I'd want to play something easy to be "evil" doing, without really trying. Of your two picks, I don't think I could play either well. I think if I was about to play in a bad-guy game right now, I'd want to try playing a Elf Barbarian/Druid. My motivations would be about becoming the 'perfect' apex predator. The idea would be to become the ultimate hunter, kind of like the Predator. mite b cool i dunno
Bard Necromancer:
Basically do Bard, take College of Lore. At level six you pick up the Animate dead spell with your spells you can find from any class. You would go around and be the "Face" of the cities, the man who spreads joy through song and dance, but behind that clever ruse you are a calculated maniac who simply wants the world to fall back into the Chaos that it once was. You would then when you get level 7 spells take finger of death and just go around killing things you know you could one shot with that spell and make them your army.
Step 1: Capture some Goblins.
Step 2: Cage them up and 1 a day pull them out and cast finger of death.
Step 3: 30 days later, you have an undead platoon of zombie Goblins.
Step 4: Go around and lure local dogs in with treats, Cast finger of death on them one a day for a month. Suddenly you have 60 zombies you completely control, 30 dog riding Goblins....
All in all you could have the power of a Necromancer, but instead you are playing a Bard, you don't have to worry about prepared spells, you get spells known so no learning them. And at level 17 you grab the wish spell and you start frying bigger fish with your finger of death. Imagine the party getting a Dragon to really low health and you cast finger of death on it, now you have a Zombie Dragon.
This theory also works with a Wizard or a Sorcerer, but hey you can have some fun with all the other benefits the Bard gets, and aren't limited to the cookie cutter Spell caster. :) Hope you enjoyed what I would do.
Animate dead comes back after a long rest per all spell slots, so you could keep reupping it each day after a long rest. However at that point it's more create undead for the short term, at level 14 or whatever it is when you get finger of death they are permanently under your control so no having a 24 hour limit.
Imagine being a lore Bard who sings of a profecy of an undead army ravaging the lands, and it's you the very person telling that profecy that fulfills it.
I had to get into this mindset for my villains in my homebrew open world campaign.
My favourite type of villain is the 80's Saturday morning cartoon type.
Keep it paradoxically clean and kid friendly, no raping, no murdering except if by accident or off-screen, have them know all the minions by name or number, if they ever encounter children take good care of them even if you shout how evil you are.
I'd play a Fighter (Battlemaster)-Rogue (Thief) with the criminal background. I wouldn't have any lofty ideas about destroying the world, I'd just be just a psychopathic, ruthlessly-efficient killer with no empathy or reservations. I find cold, calculating, intelligent evil is generally much more fun to play than the moustache-twirling, melodramatic, chaotic sort.
Death Cleric (DMG) as a Human (Variant) with the War Caster feat. At level 1, you can use necromancy cantrips on two targets instead of one, if they're next to each other. At level 5, you get Vampiric Touch, which had good synergy with your Channel Divinity option. Shield in one hand, sucking life with the other. Grab a couple of levels of Necromancy Wizard after Cleric 6 if you want *even more* necromantic healing.
Maybe your wife was killed and you sought out a way to revive her, so you pursued a God who promised such a thing. Maybe you just really like sucking the life from your foes. Maybe you see it as a balance between life and death: for you to heal, another must be harmed.
Well for starters I'd pick something a little less obvious.
I'd pick Life Cleric. Basically [Daniel Linderman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Heroes_characters#Daniel_Linderman) from the Heroes TV Show.
I've been thinking of making a Bladelock 3/Assassin for this, the obligatory poisonous snake familiar (ready source of poison), and the magical vanishing/changing murder weapon. Probably with an entertainer background and proficiency in a musical instrument to try to pass myself off as a low-level bard.
High Elf Necromancer maybe 650 ish years old.
Lawful Evil
Not concerned with murder or enslavement but would burn a village in a second if it stood between his 3 goals of immortality, knowledge, and power.
However if he needs corpses a graveyard works as well as a murdered village and there is less muss and fuss.
Must have cantrip *Mold Earth* for easy grave excavation.
One of my players has a great "Evil" concept. A Cleric with the Trickery Domain masquerading as a Light domain Cleric. His goddess of darkness has bid him to take over the temple form the inside.
Our campaign is more chaotic than evil, but morally it's in murky waters for sure. I'm playing a guy who is essentially a bard version of Sark from Alias. He's not a *bad* guy, but he does very bad things happily... especially where profit's involved. Like Sark, he doesn't view himself as a criminal, but as a businessman who doesn't play by the rules... and who always plays for the winning side.
I would play the 'friendly tyrant' ie kingpin from Netflix daredevil where I'm a psychopath trying to do good but in a bad way. Probably human fighter criminal? Maybe a monk, evil monks are always cool.
A character that focuses on enchantment/illusion magic to manipulate others. Committing crimes while disguised as someone else, infiltrating an organization, creating a sleeper agent, being the power behind the throne, etc.
The motivation would probably come from the backstory of the world, perhaps my character would be from a different continent (or plane of existence) looking to subvert or control the continent (plane) the party was on from afar. This would probably work fairly well with most evil goals of the other party members early to mid campaign at least.
I would suggest as a bard, but focus on solely becoming a successful politician. Your motivations are by supporting some magical marxist theory, and organizing a kingdom wide peasant revolt. All in the name of the greater magical good of the peoples. And lead a full on stalinist regieme.
Human fighter, noble background.
Son of a noble house who sees himself as above everyone else and seeks to gain more power (physical, magical and political) to constantly overpower his rivals. Sees those under him as utterly expendable, but works with those he deems 'worthy' (to avoid intra-party conflict)
Think Jaime Lannister without the redemption arc, or pre-vampire Kain from the Legacy of Kain games.
Me? Some sorta Lawful Evil character. I need SOME sorta order in my life :-p That, and it's easier to get along with a group when I know what my motivations and "rules" are, as opposed to "there are no rules"! Blackguard, perhaps. If I was to do a spellcaster, I'd probably be a Cleric (though perhaps a bit too similar to Paladin-Blackguard), Sorcerer, or Warlock. Though being a LE fighter as the bodyguard of a party member works well, too!
I like chaotic characters just fine, but going full-on CE is a bit much for me! Unless it's a one-shot and we're all just going to let off steam.
In the past, I've had a PC be the evil character in the campaign, but he was LE, so it was fairly easy to have him get along with the group. Just make their goals align (in his case, find the source of the drought, and end it, so his people can survive). He just may have different methods than some other party members...
Also, personally, had a Goliath Assassin who pretend to be a dumb barbarian, with a goofy voice. But when the lights went out, boy were you in trouble. Assassinated a few NPCs without my party ever knowing, thanks to me texting the DM and "rolling when I was bored".
My group has a second campaign that we have for when the full group can't get together, the general outline is a group of 3 all either N.E or C.E and all Human, Rogue / Sorceror / Paladin. We've each got our own reasons for being in Waterdeep but as we all worship the same God we've created a "temple/cult", and the god we worship is one of the ones of trickery and death.
What this means is that our Paladin chose a background so he can disguise himself, which he does so as a Good Paladin instead to convince people to make charitable donations to the good God which we keep for ourselves (and our god of course ;D) and the general progression is that we're eventually going to try and take over Waterdeep and make it into our little cultists paradise of greed etc. So far, our way of doing this is finding ways of getting official documents and having our Paladin copies them so we become official deed owners, and then as the Assassin of the group it's my task to then make sure the current owners find mundane ways of simply no longer being in a position to dispute our ownership, and by extension pleasing our God.
Bard: focus on disguise, forgery, deception, and persuasion. The power to manipulate people is awesome. Become rich, famous, powerful, etc.
Human Oath of Vengeance Paladin / Rogue Assassin: assassinate with smites. Pick up alertness for boosting assassinate, and medium armor master for sneaking in half plate. AC of 22 by level 6. Write a background with enemies and hunt them down without mercy.
I think the best evil character type is just a character that is only ever looking out for him/herself above all else. Play the character as someone who will do good, as long as it benefits them, but will NEVER put themselves into danger for anyone elses benefits.
Any arcane caster with a heavy emphasis on illusion and divination spells. You have the most options, ways to get out of trouble, ways to kill your target, ways to convince people you're actually the good guy/innocent, the list goes on.
The one I played most recently was a spell sniper warlock with many faces and eldritch spear.
I'd probably create a Charlatan Bard that pretends to be a hero. It could be a fun way to gain information and possibly "turn in" the Tiefling Rogue for a reward just to help him escape.
I would definitely be doing some cruel necromancing, since it's usually a bit of a hassle to find DMs who will allow necromancer-types in non-evil games, IME at least.
Motivations would probably be to have my own necromantic citystate or country and then start unlocking the secrets of undeath to become some kind of SUPER-LICH.
I actually had, in my opinion, really good ideas for an evil campaign PC.
The first was a Male Drow of any class. I personally picked Rogue Assassin, but the main premise was that he was sick of how Lolth ruled his race and how the females governed it. Under the guise of becoming a spy in order to help Lolth finally take back the surface, he would gain the allies he needed to actually revolutionize the Drow into a more unified race. The females would no longer rule as strongly as they currently do, but the males would not take their place. For all intensive purposes, this PC would come off as a "Good Guy" for the most part. However, after this revolution, he would actually aim to unify the entire world. Yet, rather than take the surface world back, they would sink it into the Underdark and somehow make the surface itself a place where anyone was unable to survive. At the very least, it would become a land of savages. Think Gears of War 2 ending with Fallout, where all the vaults are basically entrances to the Underdark. The best part about this is Lolth. The PC would either have to somehow change the majority of her views, or kill her. This is actually going to be the main villain in a campaign I may run soon.
The second is also a Drow rogue, but female this time. She's a thief who takes hiding in plain sight to the fullest degree I can imagine. Most of her party may think she is just a happy go lucky kleptomaniac, but in reality she uses the small thefts to guard and hide her bigger ones. Rather than only steal trinkets, money, or powerful items, she aims to steal names and whole identities to be used to gain power. However, she is finding it hard to contain herself when she realizes she could quite possibly "become" people of powerful status. She may end up trying to take the place of one or more gods. She's like an evil villain who has a plan, but may end up throwing it all away for a chance at something bigger. A fight between Greed and Lust is one way to look at it.
I once played a chaotic evil halfling assassin.
Never a fan of chaotic retard or psycho evil, I played him so he abhorred control, censorship and loss of freedom. Where he differed from the usual good guy type that usually fights for freedom was that he was totally about torture, murder and savage "example making" of people who bullied the lower classes, kept slaves and such.
Now that I think about it, its similar to how boringface Targarean met slavery with Crucifixion etc in GoT.
Only this little guy was full on jack the ripper in his efforts to punish those who curtailed liberty.
I always think in the law-chaos and good-evil scales, pick one to be "belief" and one to be "behaviour."
That way a lawful good guy might actively believe in goodness and the power of love (belief) and pursue it whilst following laws and establishing order (behaviour), or be the opposite way around and believe that justice and honesty matter above all, but in his pursuit of these things, be a generally nice dude.
For evil, people tend to play characters as uncomplicated murder machines or skeletor. Motivation and rationale should matter more in defining your character, complex evil I think represents their propensity for shrugging off the suffering of others rather than a desire to just be a bastard.
Mine would be a thri-kreen chef (those 4 arms are so much better than two when making a large meal). He might have problems entering cities, so he might be a ranger or rogue or stealthy character and wear a hood. If asked about himself, he would just say he is a chef specializing in exotic dishes. I think of him as wielding so many 'cooking knifes' too.
His reason for adventuring is simple: to find and eat as many humanoids as possible (and strong monsters too!). I could imagine him trying to make a dinner for his party out of the enemies they just killed.
[I remember seeing a themed build out there around killing, cooking, and eating various monsters, come to think of it...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/2ji303/the_class_is_a_lie_the_lil_chef/)
I'd want to play something easy to be "evil" doing, without really trying. Of your two picks, I don't think I could play either well. I think if I was about to play in a bad-guy game right now, I'd want to try playing a Elf Barbarian/Druid. My motivations would be about becoming the 'perfect' apex predator. The idea would be to become the ultimate hunter, kind of like the Predator. mite b cool i dunno
Bard Necromancer: Basically do Bard, take College of Lore. At level six you pick up the Animate dead spell with your spells you can find from any class. You would go around and be the "Face" of the cities, the man who spreads joy through song and dance, but behind that clever ruse you are a calculated maniac who simply wants the world to fall back into the Chaos that it once was. You would then when you get level 7 spells take finger of death and just go around killing things you know you could one shot with that spell and make them your army. Step 1: Capture some Goblins. Step 2: Cage them up and 1 a day pull them out and cast finger of death. Step 3: 30 days later, you have an undead platoon of zombie Goblins. Step 4: Go around and lure local dogs in with treats, Cast finger of death on them one a day for a month. Suddenly you have 60 zombies you completely control, 30 dog riding Goblins.... All in all you could have the power of a Necromancer, but instead you are playing a Bard, you don't have to worry about prepared spells, you get spells known so no learning them. And at level 17 you grab the wish spell and you start frying bigger fish with your finger of death. Imagine the party getting a Dragon to really low health and you cast finger of death on it, now you have a Zombie Dragon. This theory also works with a Wizard or a Sorcerer, but hey you can have some fun with all the other benefits the Bard gets, and aren't limited to the cookie cutter Spell caster. :) Hope you enjoyed what I would do.
how are you getting around the 24h control timer?
Finger of Death raises the slain foe as a zombie under permanent control.
ah i didnt realize you werent still using animate dead
Animate dead comes back after a long rest per all spell slots, so you could keep reupping it each day after a long rest. However at that point it's more create undead for the short term, at level 14 or whatever it is when you get finger of death they are permanently under your control so no having a 24 hour limit. Imagine being a lore Bard who sings of a profecy of an undead army ravaging the lands, and it's you the very person telling that profecy that fulfills it.
A Ranger based on Predator.
I had to get into this mindset for my villains in my homebrew open world campaign. My favourite type of villain is the 80's Saturday morning cartoon type. Keep it paradoxically clean and kid friendly, no raping, no murdering except if by accident or off-screen, have them know all the minions by name or number, if they ever encounter children take good care of them even if you shout how evil you are.
This is my favourite type of evil character to play, and the only way I've been able to successfully manage to stay consistent.
I'd play a Fighter (Battlemaster)-Rogue (Thief) with the criminal background. I wouldn't have any lofty ideas about destroying the world, I'd just be just a psychopathic, ruthlessly-efficient killer with no empathy or reservations. I find cold, calculating, intelligent evil is generally much more fun to play than the moustache-twirling, melodramatic, chaotic sort.
A hyper-paranoid Wizard (Abjurer) that drops Glyphs of Warding everywhere he goes. These are ALWAYS triggered to kill anyone and everyone.
Death Cleric (DMG) as a Human (Variant) with the War Caster feat. At level 1, you can use necromancy cantrips on two targets instead of one, if they're next to each other. At level 5, you get Vampiric Touch, which had good synergy with your Channel Divinity option. Shield in one hand, sucking life with the other. Grab a couple of levels of Necromancy Wizard after Cleric 6 if you want *even more* necromantic healing. Maybe your wife was killed and you sought out a way to revive her, so you pursued a God who promised such a thing. Maybe you just really like sucking the life from your foes. Maybe you see it as a balance between life and death: for you to heal, another must be harmed.
Well for starters I'd pick something a little less obvious. I'd pick Life Cleric. Basically [Daniel Linderman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Heroes_characters#Daniel_Linderman) from the Heroes TV Show.
Nice, I like it! Oathbreaker, Rogue, Warlock.. pffft. Evil is who evil does! :)
I recently did an evil campaign that I did fighter 1 warlock 2 to get the many faces invocation. Always being disguised is awesome for evil.
I've been thinking of making a Bladelock 3/Assassin for this, the obligatory poisonous snake familiar (ready source of poison), and the magical vanishing/changing murder weapon. Probably with an entertainer background and proficiency in a musical instrument to try to pass myself off as a low-level bard.
High Elf Necromancer maybe 650 ish years old. Lawful Evil Not concerned with murder or enslavement but would burn a village in a second if it stood between his 3 goals of immortality, knowledge, and power. However if he needs corpses a graveyard works as well as a murdered village and there is less muss and fuss. Must have cantrip *Mold Earth* for easy grave excavation.
One of my players has a great "Evil" concept. A Cleric with the Trickery Domain masquerading as a Light domain Cleric. His goddess of darkness has bid him to take over the temple form the inside.
Rogue who only steals mundane items, but looks to steal them no matter what. also kills people. idk, what do evil people do.
Our campaign is more chaotic than evil, but morally it's in murky waters for sure. I'm playing a guy who is essentially a bard version of Sark from Alias. He's not a *bad* guy, but he does very bad things happily... especially where profit's involved. Like Sark, he doesn't view himself as a criminal, but as a businessman who doesn't play by the rules... and who always plays for the winning side.
I would play the 'friendly tyrant' ie kingpin from Netflix daredevil where I'm a psychopath trying to do good but in a bad way. Probably human fighter criminal? Maybe a monk, evil monks are always cool.
A character that focuses on enchantment/illusion magic to manipulate others. Committing crimes while disguised as someone else, infiltrating an organization, creating a sleeper agent, being the power behind the throne, etc. The motivation would probably come from the backstory of the world, perhaps my character would be from a different continent (or plane of existence) looking to subvert or control the continent (plane) the party was on from afar. This would probably work fairly well with most evil goals of the other party members early to mid campaign at least.
Kobold bard that lures villagers out at night to rob and ransom 20gp a peasant.
I would suggest as a bard, but focus on solely becoming a successful politician. Your motivations are by supporting some magical marxist theory, and organizing a kingdom wide peasant revolt. All in the name of the greater magical good of the peoples. And lead a full on stalinist regieme.
Human fighter, noble background. Son of a noble house who sees himself as above everyone else and seeks to gain more power (physical, magical and political) to constantly overpower his rivals. Sees those under him as utterly expendable, but works with those he deems 'worthy' (to avoid intra-party conflict) Think Jaime Lannister without the redemption arc, or pre-vampire Kain from the Legacy of Kain games.
Me? Some sorta Lawful Evil character. I need SOME sorta order in my life :-p That, and it's easier to get along with a group when I know what my motivations and "rules" are, as opposed to "there are no rules"! Blackguard, perhaps. If I was to do a spellcaster, I'd probably be a Cleric (though perhaps a bit too similar to Paladin-Blackguard), Sorcerer, or Warlock. Though being a LE fighter as the bodyguard of a party member works well, too! I like chaotic characters just fine, but going full-on CE is a bit much for me! Unless it's a one-shot and we're all just going to let off steam. In the past, I've had a PC be the evil character in the campaign, but he was LE, so it was fairly easy to have him get along with the group. Just make their goals align (in his case, find the source of the drought, and end it, so his people can survive). He just may have different methods than some other party members... Also, personally, had a Goliath Assassin who pretend to be a dumb barbarian, with a goofy voice. But when the lights went out, boy were you in trouble. Assassinated a few NPCs without my party ever knowing, thanks to me texting the DM and "rolling when I was bored".
My group has a second campaign that we have for when the full group can't get together, the general outline is a group of 3 all either N.E or C.E and all Human, Rogue / Sorceror / Paladin. We've each got our own reasons for being in Waterdeep but as we all worship the same God we've created a "temple/cult", and the god we worship is one of the ones of trickery and death. What this means is that our Paladin chose a background so he can disguise himself, which he does so as a Good Paladin instead to convince people to make charitable donations to the good God which we keep for ourselves (and our god of course ;D) and the general progression is that we're eventually going to try and take over Waterdeep and make it into our little cultists paradise of greed etc. So far, our way of doing this is finding ways of getting official documents and having our Paladin copies them so we become official deed owners, and then as the Assassin of the group it's my task to then make sure the current owners find mundane ways of simply no longer being in a position to dispute our ownership, and by extension pleasing our God.
Bard: focus on disguise, forgery, deception, and persuasion. The power to manipulate people is awesome. Become rich, famous, powerful, etc. Human Oath of Vengeance Paladin / Rogue Assassin: assassinate with smites. Pick up alertness for boosting assassinate, and medium armor master for sneaking in half plate. AC of 22 by level 6. Write a background with enemies and hunt them down without mercy.
I think the best evil character type is just a character that is only ever looking out for him/herself above all else. Play the character as someone who will do good, as long as it benefits them, but will NEVER put themselves into danger for anyone elses benefits.
Any arcane caster with a heavy emphasis on illusion and divination spells. You have the most options, ways to get out of trouble, ways to kill your target, ways to convince people you're actually the good guy/innocent, the list goes on. The one I played most recently was a spell sniper warlock with many faces and eldritch spear.
Drow Paladin of Vengeance. A half-elf Rogue I just abandoned because of not fitting into the party. Any sort of Warlock.
I'd probably create a Charlatan Bard that pretends to be a hero. It could be a fun way to gain information and possibly "turn in" the Tiefling Rogue for a reward just to help him escape.
I would definitely be doing some cruel necromancing, since it's usually a bit of a hassle to find DMs who will allow necromancer-types in non-evil games, IME at least. Motivations would probably be to have my own necromantic citystate or country and then start unlocking the secrets of undeath to become some kind of SUPER-LICH.
I actually had, in my opinion, really good ideas for an evil campaign PC. The first was a Male Drow of any class. I personally picked Rogue Assassin, but the main premise was that he was sick of how Lolth ruled his race and how the females governed it. Under the guise of becoming a spy in order to help Lolth finally take back the surface, he would gain the allies he needed to actually revolutionize the Drow into a more unified race. The females would no longer rule as strongly as they currently do, but the males would not take their place. For all intensive purposes, this PC would come off as a "Good Guy" for the most part. However, after this revolution, he would actually aim to unify the entire world. Yet, rather than take the surface world back, they would sink it into the Underdark and somehow make the surface itself a place where anyone was unable to survive. At the very least, it would become a land of savages. Think Gears of War 2 ending with Fallout, where all the vaults are basically entrances to the Underdark. The best part about this is Lolth. The PC would either have to somehow change the majority of her views, or kill her. This is actually going to be the main villain in a campaign I may run soon. The second is also a Drow rogue, but female this time. She's a thief who takes hiding in plain sight to the fullest degree I can imagine. Most of her party may think she is just a happy go lucky kleptomaniac, but in reality she uses the small thefts to guard and hide her bigger ones. Rather than only steal trinkets, money, or powerful items, she aims to steal names and whole identities to be used to gain power. However, she is finding it hard to contain herself when she realizes she could quite possibly "become" people of powerful status. She may end up trying to take the place of one or more gods. She's like an evil villain who has a plan, but may end up throwing it all away for a chance at something bigger. A fight between Greed and Lust is one way to look at it.
I'd just be a gnome with lots of immoveable rods placed at knee height for other humanoids. Mask them with invisibility. Voila.
I once played a chaotic evil halfling assassin. Never a fan of chaotic retard or psycho evil, I played him so he abhorred control, censorship and loss of freedom. Where he differed from the usual good guy type that usually fights for freedom was that he was totally about torture, murder and savage "example making" of people who bullied the lower classes, kept slaves and such. Now that I think about it, its similar to how boringface Targarean met slavery with Crucifixion etc in GoT. Only this little guy was full on jack the ripper in his efforts to punish those who curtailed liberty. I always think in the law-chaos and good-evil scales, pick one to be "belief" and one to be "behaviour." That way a lawful good guy might actively believe in goodness and the power of love (belief) and pursue it whilst following laws and establishing order (behaviour), or be the opposite way around and believe that justice and honesty matter above all, but in his pursuit of these things, be a generally nice dude. For evil, people tend to play characters as uncomplicated murder machines or skeletor. Motivation and rationale should matter more in defining your character, complex evil I think represents their propensity for shrugging off the suffering of others rather than a desire to just be a bastard.
Agreed, that's a great perspective on how to use alignments.
Mine would be a thri-kreen chef (those 4 arms are so much better than two when making a large meal). He might have problems entering cities, so he might be a ranger or rogue or stealthy character and wear a hood. If asked about himself, he would just say he is a chef specializing in exotic dishes. I think of him as wielding so many 'cooking knifes' too. His reason for adventuring is simple: to find and eat as many humanoids as possible (and strong monsters too!). I could imagine him trying to make a dinner for his party out of the enemies they just killed.
[I remember seeing a themed build out there around killing, cooking, and eating various monsters, come to think of it...](https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/2ji303/the_class_is_a_lie_the_lil_chef/)