How to Run Unstoppable, Unkillable Enemies

Tags Dungeon Master Tips author-damen-cook

You know that scene at the end of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, when Darth Vader emerges to level corridors of rebel troops? What if you could play out moments like that in Dungeons & Dragons—with an enemy so powerful and terrifying that the party's first instinct is to flee? These narrative beats work well with villains that are an ever-present danger, seemingly unstoppable forces of evil that the party must work around until they can devise a plan and level up enough to face them head on.

Running this type of villain can be tricky, though. If your players have always faced off against monsters that are comparable in power level, their first instinct may be to fight this new foe, which could end in disaster. But there are tricks to managing this type of enemy, and ways that you as a Dungeon Master can use them at your table to create tension, progress the plot, reveal critical information, or establish stakes.

In this article, we’ll talk about how to run scenes where the party encounters a villain they couldn’t possibly defeat, as well as why you may choose to run them. After all, what do the players and the story get out of scenes where a classic victory simply isn’t possible? Let’s dig in.

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How to Run Encounters With Unstoppable Villains

Armored person riding a red dragon as it burns a fieldPeople—in this case, real-life players—don’t often like being caught unawares. Depending on table expectations and player styles, DMs may need to be explicit with their players: “Your character knows in their gut that they cannot win this fight.” If the player is adamant that their character would fight knowing defeat is inevitable, this could be a good opportunity to take them aside and discuss how to turn their final moments into a cathartic plot point. (Hey, we have a great article on character death here.)

That said, unless your players prefer these explicit out-of-game warnings, I recommend showing over telling. Let’s look at some in-game storytelling techniques to demonstrate your villain’s power and communicate the encounter’s difficulty without needing to break the fourth wall.

Establish the Villain's Power

Show your party that the villain is far out of their league. I like to use three main tools to do this: 

  • Demonstrate NPC attitudes.
  • Narrate evocative demonstrations of power (usually magical or political) that don’t directly threaten the PCs.
  • Reveal that the villain has access to information, items, or entities that the party knows to be of legendary importance.

Use your NPCs—enemies and allies alike. For enemies, have them show deference and respect. Did your orc chieftain just knock the party barbarian unconscious in one turn? When the Big Bad lich shows up, have the chieftain be the first to bow to them. For allies, fear is usually best, or anguish. As soon as Legolas recognizes the Balrog for what it is, he drops his arrow. Gimli lets his axe fall to his side and covers his face. Gandalf laments their misfortune, and immediately tells the party to flee.

You can demonstrate the full might of your villain without putting your PCs at direct risk. Let the Big Bad use their power to bring down a wizard’s tower, trigger an earthquake, or incinerate a forest with a single word. And although having the villain cast power word kill at an NPC is fun and will do the trick, these encounters don’t need to feature offensive power at all. Your Big Bad ignoring a powerful trap, deflecting a series of arrows, or counterspelling a high-level spell gets the same point across. You might instead want to showcase political or military power: The party could witness the villain ordering an army (or coven) to destroy an entire town.

You could establish the villain’s power by revealing their access to key information or legendary items. Perhaps the party has been searching for information on the ring of three wishes, only to have renowned NPCs inform them that the ring is essentially lost to history, rumored to have fallen into the hoard of some ancient dragon or noble genie. When your Big Bad appears, let the characters see that ring resting on their finger.

Allow the Party to Flee

The players and characters need a way out. I’m sure your villain is known for obliterating adventuring parties without a second thought, but we’re probably not telling the story of those adventuring parties. Your table’s party should have an opportunity to flee from the confrontation. As the DM, you can create these opportunities by having NPCs interrupt to fight the villain while your party escapes or by having given your players a MacGuffin prior to the encounter, but you probably don’t have to. Unless your characters are holding onto something that the villain needs, they likely won't find these low-level adventurers worth their spell slots.

As the party flees, let them get their shots off on the way out. Let them shoot the arrow into the rope that’s holding onto the chandelier, let them flee and cast fire bolt at the curtains on their way out and lock the doors behind them, and so on. Your villain probably doesn’t have to use these moments to counterspell or chase the party or respond with additional damage. Facilitate opportunities for players to create moments of heroism as these encounters close.

If the party fails to flee, their enemy can always take them captive, forcing the party into a classic jailbreak mission. Or the villain could knock the party out and leave them with a note not to interfere with their plans any longer, or else.

Why Run Encounters With Unstoppable Villains?

People evacuating a burning townWhen “balance” dominates so much of the discussion around encounter design, why run an encounter so thoroughly and inarguably “unbalanced?” Sometimes, a story requires that which a balanced encounter cannot provide. As DMs and storytellers, we can use scenes with the Big Bad themselves to establish stakes, move the plot forward, or reveal our villain’s priorities, personality, and weaknesses.

Establish Stakes or Intent

These encounters can be an opportunity to graduate your players’ expectations about an enemy, perhaps from Villain of the Realm to Villain of the World. If your villain has been laying low, gathering power, your party may not have had access to clues about the scale of their power and the scope of their intentions. When they see your villain cast a spell that raises a mountain range, your players and their characters will recalibrate. “Oh, this isn’t a threat to the village," they may say. "This is a threat to the continent.”

Progress the Plot

Sometimes it’s simply fun and in-genre for the Big Villain to personally deliver news of their next move. This should be tailored to your party’s power level: If they are 1st level, perhaps they’re caught up in a larger group that the villain is addressing, but they are learning of the villain’s next moves nonetheless. If they’re 6th level, they may still be too lowly to warrant the villain’s full efforts but have gotten enough attention to justify a quick visit full of braggadocious monologuing.

Reveal Information

These scenes can be great opportunities to reveal a villain’s flaws, weaknesses, obsessions, or backstory. Ask questions of the characters that indirectly hint at the villain’s priorities or past loss. Use phrasing and intonation that betrays just a touch of the Big Bad’s emotions or suspicions. These scenes give you opportunities to leave your players asking themselves bigger questions: Why is the villain focusing on one character so much? They’re staring at the paladin’s amulet an awful lot, aren’t they? They knew the rogue’s last name, did you catch that?

Who Is Your Unstoppable Villain?

Now that you have some tips at your disposal about how and why to run encounters with unstoppable villains, think about who in your world has power, and how they wield it. Is your campaign villain a bloodthirsty dragon, or a calculating wizard? An archdevil summoned from hell or a hag in the woods? Your villain’s personality and motives should guide you when determining how to establish your villain’s power and whether to use these encounters to establish stakes, progress the plot, reveal critical information, or simply swap a little banter. 

Consider how you might apply these principles to Lord Soth, a powerful enemy from the Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen adventure. Soth is suited for evocative demonstrations of power. As the most powerful death knight on Krynn, he can kill a small crowd and instantly raise them as undead under his control, or banish over half the party at once. He is also known for his intense resentment and ruthlessness, which could easily be demonstrated either through direct encounters or by showing the damage left in his wake.

One way to make a particularly challenging villain like Soth himself seem intimidating and powerful is to use some of these storytelling techniques during early encounters with Soth’s lieutenants. Leave your party wondering how powerful Soth must be if one of his several favored knights was so challenging.

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Damen Cook (@damen_joseph) is a lifelong fantasy reader, writer, and gamer. If he woke up tomorrow in Faerun, he would bolt through the nearest fey crossing and drink from every stream and eat fruit from every tree in the Feywild until he found that sweet, sweet wild magic.

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