Creating Villains

[HealingAura]

I am now creating a new villain for my campaign and I have been wondering how can I create an evil humanoid necromancer. It is my first time as a DM and I would appreciate any tips for NPC creation. I think the villain fits the "Death Master" functional template in the DMG (P177), but I don't know how to choose appropriate powers for him as he is kind of a main villain.

How do you create villains for your campaign?

 

[James McMurray]

You could make him a dark pact necromancer (FRPG). Or you could take the orcus cultists and modify one to suit your needs. Or you could pick a class (cleric and wizard work well) and reflavor the powers to be spooky-evil: same effects, but necrotic and cold for energy types.

For creating villains I usually find a good base creature then slap a class on. I haven't created a villain that's intended to survive long, but if I did I'd definitely make them several levels higher than the PCs and/or have them never appear without a pre-planned getaway. Doing otherwise is a sure sign that the NPC is going to die early, and probably wasn't smart enough to be a major villain anyway.

 

[Dracorat]

The cool thing about a Necromantic BBEG who dies early is that his reverent fans can always raise him as a vampire or some such. =)

 

[ghearus]

Here is a BBEG that I created for a campaign:

I posted a little more detail about him on my blog, but basically the design phase was to:

- Figure out the theme
- Figure out the big bang effect (Dark Summoning)
- Provide some leader capability (Necromantic Surge)
- Give him some way to slow down heavy hitters (Soul Burn)
- Give him a ranged basic attack

Cheers!

 

[Dracorat]

What did you use to create the card? (Program)

 

[James McMurray]

What did you use to create the card? (Program)

It may have been created with Asmor's Monster Maker. There's a link to it in the monsters section of my sig.

 

[Dracorat]

TY! I'll check it out at home. =)

 

[ghearus]

I use Microsoft word to create them, and then render it to an image.

I should check out the monster creators, but it is fun to lay them out nicely