They Killed My Villain! Dungeon Master Problems
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- Опубликовано: 10 сен 2024
- What to do when your villain dies too soon, or kills the party!
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Umm your villian get's killed by your group to early
- Dopleganger
- look-a-like
- Underling dressed as the big bad
Why are you making it complecated?
Your group takes on & get massacred by villian.
- they realise they are actual back a while before the fight & have been given a vision from one of their gods of what will happen if they take the big bad on right now
- the wake up & it was all an illusion no one is dead they'd just been messed with by some tiny magical critter while sleeping
- they die & are taken to the after-life of one of there religions & then sent back because it' not time yet & the threat is more dire than they realised.
There are heaps of ways to get out of that kind of situation & make it fun & interesting.
@@Ryo-sj8wn Why are YOU making it complicated? :P
@@WASD20 I'm not? I don't think I am anyway. By the way I'm really enjoying your channel =)
@@Ryo-sj8wn those are very good ideas, but thats why he made the video. The whole point is to IMPROVIZE. I am not yelling with u those all caps would be bolden if i could. I am trying to be as respectful as possible.
Repeat after me "I have failed you, my Master"
Then do something magic-y; The bad guy shatters, turns to goo, rots in an instant, explodes, etc. Now build a 'bigger' bad and the group has a new threat to hunt down and a convenient starting point with a pile of armour, bones, bubbling flesh, or dust.
"You thought you had slain him...but it was only his twin brother!"
A friend who was DMing for us was notorious for (trying to) bringing villains back, that we killed too quickly. DnD3.5 with 4 semi Powergamers as players. At one time the evil dude had an ability that allowed him to pretend to be dead. Naturally we beat the BBEG pretty handily and as there was a pricemoney on his head, we cut it off. Naturally the plan that the BBEG would sneak off as we were distracted by a pair of skeletons was thwarted big time by that.
Another time in Eberron we onehit the Lord of Blades and his two accompanying war constructs (giant sentient siege robots), our war construct barbarian (how a machine can go into a blood rage I don't know) looted a reanimation matrix of the Lord of Blades, which had his consciousness stored inside. The GMs plan was, that the EG would take control of the relatively low will barbarian and get stronger. The problem was, that the barbarian rolled a 20 on his will save, so the EG couldn't try again.
“In the past, you may have defeated my 9 progressively powerful Simulacra, but now you face ME, the TRUE DARK OVERLORD!!! Muahaha!!!”
If your villain dies, it melts into a pile of slushy snow. Whoops. You just killed a simulacrum.
The simple solution is to have more than one villain when your writing your story. If you have a particular idea in mind for where the story will go, make them rivals who are are both trying to reach the same end goal. Killing one will just mean another can pick up the slack. More importantly, it doesn't deprive your players of the feeling of accomplishment for having taken down a terrible threat early on through their own skill, creativity, and initiative.
This reminds me of a situation that my Dad tole me about with his D&D party. They encounter a medium sized dragon, my Dad's character immediately goes for a killing arrow attack, rolls 20 to hit and 20 on crit. The dragon dies with an arrow in the brain. The only problem was that the party were meant to talk to it and have it as an ally. My Dad went up from level 1 to 8 (at least that's what I remember he told me).
Oh no! My villain is dead! Resurrection magic exists in the game for more than just PCs...
Oh, and the resurrection didn't go quite right.
Now the villain is even more dangerous AND has a personal vendetta against the party!
Win-win!
And had a boss. And had a brother. And sacrificed his own daughter for more power and blames the PC and his god decided to wake an elder undead thingie to avenge his champion, or you can save the unused bits for your next campaign.
You have to be able to answer the question, if they resurrected once, what is stopping them from doing it repeatedly? If they keep resurrecting it will get a little stale, if they only do it once, it might not be realistic.
That is a fair question!
A few quick thoughts:
1) If the party takes no steps to prevent repeated resurrections, there's no reason it can't happen more than once.
You gotta be thorough guys!
Or maybe...
2) Whoever brought them back the first time isn't impressed by repeated failure.
Or maybe...
3) they do keep resurrecting, but every time they do, it goes a little more wrong. The price gets steeper & steeper. Until finally, one day, the villain is begging the party to end them permanently.
Maybe said villain didn't want to come back anymore, but staying dead isn't so simple anymore.
As a DM, you got options!
Sounds lame
Or find out who brought them back and kill them and everyone who can bring them back. Or find a way to prevent them from coming back. Get a banish to hell for all eternity" spell or quest for a soul killing item.
AS for killing off the villian early, several ways to keep the story going. Put a letter into the villians pocket from a politician or as yousaid a master, who made the plans but was busy setting up the endgame. Or have the evil group split into faction which the party must eliminate piecemeal. And a third option for me dont have the villain dead, the death was a clone, a replica/ illusion.... or have his body dissapear when they search for it (taken by henchmen) to be ressurected.
Villain dead? Nope, that was actually a dummy being puppeteered by the actual Villain whom is now interested/intrigued by this odd group of travelers (the PCs). Maybe will even act as an NPC and set the party on a quest to get rare items/ingredients for his/her plans.
OMG! A doppleganger who knew?
That's actually a really good idea. I've got a reaper bones full armored black knight for the Big Bad. If he dies when they encounter him it was an animated suit of armor. Just for him to get bumped up a few levels with better gear next time.
You thought you killed Achilles? God no, it was Patroklos.
"They Killed My Villain!" And he had AIDS (or other fantasy lethal desease). Now they will have to wait for the tests are they carriers, or die in pain. Remember kids. Do your research first if you are planning to kill that big, bad man. America First, Poland Firster!
I like that. Good job.🤘
I like when you talked about expendable villains! I new my party kind of dislikes cliches, so I put in a necromancer that was secretly a huge coward with an amulet that can control weak demons, like the army of gnolls he had.He worked for a demon, thinking they were partners. He escapes the "final" battle, just to be disintegrated/ripped apart by the demon in front of the pc's for failing his job and leading them to him. While really, it worked out how the demon wanted. He was just a distraction. He got the party to kill all the gnolls just so he could bring them back as skeletal gnolls along with other skeletal monsters at his disposal. (There may also be a skeleton dragon somewhere)
That's fantastic.
I actually believe that story should be more of the focus, Over lethality. I agree with what you said about "your character dies, so you start to not care about your character." I had this same experience recently. I plotted my character, his family and Backstory, goals, etc. For a month. Only to get killed 2-3 sessions in! So my next character I haphazardly slapped together and off I went. "What's the point of caring if I could die at anytime," I find becomes tge mentality.
That's my 2¢, enjoyed your video though, thanks for the advice!
Ps. I'm interested in discussing this if anyone is interested.
The players killed Calabraxis the Wizard....now they gotta kill Calabraxis the Lich 😜
And afterwards they must kill Calabraxis the demi-lich =P
@Niko Straub - Ythothian Liche King Calabraxis actually 😎
i love how every intro in this entire series is you talking in second person perspective like a dm in an ongoing game XDD
When the 6th-level party investigated, paid no attention to my clues, went into the lair heedlessly, then they encountered the Beholder? Yes - they then learned it was a dangerous world.
To be fair, we had a 6th level party and met a beholder. Our Warlock cast blindness on him which is bad for a beholder since they are an amalgamation of eyes. I was playing a monk, stunned him on my first hit, and now everybody was attacking with advantage (Including my remaining 3 hits). Of course our figther used action surge. The beholder was dead in 6 seconds :D (A party with 5 PCs, just to clear that up)
@@eriksemko698
Then they weren't playing the Beholder very well. A proper Beholder would recognize the Blindness incantation and glance at your Warlock, creating an Antimagic field.
Nope, the DM played it right. The Beholder was looking at me when initiative was rolled and if you read antimagic cone, the beholder can only turn the cone at the start of his turn. The Warlock was standing behind the beholder. The warlock rolled best initiative, went first and blinded him. I was second in initiative and stunned him with my first hit.
"maybe the villian sends them to another plane or dimension"
Or maybe...a different time
"Gotta get back, back to the past, samurai Jack"
I had a similar problem recently, but the thing was the villain wasn't killed. The Players actually joined him and are now working for him. The leader of the group felt really betrayed and now she is all alone against the rest.
That is the job of the players... to mess up the DM's plans.
Absolutely! :)
Wow man😺
Not their job but it just happens
I'm still new to DMing, so what I did was make my boss a Lich and all his servants partially undead. So when my players killed what was supposed to be a tough mid-boss, he just came back 3 sessions later. Really shocking to my players who hadn't played before.
If a second villain just takes over the place of the first one it would feel like their action had no consequence, that them killing the big bad was a hollow victory, because now there is someone else to do the exact same thing. That's kinda lame in my opinion and I would avoid doing that.
Well maybe you could make the new villain different. Could be that this guy doesn't quite have things under control and there are more fights in the streets. This actually makes the situation worse than before, because all the death and destruction isn't planed. It's chaotic.
You could also have many different villains trying to become the boss and the party might even work with one of the less evil guys.
... so I think you could pull it off. Well, you'd have to make consequences for the party murdering your original villain.
Sad you stopped These, they really Help me prepare for my First DM session
New DM here (first session coming up in a couple of weeks), so not sure how good my opinions will be, but I've actually been thinking a lot about how I want to handle PC death.
For one, I was thinking of suggesting in session 1 that everyone continue thinking about characters they'd like to play in the future, I figure it might take the sting off the death if they already have another character in mind that they're excited to play.
Another idea I had for PC deaths later in the campaign was basically to 'region lock' (for lack of a better term) certain races and classes, so for example you could have monks exclusive to a particular region that the PCs will travel to eventually, and if they die in that region they can then choose that class.
In my case, I'm making my own setting that is primarily based on the Forgotten Realms, but was planning for my players to eventually uncover (by means of an extravagant quest) an isolated continent that will be closer to the Eberron setting, at which time I'll introduce the Eberron races/classes and make my players aware that they're free to use them for future characters.
My hope is that the addition of new options might make it feel less like you're just outright 'starting over', and more like your previous adventures had 'unlocked' new ways to play.
I also think I'm going to try and ensure that PC death has a lasting impact on the story, so that the player doesn't feel their character died for nothing.
For example, if the PC was respected by groups or clans that are otherwise rivals, the PC's death might spur them to join forces to fight some greater threat.
In a similar vein I was going allow (if the player chooses) for the PC's death to be part of the backstory for whatever PC is created to replace them, which seems like it could create some interesting stories if the player is creative enough; perhaps they've heard tale of the PC's heroism and want to follow in their footsteps, perhaps they're a relative or friend that wants revenge, perhaps they're a bard who wishes to learn stories about the PC to turn in to songs, or perhaps this new PC had some secret tie to the cause of the original PC's death, and has joined the party out of a sense of guilt etc.
And, you know what, a TPK doesn't have to be the end. I played in a campaign once where we TPK'd to a vampire. Then, dead, each of us woke up to a demon, asking if we wanted a chance to take vengeance on the vampire. We agreed, and had a fun couple of sessions getting back to the material plane.
Or, perhaps you all are resurrected decades later, after the villain won. The legends say you were the last to stand against him, so the people have risked everything to bring you back, in the hopes that this time you can defeat him.
Jest started my first campaign, thank you you have been a lot of help. I quickly learned my players (all playing paladins mid you) quickly go off the rails in every campaign, first session they nearly killed an NPC before it could drop the thing that starts off the whole campaign.
I’m going to play dnd with my friend for the first time I told him to make it dangerous. I love stories about a badish knight that thinks only for himself and is always alone but experiences and encounters change his heart and ends up in the end sacrifices himself for people he thought a few months ago where mere means to an end. I’ve always love neutral evil characters so I’m going draw something that looks like a chaos knight from warhammer mark of chaos/battle march and be a paladin or cavalier
Damn his yoda impression is actualy pretty good.
Fudge them dice!!! It's never a shame!
Unless that's not fun for you. Then it's a shame.
You're so right, I had a cat knock my screen away mid roll... revealing that I had only d6's.. I had played the whole night, just making dice sounds. Ironically that adventure was, and, is still told as "the best" adventure. Afterwards, my players gave a box screen.
In my current group, I only occasional fudge dice rolls, and when I do it's more to keep the story going and interesting than to save the players from their own mistakes. Not fudging dice rolls, rolling in plain sight, so to speak, keeps my players on edge.
I have five players, and I've added a few NPCs that follow them around, which I allow the players to control. The message is pretty clear... if one of the PCs die, there's an NPC right there ready for a player to take over and keep playing. In fact, two sessions ago, one of the NPCs they were controlling died, thanks to a critical failure on a death saving throw. I did not arrange for this to happen, that's just how the dice fell. But it was like the perfect redshirt death, it scared all of the players into playing their characters a little more cautiously because they knew I hadn't fudged that and death was a very real possibility.
I'm not judging people who do fudge dice rolls, mind you. Everyone has their own style, and it's more important that the GM's style matches their players' style than anything. Just personally, I think it's fun to roll the dice right out in the open sometimes.
@@Seoulwanderer I agree, up to the point where a GM needs to control the outcomes and results. Like not letting minor events break a game.. and mystery is intriguing
If I'm afraid that the dice will screw things up, then I just don't roll them, the game gotta flow. That means favoring the players in that very epic, memorable moment, or when they get very creative. *Embrace* is the keyword.
We're there to play together. We do it together.
@@mysteriosamsqwanch8801 I agree with that. And there's a fine balance to be found there. Like, "If my PCs botch this stealth roll, the entire army will be alerted to their presence." Well, I might fudge it so they're not detected, to keep the campaign going. Or I might let it stand, because then we can have an epic fight where the heroes are eventually defeated and imprisoned, and they have to escape from jail. Or instead, maybe have a really tense chase scene as the army pursues them, and so on.
On the other hand, if it's something mundane like "Oh, they failed a Climb roll, so they fall to their death," I'm going to avoid that scenario unless a) they were doing something really stupid, so their character deserves to be punished, or b) they were doing some really heroic, and it was a cool way to go. Like, "You manage to push the children to safety, but then the wall collapses on top of you. You died a hero."
The idea of giving the BBEG a means of quickly escaping/withdrawing from the battlefield is a good one. If it looks like you misjudged how powerful the PCs are, the BBEG escapes. If it looks like a TPK is in the offing, the BBEG withdraws while observing that the PCs have been a huge disappointment and that they clearly aren't even worth killing.
I'm also a fan of telegraphing when a foe is too powerful to defeat (at least right now). One of the best ways to do this is to throw the party a tough fight against a single monster. Then when the BBEG effortlessly slaughters several of the same monster, it's pretty clear what's up.
Any player who persists in attacking under _those_ circumstances would probably benefit from a nice "death in the family" so to speak.
Totally agree. This is a great way to handle it.
Big villain does not need to fight to death every time. Think of how many movies / books where villain defeats the hero but instead of delivering the death blow leaves heroes with a minion in some deadly trap, which of course they can escape from or can get rescued from. On flip side think how many times a villain is defeated easily the first time, and with each re-appearance gets some obvious power upgrades so fight becomes progressively harder. And title concept is just plain silly; on rare chance main villain is wiped out via multiple critical hits, how easy it is to create a cult who worships his remains, and (somehow) brings him back to life (magic, religion, undead, horcruxes, so many options here).
I have some plans for higher level "saviors" that can suddenly jump in to the fray if my party is getting hurt more than I expected, to either shield them while they retreat, or to give them the slight edge they need to win the battle, depending on how differently it played out. Like a paladin who was also hunting the big bad guy jumping in with a shield, yelling for the party to run. Or a ranger who was hunting this elusive beast and took the opportunity to work together with the party to kill it now that it's here and wounded
You villian killed too early? Then his #1 takes over & this one is even stronger & meaner LOL
Johnny Ringo comes to mind
The Lieutenant planned on this all along!
@@franklyanogre00000 a good plan
Or the guy you killed was just The Dragon.
Debi Herbert I didn’t see your comment, but I said the same thing.
if you have a tpk, you could have the players souls put into a type of vessel and they all become warforged or golems. Then they can also either be forced to serve the villain or maybe meet a cool artificier npc who also wants the BBEG dead
Had the same problem in my „Das schwarze Auge“ (The Dark Eye)-Campaign.
Players tried to steal documents from the then still to be revealed villain of the campaign. So i sent in a lot of henchmen and made clear that my players were outnumbered.
I just like to think that the best option for this sort of stuff is to give your big bad a lieutenant or left hand. My favorite idea for a low or mid level party would be an Oni, but surely there are other options.
Another option for a sidekick is to have a magic using big bad, especially a transmuter(doesn't always have to be a necromancer or lich) who hired or befriended any normal lieutenant, say another wizard or some big bruiser like the aforementioned Oni. When the time comes, the wizard can cast true polymorph on them to transform them into something terrifying. The first choice for me would be a dragon or giant, or if we want to be exotic, a Yuan-Ti Anathema.
This is also nice, because if the big bad can cast True Polymorph, it can also cast shapechange, which just opens it up to a world of fun. You can unleash almost any horrific entity on the party during the final fight. Powerful planar entities such as demons, celestials and elementals, some ancient dragons, etc. Nasty stuff!
One of my players killed a random NPC with a pick to the head and split the guys head open removing the weapon. This NPC turned into the big bad, resurrected as a semi vampiric creature that holds his head together with a bladed cage pinned to his skull. They don't know it yet but the "Caged man" just became the most dangerous thing in the realm and he's hell bent on revenge.
Anytime they kill my villain, I feel like saying "Rocks fall and you die." xD
First of all, GZ to 100k+ subs! Also: presentation of the villain can be overkilly to make the point, e.g. let the lich walk into the city with "invulnerability" spell online, let the players throw fireballs and punches at him with them being absolutely useless, him laughing and just to illustrate the point, throw a horrid wilting at them. Stuff like that.
Also, and I can't stress this enough, casters in the MM/Volo/MToF like liches have a garbage can for a spellbook. Take the time to select spells for spellcasters that you want to feel more impactful, no matter if it's warlocks, wizards or sorcerers. Some of these are just a joke if you plan on using them and they can feel enormously weak in retrospect, especially if you have experienced players or just ridiculously strong archetypes. So choose their spells/invocations to present a better challenge for your party-setup, don't be unfair, but it's completely valid to adjust to the party's playstyle in order to give them a better challenge. Then especially high challenge ratings should not suffer from the "OMG-REKT!" situation too often :P
One thing I can think of is, if the villain is killed too early, maybe they had underlings or partners that decide to take up their mantle and continue the villain's plans, while also plotting revenge on the heroes.
You can continue the campaign and have the new villain learn from the old one's mistake and not confront the heroes too early, or without plenty of backup.
In a campaign I did I had a warlock monk as a side villain (his name was turtlehiem.). He was slowly turning into a bone claw. Their where 3 planned encounters. The first two I originally planned to have him leave before the fight ended to keep himself together both of those times the group was able to take care of him before hand. First time they banished him second time instant death. Now I had to improvise a reason one how he survived I came up with that he did die but due to becoming a bone claw it brought him back from death. It took a while for the group to meet him again sense they where dimension hopping to other campaign as the campaign was a mash up of character and lore from other campaign me and my friends did. When he came back I pretty much buffed him up with some items from other campaign and he nearly massacred everyone. The group had a angel cleric who was intimidated by him.
Having run into this problem myself before, I incorporated a solution into the next campaign I'm working on. The thing I did was give the main villain a second in command to take over when the big bad gets offed first. Depending on when in the story this happens there will be a significant change to the way the enemy group acts which can alter the entire story and world. For example, the main bad guy is extremely powerful, but also smart and goal oriented, whereas the second in command isn't as powerful. He's just a sadist that wants to bring harm onto people and do violence for violence sake. The main baddie will only act when it's in line with his ultimate goals and only trouble the player when they get in the way. However when his second takes over the entire dynamic of the bad guys changes, they'll become more agressive, show up in different situations and be attacking seemingly at random throughout the world, rather than working towards that specific goal the main baddie had. In this way there's an actual difference in when and where you defeat the main villain and I can actually incorporate some moments for the players where they get the chance to actually off the guy sooner in the story.
It's a lot of extra work, but I really enjoy going through these situations in my head and coming up with ideas and solutions to battle any problem that might arise from unexpected player behaviour.
Edit: I realize there would be easier ways to circumvent this issue like many players have mentioned. Like when the villain is killed he actually isn't the real villain and was just a puppet, or he was one of two brothers and you still have the other to deal with. I just think incorporating a solution to this into the campaign beforehand is more enjoyable, at least for me. Part of the fun for me I guess is the "game" played between DM and players where as the DM you try to keep the players on the right track, whereas the players, probably unintended, try to break the game as much as possible.
If Megamind were a real person, he’d look like you.
Neat video.
You could always use a good ole Anime trope: the number 2 guy was the real villain all along.
Record of Lodoss War and Megaman X 8 come to mind.
*Insert name here* falls to the ground as his body becomes a pile of ash. You feel a sudden gust of wind that blows the ashes into the air. The air starts to form the ashes into a twister shape. The ashes look as if they’re forming something as well. You see a face in the ash. It mutters something under its breath that you don’t quite catch. In another eerie gust of wind, the ashes blow away.
Hey, sorry for my ignorance of this matter. I'm not a GM but... how about revealing after the kill that it wasn't really the villain, but just a very powerful follower? Have a scene like Hector discovering he didn't really kill Aquiles, but Patroclus?
I just found your channel the other day and love your hints and tips. I DM a 1st ed. game (currently- also do Whitewolf games) for VERY experienced gamers who min/max everything. It makes it hard to give them challenges but I'm trying to up my game. I've never had them kill the main villain early but I have had them walk right through them in a couple of rounds. Which tells me I really need to read/plan more.
You could always pull a shadow of mordor and say that the villain survived and got a cool scare as long as the PCs don't do something like rend the body into six different pieces and scatter them across the world. Though that would be a cool new story arc if they had to stop a powerful minion from gathering the pieces and bringing their master back from the dead.
It’s kind of a cheap trick and your players might be annoyed, but if you just want a quick encounter between player and villain. Give the villain wall of stone or something like that. It allows a quick escape to happen within a setting like a tunnel
Does there have to be a big bad? I like the idea of chaos ensuing as the evil army is now directionless. I guess there's no tidy way to say "you're done!" with that kind of scenario though...
You certainly don't need one! I think there has to be a "conflict" in any story, but this certainly does not require a specific person or group of people
Video suggestion: What to do when you suddenly realize that your players don't share your worldview {that the story is built around}.
I had a story that involved an organization that used magic to change the alignments of other npc's. Now that magic supply was coming to an end. How will the idyllic city stay peaceful?
My players decided that this group was evil. Serves me right for having anarchistic friends and not having noticed.
Now sure, I can just shift my focus and go along with them being the bad guys {even though there are plenty of real crazy evil characters, that are known to be headed this way, that they could have helped the party with} but my heart just isn't in that. I guess my question is, how can I take a situation that my players have created and that I'm totally not into, and find a passion for it?
This may be an impossible ask, so sorry.
I'd like to think if a villan who died by the party and they can't recover the body, and/or disfigure the bad guy too much, as the GM you can just have then comeback in their next encounter and say, "After I faked my death..." Or maybe have them comeback with a disfigurement/prosthetic or a scar and say, "as I lay there waiting for death to claim my wretched soul..."
My two effective protections for a BBEG have been:
1) Too many mooks. Hard to land a killing blow on him when the party is swarmed by armored skeletons and zombies.
2) The Fakeout. A body double, a doppelganger, a construct in his image.... The 2nd time my players encountered my BBEG he was controlling an enhanced zombie remotely, using an enchanted mask to see and speak.
I like the idea of too many mooks. It solves the problem of action economy (doesn't matter what level you are, you only get so many actions in one turn) and battlefield control. Works better if you do while the party is below 5th level, because at some point, some of these classes can start ignoring armies of mooks or blasting them away with a single action (fireball, anyone?).
My heroes' first encounter with one of the big bads, there were two of them, both 5th level, while there were only three heroes present, 1st level. There was pretty well no way for them to defeat the big bads, and unless I rolled really high by accident, I would be able to capture the heroes without killing them fairly easily. (There was also more enemy soldiers nearby if I needed to call them in to reinforce the big bads.)
Which makes me think of another strategy - Defeat in Detail. Wait until the PCs are split up, then have one or two of them encounter the BBEG. As a party, they might stand a chance. With only one of them, it's hopeless.
Here is an idea from what our DM did a few sessions away. To give some context, we are suposed to prevent a big red dragon from burning/destroying the world, and that specific dragon was imprisoned in the Abyss by one of the former Archmage. There is also a cult who tries to free him.
Basicaly, while that specific dragon is still imprisoned, he can manifest in a weaker form in the material plane around the orb that serves as a key to him (imagine Sauron from The Hobbit movies). We were supposed to find this orb and escape this encounter, but we were abble to defeat this weaker projection, who used the stats of a young dragon instead of the ancient dragon. So, using a weaker form or buffing the villain for the next encounter is a good idea.
I made my villain nonessential to the quest, yes, there is an evil sorcerer, who cursed the entire city, but the real quest is to break the curse. He has to be killed somewhere along the line, but it doesn’t really matter when, they still have to trek to the farthest north to get the mcguffin.
I have my players roll up 4 characters but they only play 1 at a time the other characters are off doing some other thing and at the beginning of the session they roll 2 d 6 for them to see how it is going for the other characters.
Personally I like PC deaths, as a Player and DM. Sometimes it is the only way that players learn to be more cautious, this includes myself. I was playing a more dungeon crawl type game, wasn't till one of my characters died did I start to play safer.
Take a beat and allow your players actions to ripple through your world, even if it is not your own homebrew. Did your player kill everyone involved the the Big Bad's plans, and how would those NPCs react to the PCs' deaths or the Big Bad's? Were there any friendly NPCs that survived, what would they do? If all things continued after TPK or early boss kill for a few months or years, where would the world be? Then throw your players back in with same characters explaining what they have been up to, kinda like IT. Or new characters seeing from an outsiders perspective the acts of their original characters.
The story has ended for your PCs, but the world continues.. What comes next...?
The funny thing is, the party doesn’t know the villains health most likely. If you add another 100 when he reaches 0, they won’t know
The Villain could have been a Simulacrum, perhaps that villain was never evil, but mind controlled by an evil cult. Or now he is dead, but the whole of his armies or minions still move forward not knowing he is dead, or perhaps break off into numerous splinter cells
With your example of a level 17 Oathbreaker villain, the villain could even know someone who can resurrect them.
The "Wait ... I killed you with my own hands!" moment can be great. (Especially when they used such magic themselves before)
Absolutely!
You: 4:05
Shameful People: *You said something?*
If they want to fight a villain you don't want them to fight, first you tell them the following. "Alright, but before we do this encounter, I want all of you to roll up another character. We'll leave the backstory aside for now, but roll up their basic stats and race." This will usually dissuade them. But on the off chance it doesn't, you have characters that ready for either next session or right now if they died too early. Or, upon the very unlikely chance you're big baddy slips upon some marbles and crashes through the ships floor landing in the sea below with a splash and dissolves immediately because vampires do that upon touching water, then you have a literal team of baddies all ready for you to use, minus the backstory. Literally made the players do the hard part for you. Maybe they're some underlings that manage to get away, maybe they're apart of a group that rise up to secure the power vacuum left behind after the big baddy dies. Maybe your characters actions during the campaign were a bit murder hobie and has incensed this new party's ire. Who knows
Hey so I was wondering what should I do if one of my players die permanently? Is it right to resurrect them? Or should I have them play a new character?
Thanks for the "how to play 5e" series. We just started yesterday after 30+ years of highly modded ADD. I have already ordered two of the board books.
Nice! Happy gaming!
During my first full campaign, my players killed the final boss’ first form in record time, and honestly I have myself to blame. I wanted to give the rogue a powerful item, but it was too powerful.
That's why you should never make a magical item that deals triple damage for backstabs.
They just killed a Doppelganger. BANG!
I know the "17th level paladin" is just and example, but an accordingly hi-level or hi-cr enemy shouldn't me killable with just a few critical hits by a much lower team of opponents, given that you need a really high luck for it to happen, so it shouldn't be a common issue for a DM even if it should once actually happen.
Also, I wouldn't much be shocked by the unexplored background, but I would fear what a lower level team could do with the gear of a much higher level.
Brilliant video as always. I'm running a campaign with a big arc and this really helps.
What should I do if no matter what my players will never go to fight the campaign villain even though they are more than well enough equipped to handle it
I have made my own game with my rules and everything for a specific type of friends. One of them is overpowered but I just mess with him because there is a villain character that can suppress his abilities 😅
I always try to survive as a villain and GM ha ha ha! I use alot of NPC as distraction instead of chasing the villain ha ha!
Hunterfezza here, you are a champ thanks for these pointers will deffs help out it my campaigns
Cool! Glad it helped! Also -- PATRONS FTW! :D
How do i determine how many monsters my new 4 player group (2 brand new players) can handle in their first dungeon while still challenging the senior players?
I actually planned for my party to kill one of the BBEGs in the second session, as a way to move the story forward. Through that, they now have a spectral being that approaches them every so often to try and sway them to do the BBEGs bidding. It’s been very interesting watching them grow into their characters and watch their characters grow as well
Listening to the human Megamind like 👽
Hey WASD20 and other lads and lasses. Been watching your videos lately and really liked a lot of your content - some advices were like a revelation to me lol. I want to homebrew a small but potentially a fun and satisfying mechanic - pushing. I found melee combat a little bit boring so I got that idea and it also flavours the combat with some taste of battlefield wrestling. Dont have a lot of people to discuss it with so here I am seeking for your opinions people.
Every person that gets in combat equipped with melee weapon gets 2 push dies. After a successful attack the person can use 1 push die and try to push the hit enemy in a 180 arc infront of him. Both compare strength with their dex modifiers. If enemy loses, the character pushes enemy for X ft in chosen direction, choosing if he wants to move with him while pushing or just shoves the enemy back. You dont get the dies if you switch the weapon during combat.
The formula is follow: 1/4 of current STR (1/2 for shield user unless the shield is small) rounded down for each ft. On the ledge enemy must make a DEX saveroll to not fall.
Enemies much larger than you get moved by 1/8 and 1/4 respectively.
So yeah thats the system. Feel free to take it people and please leave your criticisms and suggestions. Thank you!
9:10 instructions unclear, currently on the run from the police
My players wanted to fuck with my big bad guy when they found him so he learned some spell in a blink and took all his extra movements and took down one of them pushed the other away, pulled the soul of the almost dead dwarf into a jewel leave it with a minion order him to get the others souls and leave the shit out of there. My players got their fight and no one died just a quest to return the dwarf soul out the stone. I lied with the dice obviously but fuck it I don't want to re do all the shit I've prepared... Yeah I'm lazy...
Great video! I used one the clone spell to "save" my baddie
My villain is an evil emperor. They do know that the villain is end game.
But there are sub-villains, who are as shady as they appear. An aristocrats plot to remove the king worked, although not in the way he first planned and went to aid the emperor. BUT he might seek his own plans of becoming the new king/emperor for example.
Another good shot is - like you said - to show them the villain every now and then and express them as taunters. Spread some rumors first of the cruelty he or she has done and then out of sudden he shows up as subnegotiator for some trade the group had to go for? This is a taunt par excellence. The group knows he's trying to lure them into a fight. So why would he do that if he's not powerful enough to take them all out at once? Maybe he's short tempered but then on the other hand why would he have survived that long? Get your group into thinking about this.
If it is a first session, or even early second session TPK, I am a fan of having the villain gloat over how weak the PCs are just before the PCs wake up. It was all a dream, but now you know what you are up against! When you do this, though, make sure the villain has a few tricks up their sleeve or that fight might be too mundane.
They killed the villain? I'm sure the BBEG can afford the Clone spell. It only requires: A diamond worth at least 1,000 gp and at least 1 cubic inch of flesh of the creature that is to be cloned, which the spell consumes, and a vessel worth at least 2,000 gp that has a sealable lid and is large enough to hold a Medium creature, such as a huge urn, coffin, mud-filled cyst in the ground, or crystal container filled with salt water
I had a situation where the villain killed one player KOed the party so he stole the magical items they were gathering and left them for dead. But most survived but barely
If your villain is killed too early, simply have him/her/it be part of a bigger opposing force/scheme/organisation. Assassin guilds, espionage, political or economical plot, anything that works/fits your campaign/narrative. If the villain is killed away from his main lair/hideout/base perhaps someone else gets there before the PCs. Apprentices, followers or hirelings work. Perhaps there's a 3rd party involved, some other individual who couldn't deal with him but now suddenly has access to said villains resources/research or something similar. Take the old cliche "Old and wise (but in truth evil) king sends party to clear out lair of villain just to get access to X" and put your twist on it.Perhaps the real threat is not the villain but the sword/pendant/ring/what ever he carries. Works better with lower level parties or when they don't have access to a lot of divination/research material on the item. Twist that cliche into something that fits. They might leave it in the hands of a good aligned church or a helpful NPC and run off to find clues, only to return and find everything in chaos. Like Arthas/Frostmourne/Helm of Domination from WC3. Now for the TPK, what I've personally used is a scenario like this: Exhale heavily or look "dissapointed" as you check your notes. Let your players talk and brood for a few minutes after the last one dies, just to settle into that panic/what now/insecurity mode. Use some moody ambient music and lightning and quickly describe some vivid details of their souls traveling to the afterlife. Don't oversell it, just some quick descriptions of the "numbness" or "cold" or the "whooshing" sounds of otherwordly souls passing closeby or through them screaming. Let another 2-3 minutes pass in silence or while they quietly talk among themselves. Now they're probably in full-panic mode as you just gave some sence of finality in the campaign. Then look them in their eyes and describe the sudden gasps of air as they draw breath, the cold and hard surface of the slabs of granite/marble they appear laid on, naked and covered in burial shrouds/white sheets of fabric. Give some vague details of their surroundings, the lightning, the air/smells, some incense burning etc. Suddenly an unfamiliar voice echoes in the chamber/cave/where ever you placed them... "I have summoned you here.....".Deus Ex Machina cliche, with what ever twist/fits your preferance. Maybe thats an ancient metallic dragon, maybe than's a long lost Elder God, just pick your preference of powerful benefactor and go with it. I've started campaigns in this fashion, and while there's a possibility you have some form of player in your party that might go "Well thanks but no thanks" and strike out on their own, you know your players better so play/plan accordingly.
Thanks for you video, we found ourselves in this same situation. Keep sharing, you explain it very well.
Thanks!
There's 5 or 6 non resurrection spells in the phb that fix the problems in the opening of the video.
If the bbeg dies too early it doesn't mean the party really killed them. It just means they beat the villain's pet doppelganger, or simulacrum, necromantic clone, or whatever high level illusion spell lets the bbeg make attack rolls from the other side of the planet. There's no reason why npc's can't have access to made up "greater projected image" spells the players simply don't.
Even if you don't want to throw photo copies of the bbeg at the party there's no reason your villain shouldn't have a ring of spell storing with contingency, greater teleport, and planeshift on it. Every non spell caster bbeg should have rings of spell storing to expand the curveballs they can throw at the PCs heads.
If the party gets in over their heads and a tpk happens because the dice say so then what happens next is the entire party wakes up from their last long rest. The bbeg trapped them all in a dream sequence with the Dream spell and now knows all their go to tricks. They suddenly have a pretty good idea of how they'll get their asses stomped if they don't come up with a better plan.
If the payers make bad decisions, bad things happen.
Negating a TPK in the manner you suggest is removing the risk. If there is no risk, you are not playing a game, You are reading a book to the "players" and may as well melt your dice into a big blob of plastic waste.
I'm Assuming BBEG Stands For "Big Bad Evil Guy"? Because If It Doesn't I'll Be Dissapointed.
@@rateeightx That's exactly what it means.
Another strategy is to have multiple villains. In the current campaign I'm running, my heroes have run afoul of the "Dragon Empire." So far, they've encountered three different leaders of the Dragon Empire. Eventually they'll discover that there are Nine in total, each with their own personality and personal agenda (in addition to the agenda of the Dragon Empire, which is world domination). (One of them has even pursued a romantic relationship with one of the PCs! Talk about conflict of interest!)
Next adventure, they're going to be ambushed by a particularly nasty Fire Mage riding atop a red dragon. Seeing as they are fairly low-level, they're supposed to run away and fight later when they are able to separate the mage from the dragon and have more favorable conditions. But if they get a lucky hit and somehow kill her in the next encounter? Well, that's part of the game, isn't it? Honestly I think if they pull off some crazy maneuver I didn't expect and/or get crazy good dice rolls, I shouldn't rob them of that victory. They earned that, and there's no better feeling than seeing a good plan or strategy come together.
On the other hand, if they attack full-on and are going to get slaughtered, I'll give them a warning (one of the NPCs says, "Are you crazy? That's a dragon!") and if they persist, they're probably going to get themselves killed or possibly captured. The 5e rules are fairly generous with death, so I've found it's much easier to Total Party Capture (instead of TPK), and this Fire Mage is an overseer of a mine worked by slaves, so....
The beauty of having Nine major villains is that if the players do kill one earlier than I expected, it doesn't throw off the pace of the campaign much because one of the other villains can assume the role I need them to take. And the players don't feel robbed, since they're making progress toward a goal, which is eliminating all Nine by the end of the campaign.
Great as always, keep it up Nate!
Just add a plot device that makes him able to get away or overpower the group. It happens all the time in every single story.
Sure. Mentioned the importance of 'escape' as a tool in the video, but at some point it might actually be okay to let them kill it. If that's the way the dice are going, it can actually be cool to let that unexpected result occur.
Introduce another villain that is the "ACTUAL" boss of the "supposed" villain that just got defeated.
Is it possible that the villain only used Non-Lethal Damage on the PCs in that encounter, so instead of a TPK, he just leaves the entire party unconscious or incapacitated?
Yep. I mentioned that in the video.
@@WASD20 Sorry about that. I work overnight and I was half asleep at the time.
@@ctechlewis No worries. :D
This is why one of my villains is a Naga. Practically Ally unkillable lol
Xanithar's Guide is out, if you're worried about them killing the Villain give them the spell Invulnerability.
I don't have a solution for TPKs, but in general it's easier to find excuses for that.
Good thinking
How does the party even kill your villain? Just have him have a large health pool, reinforcements comming in. Smoke granades and a Hidden escape path.
What a coincidence. A couple of those things got mentioned in the video. :)
Thanks for another great topic Matt. I like to adopt a mentality that DMs/GMs are just narrators or referees of the story. Basically we put the world out there and let the players explore it, with a little guidance of course. I don't enjoy the mentality of DM against the players, and pretty sure you feel the same (think I heard you say that once in one of your vids). If a group of my players decimates a high level villain, then good for them--who doesn't like beating down a tough baddie. I try to always make such battles challenging, and yes they can be deadly. I try to remember though, the players always had the option to flee the battle.
I’m so familiar with the feeling I wish I wasn’t but I am
There's always a second in command.
To get an accurate feel for the lethality of a DMs campaign world, I just as "Dark Souls, Witcher 3 or MineCraft?".
- MineCraft: Easy Mode, you can die, but will be brought back immediately or next session.
- Witcher 3: There are things that are stronger than you. You can try to fight them, but you won't win unless you really pull something out of your ass
- Dark Souls: Great for casual players! /obvious_sarcasm_is_obvious
To drop a hint about the lethality of a location, item, or NPC, tell the PCs that they grew up on stories about the terrors it wrought- real bogeyman type shit.
What does TPK mean?
Total party kill
I try to have a generic backup. If my primary NPC (a rich, but bored shopkeeper seeking adventure by "turning bad") is killed, then I have his lawyer (with similar aspirations) set up as the replacement. Hopefully the redundancy in their motivations drops a hint that this character is vital to the game. -- I play the shopkeeper as a Lawful Good character nieve in the ways of villainy. He is actually just bored and decides to hire the PCs as "henchmen". He seeks out all the cliche villain stuff like a secret hideout, more henchmen, and an arch rival (a hero to despise). This is only until he gets bored with villainy and moves on to something else. The scenario is actually an opportunity for the players to become "bad guys" while not violating alignments. Also, it puts the idea that not every villain is an evil freak worthy of death. I'm all about moral dilemmas along side my hack and slash.
Didn't he have a meaner more experienced and more ruthless father?
@@warrenokuma7264 Equally evil twin brother?
My name is Evil Inigo Montoya.
You killed my evil father.
Prepare to die.
My name is good Kolgar Montoya, You killed my grandfather, I buy you drink.
TPK... and then he steps out of the shower and it was all a dream...
....a team of surviving identical twins raise their battle standards and go after BBEG...
...a necromancer comes to the battlefield and misraises the dead leaving sentience of slain zombie characters who have 2 months to get revenge before bodies fall apart...
Your yoda voice was jarringly good
Well finally some recognition! :P
Oh he's dead? Aha, he was merely the... um... Puppet! He wasn't real villain all along .. Ahem..
What did the librarian say to the children?
𝗥𝗲𝗮𝗱 𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲
Tricksy
I say follow the dice. Playing the villain smart is fine just don’t be arbitrary about it.