Rules Index | GM Screen

GameMastery Guide / Nonplayer Characters / Villains

Advanced Villainy

Source GameMastery Guide pg. 92
Some GMs might seek challenges and variety beyond what mere archetypes can offer. While sometimes this merely means using villains in different ways, it could also mean drawing upon the hundreds of different races and rules elements that the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game affords creative GMs. Noted here are a few suggestions to keep a campaign’s villains both despicable and unpredictable.

Recurring Villains: Only the very greatest villains should be able to come back from defeat, and this should happen very rarely. Otherwise the players might develop a feeling of futility, along with suspicions about the GM’s impartiality—which can severely disrupt a campaign. The notes on the “pet NPC” from earlier in this chapter apply with particular force to major villains.

In order for a comeback to be possible, the villain must have escaped in such a way that the players do not feel cheated. There are some exceptions to this, but they are few: the villain might come back in undead form, for example, or in a resurrected but still somehow damaged body. In most cases, however, if the PCs killed the villain fair and square, she should remain dead—end of story.

A villain should never come back from death more than once. If the players start to feel that nothing their characters do can put an end to the villain, frustration and suspicions of cheating grow. The reappearance of a defeated challenge should be greeted with shock and surprise, not with knowing groans.

Stacking Villains: An alternative to villains coming back to life is to stack them, one behind the other. For example, a psychotic killer might be a religious fanatic under the partial influence of an anti-paladin, who in turn is the protégé of an evil priest intent on starting a holy war. The killer is removing members of a noble house to bring it down and create a power vacuum that could lead to civil war. The anti-paladin plans to take advantage of the chaos to attack one barony after another rather than facing a united realm. This is a limited example, but enough to demonstrate the principle that defeating one evil only sets the PCs on the path of a greater threat. This is much more intriguing to most players than a villain who is resurrected again and again.

Monstrous Villains: Villains are not necessarily humanoid, and everything in this chapter applies equally to villains of all races and species. Some races lend themselves better to providing particular types of villains—an orc makes a good evil overlord, for example, although some imagination is needed to make such a creature into a scheming noble—but playing against type can be very rewarding. The main thing to keep in mind is intelligence. A villain, almost by definition, is an evil creature with a plan, and if a creature does not have the intelligence to formulate an evil plan, it cannot be a convincing villain.

Nonliving Villains: What if an intelligent sword dominated a dim (but very strong) owner and became the brains of the operation? What if a cursed helm or some other item changed a character’s alignment and turned him into a villain? A villain that is not a living creature can provide some surprises and plot twists that will keep the PCs very busy—especially if one of them slays the supposed villain, loots the intelligent sword, and instantly falls under the weapon’s thrall.

Archives of Nethys

Rules Index | GM Screen

Advanced Villainy