So, I’ll preface this with the fact that I am currently DMing my first campaign in a home brew setting. I was looking for advice on how to handle villains escaping from a fight using teleportation magic (misty step, dimension door, etc). What are some alternatives to this kind of escape that would still be satisfying for players while possibly letting the villain escape? I personally have played in a campaign where villains CONSTANTLY would teleport away and found it incredibly frustrating to deal with as a player since no one in our party used counterspell which is the only way I can see to deal with that kind of escape. I’m just curious to see where other DMs stand on this and if anyone has any neat ideas that they would like to share. Thanks!
Try not having the characters actually encounter the villain until it’s time for a definitive final fight. They’ll hear of them from survivors of destroyed villages, witness the destruction they’ve wreaked, or find mocking messages left behind, but never meet them in person. (Unless, depending on the villain, maybe they meet them in a town, where the guards, not knowing who the villain is, will arrest the PCs if they attack. Alternatively (or in addition), have the villain deploy some minions and then teleport away at the BEGINNING of the fight, so the players get to encounter them and battle their toughest henchmen but not have the annoyance of a battle snatched away!
Any time the villain escapes like that will always be somewhere between somewhat frustrating and deeply unsatisfying to the players. Occasionally it will even be downright aggravating to some, I have actually seen the D&D version of a table flip over that once back in high school. Player rage quit and it was a week before he and the DM made nice again. I mean, boy was pissed. And I understand why, lots of players (especially younger ones) have a hard time separating what a PC says and does from the player, or the villain from the DM.
That’s part of why so many DMs outright ban any PC from ever using Skills, Features, Traits, Spells, or anything else on another PC. In their view, attempting to roll even so much as a (Persuasion) Check against another Player’s character is morally equivalent to slitting that PC’s throat in their sleep and swiping all their gear. Many DM’s have an absolute 0 Tolerance policy against any and all “PvP” at their table.
Similarly, it is possible that one of your players might start to feel personally being teased or tainted by their DM. If one of your NPCs or intelligent Monsters K.O.’s a PC, and then intentionally follows up with two more attacks the expressly kill someone that creature considers an enemy. When the players are like “WTF?!?” If you look them dead in the eyes and say “I didn’t kill your character, the villain did.” Will they accept that, or will they call 🐃💩?
That whole teleporting away all the time thing works on TV because those actors are doing a job and are not invested in those characters more than anyone else cares about their job. (Because it’s a job for them.) But most folks play D&D for fun, even if it’s also their job. So, you can let the BBE stand there unflinching and let the Party swing away for a round before they GTFO, just to show how tough they are. That’ll work once, guaranteed. You can have the BBE leaving the seen just as the party shows up, but the villain leaves a Lt with some foot soldiers for the Party to go all MDK on. That’ll works at least threw times. You can even skip leaving the unit behind at least once or twice. And you can have the Party arrive mere moments after the villain departed a few times too. And at least once or twice you can have them find out purely by happenstance the the BBE was there at all and they just missed each other like ships in the night.
But if you let them spend all that time effort and resources to attempt to kill the Villain and he just narrowly escapes at the last moment then their jaws will hit the table. After that they will attempt to do whatever it takes to ensure it doesn’t happen a second time. If you actually do it a second time, you will see their frustration. So the third time (if there is a third time) you gotta let them catch the BB. Or else they will very likely start to resent what some would consider you messing with them.
Not too long ago (maybe 2 months) the party I am DMing for majorly miscalculated their probability of success at a frontal assault. It didn’t go well. During that fight they almost killed the NPC they were attempting to kidnap and interrogate, They actually K.O.ed him and he was making Death Saving throws. But their inattention meant they missed 2 things:
They saw him do “something” to his construct (which they had also downed). But once the NPC had been downed they didn’t give it another thought.
And they missed another creature servant of his sneak over and pour a potion into him.
Admittedly, they were distracted because their aforementioned “miscalculation” meant they were busy fighting both a good amount of undead and a number of living security forces. Which took another 10 rounds (I tracked it). Eventually they had so completely forgotten about the NPC they had actually come for. so they reposted because they could hear more forced coming against them. That repositioning meant tha there was nothing but open floor between that NPC and the doorway. So on the 10th round when the NPC jumped up and command his construct to save him. So it picked the NPC up move and then dash and their quarry had escaped their grasp. They missed the NPC spend an Action to repair his construct. They missed the construct slowly coming back online over the next minute. And they missed the NPC playing opossum. So even though I originally had no intention of that NPC escaping, but that was too perfect an opportunity. Two week ago they stalked that NPC into the caverns below town, last Wednesday they saw the NPC command his construct and the thing scooped him up and start running away with him again. So they hit him with everything they could, but specifically stated they had specifically downed him with nonlethal damage, after the fight two of the PCs specifically went around to stab all of the corpses twice to make sure that weren’t getting back up again.
I never realized how fortunate I am to play with the people I play with until about a year ago. My home group don’t have that problem. I allow players to roll any reasonable skill check against any creature. I mean, as DM I am also a player, so technically all D&D is in some way “PvP,” even when it’s “PvE” since I’m responsible for the the “E.” All I ask is which character was acting with intent to determine who rolls and who states their Passive number, and if both PCs and ere acting with internet then both players roll. 🤷♂️
Even I was really glad they got ‘im that time because if he had escaped again they woulda been none too happy.
This is an interesting conundrum. After all, most intelligent opponents would not stay to fight to the death, but would try to escape given the chance. But, as you pointed out, if they always escape, it can be very frustrating for the players.
I recently watched a number of podcasts (and read post and articles) on making interesting or memorable villains, and it is surprising how many of them suggest having an early encounter where the bad guy can easily escape, followed by them taunting or scrying on the party. Other suggestions were to use Spells like Contingency or Simulacrum to let the foe escape even after the PCs had cornered them in their lair. Maybe that is a good idea for the final villain of an entire campaign, but I can only see it as breeding frustration if used elsewhere. My party are now 10th level and one of them still asks if every major enemy is the dark druid who escaped them back when they were level 3. (Don't worry, they will get another shot at him, but their current foe is actually a necromancer who is linked to the cleric's back story.)
Some alternatives to a magical escape (which, I agree is difficult to thwart) would be to have the villain attempt to use a secret door or be rescued by minions. Maybe the foe uses smoke or darkness to try to hide their retreat. At least, if each opponent has a different exit strategy, your players are less likely to fell cheated if the target does manage to get away.
Finally, consider a villain who is either too arrogant to consider the party a real threat or is more concerned with some twisted idea of revenge. Perhaps their final action would be to somehow curse (maybe cast a high level Geas) on one or more party members. Fantasy literature is full of races and cultures who do possess the ability to place a "blood curse" upon their slayer, which is something you can certainly include in your homebrew setting. It doesn't even have to be real. perhaps it is only something the villain believed. Or perhaps they believe that their family, guild, patron, or evil deity will avenge them.
To me, it is all about story. My players ae the heroes and I want them to shine.
To add on to what the people above me said (all terrific points), as a veteran player of CRPGs, I can say it is indeed terribly frustrating to be fighting an enemy only to watch them teleport offscreen, especially if you get close to killing them.
However, if you want your villain to work in teleportation, make it short range (e.g. misty step and the like), so when they're on low hp and their mooks are down, they tp and start running. Then the PCs can choose if they want to hunt them down or not. Its a lot more viable and fun to deal with.
Instead of teleport another great trick for your villain is to have them have a clone, as soon as they die they transport to the clone and carry on regardless.
In fact this is a great way to have a bigger bad guy behind the low level bbeg, the wizard doing the cloning. Maybe he offers it as a service to other evil guys, maybe he uses it as a way to gain knowledge (send someone into a deadly situation when the clone wakes up it can recount all the information it learnt). Or maybe the wizard is held against their will forced to make the clones.
You could turn it into a plot point. Have it be well known that the villain teleports away at the first sign a fight won’t go his way. So, before the party goes to fight him, they have to find some homebrew thing to stop it. Maybe an item, maybe a spell (old editions had a spell called dimensional anchor that blocked teleport).
Then it turns the teleporting from a party frustration into a party high-five when they stop the BBEG from pulling off his trick.
The real issue here is player expectation. If they have the expectation that they are going to kill the villain and they don't get to kill the villain, they will be upset regardless of the technique you use. But if the players know that the goal of the encounter is just basically to survive until they scare it off, they will be more open to accepting a different kind of success. Most players are totally behind the idea of a recurring villain and will happily use the escape as a reason for their character to deepen their animosity towards the villain.
How you telegraph this depends on your table. Some will straight-up tell the players OOC. Some will make it clear in the villain's opening monologue or otherwise in how they frame the encounter. Some will drop several references ahead of time. But however you do it, communication can totally change an upsetting battle into a really fun one.
The real issue here is player expectation. If they have the expectation that they are going to kill the villain and they don't get to kill the villain, they will be upset regardless of the technique you use. But if the players know that the goal of the encounter is just basically to survive until they scare it off, they will be more open to accepting a different kind of success. Most players are totally behind the idea of a recurring villain and will happily use the escape as a reason for their character to deepen their animosity towards the villain.
How you telegraph this depends on your table. Some will straight-up tell the players OOC. Some will make it clear in the villain's opening monologue or otherwise in how they frame the encounter. Some will drop several references ahead of time. But however you do it, communication can totally change an upsetting battle into a really fun one.
This is why I prefer the clone option, the players get the satisfaction of killing the bad guy, and all that entails. Then at some point in the future you can have him reappear, maybe scried on, or, someone names him, or describes him, you can drop hint and make the players wonder, is it really the same person.
The real issue here is player expectation. If they have the expectation that they are going to kill the villain and they don't get to kill the villain, they will be upset regardless of the technique you use. But if the players know that the goal of the encounter is just basically to survive until they scare it off, they will be more open to accepting a different kind of success. Most players are totally behind the idea of a recurring villain and will happily use the escape as a reason for their character to deepen their animosity towards the villain.
How you telegraph this depends on your table. Some will straight-up tell the players OOC. Some will make it clear in the villain's opening monologue or otherwise in how they frame the encounter. Some will drop several references ahead of time. But however you do it, communication can totally change an upsetting battle into a really fun one.
I successfully applied a similar approach. However, the players encountered the BBEG together with a bunch of henchmen. The villain did not fight but was going to get an artifact. The actual encounter was the players fighting the henchmen (and winning) while the villain grabbed the artifact under the players noses and teleported away.
The players won the fight (and are happy about it), got some snarky lines from the BBEG and hate him even more, and now they have the new objective to find out, what that artifact actually was and what the BBEG might want to use it for.
If the villain would have fought the players at this stage, it would have been a TPK.
The Sorc of the group actually fired some magic missiles at the villain, that he casually cancelled out with a lazy Shield wristflip, laughing arrogantly at the players.
I think, something like this works much better than an actual fight against the villain.
There’s a play that hasn’t really been stated: forcing the BBE to come to the player. Typically BBE have a plan they are trying to enact (a statement of control the players can fight against). Plans usually have clear objectives. If the players can’t stop them physically, the players can force their hand by taking pre-emptive strikes on his objectives. It’s understandable to be upset when you are constantly reactionary (definitions of success are far narrower). Give them an opportunity to be proactive, let them hit the objectives. Stressing the “plan” might be more valuble than stressing the “man.”
It’s important to note that “failure” in this case means seeing the BBE and having him escape. They expect to defeat him (this is an expectation you can talk about). If they have been proactive and the BBE is not becoming desprate then progress isn’t being made, and they are technically failing. They should be told why they are failing. It’s not our place to be the rock Sysiphus pushes. Progress is valuble, it gives meaning to our actions.
So, I’ll preface this with the fact that I am currently DMing my first campaign in a home brew setting. I was looking for advice on how to handle villains escaping from a fight using teleportation magic (misty step, dimension door, etc). What are some alternatives to this kind of escape that would still be satisfying for players while possibly letting the villain escape? I personally have played in a campaign where villains CONSTANTLY would teleport away and found it incredibly frustrating to deal with as a player since no one in our party used counterspell which is the only way I can see to deal with that kind of escape. I’m just curious to see where other DMs stand on this and if anyone has any neat ideas that they would like to share. Thanks!
Try not having the characters actually encounter the villain until it’s time for a definitive final fight. They’ll hear of them from survivors of destroyed villages, witness the destruction they’ve wreaked, or find mocking messages left behind, but never meet them in person. (Unless, depending on the villain, maybe they meet them in a town, where the guards, not knowing who the villain is, will arrest the PCs if they attack. Alternatively (or in addition), have the villain deploy some minions and then teleport away at the BEGINNING of the fight, so the players get to encounter them and battle their toughest henchmen but not have the annoyance of a battle snatched away!
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
What they said. ☝️
Any time the villain escapes like that will always be somewhere between somewhat frustrating and deeply unsatisfying to the players. Occasionally it will even be downright aggravating to some, I have actually seen the D&D version of a table flip over that once back in high school. Player rage quit and it was a week before he and the DM made nice again. I mean, boy was pissed. And I understand why, lots of players (especially younger ones) have a hard time separating what a PC says and does from the player, or the villain from the DM.
That’s part of why so many DMs outright ban any PC from ever using Skills, Features, Traits, Spells, or anything else on another PC. In their view, attempting to roll even so much as a (Persuasion) Check against another Player’s character is morally equivalent to slitting that PC’s throat in their sleep and swiping all their gear. Many DM’s have an absolute 0 Tolerance policy against any and all “PvP” at their table.
Similarly, it is possible that one of your players might start to feel personally being teased or tainted by their DM. If one of your NPCs or intelligent Monsters K.O.’s a PC, and then intentionally follows up with two more attacks the expressly kill someone that creature considers an enemy. When the players are like “WTF?!?” If you look them dead in the eyes and say “I didn’t kill your character, the villain did.” Will they accept that, or will they call 🐃💩?
That whole teleporting away all the time thing works on TV because those actors are doing a job and are not invested in those characters more than anyone else cares about their job. (Because it’s a job for them.) But most folks play D&D for fun, even if it’s also their job. So, you can let the BBE stand there unflinching and let the Party swing away for a round before they GTFO, just to show how tough they are. That’ll work once, guaranteed. You can have the BBE leaving the seen just as the party shows up, but the villain leaves a Lt with some foot soldiers for the Party to go all MDK on. That’ll works at least threw times. You can even skip leaving the unit behind at least once or twice. And you can have the Party arrive mere moments after the villain departed a few times too. And at least once or twice you can have them find out purely by happenstance the the BBE was there at all and they just missed each other like ships in the night.
But if you let them spend all that time effort and resources to attempt to kill the Villain and he just narrowly escapes at the last moment then their jaws will hit the table. After that they will attempt to do whatever it takes to ensure it doesn’t happen a second time. If you actually do it a second time, you will see their frustration. So the third time (if there is a third time) you gotta let them catch the BB. Or else they will very likely start to resent what some would consider you messing with them.
Not too long ago (maybe 2 months) the party I am DMing for majorly miscalculated their probability of success at a frontal assault. It didn’t go well. During that fight they almost killed the NPC they were attempting to kidnap and interrogate, They actually K.O.ed him and he was making Death Saving throws. But their inattention meant they missed 2 things:
Admittedly, they were distracted because their aforementioned “miscalculation” meant they were busy fighting both a good amount of undead and a number of living security forces. Which took another 10 rounds (I tracked it). Eventually they had so completely forgotten about the NPC they had actually come for. so they reposted because they could hear more forced coming against them. That repositioning meant tha there was nothing but open floor between that NPC and the doorway. So on the 10th round when the NPC jumped up and command his construct to save him. So it picked the NPC up move and then dash and their quarry had escaped their grasp. They missed the NPC spend an Action to repair his construct. They missed the construct slowly coming back online over the next minute. And they missed the NPC playing opossum. So even though I originally had no intention of that NPC escaping, but that was too perfect an opportunity. Two week ago they stalked that NPC into the caverns below town, last Wednesday they saw the NPC command his construct and the thing scooped him up and start running away with him again. So they hit him with everything they could, but specifically stated they had specifically downed him with nonlethal damage, after the fight two of the PCs specifically went around to stab all of the corpses twice to make sure that weren’t getting back up again.
I never realized how fortunate I am to play with the people I play with until about a year ago. My home group don’t have that problem. I allow players to roll any reasonable skill check against any creature. I mean, as DM I am also a player, so technically all D&D is in some way “PvP,” even when it’s “PvE” since I’m responsible for the the “E.” All I ask is which character was acting with intent to determine who rolls and who states their Passive number, and if both PCs and ere acting with internet then both players roll. 🤷♂️
Even I was really glad they got ‘im that time because if he had escaped again they woulda been none too happy.
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This is an interesting conundrum. After all, most intelligent opponents would not stay to fight to the death, but would try to escape given the chance. But, as you pointed out, if they always escape, it can be very frustrating for the players.
I recently watched a number of podcasts (and read post and articles) on making interesting or memorable villains, and it is surprising how many of them suggest having an early encounter where the bad guy can easily escape, followed by them taunting or scrying on the party. Other suggestions were to use Spells like Contingency or Simulacrum to let the foe escape even after the PCs had cornered them in their lair. Maybe that is a good idea for the final villain of an entire campaign, but I can only see it as breeding frustration if used elsewhere. My party are now 10th level and one of them still asks if every major enemy is the dark druid who escaped them back when they were level 3. (Don't worry, they will get another shot at him, but their current foe is actually a necromancer who is linked to the cleric's back story.)
Some alternatives to a magical escape (which, I agree is difficult to thwart) would be to have the villain attempt to use a secret door or be rescued by minions. Maybe the foe uses smoke or darkness to try to hide their retreat. At least, if each opponent has a different exit strategy, your players are less likely to fell cheated if the target does manage to get away.
Finally, consider a villain who is either too arrogant to consider the party a real threat or is more concerned with some twisted idea of revenge. Perhaps their final action would be to somehow curse (maybe cast a high level Geas) on one or more party members. Fantasy literature is full of races and cultures who do possess the ability to place a "blood curse" upon their slayer, which is something you can certainly include in your homebrew setting. It doesn't even have to be real. perhaps it is only something the villain believed. Or perhaps they believe that their family, guild, patron, or evil deity will avenge them.
To me, it is all about story. My players ae the heroes and I want them to shine.
To add on to what the people above me said (all terrific points), as a veteran player of CRPGs, I can say it is indeed terribly frustrating to be fighting an enemy only to watch them teleport offscreen, especially if you get close to killing them.
However, if you want your villain to work in teleportation, make it short range (e.g. misty step and the like), so when they're on low hp and their mooks are down, they tp and start running. Then the PCs can choose if they want to hunt them down or not. Its a lot more viable and fun to deal with.
"h"
Instead of teleport another great trick for your villain is to have them have a clone, as soon as they die they transport to the clone and carry on regardless.
In fact this is a great way to have a bigger bad guy behind the low level bbeg, the wizard doing the cloning. Maybe he offers it as a service to other evil guys, maybe he uses it as a way to gain knowledge (send someone into a deadly situation when the clone wakes up it can recount all the information it learnt). Or maybe the wizard is held against their will forced to make the clones.
You could turn it into a plot point. Have it be well known that the villain teleports away at the first sign a fight won’t go his way. So, before the party goes to fight him, they have to find some homebrew thing to stop it. Maybe an item, maybe a spell (old editions had a spell called dimensional anchor that blocked teleport).
Then it turns the teleporting from a party frustration into a party high-five when they stop the BBEG from pulling off his trick.
The real issue here is player expectation. If they have the expectation that they are going to kill the villain and they don't get to kill the villain, they will be upset regardless of the technique you use. But if the players know that the goal of the encounter is just basically to survive until they scare it off, they will be more open to accepting a different kind of success. Most players are totally behind the idea of a recurring villain and will happily use the escape as a reason for their character to deepen their animosity towards the villain.
How you telegraph this depends on your table. Some will straight-up tell the players OOC. Some will make it clear in the villain's opening monologue or otherwise in how they frame the encounter. Some will drop several references ahead of time. But however you do it, communication can totally change an upsetting battle into a really fun one.
My homebrew subclasses (full list here)
(Artificer) Swordmage | Glasswright | (Barbarian) Path of the Savage Embrace
(Bard) College of Dance | (Fighter) Warlord | Cannoneer
(Monk) Way of the Elements | (Ranger) Blade Dancer
(Rogue) DaggerMaster | Inquisitor | (Sorcerer) Riftwalker | Spellfist
(Warlock) The Swarm
This is why I prefer the clone option, the players get the satisfaction of killing the bad guy, and all that entails. Then at some point in the future you can have him reappear, maybe scried on, or, someone names him, or describes him, you can drop hint and make the players wonder, is it really the same person.
I successfully applied a similar approach. However, the players encountered the BBEG together with a bunch of henchmen. The villain did not fight but was going to get an artifact. The actual encounter was the players fighting the henchmen (and winning) while the villain grabbed the artifact under the players noses and teleported away.
The players won the fight (and are happy about it), got some snarky lines from the BBEG and hate him even more, and now they have the new objective to find out, what that artifact actually was and what the BBEG might want to use it for.
If the villain would have fought the players at this stage, it would have been a TPK.
The Sorc of the group actually fired some magic missiles at the villain, that he casually cancelled out with a lazy Shield wristflip, laughing arrogantly at the players.
I think, something like this works much better than an actual fight against the villain.
There’s a play that hasn’t really been stated: forcing the BBE to come to the player. Typically BBE have a plan they are trying to enact (a statement of control the players can fight against). Plans usually have clear objectives. If the players can’t stop them physically, the players can force their hand by taking pre-emptive strikes on his objectives. It’s understandable to be upset when you are constantly reactionary (definitions of success are far narrower). Give them an opportunity to be proactive, let them hit the objectives. Stressing the “plan” might be more valuble than stressing the “man.”
It’s important to note that “failure” in this case means seeing the BBE and having him escape. They expect to defeat him (this is an expectation you can talk about). If they have been proactive and the BBE is not becoming desprate then progress isn’t being made, and they are technically failing. They should be told why they are failing. It’s not our place to be the rock Sysiphus pushes. Progress is valuble, it gives meaning to our actions.