How do YOU reintroduce villains you bring back?

[Berandor]

I haven't done it yet, but I had a BBEG that fled before the heroes caught up with him. He left his teddy bear as a sign that he would come back (and when an evil Cyric priest has a teddy bear, that's kinda creepy). The players had worked together with an evil half-orc to topple the BBEG.
Later, the half-orc reappeared missing a hand and almost broken in spirit, but together the party and him took up the search for the cleric. Before they could meet again, however, the group disbanded.

 

[Pbartender]

One of my favorite trick for returning Evil Wizards is the Simulacrum spell.

The bad guy can be everywhere at once, so he creates a half-powered version of himself to take care of important, but less critical (or more dangerous) tasks.

It's a less powerful version of the BBEG that's a little easier for the PCs to take out. When I used it, I had the Simulacrums created from corpses, rather than smoke, mud or smoke. The simulacrums also had a habit of going around in disguise using a Disguise Self spell. It was wonderful to see the looks on the faces of the PCs as the various magics faded once a simulacrum died... First the Disguise spell faded to reveal the features of the BBEG, which then melted into the month-old rotting corpse of someone completely different.

Every time the PCs killed a Simulacrum, the BBEG would heave a sigh of frustration, and create a new, slightly more powerful simulacrum (Bad Guys gain XP too) to do his bidding. After the third or fourth of these, the PCs started catching on... "Hey wait a minute. Haven't we already killed you before?"

 

[rumblehed]

returning villians

Bringing a villian back as undead seems like a well-used but not very original option. Use of a Magic Jar is also a favorite of mine and I think requires a little more strategy on the part of the NPC caster. The adventurers slay who they think is the bad guy and the evil caster escapes to bother the PC's another day. Dark wizards make such tricky villians.

 

[Malimar]

BBEG Strikes Back

If a villian comes back after a defeat, I usually like to do something to change the stats a little - so the next encounter won't just be an exact rehash of the first encounter.

Applying an undead template to the villian is usually a good way of doing it. Another thing I've done recently is to have the villian "rebuilt" as a half-golem. Makes the guy MUCH tougher.

I also have this evil cleric the party runs into on and off. He started with living lizardmen henchmen, many with class-levels. The party at this point has killed most of them, but left their bodies. Instead of just raising them I've applied a modified ghast or mummy template to each of them. Undead underlings are even better than living underlings.

- Malimar

 

[Blue_Kryptonite]

My BBEG kidnaps various useful people (princes, high clerics, etc) to clone. The clones are both hypnotically conditioned and in regular contact with him. There's always someone different under the distinctive armour. The players didn't catch on for many levels.

 

[Scribble]

Once in Basic D&D I had Zanzer Tem (remember him?) use magic jar (I think) to transfer his soul into the body of an elf, and then come back several adventures later... It didn't pay any real attention to wether or not th rules said it could be done but it was fun.

Recently, one of the PC's cohorts was turned to stone, and the party had to leave him for dead. The main enemy of the PCs found him and turned him back to flesh, then used this to brainwash him into becoming the blackguard/antipaladin champion of the Dark God working against the PCs.

That one was a lot of fun when after fighting the party several times already, Darreth (The cohort tuened BBEG) removed his demon armor helmet to reveal just who he was. Quite a "Luke I am your father.." moment there

 

[UniversalMonster]

There's probably a critical flaw somewhere in my plan..

One of the main villians of the campaign was a high level lich. The players started out by working for him, then suddenly killed him (surprising even me- they arranged the hit behind the GMs back!), and then they raced to his lair and destroyed the phylactery. They took his research assistant (an animated intelligent skeleton) as a captive. Well- let me rephrase that- they took the skull, which was still intelligent, and one of the players has been forcing it to work for him for over a year now.

That research assistant may have come upon a wish spell, to reconstitute the phylactery. Thus reconstituting the lich, thus bringing the lich back. He MAY have been researching this secretly on his own for over a year now.

We have a cool campaign.

 

[Philip]

I had followers of Nerull (the god of death) show up at the PCs doorstep, telling them that the now dead BBEG was really doing well by their god. Now that the PCs killed him their god and church demanded tons'o'gold from the PCs in compensation or they were going to have to raise him.

 

[Crothian]

I sometimes like them to contact the PCs and try to make friends...sometimes they do this to trick the PCs other times it is actually sincere....

 

[VirgilCaine]

"Wait, this plot sounds like something that X did."
"But we trapped him in that mirror plane, right?"
*Bamf*
"No, apparently you did not...BWAHAAHAHAH!"