Do you ever use 4-man BBEGs?

[Frosty]

Instead of having one single supremely powerful being to face off against an adventuring party, do you sometimes use an opposing 4-man/woman party as foes? If so, what advice would you give? Sometimes 2 over-optimized parties boils down to people on both sides dying left and right really, really quickly and which ever side does better initiative-wise will probably win. Maybe have the opposing party be higher levels but less optimized offensively?

I'm thinking of creating a BBEG party like thus against a party with average ECL 12:

NE Changeling Factotum/Chameleon sometimes disguised as a Paladin of Ehlonna. Pretends to be a high-ranking member of Ehlonna's church to give the Paladin of the party orders. H's the brains and the leader of the bunch.(maybe level 13)

CN Goliath Barbarian/Crusader/Fighter using Lockdown tactics and also Knockback. Dungeoncrasher may or may not come into effect depending on where the fight takes place. She is out for revenge against horrible wrongs done against her family, and doesn't care who gets hurt in the process of her revenge. (probably also ECL 13)

LG Human Paladin of Ehlonna who believes he is doing good in this party. Uses wands to keep the party in good shape. Also does charging from the back of his Pegasus special mount (ECL of one lower than the Changeling)

LE Pleasure Devil modified to have arcane casting. Maybe Beguiler casting. Dunno exactly how to modify it or how much tougher the Brachina will become if I give it casting as a 12-level Beguiler using Charisma as the casting stat. She plays the role of the Paladin's lover, keeping him in line and soothing his suspicions away. Is secretly the Changeling's consort, although no one knows who is supposed to be the male in the bedroom, except them two...and sometimes not even them two.

[TehJhu]

I like using teams of baddies to oppose my parties, but you should be aware that they need to be individually weaker than a regular BBEG and that the PCs will go after the healer/caster like rabid dogs.

[Falrin]

I like the 'evil party' the way OoTS played them. When they're out on a mission they find out another party is going for the same hostage/artefact/'save the world'button, but with less nice intentions.

Keep the first encounters short with an easy escape (collapsing dungeons, monsters attacking, traps forming a chasm in between, lava flow, ...)

Get them to work together somewhere (Big monster, Trapped, ...)

Face of at the end.

[Frosty]

I like using teams of baddies to oppose my parties, but you should be aware that they need to be individually weaker than a regular BBEG and that the PCs will go after the healer/caster like rabid dogs.

Oh yes, casters have always been targeted first. That's why there's a lockdown melee-tank in this BBEG party. She'll go annoy whomever is causing the most trouble against the casters. Healing will most likely come from Scrolls of Heal UMD'ed by the Pleasure Devil.

[kjones]

The main direct-confrontable villains in one of my campaigns was a group of five baddies who called themselves the "Slaughterhouse Five". Fighter (later Warblade, I remade him), Cleric, Sorcerer, Ninja/Assassin, and Half-Dragon Monk.

I heartily recommend this approach, especially because it allows you to do stuff like making individual baddies develop individual rivalries against specific characters - the sorcerer really had it out for the PC wizard, the cleric and the PC cleric had a whole holy war thing going on - good times.

[Keld Denar]

Man, I came up with a pretty baddass encounter party on the spot when some guy was asking for a cult of the dragon hit squad. Party consisted of a pair of spiked chain wielding standstill crusaders, a wizard with fogs and debuffs, a cleric with divine ward on the crusaders and counterspells prepped, a bard throwing out optimized dragonfire inspiration, and a handful of warriors (thats right, the NPC class) with longspears to poke and prod with the dragonfire. Tough group if your party can't get and stay airborn (tough with the dispels). Locks you down, pins you into a narrow impenitrable corridor between the crusader who JUST DON'T FREAKIN DIE, and subjects you to the pointy end of a bunch of flaming dragonfire spears who are responisble for 60-70% of the damage.

[Tsotha-lanti]

A group of NPCs at the same level as the PCs would be, what, EL = PC level + 4 ? That's my default "final encounter" EL, so it'd work out fine for me.

I think BBEG groups are almost more natural than single ones. Most evil organizations in my games are headed by groups rather than single leaders.

[SilverClawShift]

Our DM throws us against groups of villains from time to time. Actually, in any given campaign, it's more likely that we're facing two or three villains than one.

They're not specifically 4-person parties though, they're just villainous matchups.

[Oslecamo]

What I normally use for BBEG is one or two really tough guys, the generals/masterminds/bosses(stronger than players), with 2 tough lieutenants/bodyguards/suporters(as strong as players) for each general and then a handfull of weack underlings/minions that go down quickly but if not taken care off can still dish out some damage.

(notice that I usually DM big parties, above the usual four)

This is because the way I see it, if you're a really evil and powerfull guy, you don't want other equally powerfull and evil guy arounds. You want weaker(but still strong) guys around you so you can boss them around easily. Story shows that when you have a bunch of evil powerfull guys around, sooner or later they'll backstab each other to gain their ex-allies powers, unless there is someone even more evil and powerfull above them keeping them in check.

And your paladin surely should go check his detect evil, since it seems to be working badly, with all the atrocities going around him and he not noticing anything.

[Frosty]

And your paladin surely should go check his detect evil, since it seems to be working badly, with all the atrocities going around him and he not noticing anything.

Detect Evil doesn't exist in my campaign setting. He shouldn't have dumped Sense Motive But no, the Changeling is smart. He never actually commits atrocities in the presence of the paladin. He leads them in doing some slightly morally questionable things that he explains "is for the greater good" and between him and the Brachina, they manage to convince the Paladin so.

The Paladin himself isn't really committing acts that would make him fall, but his activity do end up helpuing the cause of evil (trying to get two city-states to go to all out war with each other). As far as he knows, he's not assosciating with evil people either.

[Moral Wiz]

Cloak of undetectable alignment should be a core item. Really. Just so the Alignment system can get over this.

It's a good approach. I'm considering doing this with a GURPS Diskworld Dark Lord. A group of an Igor, a Witch, someone with a big choppy thing and black armor, and a Wizard Lord.