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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7843292" data-attributes="member: 18">You probably couldn't though. If you have a five-person party, and you make an AL-legal PC-style character (not a Legendary NPC) who is within, say, six-eight levels of them (so mid-tier rather than end-of-campaign, as you say), and he's not trying to kill them, just the target,  then unless they are inept, he's going to get stopped, because he's going to fail a save or get grappled and fail his escape checks. Which is going to be hilarious for the players but perhaps not for you.I feel like you have limited experience with different groups, or maybe have actually never been a player that you think this. I've played and DM'd for 30 years with a lot of different groups and seen a lot of stuff across a lot of RPGs, and I can say with some confidence that players, as a group, do not see "a dragon" and a single humanoid NPC as the same sort of thing in this kind of scenario.Your group might not. That is possible - there's all sort of strangeness out there. But I would say most groups would.Because you're not thinking like a player. I get it. It sounds cool. It sounds awesome. As a DM, it's exciting (in part because it's almost like being a player - because there's more than a hint of GMPC - especially if you build him rules-legal). We've all been there. But if you as a DM, have never introduced an enemy you thought was awesome the players would respond well to, and have never got a surprising "naughty word this guy in particular" response from the players, one that doesn't reflect him being awesome, then maybe you have lead some sort of charmed DMing life.And bear in mind - professional game designers have made this mistake. I don't know if you've played Mass Effect 3, but it a near-universally-loathed NPC called Kai Leng. He is basically this guy. No-one at Bioware is an idiot. Everyone involved in the writing had made many games before. Yet they still thought "Wow this guy will be an awesome baddy and the players will think it's cool to fight him and lose and eventually get to kill him!" and they totally thought wrong! People just thought it was rubbish, and that he was a rubbish cheesy opponent.You are not dumb for thinking this is a good idea. But I do strongly believe - with some actual evidence, both from stuff like ME3 and personal experience with different groups - that "solo ninjas kills the dude you are protecting" or "solo ninja cheesily beats you and runs away" doesn't tend to go down well.Yes your players may be an exception. There's probably a group out there which cooks haggis instead of ordering pizza, or which drinks champagne every session instead of beer. But that's about how unusual I think this would be.I do strongly urge you to do the social experiment, though only if you will do it in good faith!</blockquote>

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