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Message: <blockquote data-quote="segrada" data-source="post: 4807958" data-attributes="member: 73569">aboyd, if your players are as wantonly destructive as you say, how do you motivate them? If their only driving forces are murdering innocents and plundering loot, then I would claim that nothing can be done to protect "questgiver NPCs," other than to make them powerful enough to not be murdered and plundered.It seems like the gist of many of these suggestions are "make it too costly to kill this important guy," but using social/moral consequences instead of the more obvious physical ones.  If your players throw social/moral concerns out the window, then the only consequences that remain are those of violence.To the OP --Spellcasters aren't the end-all devastation machines they once were, so a way to design interesting encounters around them is to give them support.  Use highly advantageous terrain or traps that the caster has prepared beforehand (since he's likely a pretty smart and diabolical dude).  Have the PCs burst in on him when he's just finished summoning some brute-type demons to help with the fight.  This is true of any controller-type monster that you want to keep alive for more than 3 rounds, really - you'll find that controller NPCs are incredibly squishy, and not very scary by themselves.</blockquote>