposes. An example of this might be where the PCs may have to make a perception check to realize they are in an old battlefield, then suddenly they are attacked by both sides if the necromancer has enough influence points at the time, each group of undead getting progressively stronger as the story goes on.

If I got rid of these influence points, I feel as a DM the BBEG would be perceived as much stronger than they should be or I would make these events happen too often for it to feel special if I could just make anything dead just spontaneously attack. I just think it would get old fast.

i.e. I use the influence points as a check for myself.

Just a note, it's a bit meta-gamey but I would suggest having the influence point tracker be public knowledge as that will push the characters to act faster and push on instead of taking a slow cautious approach.

Also consider if you want the BBEG to be able to animate animals. If they can then there are likely places filled with undead wolves/bears, etc...

[EggKookoo]

Very true, I can give BBEGs whatever I want. I just know that if I make something available in a game, who is to say that the PCs can't manage to get it as well without being like "no you can't do that for bull**** or plot reasons". I don't like to DM that way.

It's not BS to give the BBEG inherent powers that the PCs can't take.

I have an upcoming BBEG (mini-boss, really) with a custom weapon with a bunch of features, and shoulder armor that sprouts wings, giving him a fly speed. The PCs will probably kill him. But they won't be able to get much use out of those items. For one, the boss is a Large creature, and the shoulder armor won't fit a smaller creature. And the weapon (aside from also being pretty big -- it's a polearm) basically has the equivalent of security on it. Only this creature can use those features. If the PCs want to hold onto it for study, great! That's an ongoing plot-magnet. Think Loki's scepter for the Avengers. But I don't have any concern that they'll be using these items for the next fight. At best the artificer will be able to disassemble it and make something more appropriate for his size and nature. That gives me an opportunity to re-evaluate what features he gets out of it. And it will take time to study.

There are a number of official items that can only be attuned by specific classes or races. There's nothing BS about creating an item that can only be attuned by one specific boss creature, especially if it makes sense within the setting that the creature created it or it was otherwise made just for him.

[Gamereaper]

Hey everyone.

Lots of great imput, wasn't expecting as much. Can't get to everyone at once.

I really appreciate how people had mentioned things being possible for the enemies, but not as easy for the players. The irony is one of those examples being "becoming a lich".

I seen one about sizes being different such as for a large creature (but that wouldn't stop an enlarged creature from using such an item).

I'm not sure if it is the case, but I feel that 5E has a much more delicate balance to it, meaning a +2 is a much bigger deal than it was in 3.5 or even 2E/AD&D. With that in mind, I feel that making homebrewed changes could upset the balance easier, especially if it's hard to play test it.

But now I'm like "You know what, unlimited spell slots, all at 9th level with unwinnable save or suck/save or die saving throws" sounds way easier, so I just might do that.

No, not really.

In all seriousness, I actually am thinking of adding a few of the spells from (if anybody remembers) the Book of Vile Darkness, but making them exclusively their spells. They would probably be really nasty spells like:

Seething Eyebane (A creature's eyes explode, causing acid damage to others nearby)

Grim Revenge (The enemy's hand rips off and starts attacking them).

Rotting Curse of Urlfestra (Enemy rots away, taking con damage every hour until death).

and Wither Limb (Enemy arms or legs shrivel up and wither for a set time, each with their own penalties).

They would have to be converted and rebalanced in case the PCs are smart enough to get their hands on the spell book containing them. I probably would have someone encourage them to destroy it should they loot it, but the draw of the powerful spells could be the IRL desire for the party to keep the book like how a cursed person can't give up an item or a cursed item draws someone under it's influence.

I probably won't target the PCs with these spells, at least not at first. I'd wait long enough for them to witness the capability of the spells beforehand, maybe from stories or the necromancer quickly dispatching some armored red shirts with the party before doing their first interaction with BBEG (either because party needs info BBEG has or BBEG forces party to do something for them).