Desperate odds, equalizers, and leaving LotR behind

Apok said:
Now their motivation is a combination of revenge and pure hatred (I did my best to make this guy the kind of person you'd love to hate). I do intend for him to be a recurring enemy, but he is basically human and quite killable. If anything, the party will need to use lots of cunning and brains to corner and beat this guy but it can be done without the aid of a specific magical gewjaw.

Yeah, I have a villainess quite like that in my current game... she has the tendency to use invisibility and summoned creatures to harrass the party, and then teleport to make good their escape. The party could trounce her if they could corner here.

But that is not the sort of situation I am talking about here. I am more interested in a situation like LotR: the party is clearly outclassed by the villain and his/her minions, and is on the run.
 

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Salt the land: Destory the world in order to save it. The bad guy rules over all, so the party must cause a Catycalism as the only possible means to free the world from the bad guy's iron grip.

Now this I like. Say evil is so entrenched in the world that it'd be impossible to dislodge. So find a way to unleash a cataclysmic event which wipes out most life. There'll be few survivors, but at least things will be reset to a point where the sides are equalized, again, rather than one side (The evil one) holding total power. Don't know if that'd be considered a "good" act, though. Maybe if most of the people in the world were evil. The average joe on the street is neutral evil, for example. Eh, who knows.
 

I'll be a bit more helpful...

This is a curious question. If the adversary is so dominant, then what chance would the PCs actually have? Reason would have to suggest they have little if not NO hope in defeating such an enemy with such power. Reasonably the only way to defeat the enemy would be to destroy the power base somehow - which usually means destroying their power source/magical talisman/sealing a portal or some other way of striking a fatal blow.

How to makes this different.....hmmmm....

How about the basing the enemy's power on an alliance between several factions and the PCs turn one or more factions against the main villian? This would effectively limit if not outright kill the villians power base.

Uhhhh...I'm having a mental block at the moment. I had a couple of other ideas but now they've evaporated from my not-so-leak-proof brain.

Myrdden
 

Re: I'll be a bit more helpful...

myrdden said:
Reason would have to suggest they have little if not NO hope in defeating such an enemy with such power.

Yup... that's basically the sentiment expressed in FotR (frex, when Galadriel says that the success of their quest rides on a razor's edge.)


How about the basing the enemy's power on an alliance between several factions and the PCs turn one or more factions against the main villian?

That's a good approach. The dark secret. I am immediately reminded of last weeks farscape. The "party" was mostly captured by near-invincible bounty hunters, but the ex-villain on the crew found out that the leader was secretly of a race repellent to the rest of the bounty hunters. When this was revealed, the villain activated a failsafe to destroy his former allies... and the group was able to salvage the weapons from the bodies of the former bounty hunters to fight him.
 

The following options come to mind...

1.) The "Nathaniel Greene" option...
For those who don't know, Nathaniel Greene was an American general in the American Revolutionary war (1776). Greene had a small, underfed and underequipped army and was set against the British army - large, well-fed, and well-equipped. The way he beat them was (basically) to get the people in the surrounding countryside to hate the British troops more than the American troops. Every time he got involved in a straight-up fight, he lost - but he made certain to keep his soldiers from running amok in the countryside and demanding food, shelter, and sanctuary from the locals. Under the abuse of the British army and their far more taxing demands for food and shelter, the local citizenry, who had been (essentially) neutrals, grew to favor the Americans and hate the Brits.

How does this relate to D&D? Simple... provoke the enemy and get him to act in ways that alienate him from the commoners and/or the rank-and-file. Watch his power base crumble.

2.) Starvation - Similar to the "scorched earth" policy, a guerilla war against crops, rather than soldiers, can create a definite problem. Soldiers like to eat more than they like to fight.

I suppose both of the above refer to "morale breaking."

3.) Over-extension - ("You fell victim to one of the classic blunders! The most famous is 'never fight a land war in Asia'...")
This one is a little harder and requires more patience. It requires annoying or threatening the enemy long enough to cause him to over-extend his forces, then crushing those forces - or letting nature do it - before he can retreat to a position of strength.

4.) Taunting - ("Let us taunt it! It may become so cross that it will make a mistake!") This doesn't always work, but sometimes can be used to induce over-extension or morale-breaking. Usually more of a complementary tactic to some other solution.

5.) "He who lives by the sword..." Another classic example is to allow what Boromir wanted to do with the ring - simply take the enemy's uber-dingus and use it (successfully) against him (visions of Chewbacca in an AT-ST in the Ewok Battle on Endor come to mind). This works best if the weapon is somehow tied to the enemy - the destruction of one causes the destruction of the other.

6.) "Feint and thrust" - Similar to overextension (above), you draw the enemy's forces away from his stronghold, then strike a crippling blow to the stronghold or take it over entirely (#5 above) while he is away.

7.) "Elora Danen method" - Rather than having the PCs destroy something, they instead must simply keep it out of the enemy's hands long enough... if time runs out on the enemy, he is destroyed (not exactly what happened in Willow, but same general idea - the goal is to keep the baby alive at all costs). Of course, the closer the hour to the enemy's appointed death if X is not destroyed, the harder he searches for X and the more power he exerts to obtain it.

8.) The "Aslan method" - The only way to defeat the enemy is for a (good) willing person to give himself up to enemy - and be slain. The person who gives himself returns later even more powerful than the enemy who slew him, perhaps thanks to the intervention of deity. Works best dramatically for a cleric or a paladin - preferably one who does not know he will return even more powerful than before - who willingly goes to the enemy to seek the release of a loved one. (Yes, I know this one has other religious implications and figures that could be substituted for Aslan, but let's just keep it in Narnia, okay?)

9.) The "ride it out" method - There *IS* no way to defeat the evil - you must simply hide and wait for the storm to be over, then come back once evil has spent much of its power. The world of Barsaive as presented in Earthdawn is a wonderful example.

10.) The "bell around the cat's neck" method - The enemy is using a ritual to gain or maintain power. Some fool must go swap out one of the material mystic components the guy is using without him noticing; this creates an Achilles Heel for later exploitation ("the Death Star shield is down! Go for it!"), robs him of power without him realizing it (e.g., the Biblical Sampson when his hair is first cut), or destroys him instantly when he tries to use the "wrong" item, thinking it to be the right one.

I will try to come up with some more - though the "demoralize" and "Aslan" methods tend to be my favorite, the "Elora Danan" method works great as a change-of-pace from the "classic" scenario.

--The Sigil
 

How about a scenario where the party is deep in hostile territory controlled by the villain? The goal, which is very open-ended and can be accomplished in numerous ways, would simply be to escape his domain before getting caught by the villain and his minions. Think of Ravenloft, and the powers that the domain lords have within their realm. Outside of that realm, the villain is less influential and powerful. Perhaps their scrying ability is limited only to their sphere of influence, or maybe the neighboring kingdom is an enemy with enough power to push back the villain's army should it try to pursue the heroes across the border. Once the heroes have escaped, it sets up a second scenario...one where the heroes have time and resources with which to strike back the villain.
 

There's a great book called "Villains by Necessity" by an author that unfortunately escapes me at the moment.

It's about a quest by a 2e-style druid and a bunch of evil characters to bring evil BACK to the world.

The grand quest was done, the world has been saved for all time, all of the truly evil creatures and forces had been vanquished... and the world was on it's way to destruction because there must be a balance between good and evil for life to continue.

It's a GREAT book -- not deep literature, but a fun read -- and it would make a good campaign idea. It's the same type of grand quest idea that makes LoTR so much fun -- they must gain the six pieces of the key and reunite them at the gate to unlock and release the darkness.

It's somewhat of a digression, but that "Salt the Earth" comment triggered my memories of that novel.
 



Psion said:


But that is not the sort of situation I am talking about here. I am more interested in a situation like LotR: the party is clearly outclassed by the villain and his/her minions, and is on the run.

One thing that could be done is have the players beat the villian using politics and intrigue. If brute force won't work, then be sneaky about it. Have them try to forge alliances with potential allies that can protect and/or aid them. If the Villian's power is held because of a powerful political position, the sheer ammount of Courtly Intrigue and Innuendo would make for a paranoia-inflicted back-stabber's dream game. Another approach is to eliminate the enemy's power base. This could mean anything from taking out strongholds to destroying mystic places of power from which the Ultimate Evil draws his strength. Basically, it's an easter egg hunt where the players go around completing various tasks to undermine the power of the Villian. This approach is nice because it has unlimited potential for Roleplay and Combat alike. Side-quests can also be introduced if the players are getting tired of dealing with the same bad guy's minions over and over.

The only other option I can think of at the moment is, through being constantly hounded and pursued by agents of their nemesis, the characters will eventually become stronger and more able to deal with the Villian directly. The PC's are tired of being pushed around and are now strong enough to push back.
 

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