Serial Killer in the woods need some help making him memorable.

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Think Rambo, as in the original First Blood -- though in this case instead of being misunderstood, he's a psychotic ex-warrior who thinks the war's still going on, and the local populace are his enemies. The PCs are the local authorities.

I'd make him a ranger/rogue with maxed stealth skills, and maybe the Stealthy feat, plus a focus on ranged attacks. Set up a lot of traps that capture, delay, or grapple the victim (pits, entangle, tanglefoot bags, etc). He's got a series of ranged ambush points set up to cover the traps. When a PC gets hit by one, he makes a ranged sneak attack on a trapped character, then displaces to the next covered position (longstrider or boots of striding & springing are his friend here). Make sure he has covered and concealed routes between ambush positions so he's out of the easy line of fire, and that a trap is on the obvious approach to the ambush position, so he's hard to follow.

If I ever run an Eberron game, this I'm going to use this exact scenario -- "Rambo" will be a warforged still fighting the Last War. The twist is that even though there have been numerous deaths in the woods, and all the locals blame "Rambo", he isn't responsible for their deaths -- he's been fighting some demonic menace that has actually been killing the villagers, but the PCs won't learn that unless they actually make it through "Rambo's" traps to his lair and speak to him. If they just haul off and kill him things get worse; the demonic thing will have a field day with the villagers, since Rambo is all there is between the village and certain death.

 

[d20fool]

If I ever run an Eberron game, this I'm going to use this exact scenario -- "Rambo" will be a warforged still fighting the Last War. The twist is that even though there have been numerous deaths in the woods, and all the locals blame "Rambo", he isn't responsible for their deaths -- he's been fighting some demonic menace that has actually been killing the villagers, but the PCs won't learn that unless they actually make it through "Rambo's" traps to his lair and speak to him. If they just haul off and kill him things get worse; the demonic thing will have a field day with the villagers, since Rambo is all there is between the village and certain death.

Please forgive me now Shiverstone, as I steal this idea whole and complete for my campaign. Thank you.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Enjoy! (Some day I want to write this idea up for Dungeon, some day ...)

 

[TheGemini]

Well, of course he has to wear a mask. At the end of the adventure the PC's tear off the mask and yell "It's Mr. Connelly, the amusement park manager!"

It's hard coming up with something original, here, but I'd go with evil outsiders who compel a ranger to do their bidding. Along the way he grows to enjoy killing, and actually manages to do in the Outsiders. Now he still hears their voices in his head, and drags the bodies to the same portal the Outsiders made him drag them to. He uses his track skills to hunt his prey, has humans (or other humanoids) as his favored enemy, and Entangle.

The party finds this portal and the stack of bodies, perhaps thinking to go through? Meanwhile the killer is in all ways completely normal except for the inaudible voices which spontaneously compel him to kill.

 

[Aeolius]

Dryads are "usually" chaotic good. Why not make one CE and awaken her oak tree. For added fun, make her a half-fiend or give her the Blighter PrC (MotW).