New Article: Crafty Villains

[Klaus]

Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Crafty Villains)

This seems to be the article formerly tagged as Female Villains. At any rate, the article offers two Elite Leader villains (a controller and a skirmisher) suitable for Heroic level campaigns.

I quite like the article. A good villain is one of the best ways to string adventures together into a campaign. And the picture of the half-orc shamaness is downright creepy. Now, to read the stat blocks!

 

[Aegeri]

I hate to make this complaint, but we seriously need more paragon and epic content as there is more than a lot of choice for heroic tier villains. On a positive note, both of the stat blocks are good and I like both characters concepts.

 

[renau1g]

The shaman pic was pretty sweet, but I felt it was a bit short... only 2 villians, both of heroic tier? I agree with Aegeri, we need more higher level content. I can whip up a heroic enemy pretty quick, but to make a challenging Paragon or Epic foe is far more difficult and that's why I'd love to see more examples of it.

Hopefully the paragon Chaos Scar adventure has a new BBEG in it.

 

[Klaus]

For those who want Epic stuff, Rob Schwalb has been converting Epic Level Handbook creatures to 4e at his blog. He just did the Force Dragons.

Previous conversions include the Devastation vermin, Colossi, Legendary Bear and Gorilla Lord.

 

[Riastlin]

Like others have stated, I liked the two villains presented, but also thought it was a bit short. I would have actually preferred to see more of a discussion about designing villains and coming up with their motivations (particularly for females) as I think that is the part that would make the villains memorable, moreso than their actual stat blocks. I think this would be more valuable than a simple "plug and play" npc, which is what we got.

That being said, I did like how they made the shamaness an unwilling necromantic shaman as that certainly has all kinds of potential for a campaign.

I too would like to see more paragon and epic material, but my guess is that in part, they are still catering to the Essentials crowd and the presumably new players that they are hoping were brought in with Essentials. Still, I think that there is plenty of room to give everybody a little love.

All in all a good article, just could have been a bit better.

 

[Zaukrie]

Good article. I'd like to see villain articles that do several things.

1. I'd like to see villains evolve over time. Stat blocks and motivations from different levels.

2. groups that have multiple members, how to use them at different levels.

3. I'd really like articles like the early monster incarnation articles again, as those had great fluff and new ideas for monsters.

 

[I'm A Banana]

I like it. Good plug-and-play villains. Not sure what ties them together or makes them especially "crafty," but they work well for what they are, and they are solid.

One thing I'd like to see in articles like this is more in-depth "encounter" information. The advice is good, but I'd like to see specifics: give me a map, give me allies, give me plot hooks, give me everything, and then I can use or discard what I feel works or does not.