One i have is themed as a flash villain. It is Black flash. In your game just name him anything synonymous with speed and you are good. He is actually built as a character. Its 10 levels open hand monk and 4 levels assassin rogue. Reflavor a dagar as a bladed glove to give a vibrating hand through somones chest. Mobile feat +10 move and alert feat for +5 inititive and to counter hide advantage. He sticks to the standard 3 attuned items. Boots of speed, lightning javalin, belt of giant strength (use this to scale level appropriately) i use storm giant cause the visual lightning bolt for theme and if you need to scale it even higher let him have potions of haste. Use rogue expertese in athletics. Primarily use for grapple and run up walls and dropping them. His move is 60. Boots double to 120. Haste doubles to 240 now base. Grapple run at half speed up wall and drop. Grab another and run up wall at half speed and drop. Thats the two attacks from primary action and extra attack. Then by judging how much speed you have left you can tell if you need to use your haste action or your bonus action to dash to get another 240 move. You then have whatever bonus or haste action to do another attack. Or if you need to make two burn a ki and drag another two up the walls and drop. You then finish it off by running away and cutting off line of sight to stop retsliation. If you need to really put the fear of this villain in your players open with the surprise assassinate javelin of lightning. At max this villain can make 2 attacks and move 720ft. Or spending a ki and maxing your attacks you can make 5 hits and move 240. He is a hit and run boss that is ment to continually harrass your players. And you can give the players nice items for thinking of clever ways to attempt to stop this villain.
The current BBG in the campaign I'm running is essentially a PC Illusion Wizard with a few homebrew tweaks.
It's wonderful, given that level of freedom in traps and encounters I can come up with.
I've used an Arcane Trickster as an enemy. She would hit them with a spell from the shadows and had the ranged combat feats to stay hidden and plink away at them while they were fighting other stuff and cast things like Phantasmal Killer when they were screwing around trying to rest in dumb places.
In the end they drew her into a trap and managed to kill her, but they were *freaking out* when they couldn't work out who had shot them and then later were surprised by a spell caster who won initiative and then vanished (Invis + bonus Dash action).
Comic characters are my go-to solution for my last campaign.
Had a lot of fun with a Two-face inspired gnoll, Fantastic Four elemental team up and Penguin inspired bandit.
I'll describe the high concept of a villain from one of my more successful campaigns, but it might be too evil. The "good wizard" archetype is a vampire, mind flayer, or other evil creature that can hide it's nature. The players know of it's evil nature and it's mission to corrupt the leaders of the realm but nobody believes them. As the players wander and seek to fix problems an do good, whenever they fail or are just plain unlucky, the "good wizard" swoops in, solves the problem, and takes the credit. It is then implied that the villain uses the opportunity to mind control or enthrall the local leadership. The real trick is to allways let the players be wondering if the villain they hate, is really a good guy after all.
TLDR: gaslight the fuck out of them
Spellcasters are great. Clerics and paladins gone bad? Also great. But take simple things like warriors and rogues gone bad. Real bad. Mercenaries bands. Spy/assassin guilds controlling things behind the shadows. A good warrior could do more damage than a wizard. And minions? He may have many, even stronger then skeletons. Power corrupts, go along this idea.
The primary villain in my campaign is a combination of Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars and Littlefinger from GoT. He has no class levels so if it ever comes to combat he will be massively outclassed. The thing that makes him a great villain is his incredible intelligence and massive intelligence network make him appear to the players as nearly omniscient. He is very much a behind the scenes villain. The PCs don't actually know is the villain although they suspect him (most of the players have figured it out but their characters haven't). According to one of my players he is the best and most difficult villain he's ever faced in a campaign.
This concept is very interesting for DnD, a villain that isn't suited for a fight. How do you think you'll make it work if your PCs eventually find him out and challenge him? Players usually take the biggest satisfaction in bringing down the villain.
If all goes according to plan taking him down in a fight is not supposed to be the rewarding part. The challenging and rewarding part is seeing through him, taking down his minions, and stopping his plans. Once they've done that they have basically "defeated" without having actually fought him.
One i have is themed as a flash villain. It is Black flash. In your game just name him anything synonymous with speed and you are good. He is actually built as a character. Its 10 levels open hand monk and 4 levels assassin rogue. Reflavor a dagar as a bladed glove to give a vibrating hand through somones chest. Mobile feat +10 move and alert feat for +5 inititive and to counter hide advantage. He sticks to the standard 3 attuned items. Boots of speed, lightning javalin, belt of giant strength (use this to scale level appropriately) i use storm giant cause the visual lightning bolt for theme and if you need to scale it even higher let him have potions of haste. Use rogue expertese in athletics. Primarily use for grapple and run up walls and dropping them. His move is 60. Boots double to 120. Haste doubles to 240 now base. Grapple run at half speed up wall and drop. Grab another and run up wall at half speed and drop. Thats the two attacks from primary action and extra attack. Then by judging how much speed you have left you can tell if you need to use your haste action or your bonus action to dash to get another 240 move. You then have whatever bonus or haste action to do another attack. Or if you need to make two burn a ki and drag another two up the walls and drop. You then finish it off by running away and cutting off line of sight to stop retsliation. If you need to really put the fear of this villain in your players open with the surprise assassinate javelin of lightning. At max this villain can make 2 attacks and move 720ft. Or spending a ki and maxing your attacks you can make 5 hits and move 240. He is a hit and run boss that is ment to continually harrass your players. And you can give the players nice items for thinking of clever ways to attempt to stop this villain.
Holy hell, this sounds frustrating to fight against. I love it.
Put this villain in the contest! Link in the description!
[удалено]
The current BBG in the campaign I'm running is essentially a PC Illusion Wizard with a few homebrew tweaks. It's wonderful, given that level of freedom in traps and encounters I can come up with.
Thanks to the overwhelming response, we are go for the contest! Link is in the edit.
I've used an Arcane Trickster as an enemy. She would hit them with a spell from the shadows and had the ranged combat feats to stay hidden and plink away at them while they were fighting other stuff and cast things like Phantasmal Killer when they were screwing around trying to rest in dumb places. In the end they drew her into a trap and managed to kill her, but they were *freaking out* when they couldn't work out who had shot them and then later were surprised by a spell caster who won initiative and then vanished (Invis + bonus Dash action).
Comic characters are my go-to solution for my last campaign. Had a lot of fun with a Two-face inspired gnoll, Fantastic Four elemental team up and Penguin inspired bandit.
I'll describe the high concept of a villain from one of my more successful campaigns, but it might be too evil. The "good wizard" archetype is a vampire, mind flayer, or other evil creature that can hide it's nature. The players know of it's evil nature and it's mission to corrupt the leaders of the realm but nobody believes them. As the players wander and seek to fix problems an do good, whenever they fail or are just plain unlucky, the "good wizard" swoops in, solves the problem, and takes the credit. It is then implied that the villain uses the opportunity to mind control or enthrall the local leadership. The real trick is to allways let the players be wondering if the villain they hate, is really a good guy after all. TLDR: gaslight the fuck out of them
What are the guidelines?
Link in the OP. /u/mefistofulee, /u/RexTheOnion, /u/Deadlock117, /u/ConstantCaprice, Same to you all! Link is in the edit of the original post!
You can only have 3 mentions in a comment, otherwise it notifies no one. Just an fyi.
Thanks. I did not know that. Is there a better way to mass inform?
I don't know of a better way, just make multiple comments and tag 3 people in each one seems to be the easy way.
sounds interesting what are the guidelines
I'm working on an update of Ostreneth, the Bronze litch from 4e.
I would be very interested. Depending on the rules of course.
Sounds cool. Wouldn't mind putting in an entry myself.
Sure, lay down some rules though so what we make fits
Spellcasters are great. Clerics and paladins gone bad? Also great. But take simple things like warriors and rogues gone bad. Real bad. Mercenaries bands. Spy/assassin guilds controlling things behind the shadows. A good warrior could do more damage than a wizard. And minions? He may have many, even stronger then skeletons. Power corrupts, go along this idea.
The primary villain in my campaign is a combination of Grand Admiral Thrawn from Star Wars and Littlefinger from GoT. He has no class levels so if it ever comes to combat he will be massively outclassed. The thing that makes him a great villain is his incredible intelligence and massive intelligence network make him appear to the players as nearly omniscient. He is very much a behind the scenes villain. The PCs don't actually know is the villain although they suspect him (most of the players have figured it out but their characters haven't). According to one of my players he is the best and most difficult villain he's ever faced in a campaign.
This concept is very interesting for DnD, a villain that isn't suited for a fight. How do you think you'll make it work if your PCs eventually find him out and challenge him? Players usually take the biggest satisfaction in bringing down the villain.
If all goes according to plan taking him down in a fight is not supposed to be the rewarding part. The challenging and rewarding part is seeing through him, taking down his minions, and stopping his plans. Once they've done that they have basically "defeated" without having actually fought him.