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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 4579198" data-attributes="member: 463">Umm, this bears no relation to how I run my campaigns.  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/worried.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":-S" title="Uhm    :-S" data-shortname=":-S" />I would probably create the Necromancer as a strategic threat initially much more powerful than the PCs.  I would certainly not pre-plot events in the manner you describe.  It might happen IMC that smart and successful PCs ended up with an easy fight stomping the Necromancer's forces, which they would enjoy, or it might happen that the Necromancer attacked the town the PCs were in with overwhelming force, in which case smart PCs would retreat to fight another day - if the PCs chose to make an heroic last stand to protect the doomed town I'd run with that, it could be a lot of fun, in the way '300' is fun.  But I wouldn't reduce the Necromancer's army so the PCs could cheat fate and win, though.  Edit: Who knows, IME the PCs might actually defeat the 'overwhelming force' - stranger things have happened.  Finding out is half the fun!Look at it this way - in Empire Strikes back, Luke has basically no chance vs Vader, but we enjoy the  scene anyway.  In Return of the Jedi, Luke actually seriously overmatches Vader, but we enjoy it anyway because other things are at stake.  If Lucas had made both fights 'balanced' the movies would have been very different, and probably less interesting.Edit: Anyway, IMC the Necromancer would be played offscreen as a real guy, who reacts to in-game events.  So whether he even attacks the town or not IMC would be determined by prior PC actions.  I would never plot out a "climactic battle that must occur no matter what happened previously" - to me that'd be a sucky campaign, and no fun for me.Edit 2: "Valid climax of the adventure" - hmm.  This is not a term I use.  I sometimes run modules/adventures that have pre-scripted likely climactic events, but I wouldn't pre-plot in anything like the way you describe.  I'll always have branching forks for, at the minimum, 'PCs succeed' and 'PCs fail'.   'PCs fail' may result in much nastiness (undead Wizard-Lord is reanimated), or it may just mean they don't get the gold.</blockquote>

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