Breaking the Dark Wizard BBEG stereotype

[Hawke]

Looking over some recently released adventures, I frequently see a dark wizard as the BBEG. Sometimes it's something like a Dragon or some other magical end beast, but as far as characters as the bbeg wizards fit the bill.

I understand why... cool magical effects let them do neat things throughout the adventure, they often lust after magical artifacts and theft of such artifacts often provide the chapters in the book about their demise. They can often deus ex-machina get out of a tough situation and live to fight another day with some magical teleport or something of that nature. Their powers can often be unique and do things to characters thay may not have expected possible within normal game terms. Their desire to use magic to gain unlimited power seems a good reason to stop them at all costs compared to what we expect a martial character to do and the end spell or end dark rift opened could change the world as we know it.

I'm curious... especially with 4th edition... what we can do as DMs or publishers to push this stereotype aside every now and again. I'm not saying a wizard should be banned or never used... but I am curious.

How would you design the end guy as a Warlord or a Rogue or a Ranger... Divine seems much easier as that "magical" element still exists. Or pushing it even further... what about a non-classed non-combat NPC. How would you design an NPC that could fall in combat at the end of the long adventure but isn't a badass with a sword and doesn't know any spells.

I haven't been DMing that long, but I'm sure many of you have iconic examples of that one guy from a campaign that you felt was an amazing job... I'd love to hear about them.

 

[frankthedm]

Ranger BBEG could work played like a movie slasher. Separate the party, hit and run. Since the party is loathe to split up, this presents a problem.

iMHO a well played rogue foe means the party does not wake up. Any attack that is not a CDG does not get made. EDIT: Oh for 4E, forgedaboutit! The nerftastic 4E CDG took most the bite out of the single stab to the sleeping victim.

Bard makes a fine BBEG if the ruleset makes mobs of commoners a threat.

 

[questing gm]

Fighter types and anti-paladins make good BBEGs too.

 

[S'mon]

Wizards make great BBEGs for the reasons you've noted. Plus if they're losing they have tricks to escape. Also, the GM can tweak the spell selection to greatly increase or decrease threat level.

When I've used a high level Fighter BBEG, either he kills the PCs, or he gets killed. Usually the former.

 

[Badapple]

A high level aristocrat makes an excellent BBEG.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Magic provides villains with a nice "get out out jail card" (jail often being defined as: "Surrounded by heavily armed adventurers", not actual jail.)
Thats making it more tempting to use a spellcaster or load a non-spellcaster with magical items.
If you're okay with the magic route, even non-spellcasters can have the magical escape card thanks to rituals (just invent some "escape at last momenets" ritual).

Other avices:
- The BBEG only fights directly when he is really cornered, or all his plans have failed. Don't let him fight the PCs and hope that he might run if bloodied or something. That rarely, if ever, works.
- You can have him part of a combat scene, but there must be so many minions and henchmen and so much distance between him and the adventurers, that he can take the backdoor after one or two rounds and be gone.
- In any situation the BBEG cannot escape, have him surrender once you know the party won't be weakened enough to attempt an escape or just fall to a TPK. The PCs capture him, he is put to jail, and then escapes at a later time. It is best if there is a good reason to not kill the BBEG, otherwise PCs might use the first incident where an evil guy escapes as an excuse to always kill their enemies, even if they surrender.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'm curious... especially with 4th edition... what we can do as DMs or publishers to push this stereotype aside every now and again. I'm not saying a wizard should be banned or never used... but I am curious.

How would you design the end guy as a Warlord or a Rogue or a Ranger...

The first two make sense. The latter does not. Rangers rarely make good leaders. Note that warlords (especially ones portrayed as knights) and rogues can actually make use of their charisma, and warlords even have rules-based leadership abilities. This makes them much better leaders than wizards.

Divine seems much easier as that "magical" element still exists. Or pushing it even further... what about a non-classed non-combat NPC. How would you design an NPC that could fall in combat at the end of the long adventure but isn't a badass with a sword and doesn't know any spells.

The final encounter has to be exciting. If the BBEG can't fight, they need some badass bodyguards, and they should be visible (and hiding behind a magic screen) in the last battle.

 

[Doug McCrae]

NPCs don't have to have a class at all in 4e. You just give them whatever powers you want without the need to create a spell, PrC or whatever. I think this is great, it fits my conception of magic powers as unique individual talents, unknown quantities, rather than fitting into a known system where there are hundreds of other 'rangers' or 'barbarians' around who can do the exact same things. I'm aiming for characters more like Sir Gawaine, who had superhuman strength that increased towards noon, or Achilles. More like superheroes than D&D characters.

The old D&D adventures, 1e, 2e, B/X, have rather boring NPCs imo as a result of sticking with a very limited range of classes and powers. The PCs will know everything an evil priest can do, for example, because they know he's a cleric. I don't think I've ever seen an old adventure that gave an NPC a unique ability. If it happened, it was very rare. The writers were conceptually trapped by the game rules, the class system. 3e freed things up a bit by providing such a vast number of classes, so the DM could surprise the players if his library was big enough. But that required a lot of unnecessary book work, wasted effort. Really there was no need for NPCs to have the same rules as PCs.

 

[questing gm]

A high level aristocrat makes an excellent BBEG.

Excellent! I'm thinking of someone like Lex Luthor.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

High level NPCs without character classes can make great BBEG.

The problem isn't with wizard BBEG, but with the perception that the "end bad guy" has to be someone sufficiently over the top so that they appear as horrifyingly super evil, or that the party has to always fight against them again and again.