Help me build mid-game villains (Evil Party of Necromancers)

[ethandrew]

My party thinks they're pretty tough stuff, cream of the crop, and as a pretty lenient DM, I'm cool with them thinking this. They've just committed regicide and created a power vacuum; up steps my next idea for a villain: A level 20 Wizard (Necromancer) and his lieutenants, a Level 17 Lore Bard (focusing on Necromancy with Magical Secrets), a Level 17 Death Cleric, and a Level 17 Oathbreaker Paladin.

The Wizard will be the ring-leader, a man who always have a Clone up his sleeve and has lived for quite some time. The lieutenants will all be first-lifers, recruited specifically by the Wizard. What flavor can I throw in for these four characters? What statistical pitfalls should I avoid? What magic items can I use to outfit these guys to make them a little more potent?

My party is made up of six 10th level characters who (by my mistake through magic items early on) are more powerful than their level indicates. My goal for the party isn't to confront these four (with any undead minions in tow) directly, but instead, once the time comes, to combat one or two lieutenants at a time, whittling them down before they can confront the wizard directly.

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

 

[Quartz]

I'm sensing Disjunctions in the near future. (Yes, I know that's not a core 5E spell.)

The wizard should have apprentices, the cleric acolytes, and so on. These are all powerful personages in their own rights, so there are going to be flunkies galore.

If you have the older Dungeon magazines, there's an issue with an adventure based around a high-level necromancer who has a lot of apprentices of varying levels. The test for becoming an apprentice is dying at his hand and being resurrected.

 

[ethandrew]

I'm sensing Disjunctions in the near future. (Yes, I know that's not a core 5E spell.)

The wizard should have apprentices, the cleric acolytes, and so on. These are all powerful personages in their own rights, so there are going to be flunkies galore.

If you have the older Dungeon magazines, there's an issue with an adventure based around a high-level necromancer who has a lot of apprentices of varying levels. The test for becoming an apprentice is dying at his hand and being resurrected.

I've definitely considered this too and having something as structured as that would make it easier for me to be like "This is the Death Cleric challenge" with the Cleric and his acolytes. Creating difficult steps and stages the PCs would have to overcome to combat the true evil. In addition to this, I'm leery of these challenges being too similar, chiefly a high level Necromantic practitioner surrounded by a bunch of undead. After a while that will become fairly routine and stale.

 

[aco175]

You could have an undead factory similar to Suaramon making orcs in The 2 Towers. One of mid-bosses could be controlling it and making skeletons or zombies to attack the land. Not a big threat to the PCs, but roving bands of undead upon the land terrorizes the locals and they need heroes.

 

[Quickleaf]

My party thinks they're pretty tough stuff, cream of the crop, and as a pretty lenient DM, I'm cool with them thinking this. They've just committed regicide and created a power vacuum; up steps my next idea for a villain: A level 20 Wizard (Necromancer) and his lieutenants, a Level 17 Lore Bard (focusing on Necromancy with Magical Secrets), a Level 17 Death Cleric, and a Level 17 Oathbreaker Paladin.

The Wizard will be the ring-leader, a man who always have a Clone up his sleeve and has lived for quite some time. The lieutenants will all be first-lifers, recruited specifically by the Wizard. What flavor can I throw in for these four characters? What statistical pitfalls should I avoid? What magic items can I use to outfit these guys to make them a little more potent?

My party is made up of six 10th level characters who (by my mistake through magic items early on) are more powerful than their level indicates. My goal for the party isn't to confront these four (with any undead minions in tow) directly, but instead, once the time comes, to combat one or two lieutenants at a time, whittling them down before they can confront the wizard directly.

Questions? Comments? Concerns?

Maybe the bard oversees death customs and organizes dirges/funeral processions? This gives him access to the coroner's office and a steady supply of bodies which he can divert to the necromancer's lab to animate undead or create flesh golems. The bard has a secretly undead lover who he/she tries to keep hidden from the public eye.

What deity of death is the cleric devoted to? I'd suspect the cleric has implemented strictures around the casting raise dead and similar magic – effectively geasing anyone who is raised from death through official church channels. Maybe diamond trade (component for raise dead) is regulated by the church?

What oath did the paladin break? I like the idea of a human anti-paladin here, someone who has become painfully aware of the limitations of mortality, perhaps with aspirations far exceeding his own lifetime. Thus, the anti-paladin is grooming a son or daughter to continue his work or take his place when the time comes. However, the anti-paladin has doubts about the wizard's ultimate goals and they've argued in the past, which could lead to some interesting role-playing.

 

[Draegn]

If you can find a copy of Best of the Dragon 1, there are several nice items the necromancer would enjoy. Or Dragon 76 for the Death Master.

 

[Eltab]

For a switch, the Oathbreaker should not be a "Behold My Evil !" personality, he is more "touched by the dark side". He is determined to reach certain goals no matter the means (as long as he has plausible deniability) or cost (as long as somebody else pays it). His ultimate goal has grand and glorious aspects, which he proclaims to anybody who challenges him, but cannot be reached without using dark measures.

As a petty example, he wants to build a roomy clean monument-filled capital city and is going to bulldoze the overcrowded slums to make the space.

His ultimate goal might be finding the secret of eternal life - via a Frankenstein-like experimental process with dead and undead creatures.