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Thread: CR//EL appropriate villains
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2008-08-04, 09:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2008
- Location
- In the shadows
- Gender
CR//EL appropriate villains
my campaign runs on many villains that have conflicting goals... (such as two opposing gangs in a city).
my problem lies with that my current two villains are aristocrats that are influenced by a demon (chaos) and a Devil (law)...
some of my future ideas were gangs that were lead by poly-morphed dragons. (with alignment conflict on the good/evil and/or the law/chaos axis) Another Idea down the road is to sub verse the trend of villains working against each other and have a few villains refuse to cross each other (they are siblings and have agreed to rule the city together
when I wrote down my ideas for future enemies, i noticed that their CR//EL were in the double digit range while the players are only level 1. I do not want my players to feel like mooks but given the high CR//EL of the villains, it seems that is the only thing they can become until they too gain levels into the double digits...
I was wondering if anyone could supply me with enemies for my players. The only thing I can think of are basically more mooks/thugs for my players to fight.SpoilerA Fighter/Paladin will just hack you to bits
A Wizard/Sorcerer will just blow you up with a spell
A Rogue/Ranger/Monk will just kill you in your sleep
A Cleric/Druid will just squash you after buffing himself
A Bard will slowly twist your ethics, corrupt your morals, and make you do vile acts just for the chance to face him. When you fight him, he will have your family and friends fighting for him. For he wields the deadliest weapon against you and that is, his word against yours.
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2008-08-04, 10:15 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2008
Re: CR//EL appropriate villains
Until they level up, you could try to run them up against groups who are associated with the higher-up villains.
Like, if you were to have a political villain running an election campaign for the position of mayor, you might have him hire a group of thugs with the Warrior and Expert class levels run a highway robbery scam, and have the mayor-to-be claim that his first act would be to cleanse them from their lovely countryside.
Outside of doing things like that, I find it difficult to run true villains in the low levels. Enemies in the levels 1-2 tend not to be real threats to much of anyone, so what I would do is use a dungeon crawl or two, maybe throw in a group of bandits holding some aristocrats extended family hostage in their own home and have the PCs break in and save the day, or something equally low-end until they become powerful enough to deal with the potential enemies you've already mentioned, or at least the low-end part of their schemes.
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2008-08-04, 10:22 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2006
- Location
- Albany, NY
- Gender
Re: CR//EL appropriate villains
Well, I'd suggest throwing them against semi-mooks. I'm sure the rival gangs have power structures. Sure, the big boss of the polymorphed dragon gang is a polymorphed dragon, but who says the Night Master of the gang or the underbosses need to be hardcore? Throw a bunch of thieves lead by a half-dragon, dragon disciple or dragonfire adept at the PC's. Maybe even hand them their butts once or twice (the gang knocks them out and just leaves them in the street. Some kind PC drags them inside someplace and gets them back to consciousness.)
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2008-08-04, 10:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2008
- Location
- Broken Damaged Worthless
Re: CR//EL appropriate villains
my problem lies with that my current two villains are aristocrats that are influenced by a demon (chaos) and a Devil (law)...
You can give them demonic/devilish mooks. The Fiendish Codex's work well for this. In the Hordes of the Abyss there is a CR 2 demon called the Rutterkin who's pretty fun for players to kill. In the Tyrants of the Nine Hells, there is the Nupperibo, a CR 2 devil. Also, dretches and lemures from the MM are good servants for your aristocrats.
when I wrote down my ideas for future enemies, i noticed that their CR//EL were in the double digit range while the players are only level 1. I do not want my players to feel like mooks but given the high CR//EL of the villains, it seems that is the only thing they can become until they too gain levels into the double digits...
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2008-08-04, 01:03 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Apr 2008
- Location
- Portsmouth U.K
- Gender
Re: CR//EL appropriate villains
What I find to be an effective way of killing levels before getting to the big enemies is to have the PC's deal with a completely different threat before even knowing about the higher level ones. They don't have to be related but it helps, at low levels the PC's could fight kobolds, mid levels it might be an evil church of half-dragons, before finally they fight the real enemy, a family of very angry dragons that were secretly behind it all.
One advantage of this is that it allows the main enemies to begin their evil plan while the PC's level, possibly with them unwittingly helping or maybe slowing them down.
One of my favorites is to have the PC's fight against an enemy for several levels and to finally defeat them, only to find out that they were trying to accomplish the same thing and it was all a misunderstanding.
In your campaign the politicians might send the PC's away somewhere to defeat something that is a threat (maybe a renegade general trying to bring them down) and when they come back will have prepared a surprise for them so that they don't interfere with their evil plots. Alternatively clerics of hextor or erythnul might be raising undead and slaughtering peasants on the borders and the PC's investigate, level up a bit, defeat them and return to find evil politicians are now in charge.
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2008-08-04, 01:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- 333rd Circle of the Abyss
- Gender
Re: CR//EL appropriate villains
Have the main villains stay behind the scenes, planning and letting underlings deal with what the Villains see as minor annoyances ... until it's too late and the PCs are high enough in level to take them on.
OR allow the players to know who the main villain is earlier, but also let them know that beating him in open battle isn't possible ... maybe have them see a duel between the villain and somebody they KNOW could kick the bejeezus out of THEM, and win handily, or just let him/them have reputation(s) as accomplished duelists/magi/priests/whatever. If they ignore that kind of warning, they deserve what they get.
If you do that, though, you have to find a way to let them win anyway; have them foil the villain's plan without having to kill him; embarrass him without provoking a fight, uncover his plot and let some higher authority arrest him, etc. That way they're foiling his schemes but still only have to fight underlings they can handle.Bwaha! I have deep-seated emotional problems! Die! Die! Die!
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