Villain Escape Plans

[Lord Zardoz]

I was just thinking about how to set up plausible escape plans for campaign Villains whom a Dm simply needs to survive. Knowing when to cut and run is a very important thing for a Villain. Knowing how to do so effectively is also important.

If you have access to Teleport, than escape is pretty easy.
- Step 1: Cast teleport.

And done.

Now, presuming that is not an option, what works for getting the hell out of dodge?

Flying + Invisibility: Presuming your not in a dungeon, this is the most reliable escape. Hit Invisibility and start flying away. Unless your opponent can see invisible creatures, you can generally get away clean.

Break line of Sight + Rope Trick: This particular idea came to me when I decided I needed an alternative to Fly and Invisibility. It works pretty damn decently unless your in melee. First, break line of sight with Obscuring Mist, Darkness, or other suitable spell. Then cast Rope Trick and get the hell inside while your not visible. Being in an extra dimensional space can make you pretty hard to locate again. The only drawback is that if your opponents detect the Rope Trick, they can simply out wait you.

Run + Hide: yeah, its an old one. But it can work. If you can move faster than your opponents and break line of site, and have a decent hide check, it can work. However, the Track feat can pretty much end this.

Decoy and Scatter: If your loyal bodyguards (or clueless cannon fodder) looks roughly like you, you can issue them potions of Disguise self. When it is time to cut and run, you break line of sight, if possible, then they drink the potions. Then everyone just scatters. A good spot check can make this less effective, but thats what uniforms are for. With a sufficiently powerful illusion spell, you can do without the decoys. Hopefully, the players simply chase the wrong one.

Special Mobility: Making it difficult for the players to follow is always good. Aside from flying, there are a few other good tactics. I recall reading about dungeon lairs for vampires that counted on gaseous form abilities. When the going got tough, just turn into mist, flow through a narrow crack, and let Fast Healing do its job. Less dramatically, Kobolds and Goblins can do well by having very low / tight corridors.

Hostile Environment: Preventing pursuit when your losing a fight is difficult, but if you can survive in a hostile environment that the players cannot pursue you into, it makes for a great escape. If you can breath water, then a convenient lake or ocean will make the best escape route. If your immune to fire, than use that.

Anyway, I am wondering, what sort of escape plans have you used with success for Villains that you wanted to keep around? Which ones did you try and have fail?

END COMMUNICATION

 

[freyar]

Running followed by expeditious retreat and running again worked pretty well for me against 1st level PCs. That same villain and his girlfriend then got caught, but the lady has SLAs of charm person and suggestion, and the party had split their forces.

 

[Rechan]

I recently tried to run a Chase scene in my game. GOD the rules need an overhaul. The badguy had the same movement rate as the PCs, and it felt like there was nothing he could do to really 'get away'. Thankfully he had Levitate and went up to a walkway above the area.

As for Escape plans:

Be a Warlock. If you're Cheesy, give your villain levels in Warlock. At 6th level, a Warlock can pick up Flee the Scene. It allows the Warlock to use Dimensional Door, and for a single round, there is a Major Image in his place that looks just like him. It responds accordingly to others actions. A round head-start in any direction is dang useful (especially in a dungeon where you could 'port to the level above).

Terrain

From the SRD:

ifficult Terrain

Difficult terrain hampers movement. Each square of difficult terrain counts as 2 squares of movement. (Each diagonal move into a difficult terrain square counts as 3 squares.) You can’t run or charge across difficult terrain.

If you occupy squares with different kinds of terrain, you can move only as fast as the most difficult terrain you occupy will allow.

Flying and incorporeal creatures are not hampered by difficult terrain.
Obstacles

Like difficult terrain, obstacles can hamper movement. If an obstacle hampers movement but doesn’t completely block it each obstructed square or obstacle between squares counts as 2 squares of movement. You must pay this cost to cross the barrier, in addition to the cost to move into the square on the other side. If you don’t have sufficient movement to cross the barrier and move into the square on the other side, you can’t cross the barrier. Some obstacles may also require a skill check to cross.

On the other hand, some obstacles block movement entirely. A character can’t move through a blocking obstacle.

I recall it quoted on the Rules board that you can't charge if the ground is sloped or uneven flagstones.

Wisely Choose Magic Items.

Feather Tokens are an overlooked magical item.

Swan Boat

A token that forms a swanlike boat capable of moving on water at a speed of 60 feet. It can carry eight horses and gear or thirty-two Medium characters or any equivalent combination. The boat lasts for one day.
Tree

A token that causes a great oak to spring into being (5-foot diameter trunk, 60-foot height, 40-foot top diameter). This is an instantaneous effect.

Slap one of those in front of a door (the tree especially), or at someone's feet, and Tada, instant obstacle. The Tree is 400gp and the boat is 450. I personally would allow someone to make an attack against an opponent's square to put the tree or boat underneath them (and allow a reflex save to avoid getting put smack dab in the middle). The tree might even do damage to the structure of the roof, giving more distraction.

I would also allow one-use items that function like the Feather Tokens or Necklace of Fireballs, but instead create Obscuring Mist, Fog Cloud and Solid Fog. Solid Fog is a real keeper (can only move 5 feet inside of it), but that includes you. Stinking Cloud Might work, because the person has pass through it.

Same effect could be handled by an Eversmoking Bottle.

For a more expensive (7,200) distraction, the Folding Boat:

A folding boat looks like a small wooden box—about 12 inches long, 6 inches wide, and 6 inches deep. It can be used to store items like any other box. If a command word is given, however, the box unfolds itself to form a boat 10 feet long, 4 feet wide, and 2 feet in depth. A second command word causes it to unfold to a ship 24 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 6 feet deep. Any objects formerly stored in the box now rest inside the boat or ship.

Have the box hanging from a string above the door, and activate it before you step out, and now they have to hack through it.

Dust of Dryness (100 Gallons) might be useful to also toss down to cover your tracks.

Spells

Entangling spells: Web, Entangle, Evard's Tentacles, etc.
Battlefield shaping spells: Walls of any type, Spike Stones/Spike Growth, Transmute Rock to Mud, AntiLife Shell, Blade Barrier, Glitterdust (Blind opponents can't pursue), Hallucinary Terrain (and Mirage Arcana), Acid Fog, Cloudkill, Summon Swarm, Repel Metal or Stone, Repel Wood, Repulsion, Reverse Gravity.
Personal: Mislead (perfect for this), Ethereal Jaunt, Planeshift, Polymorph (some small animal and go for a crack), Meld with Stone, Spider Climb, Passwall, Transport Via Plants, Tree Stride, Wind Walk, Water Walk, Levitate, Fly, Invisibility.
Misc: Hold Portal, Shrink Item (with fire or obstacle awaiting).

Misc

Caltrops. Creating smoke, causing some form of full darkness (not the spell of the same name), trapped areas you know the off switch to, any damaging energy type you can move through which you are immune to, and especially water that doesn't impede you (water breathing ability, don't HAVE to breathe, etc).

Conclusion

If you Need your villain to make an escape, then have that villain plan ahead. He needs to at least know the terrain, and if at all possible, prepare the terrain ahead of time. If it's his hideout, there is no reason why he would not have some escape hatch with various difficult terrain or other thing able to let him escape while the PCs are trapped.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

Planning ahead for an escape route nearly always works as long as you do not wait too long to use it.

The trick is in having an escape plan that you can pull out of your arse without it being completely location specific. That is why I like Obscuring Mist + Rope Trick. As long as you can cast and use both spells, you can use it. It also has a pretty decent chance of success. It does not take much for your players to start keeping a See Invisibility type spell / scroll / potion handy. But there is no spell I am aware of that will let you see through the fog spells. True Seeing will cut through pretty much every other spell, but not a fog spell. (However, True Seeing will see the window effect from the Rope Trick).

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Darklone]

Best escape route for the REAL villain: Don't join the battle. Let your henchies do the dirty work and enjoy it from a distance...

 

[Rechan]

Planning ahead for an escape route nearly always works as long as you do not wait too long to use it.

The trick is in having an escape plan that you can pull out of your arse without it being completely location specific. That is why I like Obscuring Mist + Rope Trick. As long as you can cast and use both spells, you can use it. It also has a pretty decent chance of success. It does not take much for your players to start keeping a See Invisibility type spell / scroll / potion handy. But there is no spell I am aware of that will let you see through the fog spells. True Seeing will cut through pretty much every other spell, but not a fog spell. (However, True Seeing will see the window effect from the Rope Trick).

THe problem with relying so heavily on spells is: What if your villain isn't a spellcaster?

 

[Asmor]

I have a, admittedly cheap, but sure-fire way of making sure the villain survives.

In my campaign, there's no ressurection at all. However, certain people are "fated" (for example, all PCs), and when they die they are basically given the option of being reincarnated.

Haven't had to use it yet, but theoretically if an NPC I really needed died, I could just reincarnate him and call him Fated.

 

[gunderval]

Non-spell approaches

Mechanical tricks such as the hidden lever in the wall that causes that section of wall to rotate around (like in all the old movies) leaving villain in escape tunnel, or that drops a portcullis blocking the PC's from following, the slide shute that after one person goes down it switches to deposit the next somewhere nasty.

Depending on motivation, I recommend making these all things the villain must move, make check to do etc. and that PC's have a chance to foil. If you can't kill the villain until the DM has decided it was okay, you might as well go back into town for some ale until the time comes.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

THe problem with relying so heavily on spells is: What if your villain isn't a spellcaster?

Now that, I have not yet figured out. More specifically, what is the most viable escape plan for a villain that is not a spell caster and does not have much in the way of magical resources to call upon? Magical items can duplicate most escape plans dependent upon spells. But without those, what have you got?

Location specific escape plans are pretty good. Secret doors and escape tunnels and work out quite well. A fast mount can help you outrun pursuit. But all of these plans require a bit more infrastructure than you can easily carry with you. If your not in your own fortress, that escape tunnel you dug will not help so much. Also, if you want to actually get some use out of your villain, keeping him in his fortress is just not that great a plan.

About the only plan I can think of that is particularly portable is the Decoy and Scatter plan. Everyone with you should use weapons and armour that appear identical at a cursory glance. When it is time to cut and run, you just have to hope that your opponents all chase the wrong guy. The upshot is that face concealing helms and cloaks are pretty damn cheap.

Beyond that, I think that the most effective things for a non magical escape are the following (in no particular order):

- Run feat and Ride Skill: More movement to outrun pursuit
- Hide and Move Silently Skill: Hopefully they wont find you
- Disguise Skill: Invaluable in cities, since you can lose yourself in a crowd.
- Swim and Climb Skills: (to go where PC's hopefully cannot easily follow)
- Caltrops and Tanglefoot bags: Hinder pursuit

END COMMUNICATION

 

[blargney the second]

Anklet of Translocation (MIC 71): teleport 10' as a swift action 2/day, 1400gp. It'll get you out of the worst situations PDQ.

If you can get 5' more speed than the fastest PC, you're good.
-blarg