Balancing a Villian

I have a player who chose a backstory that he rallied gladiator slaves to rebel and kill their masters. He escaped and chose a personal villain that the dead leaders allies would come for him for revenge. I have an 8 player party so I made the assassin chasing him very high level expecting the group to stand together. The assassin caught up to them and gave a threatening speech in a public place to foreshadow the coming conflict. The Monk with this back story got up, left the party sitting in a tavern and disappeared into the night without telling anyone where he was going or what he was doing. We ended the session and the next day I asked why he left. He said it was to dare the guy to attack. I said, he’s very dangerous and would probably kill you alone. His response was “well I guess you’re not very good at balancing encounters”.

I’m torn between just killing him if he tempts fate or washing my hands and never having his backstory come up again.

any thoughts?

If you go alone when you know a deadly assassin is about, you are never going to have a fair fight. That’s like tempting a bear to attack you while you’re behind a small fence.

Let him get brutalised, depending on the assassin’s motives, he may throw the monk’s unconscious body at the party’s doorstep and say that there are more like him.

But keep one thing in mind, don’t tell him you didn’t warn him. The encounter is balanced, just not in the monk’s favour.

Cue meme: thats not how this works. Thats. Not how any of this works.

If he expects to 1v1 this guy which will take uo an entire session, while everyone sits and twiddles their thumbs id say unleash the villian in round 1 and kill him.

Encounters are balanced for a party. If he ditches the party, thats his problem. 

Also, i generally dont do "you are being hunted by X" backstories. They are way too easy to put the entire campaign spotlight on player.  I will ask for some future-in-world-based goals from players, and usually get things like "find lost relative" which can usually become any npc in any campaign. Or "become a great musician" or "acquire a ship" or whatever. Things that usually dont take up a lot of in game time, but give the player something to get engaged with thr charavter and campaign.

Also, the "i am level 0 but already slayed a dragon, freed a city, or whatever" backstories dont really fit with a level 1 character. The point of a campaign is to become a hero in the campaign. Not to say "been there, done that".

Sounds like a problem player; the basic response to encounter balancing is that you didn't balance the encounter for a single PC (you may or may not have balanced the encounter for anything at all, there are a variety of reasons for not balancing encounters, but I'm not going to balance an encounter for a single PC unless I specifically set the scenario up to have a single PC involved).

I like ClassicCharismaCaster's idea of the assassin knocks him out and leaves him for dead where the party will find him. I also agree with SunIsGettingRealLow96589 that the player creating a situation where he get his 'main character syndrome' fix while the other players sit around waiting is uncool and you shouldn't humor him with that or do that to the rest of your group. Let him get himself killed quickly and the rest of the group has to revive him (probably at a high cost) and then build in consequences for his character.

As for balancing encounters, not all combat encounters are supposed to be balanced. Sometimes the character(s) need to run, or negotiate, or surrender, etc. to succeed. It's called player agency and it's exactly what a good DM should do (in my humble opinion). 

I agree with most every other response on this thread.  It is the DM’s job to set up the game.  If the players want to break the game, they are welcome to do so… sometimes that works out for them.. sometimes they go 1v1 against a monster designed for 1v8 combat.  I have killed characters off for doing this before (usually the rogue sent to scout ahead with the consent of the party - rough gig!) and likely would kill the character here.

Which is what others have said.  I want to touch a bit on your other option, if you don’t want to do that. You have some options.  Listing them in order of what I would probably do (with “kill the character,” as discussed above, being my personal first choice). 

The first, the Monk’s party is not stupid - they saw their ally learn some information, get up, and stomp off. It is very reasonable they might follow the Monk.  You could allow the Monk to start combat with the bad guy and then the “following” party members could arrive shortly after.  Personally, I’d say they arrive 30 seconds - 5 rounds - after combat starts.  Depending on level, Monks have a lot of nonsense to help them survive, so the character might be able to hang on long enough for backup.  Or, if not, oh well. They are still within the minute for Revivify (assuming your party carries the spell and diamonds at all times - I know my players never leave without it, but different groups have different levels of fear of their DM killing off characters).

Your second is to “bring him in to justice” - the bad guy captured the Monk and now the rest of the party has to go on a mission to rescue the Monk. This can tend to feel a bit cheep if it was previously telegraphed the person is there to get the kill, and results in the Monk having to twiddle their thumbs until rescued (but they inflicted thumb twiddling on everyone else already and turnabout is fair play).

Edit: I disagree with ClassicCharismaCaster‘s and BigHeartedGuy’s “left for dead” approach - this is a professional assassin you set up as someone scary, and it would be a bit of a verisimilitude break if they left the character near death instead of dead.  That is why capture tends to work better for these things - the person is defeated, and has to suffer the real consequences of their dumb choice by having to wait for their party to bail them out.

Your third is to add a third party to the fight, controlled by your other players.  If the assassin made a public speech about causing trouble, maybe the town guard is justifiably concerned and sends someone to pick up the assassin.  Add a party of 7 guards controlled by the other players to the fight with the goal of capturing the assassin (and maybe give them a secondary goal of trying to get the Monk to surrender as well for stirring the pot).  In this case, their stat blocks should be less powerful than the party itself, so as not to overshadow the party, but still providing some additional oomph to make the fight more balanced.  While this option is sensible, it can lead to a “feel bad” moment for the Monk player who has their personal story usurped by random town guards.

I really don’t like having the party member getting captured, it just further increases conflict between the party by making the monk player way more miserable than he had to be.

It’s probably wiser to have an out of character conversation like “Hey, if you go alone the rest of the party will waste time doing nothing and you WILL eat dirt.” They should ask if it’s fine by the party, it’s a group game after all.

Quote from jay92898 >>

 He said it was to dare the guy to attack. I said, he’s very dangerous and would probably kill you alone. His response was “well I guess you’re not very good at balancing encounters”.

any thoughts?

My thought is the player has serious Main Character Syndrome

Also, they didn't read their own backstory, where they only won the fight against their former masters by enlisting allies and getting help

Yeah, this is textbook Lone Wolfing, which is not a great dynamic to bring to most tables. You’re definitely not at fault for designing an enemy to be fought by the group rather than in 1v1. Depending on how you would like to handle it, pretty much anything from the “bring the party in a little later” to “let the Monk get killed if they want to solo this fight after being warned” range of options presented here works in game. Out of game, probably best to try and have a talk with the player about how this is a group activity and encounters are going to be designed accordingly.

Honestly?  Hurt his ego by the bad guy not showing up to 1v1 him.
He's an assassin.  He's already got a plan to kill the idiot, and his little friends, too.  Deviating from plans is how assassins get caught, so he's going to stick to plan, even if he catches his target at random in the street.

Treat your smart villains like they're smart.

Maybe have the monk make a save in the morning to avoid exhaustion from being out all night hunting an assassin in the streets instead of resting with his party.

I would telegraph to the party that this is a bad idea. One person making a mistake can be expected - their 7 friends sitting idly by is just apathy at that point.

The Monk walks out to bait the assassin, and the assassin, in view of the party, draws a pair of knives made of pure shadow, mutters "All too easy", and teleports through the wall to follow.

If the party doesn't follow, then the death of the monk will be the responsibility of everyone. That character was clearly displaying powers beyond that which the Monk can deal with.

Please also consider that if the assassin is hired to kill someone who has a proficiency in combat, they will likely use a poison dart, or some other subtle means to kill them. Challenging the fighter to a 1:1 fight is not a smart move, regardless of how much you think you outrank them.

My worlds are dangerous. My players know that I balance my encounters assuming that the party is intelligent. If I think they're making a dangerous decision, I'll let them know. I'm not out to kill them, but I design my games so that they have consequences for their actions. They knew when Strahd turned up to attack rebels under their care when they were L4, that their choices weren't about whether to kill Strahd or not - it was whether they would die for the rebels, let the rebels be slaughtered or try and find a way to save them that didn't involve fighting Strahd. That was an interesting decision point for them, because they couldn't just fight and let the DM save the day for them.

Which is to say, the Monk should have no expectation that after doing something as...courageous...as that, that you'd save him. I'd have warned him that the assassin is much stronger than he (which you did), then let the world take over. If I were generous and in good humour, I might have the assassin not trying to kill him for some reason (which I don't know enough here to invent). Otherwise, the Monk, upon being informed that he's outmatched and persisting, would find out what that means.

And to be frank, if I were in a bad mood and a player gave me that attitude, I'd tell them not to bother coming back. Perhaps the tone was more friendly than it comes across as to me (which would probably change this response), but if someone insulted me like that when I'm putting all that effort and energy into a campaign so they can play, then I wouldn't want to play with them. Let them find someone more to their taste to DM for them...or do it themselves. A DM trying to cater for the whole table does not deserve to be insulted like that.

I have got to agree on the above; the fact that there are 8 players at the table already, and one is playing Lonewolf Edgypast, the unfathomable badass who throttled a dragon whilst being born but now somehow dies to the concentrated efforts of a pack of cats, who has also been extremely rude to the DM; Warn them once. Tell them that that attitude is not acceptable, then inform them that this isn't a singleplayer video game. This is a cooperative creation of a dangerous world, and that they have to understand that the path their Monk has taken, without some sort of grand plan to fix it, will result in them dying.

If you want to swing it back, have the monk die, then have a passing cleric revive them, and inform them that they are now indebted to them. Whether this is a warlock pact, a paladin arc, or a mob boss who had a special healing spell which can be cancelled at any time until the debt is paid, it could form an interesting story arc.

Quote from Linklite >>

And to be frank, if I were in a bad mood and a player gave me that attitude, I'd tell them not to bother coming back. Perhaps the tone was more friendly than it comes across as to me (which would probably change this response), but if someone insulted me like that when I'm putting all that effort and energy into a campaign so they can play, then I wouldn't want to play with them. Let them find someone more to their taste to DM for them...or do it themselves. A DM trying to cater for the whole table does not deserve to be insulted like that.

 This is entirely my feelings as well. The player is being an arsehole to you despite the work you put in as DM. If he wants to do something monumentally stupid and then give you grief about it then that's entirely on him and I'd at the very least be giving him a warning.

And it's not your job to balance encounters for stupidity, it's your job to balance encounters for the entire table and for the story. If you were playing Curse of Strahd and a level 1 player decided to try killing the BBEG for the whole campaign and got instantly squashed like a bug that's not bad encounter balance, that's the story telling the player not to be an idiot.