High Level Enemies: Epic or Near Epic?

[kigmatzomat]

Hmm. I've been using sub-epic BBEGs who are using epic-type minions. A lot of the minions are gated/summoned/etc and are low-level epic but massed together are quite intimidating.

Then there's the scary super-epic stuff that they want to be minions though its more like Urkel releasing Fenris and expecting it to obey; it ain't gonna happen but there's a good chance it will wind up squaring off against the heroes eventually. Most of these are as much plot device as intended foe, especially since I don't always have a plan for how they are going to defeat it.

I like my BBEG to be more sneaky buggers than earth-shattering foes. One idea I had was to have a stableboy the party had stiffed become a BBEG. He'd progress from sabotaging their riding gear to poisoning their food and wind up gathering disparate groups that hate the party and coordinating a series of painful attacks. Of course, they wound up never returning to that town so the stableboy just dreams of his revenge.

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

Sub epic.

I like using the same rules as the players, so no epic stuff.

High level NPCs come with a "cabinet" of other villains who are nearly their level. The whole conglomerate will hopefully pose a challenge to the PCs in the final battle.

 

[Luthien Greyspear]

The big bads in my campaign usually aren't that big, just really bad. What I tend to do is have them do a lot of things within the character's earshot that the party knows they need to stop, but make it difficult for the party to stop ALL the bad things quickly. Some of their enemies just have to be ignored in favor of the immediate threat. The "big bads" are usually only one or two CR above the party's level, but they have time on their sides.

That being said, I am now moving into a high-threat level campaign style. The group I am running has just recently uncovered clues to the identity of the REAL big bad in the campaign, and so have become targets for his/her minions and retaliation. This one central villain is on beyond most Epic characters, and has cowed several gods into a non-aggression pact because of the threat he/she possesses. This gives him/her access to a wide range of Epic (or near-Epic) servitors, and they WILL be sent after the party.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

In my current campaign, I'd say decently epic. Storm giant, ogre titan and lich archmage politickers (although not all of those are necessarily enemies, depending on how the PCs progress). Colossal scro and elven biomagical creations. Scro martial arts masters into the low epic range. Advanced quori and classed daelkyr.

And possibly a great old one.

 

[Mordane76]

I use what I think of as an 'intersecting webs' method for bad guys; people who've played World of Darkness games will be familiar with some of the concepts/terms I'm throwing out.


At the center of my web, there are nigh-improbable characters; antediluvian beings that wield power the player characters can't presently hope to surmount in their wildest dreams. Should the characters attempt to directly confront these characters in the physical arena, they would simply be decimated without any need to move to combat rounds. These are the power-brokers and shadow conspiracy leaders of my worlds. Depending on the plotline(s) unfolding, the players might even have contact with these characters and not know it immediately. Sometimes, there are more than one cluster of these unstoppable beings, and thus their webs intersect at key points (as I describe below). These individuals are also usually Epic characters in the upper 20s to mid 80s.

As you move away from the center, you come in contact with the high-power NPCs that are out in the open - these people usually work for those in the center, but not always; sometimes they work (either knowingly or unknowingly) for more than one power center, or they arise as mini power centers in their own right. The player characters MIGHT be able to thwart these characters directly, but most likely not immediately. These characters are usually high level NPCs in the mid teens to low 20s (low Epic).

Further from the web are the moving parts of evil - the upper henchmen and the grunts. They provide the greatest degree of web intersection for the multiple power-brokers above them and provide the immediate threat the PCs must confront. These characters are usually between levels 6-12.


The whole purpose is that, as the PCs grow in levels, there is always a deeper point to penetrate into the web(s) of evil, and powerful individuals are always insulated from direct confrontation by layers of underlings, red herrings, and the unfortunate intersection point players from other power-bases. In this way, I can keep the PCs from inadvertently going for the source of evil before they can handle it and can do so in a way that doesn't require direct railroading to keep them alive.

In my current campaign, the PCs began as two small groups - a threesome connected to a female wizard and a threesome in the employ of a procurer of antiquities. The female wizard is a connection to a web of incredibly powerful individuals who share a common goal, but they are only one of three parallel power-bases that immediately exist. As some of my players read this board, I cannot go into a lot of details as to who these characters are, their power levels, and who/what/which power-base they belong to, because then they'd know too much...

 

[Razz]

My players and I enjoy our games at epic. We work them from levels 1, of course, but we enjoy our DBZ-Advent Children-BLEACH-Naruto-type fighting and epic villain encounters.

Nothing makes our games more fun than the wizard throwing several hellballs, blasting the terrain into pieces while several great wyrms fly overhead to take the PCs down and the paladin charges on his phrenic dire wolf with super-speed, blazing through a triple HD goristro demon leaving a hole in its abdomen behind in his wake, the psychic warrior elf leaping at a mountain giant and somersaulting several times with psychically-enforced hang-time in the air as he spins like a green disc thanks to his thrice-his-size-Buster Sword-like weapon made from deep crystal while psionically charging it to the maximum of his powers, ripping into the giant like a green Sonic the Hedgehog.

Phew. Could've gone on, but you get the point. Don't think they take on deities in my games. The deities I've made thrice their original power, so that destroys any notion of taking them on. As for an avatar, the day will come.

 

[Sollir Furryfoot]

I divide my campaign plot into arcs, stretching a gap of levels with a BBEG at the end of each arc. I think it's possible to be BBEG and only be around level 10, although I have to note that all of my BBEGs seem to turn out spellcasters, which seems to be the popular trend for most high level characters in a setting. The first BBEG with a Ex-Cleric 1/Conjurer 3/Diabolist 6, a disillusioned acolyte who took up arcane magic and eventually came back with a miniature army of compacted fiends-the PCs were about level 7 when they fought him. The second BBEG was a Sorcerer 6/Ice Elemental Savant 10 who made a heavy handed use of Simulacrums to annoy the party to no end, the party averaged about level 14 this fight, but it was a two part battle where the sorcerer in question had many mid level minions (a mindflayer, a paladin-type, some simulacrums and a few other henchmen).

And the final BBEG of my campaign reaches past epic levels, being a relic and legendary figure from my campaign's past. When the PCs encounter him, he'll be a Ex-Cleric 40/Ur Priest 10 with a template that makes him a construct/living gate to the positive energy plane basically. The PCs are level 20 now, but have enough extra bonuses on the side to consdier them two levels above, still, they're going to have to work really hard to beat their next foe

 

[painandgreed]

Most everything in my world is sub-epic. What is 20+ has usually been around for a long, long time: ancient elves, liches, vampires, dragons, etc. They've been around for a long time and aren't going anywhere soon unless something really spetacular happens and the PCs will really have to work for it if it is going to be them. Just tromping around dungeons until they are high enough level won't do it. These creatures have been around long enough to become epic because they are smart and I play them as such, and they would probably include the PCs in their plans long before the PCs would start thinking about taking them on. If it really came down to a battle with one of these, I'd probably recruit somebody good to run the epic BBEG and make it a PvP game.

 

[takasi]

3 out of 3 Dungeon Adventure Paths prefer epic level challenges.

 

[Victim]

We don't use epic rules, so the biggest bads generally advance sideways after 20th level. They'll get templates, special powers, insane stats, PC wealth and other tricks to make them powerful without using Epic levels.