I've been running a converted version of the AD&D N1 module and further, and Vecna has wound up as an antagonist but not the main villain. In my campaign, Vecna has many splinter cell cults that perform acts of evil that are completely unrelated to each other. Take over a small town, have a vizier get a baron to turn cruel, kidnap some merchants from the roadside, set some ghouls loose on a monastery, suggesting to a high priest that there may be a relic somewhere to be found; things that urge people to action. The party defeats the module villain multiple times, earns renown and knighthood in the capitol, and is called to investigate a cult hideout on the word of some escaped prisoners barely saved by a knight from an allied holy order. Upon investigating, following the last cultist madly declaring that they've all been led to this point by their deity, they clear a tunnel and find a buried city that's defended by intelligent and, strangely, amicable undead creatures that swear fealty to an empire long since collapsed. You might see where I'm going with this. Vecna orchestrated the characters' backstories, manipulated the desires of various factions, played the very plot-threads of the campaign, to bring an adventuring party to one place with a singular goal: infiltrate an ancient king's vault of secrets to learn the location of a holy chalice. By the time the party learns that the city of an ancient kingdom they've been exploring belonged to Vecna, they're frightened and confused. Everything there is terrifying: a vampire with an army of spawn holding the living citizens as barely more than cattle, a mad skull lord with an army of skeletons, a mummy lord with a pack of stone golems at his disposal, a death tyrant spewing forth aberrations, an undead druid with a legion of fungal servants, all so close to civilization. Yet at the same time... it's all too easy. They earn the trust of the druid and vampire for providing food to the people and enter into a contract to continue to do so, are allowed into the castle, the floors above are fraught with illusions but otherwise mostly uninhabited with their defenders sealed away as mere traps. The Hand and The Eye from the Vecna Lives module stand aside and congratulate the party on behalf of their lord for making it this far. They enter the vault, learn the location of the chalice is in the Nine Hells, and the mission is a success. The party wants nothing to do with the city now. The seed of doubt has been planted in their minds that what they're doing to help their allied churches, their country, the innocent people they've saved, will somehow backfire, that it's somehow exactly what Vecna wants, but they're too Good to do otherwise. The king above gods, master of death, has accounted for both their obedience and their insubordination; their free will is a tool to benefit Vecna. The party or their allies will find the chalice, disrupt the balance between the Oeridian gods of War in the favor of the Good god Heironeous, and they'll spend the rest of their lives in a Good age where unjust wars are quashed by the righteous. Yet Vecna will use that as an opportunity to subsume power from the Evil god Hextor, with a heretical cult already established to teach that the evil god is but an aspect of himself. More power, hand-delivered to him by mortals and heroes, and he doesn't even have to roll for initiative. If you want to do Vecna as a hyper-intelligent mastermind that the party has to catch up to, that's how you do it. The party isn't even aware of his existence until it's too late, and should they march along with their lives they'll never even need/get to fight him. The campaign is the completion of his plan, his victory is inevitable. The only weakness is if the party learns of the end goal (which in a chance encounter with Mordenkainen I have seeded with a scolding: if the balance of Evil and Good is disrupted, the side overpowered or destroyed will just return stronger to restore balance) AND can think of a way to somehow empower the forces of Good without hampering the forces of Evil. Even if they do, it just stops the one plan in one region of one continent on one plane; Vecna's still out there scheming. If they really wanted to go extra they _could_ *track down and destroy a minor god of secrets* to try to prevent future machinations, but by that point Vecna will have long since known to arrange defenses, and any assault may just be the catalyst to resolve some other scheme of his.
I’m going to make my Vecna more like strahd and in that sense, he will show up to the players and periodically just to mess with them since he knows he can obliterate them at any moment.
i also thought to make him show up in like fractions that every time they pick up a part of obelisk/rod part that he showcases one terrifying ability, and the next time another one gets added, so he gets completed in some sense as they approach him. I always saw that my players were more terrified and also had fun thinking about stuff on how to counter specific abilities. I also thought on how to make him different from strahd but why invent all new when there is a lot of great stuff and it worked.
Another insane way to make Vecna terrifying to fight? Not only give him back his hand and eye...but also have him use the Book of Vile Darkness and do so all in his lair (since the Don't Say Vecna one-shot gave him Lair actions). Telling you now, that would put him square into CR 30 territory and ripe for being a Mythic encounter. But...good luck coming up with a cool Mythic trait that won't make him impossible to beat.
I haven't finished reading the module yet, but just to add to one of your ideas. Some of Vecna's minions could be friendly npcs that the party has trusted or relied on, but Vecna has found out some dark secret of their past and is essentially blackmailing them to fight for him or have their dark secret revealed.
This is what happens when mediocre writers try to write a genius level villain. Vecna would have plans within plans and contingencies and tricks up his sleeve. He is a demigod. Create the environment where he is fought to his advantage. He knows that the players are coming. He will stack the odds in his favour. He is undead, he doesn't need to breath. Make the room be filled with toxic clouds. He can communicate with telepathy. Make it dark, make it loud so that players can't communicate with each other until they destroy a device that causes that sound. Give them important targets to hit that are not vecna. let him have clones of himself. The players should be unable to figure out his patterns and you should never run out of tricks to use.
Vecna should be backed by undead minions and a ton of contingencies. Also nigh unbeatable. Best case scenario the players foil Vecna plans but never defeat Vecna
just make a skill challenge out of the boss fight with multiple stages. Make it more cinematic so that it doesnt feel like just another encounter. Did that with another lich bad guy in a fewshot and my players still talk about how cool this fight was 2 years later.
My campaigns are always on Oerth. We are at the date of 6024 CY and Vecna has been established as a god already. I will have to make things a lot different from the published adventure. The hand of Vecna has already been found by one of my past campaign players as he worshipped The Whispered One. So, I will have to do a lot of custom tailoring. I agree whole heartedly with you, make Vecna awesome and the battle memorable.
For me, Vecna is one of the best evil NPCs DnD ever had with a great background story and incredibld potential. However, all modules they ever written about him were messed up and boring.
Confession, I'm a critter. So, I loved that moment. But I'm definitely going to majestic Vecna stronger than the stat block in the game. I might not mention to my players that he has arch lich stats instead of god stats. I mean, they're level 20!!
That is a long explanation, but basically, Grog pierces his body with giant spikes infused with devine energy, and Keylith performs a powerful ritual that banished him beyond the barrier that separates the gods from the prime material
Cool ideas! Thanks!
You're welcome!
I've been running a converted version of the AD&D N1 module and further, and Vecna has wound up as an antagonist but not the main villain. In my campaign, Vecna has many splinter cell cults that perform acts of evil that are completely unrelated to each other. Take over a small town, have a vizier get a baron to turn cruel, kidnap some merchants from the roadside, set some ghouls loose on a monastery, suggesting to a high priest that there may be a relic somewhere to be found; things that urge people to action. The party defeats the module villain multiple times, earns renown and knighthood in the capitol, and is called to investigate a cult hideout on the word of some escaped prisoners barely saved by a knight from an allied holy order. Upon investigating, following the last cultist madly declaring that they've all been led to this point by their deity, they clear a tunnel and find a buried city that's defended by intelligent and, strangely, amicable undead creatures that swear fealty to an empire long since collapsed.
You might see where I'm going with this. Vecna orchestrated the characters' backstories, manipulated the desires of various factions, played the very plot-threads of the campaign, to bring an adventuring party to one place with a singular goal: infiltrate an ancient king's vault of secrets to learn the location of a holy chalice. By the time the party learns that the city of an ancient kingdom they've been exploring belonged to Vecna, they're frightened and confused. Everything there is terrifying: a vampire with an army of spawn holding the living citizens as barely more than cattle, a mad skull lord with an army of skeletons, a mummy lord with a pack of stone golems at his disposal, a death tyrant spewing forth aberrations, an undead druid with a legion of fungal servants, all so close to civilization. Yet at the same time... it's all too easy. They earn the trust of the druid and vampire for providing food to the people and enter into a contract to continue to do so, are allowed into the castle, the floors above are fraught with illusions but otherwise mostly uninhabited with their defenders sealed away as mere traps. The Hand and The Eye from the Vecna Lives module stand aside and congratulate the party on behalf of their lord for making it this far. They enter the vault, learn the location of the chalice is in the Nine Hells, and the mission is a success.
The party wants nothing to do with the city now. The seed of doubt has been planted in their minds that what they're doing to help their allied churches, their country, the innocent people they've saved, will somehow backfire, that it's somehow exactly what Vecna wants, but they're too Good to do otherwise. The king above gods, master of death, has accounted for both their obedience and their insubordination; their free will is a tool to benefit Vecna. The party or their allies will find the chalice, disrupt the balance between the Oeridian gods of War in the favor of the Good god Heironeous, and they'll spend the rest of their lives in a Good age where unjust wars are quashed by the righteous. Yet Vecna will use that as an opportunity to subsume power from the Evil god Hextor, with a heretical cult already established to teach that the evil god is but an aspect of himself. More power, hand-delivered to him by mortals and heroes, and he doesn't even have to roll for initiative.
If you want to do Vecna as a hyper-intelligent mastermind that the party has to catch up to, that's how you do it. The party isn't even aware of his existence until it's too late, and should they march along with their lives they'll never even need/get to fight him. The campaign is the completion of his plan, his victory is inevitable. The only weakness is if the party learns of the end goal (which in a chance encounter with Mordenkainen I have seeded with a scolding: if the balance of Evil and Good is disrupted, the side overpowered or destroyed will just return stronger to restore balance) AND can think of a way to somehow empower the forces of Good without hampering the forces of Evil. Even if they do, it just stops the one plan in one region of one continent on one plane; Vecna's still out there scheming. If they really wanted to go extra they _could_ *track down and destroy a minor god of secrets* to try to prevent future machinations, but by that point Vecna will have long since known to arrange defenses, and any assault may just be the catalyst to resolve some other scheme of his.
I’m going to make my Vecna more like strahd and in that sense, he will show up to the players and periodically just to mess with them since he knows he can obliterate them at any moment.
i also thought to make him show up in like fractions that every time they pick up a part of obelisk/rod part that he showcases one terrifying ability, and the next time another one gets added, so he gets completed in some sense as they approach him. I always saw that my players were more terrified and also had fun thinking about stuff on how to counter specific abilities. I also thought on how to make him different from strahd but why invent all new when there is a lot of great stuff and it worked.
Another insane way to make Vecna terrifying to fight? Not only give him back his hand and eye...but also have him use the Book of Vile Darkness and do so all in his lair (since the Don't Say Vecna one-shot gave him Lair actions). Telling you now, that would put him square into CR 30 territory and ripe for being a Mythic encounter. But...good luck coming up with a cool Mythic trait that won't make him impossible to beat.
I haven't finished reading the module yet, but just to add to one of your ideas. Some of Vecna's minions could be friendly npcs that the party has trusted or relied on, but Vecna has found out some dark secret of their past and is essentially blackmailing them to fight for him or have their dark secret revealed.
Instead of making an instant success for the chime, you could always just lower the DC which gives him more of a chance to fight back
True, maybe even make it where he can use legendary resistance to stop it, thereby earning him at least one more round each time.
This is what happens when mediocre writers try to write a genius level villain. Vecna would have plans within plans and contingencies and tricks up his sleeve. He is a demigod. Create the environment where he is fought to his advantage. He knows that the players are coming. He will stack the odds in his favour. He is undead, he doesn't need to breath. Make the room be filled with toxic clouds. He can communicate with telepathy. Make it dark, make it loud so that players can't communicate with each other until they destroy a device that causes that sound. Give them important targets to hit that are not vecna. let him have clones of himself. The players should be unable to figure out his patterns and you should never run out of tricks to use.
I lover you take on this. Well done.
Thank you!
Vecna should be backed by undead minions and a ton of contingencies. Also nigh unbeatable. Best case scenario the players foil Vecna plans but never defeat Vecna
I appreciate your advice, I agree with you!
just make a skill challenge out of the boss fight with multiple stages. Make it more cinematic so that it doesnt feel like just another encounter. Did that with another lich bad guy in a fewshot and my players still talk about how cool this fight was 2 years later.
Neat idea!
My campaigns are always on Oerth. We are at the date of 6024 CY and Vecna has been established as a god already. I will have to make things a lot different from the published adventure. The hand of Vecna has already been found by one of my past campaign players as he worshipped The Whispered One. So, I will have to do a lot of custom tailoring. I agree whole heartedly with you, make Vecna awesome and the battle memorable.
Truly sadistic, I love it!
For me, Vecna is one of the best evil NPCs DnD ever had with a great background story and incredibld potential. However, all modules they ever written about him were messed up and boring.
Yeah, this one is pretty good, but the Vecna part is pretty lame
I really think a bard countering a demigod's spell was dumb.
I also don't like that Eve of Ruin has Vecna as a lich and not God level powered.
Confession, I'm a critter. So, I loved that moment. But I'm definitely going to majestic Vecna stronger than the stat block in the game. I might not mention to my players that he has arch lich stats instead of god stats. I mean, they're level 20!!
How did they get rid of him in Critical Roll?
That is a long explanation, but basically, Grog pierces his body with giant spikes infused with devine energy, and Keylith performs a powerful ritual that banished him beyond the barrier that separates the gods from the prime material
greyhawk deities are all weak and overrated anyway, especially vecna.
Lol, Gary Gygax definitely had a certain style when it came to power