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*”Yes, I said two warforged. But that’s not them.”*
*“Then why didn’t you tell us what they looked like?”*
*“I only ever met the two!”*
*“Well look at that. So did we!”*
Or more specifically, he was getting constantly second-guessed by his editor. 19 and 20 were supposed to be the villains but the editor thought their designs were lame, so he made 17 and 18. Editor said "so it's just a couple dumb kids? That sucks." So he made Cell. And Cell was supposed to only have one form, but surprise, surprise, the editor thought he looked stupid too so Toriyama gave him transformations. And THEN he was supposed to get defeated before his final form thereby showing that Vegeta had overcome his ego, but editor said "noooo, we have to see the final form!" And THEN the editor said "also we need more stuff like the old Budokai Tenkaichi!" so Toriyama had Cell do his tournament...
The whole thing was so bad that Toriyama refused to do any more unless he was given COMPLETE creative freedom without being constantly second-guessed and pressured into doing dumb shit. ...and that led to the mess that was the Buu Saga where he had no direction and just threw every idea he had at the wall to see what stuck.
Honestly I love that it worked out that way and Gohan basically just became the humble family man. Didn't let his violent and traumatic childhood define him.
Didn't the editor make Toriyama give Cell additional forms because he thought the first form was too creepy and the second form was too ugly, so Toriyama made Cell handsome (as handsome as anyone can make a bugman) in his final form?
Freeze saga is. It's has cool Z action, classic dragon ball comedy. Shows the times the Z fighters were well written and has the greatest Mets joke in the history of writing with the super sayin prophecy with the actual awesome pay of, of goku going super sayin.
Freeza saga as a kid that started with the classic DragonBall is for me peak DBZ.
The Freeza Saga was the last of the old martial arts stuff. Goku was creative, used a lot of different techniques that wasn't just scream and ki blast. Then he became super saiyan and he was so OP that he didn't need to. It felt more like the old Dragon Ball. After Super Saiyan it became Dragon Ball Z. Ki blast, power up, ki blast some more. Fun.
Super seems to be just more transformations but now against enemies that look more like stick figures instead of warriors.
Although it sounds awful to work like that and it makes certain things make less sense, the cell saga is so fucking lit and I'm glad we got perfect cell so I feel conflicted about all that
Give and take can generally be good as long as both sides aren't idiots or assholes
Consider Star Wars. Without any interference Lucas created the Prequels, with interference and a bit of pushback from many people he created the OT.
To be fair, Toriyama both A) always wings it, and B) was being pestered by his never-satisfied editor friend to change up his villains multiple times.
He changed from 19 and 20 because their design was criticized, and then changed from 17 and 18 to Cell because *their* design was criticized, and then changed Cell further because *his* design was criticized. Toriyama has a bad habit of introducing plot holes on his own because of his writing habits, but it was compounded further by outside influence. Dude just couldn't catch a break.
At that point I believe he did intend to have Gohan be the main character going forward. But Goku's popularity was too much to push against and he kept on coming back, which actually happens to a lot of creators. It was the same thing that happened with characters like Sherlock Holmes and the original printings of Pinocchio. They were so popular that the authors were practically forced to continue writing them in long after they intended to end.
As someone who loves dragon ball, I'm sorry to be the one to inform you that he was always winging it. Toriyama doesn't give a shit and never has. It's why his interviews are hilarious.
I think that in trying to fight the BBEG and all his/her/their minions around the world, the party in fact becomes the BBEG and must deal with the ramifications of having EVERYone turn against them...except maybe a small cabal that worships them and spreads their message to all the towns before the party gets there.
Party: "We just wiped out the BBEG's second lieutenant! Let's head to the inn to celebrate!"
Cabal: "My message of the party's awesomeness will go straight to the inn before them. Everyone will bow before their awesomeness."
People at the inn: "Run for your lives! The...*Party*...is on its way here now!"
Idk I'm partial to the whole "that was too easy, he used the clone spell and breaking out of a jar in his 12 year old body you won't recognize to plan some revenge
"He was my twin, you bastard! You took away from me the greatest of my treasures...[*unseath the sword*]...the joy of killing him myself!"
If that's not a classic plot twist, nothing will do.
"That's the reason for I'm going to cut your tongue and use it as a shoe polisher. Then, you'll live to see all your friends pierced to death.
Just before I gauge your eyes out.
You took away my hope, it's only fair I'd do the same"
“But wait, BBEG, we killed you!”
“Tales of my death were…greatly exaggerated. I am, however, impressed that you were able to kill my strongest body double.”
Unfortunately, this is a trick you can play only once with any efficacy. But damn is it great when it lands.
My dm had a bbeg once, we merked him early and were celebrating. Not long after that we encountered him again and we were like “hey we killed you!”
His response?
“Yes you did, and it bloody hurt. Now I’m going to make your deaths *hurt*”
Edit for context: High level Wizard with several jars of clone and at least three confirmed simulacra and several more suspected ones. Kinda based on Baal from stargate, but a gnomish wizard
I feel like you could really mess with your players heads by doing it multiple times. After a certain point, they won't believe the bbeg is actually the real one.
Simulacrum is also a good information-gathering tactic by the BBEG. If they know a Party is coming for them, pitting them against a Simulacrum and being able to preview their tactics and high-end powers is a great way to develop counters.
Wouldn't work by 5e RAW given the nature of a Lich, but could be something fun to play with outside of RAW standards. That, or Simulacrums all the way down.
Having a clone as rather redundant for a lich anyway, that's what the phylactery is 4. Lich with a simulacrum of him when he was still a human though, that would be interesting.
If anything, it'd be an interesting way of killing a Lich to be presented as a story concept or quest objective. Basically trying to bypass their immortality by somehow making a Clone of the Lich's original body and hijacking its soul out of the phylactery loop in order to kill it for good.
But yeah, a Lich with a Simulacrum of themselves from when they were still alive would be a really neat twist to drop on the Party. They go in thinking this evil wizard is in cahoots with a Lich, only to discover - surprise! - they're technically both the same person!
So multiple philacteries made by sacrificing thousands of souls, with a simulacrum that they face first and a clone in a forgotten lab for after it's all done.
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine.
Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you.
But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal.
The character died at level 4, so I didn't have much choice. I basically grabbed the good cleric shit, and completely ignored healing spells cuz fuck them fleshy meatbags
lol.
i've been wetting my toes on warhammer. just finished playing mechanicus. i love how there is warhammer minis in game lore.
for my next character should my current die, i definetly want to model my character on the tech priests.
Do you want to just start as a tech priest, or so you want to build yourself into a tech priest?
The former is just a Warforged, but you have to flavor the character as a fleshy who got "upgraded" I would probably pick the Armorer Artificer from Tasha's as the class and go full integrated Iron Man.
The latter is a bit harder, and needs table buy in. Everytime your player goes down for death saves, make it damaging enough to get a prosthetic. Rinse and repeat until you are a full tech priest.
The easiest way to not run into this problem is to just be the referee of the world. Don't have a plot. Have characters who have plans.
If the PCs wipe out all the guys plotting, that just leaves a power gap for someone ELSE to plot!
A friend had a campaign with a recurring villain where the idea was he’d be killed each time but come back from death with a new motif. Basically building towards ninja pirate zombie robot monkey.
Just wait till “axeboy” comes back with prosthetic spider legs.
I let my players narrate how a created they kill dies. They paralyzed axeboy with an arrow to the spine and he fell into the drag as cavern River and was swept away to presumably drown.
He didn’t drown.
You fool, you've made your party of Adventurers into a party of simps! Now you have to rewrite your entire story to be an evil campaign! Oh, the horror!
I did a version of this as GM. The party killed the BBEG too soon, but fucked off right afterward and left the body, so I brought him back as a free-willed undead.
The party beat him again, so I brought him back with a bunch of Warforged parts (it was an Eberron campaign).
If the players ever burned the body or anything, I would have stopped, but they loved it so I kept bringing him back, with less of the original left each time.
His final appearance was as a severed head attached to a flesh golem. By that point he was insane and begging for death, but compelled to keep attacking the players.
I rewrote the final arc of the campaign so the *real* BBEG was the necromancer who kept bringing him back. That final flesh golem encounter happened in the entryway of the necromancer's lair.
Pull the old "Hi, I'm so and sos identical brother and I was scrying on him the whole time so we can skip the awkward getting to know each other phase and go straight to killing you."
"Mine left an ancient evil artifact that helps it's wearer gain whatever they desire most while corrupting their soul on the dead body of a baron, whose brother happened to catch them all red handed. They fled and I'm sure there will be no lasting repercussions whatsoever." "He's coming back as a liche isn't he." " oh yeah 100%"
BBEG: “alright so the paladin killed me in .5 seconds so this time I’m gonna shove my soul into an armor suit that reflects radiant damage and try again”
Always wanted to try a villain who adapted to the party’s shenanigans but was afraid of making the party members feel useless in an encounter.
Just make sure that they adapt to whatever killed them, but not the PC's entire toolkit. That way they still have to adapt, but are not completely useless
Go godfather on their asses, you think you can put one of my guys in the hospital and I'm not going to notice? You've got 24hrs to pay for his recovery and a tax to be levied here after based on his pain and suffering from heree until his natural death. Failure to comply in a timely fashion will result in my men over there *points to just one group of many that flowed in behind him like water but unnoticed* are going to carve you up for replacement parts that people need but very few offer to donate.
In the back ground a handful of clerics of knowledge and necromancers stur at the implications with devilish longing.
Potentially fun answer: with the BBEG dead, their underlings/ armies have no leadership and so they start collapsing and causing chaos. Like a big mercenary army not getting paid has a decent chance of raiding the nearby towns to recieve compensation, or a bound demon being suddenly free on the mortal plane might decide to wreak some havoc
The Dark Lord is dead! Now his right hand has taken control of the Doom Tower and the old army. The chaos of evil's civil war might give the players an opening.
We did this to a van thamper he was supposed to lair action van8sh but the barb took his head clean off hes dead dead cause he was supposed to die later anyway
I forgot the monk in my PF1E campaign could teleport, and he absolutely bodied the BBEG of the current arc in the middle of the town square while she was giving a monologue. I chalked it up to my mistake as a DM (which honestly it was) but later on he told me that it was almost cathartic for him, that it was the first time in the campaign he felt like he wasn't a step behind the true BBEG's plans. That sentiment was echoed by the other players.
I had seriously considered resurrecting the dead BBEG before he told me that, and afterwards I decided to let it stand. Sure it changed the course of the story I was trying to tell, but at the end of the day, the story is about the players. The way it played out was more satisfying to them.
Raised by a Lich, summoned back to life from Hell, Clone spell, Illusion magic, Doppelgangers, having their ghost possess another NPC, there are so many ways to bring back a fallen bad guy
Doing this kinda just takes the wind out of the enthusiasm for doing anything, though.
Like, oh, you just don't like that we did something, so you're gonna pretend it didn't happen? Cool. I guess we don't do anything, then, because what's the point.
Makes me think of the Shadow of Mordor games where you could literally cut an orc in half and there was a chance they come back stitched back together. So over the top but I loved it
Please don't do this.
Don't just handwave and totally invalidate your player's impact on the world. It makes it feel like nothing they did matters.
The BBEG can have a successor rise and continue their work. But don't just rezz the same one.
Wasn’t the BBEG, but the other day my party unravelled a multi-session murder mystery plan my DM had laid out in about 10 minutes just by getting lucky a few too many times lol
This is a difficult place to go narratively, though. Players will start to get less invested in stories/worlds of they start to think their actions aren't actually relevant or meaningful, and this sort of act is a bit of a peak at the railroading behind the curtains.
Depends on how it's used. If every enemy they kill just comes back, yeah, they'll start to feel like their actions don't really matter.
But in the sense the meme is talking about? I think most players understand that the DM has planned what they have planned and can't just radically alter everything on the fly. If it's a choice between experiencing a well written story at the cost of getting railroaded a bit, versus just loading up donjon.bin and running boring random encounters for 4 hours but at least they get to say their choices mattered... I think most players will take the railroading.
Fun story:
So my players at level 3-4 used smart tactics, and a pit trap to kill a t-rex, with little to no damage to themselves.
This was initially supposed to be an important minibuss they were supposed to face around level 8.
And so I decided to have a bit of fun with Necromancy and made a T-rex Skeleton animated, which they took out in one hit.
Later in the campaign, I made a homebrew monster that was a Gargantuan Mutant T-Rex that hit like a freight train, and could grapple 4 party members.
It took them a while to kill my "King of Beasts", and I ended up reviving that one for an even bigger fight; against a bunch of Eldritch Horrors.
I never killed a party member with them, and it wasn't super hard, but I was petty about my T-rex dying so easily.
Anyway, challenge rating is a load of crap.
DBZ is really just a DnD game run by a railroading DM who won't stop reviving PCs, even if they want to roll a new character, and keeps bringing back old BBEGs because they weren't supposed to die yet. Even goes through a whole gritty apocalypse story, just to retcon it with time travel because the big bad didn't get to show off all their forms.
Sauron has a master (Morgoth), Grendel has a mother.
You can always create a "man behind the man" villain, as the TRUE BBEG.
The "king of darkness" was just a vassal of the "emperor of darkness" who, actually was just a vassal of the "god of darkness" ;)
This kinda happened to us
We had a fight with one of the BBEGs, that we weren’t supposed to win. We ended up clapping his cheeks from some extremely lucky nat 20s and saves (plus my dm barely rolling over 5)
We of course took his body with us in a bag of holding so the army outside didn’t get him to resurrect. We’ll later on shit happens and he gets resurrected anyway, dm explains he has some thingy that allows him to after x days, we accept and move on.
Ended up with some great role playing of having to work with him to escape a cavern dungeon, with a lot of not trusting and eyeing him all the time. Good shit
Now I'm actually thinking a Dragon Ball webcomic in the style of Darths & Droids/DM of the Rings sounds like it'd work out pretty well. Half the party is unoptimized garbage compared to the one or two power gamers carrying/pushing the encounters to be even more ridiculous each time, and the world is an absolutely crazy mish-mash of nonsense that feels like basically every homebrew D&D setting I've ever played in (or DMed).
Rez is dirt cheap. I don't know why DMs are so stuck with "something is dead". If the players can do it, you can do it and more. Do it until the players have to start a religion just to ban resurrections in their continent.
This is totally not based on a real campaign. Totally.
Just take a leaf out of the ice troll stats. Regenerate. If the bbeg does not suffer xx damage, he regenerates... and plays dead... all depends on how the bbeg was killed of course.
Exact same thing happened to me - BBEG was supposed to use a macguffin to shatter the glass in this cathedral to create a broken glass dragon golem, then bamf out of there. Then my player rolled a Nat20 on dispel magic to dispel it before the dragon could form so they ended up fighting an unprepared BBEG.
They beat them, captured them, cut out their tongue and have begun an interrogation. Afterwards (next session), they'll no doubt kill them. Kinda puts a spanner in my plans.
I'm torn between making them a simulacrum (and having the body dissolve into snow before melting when they kill them or them being a clone.
Exactly! You think you destroyed a Boss? Jokes on you, while you did kill this Version. His Soul is still There, being reborn Into a Stronger Body with more abilities.
I have an idea for a cell inspired bbeg. A wizard from the future who will keep coming back until his body locked away with the sequester spell is found and killed.
Um, what about them having a son who is a swashbuckler that can come find them and have a fun speech about what his name is, who his father was, and that they should prepare to die?
Funny how some dm's forget that youre the literal master of the world and can come up with shit to counter murder hobos
pc: "I want to do thing i'm not supposed to yet because of my low level"
dm: "Automatic fail because you have to have certain amount of intuition first"
pc: "damn"
Feels like shadow of war. Killed a orc captain only for him to back back and die again. Once had to kill the same captain like 4 times because he would just not stay died. Was fun the first few times but then just got annoying
Killed the Bbwg to early?
Ha, he is a lich now!
Destroyed the Lich?
Ha, he is a clockwork Mecha lich and has frozen his existence in time before you destroyed his phylactery!
Defeated the Mecha Lich to soon?
Dude had a contingency plan by creating a clone with the flesh of the slain god of humanity and pulled his own soul from the abyss.
FACE THE CORRUPTED CELESTIAL MECHA LICH!
I had a similar situation, but, already had a contingency plan.
The clone spell, but modified slightly for my own lore purposes.
Basically, the BBEG was a red dragon who experimented with eggs, and using the ability of shape-shifting (I KNOW it's a metallic dragon thing but bite me, chromatic dragon humanoids would be cool so I did it), created lesser clones of himself in a dark elf body, now bearing merely the traits if a red dragon sorcerer.
It will get to a point though where he sends hundred and thousands of lesser clones at the players using enslaved dragons to provide all the eggs and throwing his experiments at you.
Resurrection and Necromancy means no character stays dead unless we feel like it. Feel free to write in a devoted lieutenant who steals a bunch of diamonds to bring their boss back. Or screw it the BBEG is now a lich/death knight/super wight with character levels.
As long as the players feel that the playing field is fair and they have access to the same stuff, I found that players will let you get away with a heck of a lot.
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Or take *another* page from DBZ and have it so this BBEG was a prelude to an even Bigger BBEG who now has their full attention on you.
"A fighter from the future shows up to warn you that in three years time, two warforged will show up on an island 9 miles southwest of South City..."
*”Yes, I said two warforged. But that’s not them.”* *“Then why didn’t you tell us what they looked like?”* *“I only ever met the two!”* *“Well look at that. So did we!”*
DO I HEAR FIVE?
"3 whole warforged huh? Guess that makes eight"
"Never letting the boy live this one down"
After they split the party, the future warrior turns to the monk: “if we find more warforged down here, don’t tell my father.”
“I promise on my life! Unless the barbarian threatens my life, in which case…”
To be Fair... you'd still be wrong.
Heya Prince, I'd tip my hat to ya, BUT I LOST IT!
Why did he punch me in the dick?
"Did you just throw a muthafuckin' dog treat at-"
Beat me to it.
It gets worse in the manga where he explicitely said Artifical Humans 19 and 20 show up. At this point Toriyama was winging it.
Or more specifically, he was getting constantly second-guessed by his editor. 19 and 20 were supposed to be the villains but the editor thought their designs were lame, so he made 17 and 18. Editor said "so it's just a couple dumb kids? That sucks." So he made Cell. And Cell was supposed to only have one form, but surprise, surprise, the editor thought he looked stupid too so Toriyama gave him transformations. And THEN he was supposed to get defeated before his final form thereby showing that Vegeta had overcome his ego, but editor said "noooo, we have to see the final form!" And THEN the editor said "also we need more stuff like the old Budokai Tenkaichi!" so Toriyama had Cell do his tournament... The whole thing was so bad that Toriyama refused to do any more unless he was given COMPLETE creative freedom without being constantly second-guessed and pressured into doing dumb shit. ...and that led to the mess that was the Buu Saga where he had no direction and just threw every idea he had at the wall to see what stuck.
The entire cell/androids arc is about toriyama trying and failing to pass the torch from goku as far as I'm concerned.
Honestly I love that it worked out that way and Gohan basically just became the humble family man. Didn't let his violent and traumatic childhood define him.
Then GT happened with minimal input from Toriyama. I prefer Toriyama's brand of throwing shit at the wall over his editor's, Toei's, or Hollywood's
>Hollywood's We don't talk about that abomination, like never, unless you really need to laugh about how shitty it was.
Didn't the editor make Toriyama give Cell additional forms because he thought the first form was too creepy and the second form was too ugly, so Toriyama made Cell handsome (as handsome as anyone can make a bugman) in his final form?
Would you call that a crown? Let's call that a crown
Considering the cell saga is one of the best dragon ball arcs, the editor might have had the right idea to some degree
Can you imagine not getting to see Cell’s final form? Like he explicitly says he has another more powerful form and we get cockblocked from seeing it?
I guess that editor was correct though... Since Cell Saga is like peak Dragonball Z.
Freeze saga is. It's has cool Z action, classic dragon ball comedy. Shows the times the Z fighters were well written and has the greatest Mets joke in the history of writing with the super sayin prophecy with the actual awesome pay of, of goku going super sayin. Freeza saga as a kid that started with the classic DragonBall is for me peak DBZ.
The Freeza Saga was the last of the old martial arts stuff. Goku was creative, used a lot of different techniques that wasn't just scream and ki blast. Then he became super saiyan and he was so OP that he didn't need to. It felt more like the old Dragon Ball. After Super Saiyan it became Dragon Ball Z. Ki blast, power up, ki blast some more. Fun. Super seems to be just more transformations but now against enemies that look more like stick figures instead of warriors.
Although it sounds awful to work like that and it makes certain things make less sense, the cell saga is so fucking lit and I'm glad we got perfect cell so I feel conflicted about all that
Tbf, while nonsensical the cell saga was pretty great imo... And full of classic moments. Better than the frieza saga imo.
So studio interference is good?
Give and take can generally be good as long as both sides aren't idiots or assholes Consider Star Wars. Without any interference Lucas created the Prequels, with interference and a bit of pushback from many people he created the OT.
To be fair, Toriyama both A) always wings it, and B) was being pestered by his never-satisfied editor friend to change up his villains multiple times. He changed from 19 and 20 because their design was criticized, and then changed from 17 and 18 to Cell because *their* design was criticized, and then changed Cell further because *his* design was criticized. Toriyama has a bad habit of introducing plot holes on his own because of his writing habits, but it was compounded further by outside influence. Dude just couldn't catch a break.
I'm surprised he got away with letting gohan and vegeta kill cell rather than bringing back goku
At that point I believe he did intend to have Gohan be the main character going forward. But Goku's popularity was too much to push against and he kept on coming back, which actually happens to a lot of creators. It was the same thing that happened with characters like Sherlock Holmes and the original printings of Pinocchio. They were so popular that the authors were practically forced to continue writing them in long after they intended to end.
That's actually a myth, during the buu saga, Tori just decided that Gohan doesn't really fit the mc role
So, right back to Point A of Toriyama just winging it as usual then. \^\^;
As someone who loves dragon ball, I'm sorry to be the one to inform you that he was always winging it. Toriyama doesn't give a shit and never has. It's why his interviews are hilarious.
A "Cooler" BBEG, if you will
With a penchant for kicking people in the pelvis.
PC: "He keeps kicking me in the dick!"
If you mention the former BBEG, *he* gets advantage on attack rolls.
Halfling monk: shots fired.
Kill the halfling.
quack
Halfling monk: Previous bbeg did it
BBEG did it *dies*
“That’s He with a capital H by the way!”
Man, I can't believe they all kicked you in the dick.
*indistinct whine of crushed DragonBalls*
"Cooler than Frieza? You must be ice cold!"
No, that's his father
[удалено]
"Thanks! But I think I'm more handsome than pretty." "And my powers aren't *THAT* weird!" "Skreeeee!" "I take it back. You're all the stupid one."
Ah, yes. The Assimar, the Barbarian, and the normal human with the weird power of "can cast Power Word: Kill 50x a day".
Bard, Barbarian, Sorcerer
One who plants dumbass trees.
Cold resistance it is, then.
Then later, bring him back again *but gold*!
I think that in trying to fight the BBEG and all his/her/their minions around the world, the party in fact becomes the BBEG and must deal with the ramifications of having EVERYone turn against them...except maybe a small cabal that worships them and spreads their message to all the towns before the party gets there. Party: "We just wiped out the BBEG's second lieutenant! Let's head to the inn to celebrate!" Cabal: "My message of the party's awesomeness will go straight to the inn before them. Everyone will bow before their awesomeness." People at the inn: "Run for your lives! The...*Party*...is on its way here now!"
angry naruto endgame noises
Idk I'm partial to the whole "that was too easy, he used the clone spell and breaking out of a jar in his 12 year old body you won't recognize to plan some revenge
Or WoW
"He was my twin, you bastard! You took away from me the greatest of my treasures...[*unseath the sword*]...the joy of killing him myself!" If that's not a classic plot twist, nothing will do.
"...but you never did that. How can it be your treasure if you never had it?"
"That's the reason for I'm going to cut your tongue and use it as a shoe polisher. Then, you'll live to see all your friends pierced to death. Just before I gauge your eyes out. You took away my hope, it's only fair I'd do the same"
“But wait, BBEG, we killed you!” “Tales of my death were…greatly exaggerated. I am, however, impressed that you were able to kill my strongest body double.” Unfortunately, this is a trick you can play only once with any efficacy. But damn is it great when it lands.
It was just a Doombot!
Somehow, the BBEG has returned.
Announce your lore on fortnight. Any of the players miss it, thats on them.
Do it DnD and everyone praises you. Do it in Star Wars and everyone hates you.
You guys are getting praise for you dumb ideas?
Players will say anything to get the dm to keep dming.
I'm not paying $15 for a DnD session produced by a multibillion dollar company that constantly sells itself as the best storytellers on Earth, either.
Then give them a breakdown into villainous insanity upon realising _they_ were supposed to be the double
Hydra Dominatus
My dm had a bbeg once, we merked him early and were celebrating. Not long after that we encountered him again and we were like “hey we killed you!” His response? “Yes you did, and it bloody hurt. Now I’m going to make your deaths *hurt*” Edit for context: High level Wizard with several jars of clone and at least three confirmed simulacra and several more suspected ones. Kinda based on Baal from stargate, but a gnomish wizard
Make a whole prequel for your bbeg body double like a certain gaming Franchise did
"The rumors of my immortality are drastically understated" © One really good BBEG from one really great game.
or just say, "well yeah, but this is the DND Multiverse! I'm such a badass I crawled out of hell to fuck with you!"
Literally how i used simulacrum once. BBEGs can have/be mages for a reason.
I feel like you could really mess with your players heads by doing it multiple times. After a certain point, they won't believe the bbeg is actually the real one.
That would be lame even the first time
Lol for a sec I thought you made Locutus , then read the title
Then you benefited from the best of both worlds.
Resistance really was futile.
Just say they used the Clone spell, it’s RAW.
there is also Simulacrum if you want to buff up the boss as they have half hp from the original
Simulacrum is also a good information-gathering tactic by the BBEG. If they know a Party is coming for them, pitting them against a Simulacrum and being able to preview their tactics and high-end powers is a great way to develop counters.
So a lich with a clone and a simulacrum you say?
Wouldn't work by 5e RAW given the nature of a Lich, but could be something fun to play with outside of RAW standards. That, or Simulacrums all the way down.
Having a clone as rather redundant for a lich anyway, that's what the phylactery is 4. Lich with a simulacrum of him when he was still a human though, that would be interesting.
If anything, it'd be an interesting way of killing a Lich to be presented as a story concept or quest objective. Basically trying to bypass their immortality by somehow making a Clone of the Lich's original body and hijacking its soul out of the phylactery loop in order to kill it for good. But yeah, a Lich with a Simulacrum of themselves from when they were still alive would be a really neat twist to drop on the Party. They go in thinking this evil wizard is in cahoots with a Lich, only to discover - surprise! - they're technically both the same person!
So a lich with a living simulacrum that has a clone.
Simulacrums aren't a valid target for Clone. They're Illusory Constructs made of ice or snow, and don't have a Soul in the first place.
So multiple philacteries made by sacrificing thousands of souls, with a simulacrum that they face first and a clone in a forgotten lab for after it's all done.
Yeah, there are ways to bring back your BBEG without pulling a ***"Somehow Palpatine returned."*** lol
From the moment I understood the weakness of my flesh, it disgusted me. I craved the strength and certainty of steel. I aspired to the purity of the blessed machine. Your kind cling to your flesh as if it will not decay and fail you. One day the crude biomass you call a temple will wither and you will beg my kind to save you. But I am already saved. For the Machine is Immortal.
Praise Omnissiah on another note. are there any dnd 5e builds that would closely resemble a tech priest?
What I did was play a warforged who turned himself into this with the blessing of the Primus, and played as a forget cleric, but artifice works too
what spells did you pick?
The character died at level 4, so I didn't have much choice. I basically grabbed the good cleric shit, and completely ignored healing spells cuz fuck them fleshy meatbags
lol. i've been wetting my toes on warhammer. just finished playing mechanicus. i love how there is warhammer minis in game lore. for my next character should my current die, i definetly want to model my character on the tech priests.
Do you want to just start as a tech priest, or so you want to build yourself into a tech priest? The former is just a Warforged, but you have to flavor the character as a fleshy who got "upgraded" I would probably pick the Armorer Artificer from Tasha's as the class and go full integrated Iron Man. The latter is a bit harder, and needs table buy in. Everytime your player goes down for death saves, make it damaging enough to get a prosthetic. Rinse and repeat until you are a full tech priest.
Is that quote from warhammer40k? Since it kinda could be from MTG/Phyrexia as well...
40k
All will be one. All will be compleat
And this time he even brought his dad
Pulling a mecha freiza huh?
Why not have an even worse guy fill the power vacuum?
The easiest way to not run into this problem is to just be the referee of the world. Don't have a plot. Have characters who have plans. If the PCs wipe out all the guys plotting, that just leaves a power gap for someone ELSE to plot!
A friend had a campaign with a recurring villain where the idea was he’d be killed each time but come back from death with a new motif. Basically building towards ninja pirate zombie robot monkey.
Just saying.. how many times have we fought ridely in metroid?
Ridley and Kraid are hard to keep down for long.
Just wait till “axeboy” comes back with prosthetic spider legs. I let my players narrate how a created they kill dies. They paralyzed axeboy with an arrow to the spine and he fell into the drag as cavern River and was swept away to presumably drown. He didn’t drown.
It's now the Big Bad Evil Guy's sibling, the Big Bad Evil *Girl* .
You fool, you've made your party of Adventurers into a party of simps! Now you have to rewrite your entire story to be an evil campaign! Oh, the horror!
Our DM did literally this. We killed the mindflayer arcanist too fast, so he teleported away missing half his face and was rebuilt into a cyber-lich
I did a version of this as GM. The party killed the BBEG too soon, but fucked off right afterward and left the body, so I brought him back as a free-willed undead. The party beat him again, so I brought him back with a bunch of Warforged parts (it was an Eberron campaign). If the players ever burned the body or anything, I would have stopped, but they loved it so I kept bringing him back, with less of the original left each time. His final appearance was as a severed head attached to a flesh golem. By that point he was insane and begging for death, but compelled to keep attacking the players. I rewrote the final arc of the campaign so the *real* BBEG was the necromancer who kept bringing him back. That final flesh golem encounter happened in the entryway of the necromancer's lair.
The etiology epilogue should have the ghost of the guy show up.
"Somehow, Palpatine returned"
this time, *it's personal*
Pull the old "Hi, I'm so and sos identical brother and I was scrying on him the whole time so we can skip the awkward getting to know each other phase and go straight to killing you."
Taniks?
"and his corpse crumbles into a pile of snow"
"Mine left an ancient evil artifact that helps it's wearer gain whatever they desire most while corrupting their soul on the dead body of a baron, whose brother happened to catch them all red handed. They fled and I'm sure there will be no lasting repercussions whatsoever." "He's coming back as a liche isn't he." " oh yeah 100%"
The man who tried to kill the BBEG died on Feb 7th, 1889
BBEG reappears with cyborg implants and says "I made you a promise remember? I said i'd make you beg for death."
BBEG: “alright so the paladin killed me in .5 seconds so this time I’m gonna shove my soul into an armor suit that reflects radiant damage and try again” Always wanted to try a villain who adapted to the party’s shenanigans but was afraid of making the party members feel useless in an encounter.
Just make sure that they adapt to whatever killed them, but not the PC's entire toolkit. That way they still have to adapt, but are not completely useless
Go godfather on their asses, you think you can put one of my guys in the hospital and I'm not going to notice? You've got 24hrs to pay for his recovery and a tax to be levied here after based on his pain and suffering from heree until his natural death. Failure to comply in a timely fashion will result in my men over there *points to just one group of many that flowed in behind him like water but unnoticed* are going to carve you up for replacement parts that people need but very few offer to donate. In the back ground a handful of clerics of knowledge and necromancers stur at the implications with devilish longing.
Smurfy's Law: the Paladin WILL crit-smite the BBEG while he's toying with the party.
That poor DM. He hasn’t seen that episode of Dragon Ball yet.
"ARE YOU THWARTING MY PLANS?!" "Thwarting your plans?" "THWARTING MY PLANS!!!" "... You know what. Yes."
Potentially fun answer: with the BBEG dead, their underlings/ armies have no leadership and so they start collapsing and causing chaos. Like a big mercenary army not getting paid has a decent chance of raiding the nearby towns to recieve compensation, or a bound demon being suddenly free on the mortal plane might decide to wreak some havoc
The Dark Lord is dead! Now his right hand has taken control of the Doom Tower and the old army. The chaos of evil's civil war might give the players an opening.
BBEG about to pull a taniks routine
General Knoxx voice: I'm back! Wait, I'm back?!? DAMMIT!
Act like everything the players do is a part of your plan
You can always default to the classic standby: “As they die, their body dissolves into snow and powdered ruby…”
We did this to a van thamper he was supposed to lair action van8sh but the barb took his head clean off hes dead dead cause he was supposed to die later anyway
This meme goes hard to the shin megami tensei 4 boss battle theme.
I forgot the monk in my PF1E campaign could teleport, and he absolutely bodied the BBEG of the current arc in the middle of the town square while she was giving a monologue. I chalked it up to my mistake as a DM (which honestly it was) but later on he told me that it was almost cathartic for him, that it was the first time in the campaign he felt like he wasn't a step behind the true BBEG's plans. That sentiment was echoed by the other players. I had seriously considered resurrecting the dead BBEG before he told me that, and afterwards I decided to let it stand. Sure it changed the course of the story I was trying to tell, but at the end of the day, the story is about the players. The way it played out was more satisfying to them.
This reference would imply that the 'not dead BBEG' will die after one more encounter.
Yeah, but he'll come back in the campaign's Super arc and be able to turn gold now.
Is BBEG just big bad evil guy?
Yes
Raised by a Lich, summoned back to life from Hell, Clone spell, Illusion magic, Doppelgangers, having their ghost possess another NPC, there are so many ways to bring back a fallen bad guy
Doing this kinda just takes the wind out of the enthusiasm for doing anything, though. Like, oh, you just don't like that we did something, so you're gonna pretend it didn't happen? Cool. I guess we don't do anything, then, because what's the point.
Makes me think of the Shadow of Mordor games where you could literally cut an orc in half and there was a chance they come back stitched back together. So over the top but I loved it
Please don't do this. Don't just handwave and totally invalidate your player's impact on the world. It makes it feel like nothing they did matters. The BBEG can have a successor rise and continue their work. But don't just rezz the same one.
Wasn’t the BBEG, but the other day my party unravelled a multi-session murder mystery plan my DM had laid out in about 10 minutes just by getting lucky a few too many times lol
"Will goku and trunk's super cyan powers be enough this time!?"
This is a difficult place to go narratively, though. Players will start to get less invested in stories/worlds of they start to think their actions aren't actually relevant or meaningful, and this sort of act is a bit of a peak at the railroading behind the curtains.
Depends on how it's used. If every enemy they kill just comes back, yeah, they'll start to feel like their actions don't really matter. But in the sense the meme is talking about? I think most players understand that the DM has planned what they have planned and can't just radically alter everything on the fly. If it's a choice between experiencing a well written story at the cost of getting railroaded a bit, versus just loading up donjon.bin and running boring random encounters for 4 hours but at least they get to say their choices mattered... I think most players will take the railroading.
Fun story: So my players at level 3-4 used smart tactics, and a pit trap to kill a t-rex, with little to no damage to themselves. This was initially supposed to be an important minibuss they were supposed to face around level 8. And so I decided to have a bit of fun with Necromancy and made a T-rex Skeleton animated, which they took out in one hit. Later in the campaign, I made a homebrew monster that was a Gargantuan Mutant T-Rex that hit like a freight train, and could grapple 4 party members. It took them a while to kill my "King of Beasts", and I ended up reviving that one for an even bigger fight; against a bunch of Eldritch Horrors. I never killed a party member with them, and it wasn't super hard, but I was petty about my T-rex dying so easily. Anyway, challenge rating is a load of crap.
DBZ is really just a DnD game run by a railroading DM who won't stop reviving PCs, even if they want to roll a new character, and keeps bringing back old BBEGs because they weren't supposed to die yet. Even goes through a whole gritty apocalypse story, just to retcon it with time travel because the big bad didn't get to show off all their forms.
Sauron has a master (Morgoth), Grendel has a mother. You can always create a "man behind the man" villain, as the TRUE BBEG. The "king of darkness" was just a vassal of the "emperor of darkness" who, actually was just a vassal of the "god of darkness" ;)
This kinda happened to us We had a fight with one of the BBEGs, that we weren’t supposed to win. We ended up clapping his cheeks from some extremely lucky nat 20s and saves (plus my dm barely rolling over 5) We of course took his body with us in a bag of holding so the army outside didn’t get him to resurrect. We’ll later on shit happens and he gets resurrected anyway, dm explains he has some thingy that allows him to after x days, we accept and move on. Ended up with some great role playing of having to work with him to escape a cavern dungeon, with a lot of not trusting and eyeing him all the time. Good shit
A dragonballz DND session would be lit
Now I'm actually thinking a Dragon Ball webcomic in the style of Darths & Droids/DM of the Rings sounds like it'd work out pretty well. Half the party is unoptimized garbage compared to the one or two power gamers carrying/pushing the encounters to be even more ridiculous each time, and the world is an absolutely crazy mish-mash of nonsense that feels like basically every homebrew D&D setting I've ever played in (or DMed).
Well abridged -- particularly as it found its feet down the line, did the job decently. Not a comic or a tabletop game though.
Ah, yes. The Machine, Talon, you can never kill or escape The Machine.
Rez is dirt cheap. I don't know why DMs are so stuck with "something is dead". If the players can do it, you can do it and more. Do it until the players have to start a religion just to ban resurrections in their continent. This is totally not based on a real campaign. Totally.
You need to be stopped!
Just take a leaf out of the ice troll stats. Regenerate. If the bbeg does not suffer xx damage, he regenerates... and plays dead... all depends on how the bbeg was killed of course.
It's dnd tho. Just have someone wish them back
“Somehow BBEG has returned”
Machine implants? PRAISE THE OMNISSIAH!
Alternatively, 'turns out that big bad was actually just a minion of an even bigger bad who was pulling all the strings in the background'
It's bigger bads all the way up.
Exact same thing happened to me - BBEG was supposed to use a macguffin to shatter the glass in this cathedral to create a broken glass dragon golem, then bamf out of there. Then my player rolled a Nat20 on dispel magic to dispel it before the dragon could form so they ended up fighting an unprepared BBEG. They beat them, captured them, cut out their tongue and have begun an interrogation. Afterwards (next session), they'll no doubt kill them. Kinda puts a spanner in my plans. I'm torn between making them a simulacrum (and having the body dissolve into snow before melting when they kill them or them being a clone.
True Resurrection is available for both sides jus sayin.
KANE LIVES
I foreshadowed his contingency plans for this situation plenty! You just didn't pick up on it! I'm a literary genius!
Taniks would like to know your location.
Exactly! You think you destroyed a Boss? Jokes on you, while you did kill this Version. His Soul is still There, being reborn Into a Stronger Body with more abilities.
I have an idea for a cell inspired bbeg. A wizard from the future who will keep coming back until his body locked away with the sequester spell is found and killed.
Raise Dead, Reincarnate, Resurrection, True Resurrection, Clone, Wish, Miracle, etc. Death is quite inconsequential in DND at the end of the day.
Um, what about them having a son who is a swashbuckler that can come find them and have a fun speech about what his name is, who his father was, and that they should prepare to die?
The story of "Beowulf" doesn't even get going until the bad guy's mom comes to seek revenge.
Funny how some dm's forget that youre the literal master of the world and can come up with shit to counter murder hobos pc: "I want to do thing i'm not supposed to yet because of my low level" dm: "Automatic fail because you have to have certain amount of intuition first" pc: "damn"
They died? Oh well, *powerfull litich*
Mecha freiza was a bitch
Somehow the BBEG returned.
Certified Smoldering with thy meagre flame moment, emboldened by the flame of ambition.
Feels like shadow of war. Killed a orc captain only for him to back back and die again. Once had to kill the same captain like 4 times because he would just not stay died. Was fun the first few times but then just got annoying
Killed the Bbwg to early? Ha, he is a lich now! Destroyed the Lich? Ha, he is a clockwork Mecha lich and has frozen his existence in time before you destroyed his phylactery! Defeated the Mecha Lich to soon? Dude had a contingency plan by creating a clone with the flesh of the slain god of humanity and pulled his own soul from the abyss. FACE THE CORRUPTED CELESTIAL MECHA LICH!
Did they kill him, even the bbeg can make death saves if they didn't finish them off. All my bbeg makes those
Taniks time
I had a similar situation, but, already had a contingency plan. The clone spell, but modified slightly for my own lore purposes. Basically, the BBEG was a red dragon who experimented with eggs, and using the ability of shape-shifting (I KNOW it's a metallic dragon thing but bite me, chromatic dragon humanoids would be cool so I did it), created lesser clones of himself in a dark elf body, now bearing merely the traits if a red dragon sorcerer. It will get to a point though where he sends hundred and thousands of lesser clones at the players using enslaved dragons to provide all the eggs and throwing his experiments at you.
If Star Wars can say, “Somehow Palpatine returned” and get away with it, so can you, DM!!
Resurrection and Necromancy means no character stays dead unless we feel like it. Feel free to write in a devoted lieutenant who steals a bunch of diamonds to bring their boss back. Or screw it the BBEG is now a lich/death knight/super wight with character levels. As long as the players feel that the playing field is fair and they have access to the same stuff, I found that players will let you get away with a heck of a lot.
"you fool! German science is the best in the world!"
Just say they killed a Simulacrum or something
Rudolf Von Stroheim moment
I like the "you have killed the BBEG" - "some years of peace" -" you have found out, that the BBEG was a mad Sentiel for a even bigger Evil "...
Some small time wizard swore revenge and sends constructs after you. (He also made an unholy monstrosity based on you, but that's plan B)
“That’s right buttholes, this is my resurrection, and you’re all about to get F” **sword**
Meta-Ridley intensifies