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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 5824702" data-attributes="member: 92305">I've been trying to set up a recurring bad guy in my campaign.  I strive to allow my players all the freedom they think they have all the time (it's not always possible, but they don't know that), so, in combat situations, I never pull punches with Bad Guys.  If the PCs manage to kill 'em, then the Big Bad Guy dies.  Good for the PCs.  My players trust me to play that way. My first attempt at a recurring bad guy, I set up a scenario where the guy had an excellent head start in a chase and had the skills to easily overcome the obstacles I presented.  This was kind of a neat scenario as the PCs chased the Bad Guy along the limbs of these giant, connected trees.  I call them Thicket Trees.  A copse of them can be miles long--this grove of big, thick tree trunks with these impossible limbs that stretch out, actually growing into the limbs of nearby Thicket Tree trunks. I thought the Bad Guy would make it through that one, but one of the PCs nabbed him pretty good with a javelin, caught him, and shoved a dirk into his gut.   Bye-bye Bad Guy.   Tomorrow, we're playing again.  It's our first time in a few months, and I've devised another encounter where I hope I'll have a recurring bad guy.  Long story short, it's a (fairly weak) demon that has crawled up out of the Pit.  The enemy stronghold, where the PCs are, has a room where the enemy has closed off this room and barred it--where the demon stays. The demon, I made up, basing it on a young black dragon.  It's humanoid, scaly and has claws, wings and a short tail.  It's got a long snake head and neck, though.  So, the head can twist and curl all around it's body, looking in any direction. Anytime it's bite is successful, a check is made to see if the Demon has locked its fangs into its victim.  If so, the Demon goes to town raking the victim to bits with its claws.  The victim has to pull a small weapon, like a dagger, and then stab, stab, stab away to get the thing to release. If the PCs reduce the Demon down to 10 HP or less, I'm going to have it retreat down into the hole (in the same room) from which is crawled up out of the earth. But, going into this, I know that there's a good chance that the Demon I made up will not make it out of the encounter alive to be the recurring Bad Guy. I like the idea of this thing showing up later, bigger, badder, meaner, living out in the woods (kinda like in the first Alien movie where, evertime the crew encountered the Alien, the thing was bigger and meaner). I think it would be neat if, in unrelated future game sessions, the players run across a footpint in the mud that they know is the demon.  Or, have the demon attack NPCs in the Players' village.  Maybe even surprise the PCs one day by having the thing speak to them....can't you just see this thing, it's back to you, with is snake head curled around under its left armpit, looking straight back at you, speaking, telling you that your dead grandmother wants the Demon to tell you "Hi". That'd be cool. Lots of ideas, I have, for further encounters. But, first, the doggone thing has got to make it out of its first encounter with the PCs.  I'll tell ya.  TI'm not betting on the demon.     So, what about you?  Do you have recurring bad guys in your game?  If so, how'd that work?  Did you ensure the Bad Guy would make it no matter what the PCs did?  Or, did you try to stack the deck like I did above (and still failed) to try an end up with your recurring bad guy?</blockquote>

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