A campaign can be as evil as DMs and player sensibilities allow.
As has been commented most characters can be evil. It would just depend on how they're played. There may be exceptions but, campaigns that I've heard of have tended towards the usual thing of characters caring for each other while being little more than indifferent to everyone else. It may not matter how much you rig it.
In your "suggesting to the group that [you] could play an evil campaign!" and your "getting ideas for evil subclasses that people might want to take for various classes" it will always be worth checking in with any concepts they might naturally gravitate towards. Going with an evil oneshot or mini-adventure might help players dabble in the darkness to see if it's right for them. If there's a difference in priorities then doing a bit of what you like and a bit of what the like. Perhaps they'd suggest a squeaky clean paladin for you.
With the right reasons/excuses, one can have pretty much anyone be evil just as having the most cowardly, chaotic Paladin of Bahamut.
A Paladin who is so dogmatic that almost everything is sinful, is evil, and must be methodically destroyed without mercy - bystanders who try to stay out of it and do nothing to assist, non-"monster" infants being raised by monsters regardless how caring and loving - is rather Evil by most commoners' standards.
The question I have is what effect do you want to have with playing Evil? Is it going to be a key part of the story? Is it just so players can optionally complete the challenges with vicious methods? Evil comes in many flavors from powerful violence to non-violent deception and manipulation to simple callousness.
Plan out the campaign with an ultimate goal in mind for the party before trying to create evil characters for the campaign.
If this is for your own character among the party of other alignments, it usually comes down to simply not being an annoying moke. That's far too evil for any party member, even in a group of only evil characters.
EDIT: Notice that I only touched on classes at the start. Evil is more about the roleplay than the class.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Running an 'evil' game can be fun for a change of pace. The Session Zero discussion needs to set the boundaries for this though IMHO. Some players might be okay with 'we drive the villagers out and burn the village to the ground' but when it comes to torture and other unsavory things they might draw the line. This needs to be discussed so everyone is on the same page.
I was in a campaign many years ago where we started out as pretty evil (murder for hire) but we broke away and fled to another kingdom where nobody knew us. We set up shop as 'mercenary adventurers' (you know...PCs) and we took what jobs interested us. We still did some pretty bad things but we weren't evil just to be evil. That sort of thing gets boring after a while IMHO.
You will need a good nemesis. Who would the joker be without batman? Heroes retroactively act to counter the schemes of villains, villains proactively scheme to achieve a morally suspect goal. Ultron determined the only way to achieve piece would be to wipe out the living, Thanos wanted to save everybody by wiping out half of all life- no more overcrowding, abundant resources and a better appreciation for life for the survivors. Plenty of examples of villains trying to do something good but doing it in a bad way. What kind of villain do you want to be? Sinister and cruel sadist who takes pleasure in others pain? Somebody who just wants to see the world burn? Power hungry and/or greedy for material wealth? Manipulatively chaotic (little finger) just out to cause problems for good people.
A good adventure is defined by the quality of interest of the villain. An evil campaign would thus require an interesting or notable hero. Think Robin Hood but prince John is the just and noble ruler and you guys don’t give wealth to the poor (maybe a cut to the thieves guild for protection- even bad PC’s need friends)
Create a hero/nemesis based on the party you create. Every character will have backstory ideas or motivations. I would session zero a lawful evil commonality, if even one guy is CE then the rest are just waiting to get killed in your sleep when he betrays you. I would want to make a warlock, goo or fiend, devoutly loyal to his patron just to make it easier for the DM to keep us on track. That is a bit obvious though, to be more unique I would first see what the party is lacking and customize a character to eliminate a weakness. If we were short melee it would be an echo knight tank determined to amass wealth to build an army and conquer the world- start with an out of the way fiefdom rich in resources and expand hitler style till all would bend the knee to my will! Or a monk, probably open palm, determined to be the best of the best, seeking power and training until the legend of his prowess and brutality was carved into history. Are we short on heals? An overzealous life priest of loviatar, his hobbies include peeling people then healing them then peeling them again, pet peeve would be when someone gives up information to soon, spoiling his fun. An artillerist artificer with strong alchemy skills who specializes in crafting weapons of mass destruction, then manipulates leaders covertly into going to war with their neighbors so he can test his weapons and make a profit.
Give me a hero and I will generate his nemesis, that is my hobby.
Could all just roll pirates. That never gets old. Any class would work but the unarmored defense is real handy on a boat, plate mail sinks, read time to doff armor vs. how long it takes to drown.
Although an Oathbreaker is probably the go-to for "evil paladin with some undead stuff," I personally want to try making a Conquest Paladin / Undead Patron Warlock multiclass for my next evil character. I would probably try to flavor it and choose spells/invocations to get it as close to a Death Knight PC as possible.
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Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
They specialize in torture & interrogation…which they justify as lawful, even though they truth is that they’re simply good at it.
Kinda surprised so few people have mentioned Rogues. Why not a Thief who specializes in stealing magic items from adventurers? Or an Assassin who just enjoys killing for its own sake?
Also Chronomancer Tortle who is finding a way to create permanent Slow spells because other creatures are "jest too dern fast."
A Lore Bard who has developed a way to literally steal the voices of people (and other creatures) to add to her collection of "interesting sounds".
Battlemaster Fighter who demands the severed hand from any creature defeated in single combat. Wears withered, preserved hands as a sewn together as a cloak.
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A campaign can be as evil as DMs and player sensibilities allow.
As has been commented most characters can be evil. It would just depend on how they're played. There may be exceptions but, campaigns that I've heard of have tended towards the usual thing of characters caring for each other while being little more than indifferent to everyone else. It may not matter how much you rig it.
In your "suggesting to the group that [you] could play an evil campaign!" and your "getting ideas for evil subclasses that people might want to take for various classes" it will always be worth checking in with any concepts they might naturally gravitate towards. Going with an evil oneshot or mini-adventure might help players dabble in the darkness to see if it's right for them. If there's a difference in priorities then doing a bit of what you like and a bit of what the like. Perhaps they'd suggest a squeaky clean paladin for you.
With the right reasons/excuses, one can have pretty much anyone be evil just as having the most cowardly, chaotic Paladin of Bahamut.
A Paladin who is so dogmatic that almost everything is sinful, is evil, and must be methodically destroyed without mercy - bystanders who try to stay out of it and do nothing to assist, non-"monster" infants being raised by monsters regardless how caring and loving - is rather Evil by most commoners' standards.
The question I have is what effect do you want to have with playing Evil? Is it going to be a key part of the story? Is it just so players can optionally complete the challenges with vicious methods? Evil comes in many flavors from powerful violence to non-violent deception and manipulation to simple callousness.
Plan out the campaign with an ultimate goal in mind for the party before trying to create evil characters for the campaign.
If this is for your own character among the party of other alignments, it usually comes down to simply not being an annoying moke. That's far too evil for any party member, even in a group of only evil characters.
EDIT: Notice that I only touched on classes at the start. Evil is more about the roleplay than the class.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
Running an 'evil' game can be fun for a change of pace. The Session Zero discussion needs to set the boundaries for this though IMHO. Some players might be okay with 'we drive the villagers out and burn the village to the ground' but when it comes to torture and other unsavory things they might draw the line. This needs to be discussed so everyone is on the same page.
I was in a campaign many years ago where we started out as pretty evil (murder for hire) but we broke away and fled to another kingdom where nobody knew us. We set up shop as 'mercenary adventurers' (you know...PCs) and we took what jobs interested us. We still did some pretty bad things but we weren't evil just to be evil. That sort of thing gets boring after a while IMHO.
You will need a good nemesis. Who would the joker be without batman? Heroes retroactively act to counter the schemes of villains, villains proactively scheme to achieve a morally suspect goal. Ultron determined the only way to achieve piece would be to wipe out the living, Thanos wanted to save everybody by wiping out half of all life- no more overcrowding, abundant resources and a better appreciation for life for the survivors. Plenty of examples of villains trying to do something good but doing it in a bad way.
What kind of villain do you want to be? Sinister and cruel sadist who takes pleasure in others pain? Somebody who just wants to see the world burn? Power hungry and/or greedy for material wealth? Manipulatively chaotic (little finger) just out to cause problems for good people.
A good adventure is defined by the quality of interest of the villain. An evil campaign would thus require an interesting or notable hero. Think Robin Hood but prince John is the just and noble ruler and you guys don’t give wealth to the poor (maybe a cut to the thieves guild for protection- even bad PC’s need friends)
Create a hero/nemesis based on the party you create. Every character will have backstory ideas or motivations. I would session zero a lawful evil commonality, if even one guy is CE then the rest are just waiting to get killed in your sleep when he betrays you.
I would want to make a warlock, goo or fiend, devoutly loyal to his patron just to make it easier for the DM to keep us on track. That is a bit obvious though, to be more unique I would first see what the party is lacking and customize a character to eliminate a weakness. If we were short melee it would be an echo knight tank determined to amass wealth to build an army and conquer the world- start with an out of the way fiefdom rich in resources and expand hitler style till all would bend the knee to my will! Or a monk, probably open palm, determined to be the best of the best, seeking power and training until the legend of his prowess and brutality was carved into history. Are we short on heals? An overzealous life priest of loviatar, his hobbies include peeling people then healing them then peeling them again, pet peeve would be when someone gives up information to soon, spoiling his fun. An artillerist artificer with strong alchemy skills who specializes in crafting weapons of mass destruction, then manipulates leaders covertly into going to war with their neighbors so he can test his weapons and make a profit.
Give me a hero and I will generate his nemesis, that is my hobby.
Could all just roll pirates. That never gets old. Any class would work but the unarmored defense is real handy on a boat, plate mail sinks, read time to doff armor vs. how long it takes to drown.
Although an Oathbreaker is probably the go-to for "evil paladin with some undead stuff," I personally want to try making a Conquest Paladin / Undead Patron Warlock multiclass for my next evil character. I would probably try to flavor it and choose spells/invocations to get it as close to a Death Knight PC as possible.
Four-time Judge of the Competition of the Finest Brews! Come join us in making fun, unique homebrew and voting for your favorite entries!
Kinda surprised so few people have mentioned Rogues. Why not a Thief who specializes in stealing magic items from adventurers? Or an Assassin who just enjoys killing for its own sake?
Also Chronomancer Tortle who is finding a way to create permanent Slow spells because other creatures are "jest too dern fast."
A Lore Bard who has developed a way to literally steal the voices of people (and other creatures) to add to her collection of "interesting sounds".
Battlemaster Fighter who demands the severed hand from any creature defeated in single combat. Wears withered, preserved hands as a sewn together as a cloak.