Are only high level monsters memorable? [Spoilers]

[Glyfair]

Looking through Dungeon's top 10 villains for my favorite (from "Chimes at Midnight"), I noticed that almost all of them were high level villains.

Azurax Silverhawk (Level 14-18 adventure)
Balabar Smenk (Level 1 adventure)
Dragotha (Level 19 adventure)
Eli Tomorast (Level 12 adventure)
Flame (Level 12 for 3E appearance)
Kyuss (Level 20 adventure)
Lashonna (level 15 adventure)
Malcanthet (Level 12 adventure)
Vanthius Vanderborne (Level 1 - but appeared in adventures up to level 20)
Vhalantru (Level 13 adventure)

So, out of 10 villains, only two appeared in an adventure below 10th level. The two that did appeared in the first installment of the adventure paths and likely appeared later in the path. Even those that appeared in the high-mid levels typically were in adventure paths appearing later.

Does it require a high level villain to be that memorable then?

As an aside, that may factor into this, there are certain things that dominated the list. Two of the villains appeared in "Maure Castle" and 6 appeared in the adventure paths. If you exclude those 4 adventures (counting the APs as singl;e large adventures) then you are only left with two villains.

 

[jdrakeh]

Vhalantru (Level 13 adventure)

If I'm not mistaken, Vhalantru actually appears much earlier than that in. . .

Spoiler

the Shackled City Adventure Path, the PCs simply have no idea who he is or what part he plays in the larger adventure. It is arguably such foreshadowing that makes his ultimate unveiling memorable.

.

 

[Glyfair]

If I'm not mistaken, Vhalantru actually appears much earlier than that in. . .

Spoiler

the Shackled City Adventure Path, the PCs simply have no idea who he is or what part he plays in the larger adventure. It is arguably such foreshadowing that makes his ultimate unveiling memorable.

.

I'm just going by the "first appearances" listing in the top 10 article (except for Flame because I can't find the suggested levels for the adventure in Dungeon #1, and my copy is buried). Even that's not accurate since one of the Maure Castle villains didn't make their first appearance in Dungeon.

I haven't been looking at the AP adventures closely because it's unlikely I'll run them soon, and want to be surprised if I ever play in them.

 

[James Jacobs]

The top-ten lists in Dungeon were built partially out of my own preferences, but mostly/primarily from reader feedback culled from here and from the paizo.com messageboards. That feedback was overwhelmingly slanted toward issues from the last four years or so, which on one level I take as a tremendous compliment, but on the other realize is a skewed sampling. There are certainly LOTS of great locations and villains from the first 100 issues of Dungeon, but unless they were REALLY outstanding, they didn't tend to surface much. The Elephant's Graveyard, for example, is one of my favorite locations, and one of my favorite villains from Dungeon is Belphagor (from issue #2). Neither of them went on the list.

As for the "high level" question... I think the answer is yes.

As for the predominance of Maure Castle and Adventure Path villains... those two things are hands down the most popular things that Dungeon has done in the past five years, and possibly the most popular features the magazine has EVER done. The Maure Castle issue is the best selling issue of all time, I believe, and the Adventure Paths get far and above the most traffic on our messageboards (and sales always spike when we start up a new one). I'm not surprised at all that the villians from these series dominated the top ten lists.

 

[Glyfair]

As for the predominance of Maure Castle and Adventure Path villains... those two things are hands down the most popular things that Dungeon has done in the past five years, and possibly the most popular features the magazine has EVER done.

I understand that effect, which is why I mentioned their predominance in this post. I felt the adventures had an effect on why they were chosen. I don't feel these were necessarily the top 10 most "memorable" villains (which I realize wasn't the definition of the top 10 list), but the most "remembered" villains. Sure some of them would make the list, but I think others would be up there if they had more exposure.

My focus though are on whether the high level is an important component of being memorable. My personal choice is mid-level and, in my opinion, is the most memorable villain I've seen in any adventure.

 

[ephemeron]

I'd expect a lot of it is that it takes a while to build up a good villain. The mastermind BBEG behind a 20-level Adventure Path will have had a lot more time to do memorable things than anybody from a module for 1st-level characters.

 

[an_idol_mind]

I don't know...one of the most memorable villains in my early D&D games was Zanzer Tem from the black box set. He managed to escape the original dungeon and hounded the PCs for years afterwards...I don't think I ever had him higher than level 10 or so, and he started out as a 4th-level magic-user.

Given the level of violence in an adventurer's life, I would guess that high level NPCs tend to be more memorable because they have the strength to live a lot longer than low level ones. Also, given the ever-increasing level of power in a D&D campaign, it seems a lot of players are more interested in the uber-NPCs, good and bad, of a setting. There's a reason so many people found the Dragon of Tyr from Athas so intriguing, or why a lot of people think Elminster is one of the coolest characters in the Forgotten Realms. I think their insane level of power has more than a little to do with that.

 

[Glyfair]

I'd expect a lot of it is that it takes a while to build up a good villain. The mastermind BBEG behind a 20-level Adventure Path will have had a lot more time to do memorable things than anybody from a module for 1st-level characters.

I think time is an advantage, but often a character just screams to be used again.

Take my personal choice for "top 10 villain in Dungeon, the villain of "Chimes at Midnight"

Spoiler

Victor Saint-Demain

. The adventure cries out for foreshadowing. It is incredible if you plan on running this 5th level adventure at 1st level in a campaign and have the villains appear to foreshadow this adventure. Even afterwards he cries to be used again (and is in Dungeon #150, but was memorable before that).

 

[James Jacobs]

That villian was probably #11 on the list... he almost made it on there, but couldn't quite edge in there.

 

[Jedi_Solo]

With absolutely no evidance what-so-ever to back this up with...

I think there are two things that affect what makes a villain memorable.

I think one, but the lesser one, is level. You can do more with a level 20 encounter than with a level 1 encounter. As a DM you have more leeway without the risk of completely slughtering the PCs. You can have more minions, you can have pieces of scenery falling and hitting the PCs, you can have wierd effects going off at random intervals without killing the PCs out right. The villains can have cooler toys and wierd spell combinations that you just can't have at lower levels. Sure, you can have walkways blinking in and out of existance even at level one, and that might make the fight cool but lower level PCs are much more fragile (which may or may not add to the fun of the encounter).

The other is likely pure luck and chance, and unfortuantly I think this is the bigger of the two. You can create a BBEG and design the final show down with all of the elements listed above - and then the fighter hits the BBEG in round one for 51 points of damage and the bad guy rolls a 1 on his massive damage save. That fight may live on the tales of the group but not the way you hoped it would.

On the other hand, Yip, the Great Kobald Pirate, may get lucky and take down the raging Barbarian leaving the cleric to deal with a swarm of minion trapped on the far side of a Wall of Fire while the rogue is tumbleing through the masses to try and save the wizard who is bleeding to death and is the only hope of letting the cleric through the fire shield so he can...

And you meant that encounter to be an easier one because you messed up last week and almost caused a TPK.

Level lets you plan cooler stuff. Luck lets you pull it off.