So I'm working on my BBEG, really SBEG (Small Bad Evil Guy), who is a 5th level Wizard. At first, I just created a 5th level Wizard in the random Character Generator on DDB and was calling it a day. Against 4 4th level characters the Wizard and a few Death Dog's could be a decent fight.
Then I started second-guessing myself and started overthinking if my Wizard is too much for an NPC villain. (I don't know why but it's something that won't get out of my head.) At most I may just pull out certain spells from the generated character but leave the base stats/abilities.
So I thought, let me see what the DM Hivemind does in the creation of their NPC/BBEG villains.
Honestly, I'd be more worried that the party would wipe the mage out before he got a turn lol
At least that's what happened with my party in a VERY similar situation!
That's a good point as I never really considered that since I thought adding the Death Dog's would give the NPC a buffer. Still, it is something to consider as I'm trying to develop the encounter.
Be sure to give villains at least twice as many HP as a similar character. Since they’re unlikely to have a cleric backing them up, they need it to survive more than a round. Also be careful of spells like Fireball that can KO more than one PC in one shot.
Yeah... my BBEG at the moment was the "archmage" statblock and his elite guard (veterans). They learned his travel route and wanted to set up a trap. My first thought was "They only have less than 8 hours, what could they possible do!" They wanted to bury explosives in the road and wait to detonate, I thought they only had time to do a little until the Elemental monk reminded me he can dig like crazy with his elemental affinity or whatever its called. Long story short, they buried like 10 full barrels of gunpowder and all but vaporized his guard and most of him. Then the beatdown commenced lol
Moral of the story: Players will surprise you how creatively they can handle an encounter you thought would challenge them!
Yeah... my BBEG at the moment was the "archmage" statblock and his elite guard (veterans). They learned his travel route and wanted to set up a trap. My first thought was "They only have less than 8 hours, what could they possible do!" They wanted to bury explosives in the road and wait to detonate, I thought they only had time to do a little until the Elemental monk reminded me he can dig like crazy with his elemental affinity or whatever its called. Long story short, they buried like 10 full barrels of gunpowder and all but vaporized his guard and most of him. Then the beatdown commenced lol
Moral of the story: Players will surprise you how creatively they can handle an encounter you thought would challenge them!
Wow, that is some ending to the mage and I can see how the battle went by quickly.
Though I was ignoring the archmage because it was a CR 12 creature but maybe I could down-scale his stat block to fit my needs.
I remember a LARP where we had a BBEG whom we had nicknamed Craignos Maximus (it's sort of bastardised french latin for maximal evil) while waiting to find him a proper name (he ended up being Ussyries) and a SBEG nicknamed Craignos Minimus (you can guess, I'm sure) who ended up being called Dredd Ulvyr. Guess who I ended up playing... ;)
Anyway, about villains, the first think that I'm looking for is personality. What kind of SBEG is he ? The sneaky kind ? The forceful kind ? The sleazy kind ? This should give you an idea about the "class".
After that, the thing is that PCs generated as such do not tend to make great villains, there is a fundamental difference in design about the two. The PCs are supposed to last for many encounters, whereas the Villains will last one, maybe a few encounters with the PC if they can escape.
What I would do is to take an NPC of the appropriate CR, maybe a bit more if you intend to make him cowardly and run away to fight again another day, they usually are better suited to encounters. After that, the best thing is to start with a "standard" NPC and to add a few interesting abilities, especially some that will surprise the PCs, especially if in a specific fight in a specific environment.
To give you a few ideas, you can have a look at my Homebrew NPCs, I created them to fill in the gaps from the official NPCs.
It's not as much as who the NPC is as its stats and in my case spells that is my biggest concern that I'm building the correct NPC.
The backstory is, a famous artist in the city of Helm's Hold was hung by the Order of The Guilded Eye (Nasty bastards.) with reluctant permission of the city council because his current art was deemed to contain too much 'demonic influence'. The son of the painter, also a painter, built his reputation, after his father's murder, by painting beast and mythic creatures of nature, unknown to the purchasers the paint he used was enchanted so he could make the painting come to life to which he uses this to kill members of the city council and Guilded Eye higher-ups for revenge of his fathers' death." The players get caught in the middle of this and end up involved in this murder mystery that ends with two encounters starting with the mage son, and then the final battle is a painting of a Fire Elemental(s)(not sure yet) at the Guilded Eyes' cathedral.
But I digress...
I like the NPC's you created but what I am looking for is a magic-user so I think I'll need to dig deeper into homebrew or look at some of the published adventures and maybe reskin any of their magic-based NPCs.
So how you do develop the stat/spell section for your NPC's or do you mostly reskin existing builds and up/downscale them to fit your needs?
I personally LOVE reskinning things! Since you're the DM, You can literally say a certain statblock is ANYTHING!
For example: Want a really powerful anime villain that can shoot beams out of his hand and radiate a "powerful pressure" that being in his presence is oppressive? Take a Dragon statblock, tell them they see a guy, call the breath weapon a hand beam and change damage types as you see fit. They'll literally NEVER KNOW
I do this all the time since my party are all very well versed in the monster manual and this gives a way to catch them completely off guard
It's not as much as who the NPC is as its stats and in my case spells that is my biggest concern that I'm building the correct NPC.
It helps knowing the background.
The backstory is, a famous artist in the city of Helm's Hold was hung by the Order of The Guilded Eye (Nasty bastards.) with reluctant permission of the city council because his current art was deemed to contain too much 'demonic influence'. The son of the painter, also a painter, built his reputation, after his father's murder, by painting beast and mythic creatures of nature, unknown to the purchasers the paint he used was enchanted so he could make the painting come to life to which he uses this to kill members of the city council and Guilded Eye higher-ups for revenge of his fathers' death." The players get caught in the middle of this and end up involved in this murder mystery that ends with two encounters starting with the mage son, and then the final battle is a painting of a Fire Elemental(s)(not sure yet) at the Guilded Eyes' cathedral.
Wouldnt'it make the NPC more a sorcerer than a wizard ? Or maybe a Warlock ?
Warlock make very nice villains, they are a bit tougher than Wizard and can have amawing and strange powers.
I like the NPC's you created but what I am looking for is a magic-user so I think I'll need to dig deeper into homebrew or look at some of the published adventures and maybe reskin any of their magic-based NPCs.
Have you had a look at the Cult Initiate in my list ? the CR is a bit higher but it's mostly because he is tougher, the spells are not that dangerous.
Otherwise, nothing that strikes your fancy in the official NPCs Enchanter / Conjurer / Mage / Transmuter ? Or the Warlock of the Archfey ? Or tuned down Warlocks of the Fiend / Great Old ones ?
So how you do develop the stat/spell section for your NPC's or do you mostly reskin existing builds and up/downscale them to fit your needs?
I mostly reskin, and I add powers from other templates, so easy and so effective.
I never considered anything other than a Wizard just because wizard was the first thing to come to mind and I guess I was just generalizing. I'll take another look at your Cult Initiate, but I'll check out your other suggestions as well to see if something fits, but I'll admit the idea of a Warlock does have some appeal.
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So I'm working on my BBEG, really SBEG (Small Bad Evil Guy), who is a 5th level Wizard. At first, I just created a 5th level Wizard in the random Character Generator on DDB and was calling it a day. Against 4 4th level characters the Wizard and a few Death Dog's could be a decent fight.
Then I started second-guessing myself and started overthinking if my Wizard is too much for an NPC villain. (I don't know why but it's something that won't get out of my head.) At most I may just pull out certain spells from the generated character but leave the base stats/abilities.
So I thought, let me see what the DM Hivemind does in the creation of their NPC/BBEG villains.
Honestly, I'd be more worried that the party would wipe the mage out before he got a turn lol
At least that's what happened with my party in a VERY similar situation!
That's a good point as I never really considered that since I thought adding the Death Dog's would give the NPC a buffer. Still, it is something to consider as I'm trying to develop the encounter.
Be sure to give villains at least twice as many HP as a similar character. Since they’re unlikely to have a cleric backing them up, they need it to survive more than a round. Also be careful of spells like Fireball that can KO more than one PC in one shot.
Wizard (Gandalf) of the Tolkien Club
Yeah... my BBEG at the moment was the "archmage" statblock and his elite guard (veterans). They learned his travel route and wanted to set up a trap. My first thought was "They only have less than 8 hours, what could they possible do!" They wanted to bury explosives in the road and wait to detonate, I thought they only had time to do a little until the Elemental monk reminded me he can dig like crazy with his elemental affinity or whatever its called. Long story short, they buried like 10 full barrels of gunpowder and all but vaporized his guard and most of him. Then the beatdown commenced lol
Moral of the story: Players will surprise you how creatively they can handle an encounter you thought would challenge them!
Wow, that is some ending to the mage and I can see how the battle went by quickly.
Though I was ignoring the archmage because it was a CR 12 creature but maybe I could down-scale his stat block to fit my needs.
It's not as much as who the NPC is as its stats and in my case spells that is my biggest concern that I'm building the correct NPC.
The backstory is, a famous artist in the city of Helm's Hold was hung by the Order of The Guilded Eye (Nasty bastards.) with reluctant permission of the city council because his current art was deemed to contain too much 'demonic influence'. The son of the painter, also a painter, built his reputation, after his father's murder, by painting beast and mythic creatures of nature, unknown to the purchasers the paint he used was enchanted so he could make the painting come to life to which he uses this to kill members of the city council and Guilded Eye higher-ups for revenge of his fathers' death." The players get caught in the middle of this and end up involved in this murder mystery that ends with two encounters starting with the mage son, and then the final battle is a painting of a Fire Elemental(s)(not sure yet) at the Guilded Eyes' cathedral.
But I digress...
I like the NPC's you created but what I am looking for is a magic-user so I think I'll need to dig deeper into homebrew or look at some of the published adventures and maybe reskin any of their magic-based NPCs.
So how you do develop the stat/spell section for your NPC's or do you mostly reskin existing builds and up/downscale them to fit your needs?
I personally LOVE reskinning things! Since you're the DM, You can literally say a certain statblock is ANYTHING!
For example: Want a really powerful anime villain that can shoot beams out of his hand and radiate a "powerful pressure" that being in his presence is oppressive? Take a Dragon statblock, tell them they see a guy, call the breath weapon a hand beam and change damage types as you see fit. They'll literally NEVER KNOW
I do this all the time since my party are all very well versed in the monster manual and this gives a way to catch them completely off guard
I never considered anything other than a Wizard just because wizard was the first thing to come to mind and I guess I was just generalizing. I'll take another look at your Cult Initiate, but I'll check out your other suggestions as well to see if something fits, but I'll admit the idea of a Warlock does have some appeal.