Tiers of Evil

Having well-built characters is good, but its a waste if they aren't involved in a well-built adventure. To help my DM readers, I'm going to start talking about how to build a strong campaign. I'm going to start with one of the most prominent obstacles in any party's travels: the villains. A memorable villain will give the party a reason to keep fighting. One villain won't be enough, however. As the campaign progresses, defeated foes reveal allegiances to still greater enemies. In the end, the party must go against the true villain- the man behind the curtain.

Tier Five: Faceless Legions
At the bottom of the food chain is the legions of faceless warriors who support the entire villainous empire. The party will be fighting these most of the time and they will never expect more than a couple lines of description before they lay into them. The Faceless Legions may not be exciting, but they are vital. Without a steady supply of mooks and lackeys, every fight would have to be against a memorable arch-villain.

Putting Them to Work: More than most of your encounters will feature the Faceless Legions. There isn't very much you need to consider when deploying them apart from basic strategy and stats. Make sure every encounter with hordes of nameless foes isn't the same, however. Even the most generic of lackeys has their own ideas on tactics. Overwhelmed foes might break rank and flee while especially cocky ones might attempt to take the defender one-on-one.

Tier Four: Elite Soldiers
Often, a villain will call in a more specialized warrior to slow down a group of heroes. These elites are tougher than their disposable counterparts, but they still won't last more than a single encounter. They may be a leader of their generic, faceless counterparts or they may prefer to work alone or in their own special group. No matter how they strike, they are noticeably different from other foes without adding significant story building to the fight.

Putting Them to Work: The most common use for Elite Soldiers is to spice up a battle with the Faceless Legions. Throwing in an enemy with distinctive armor or tactics can force your party to abandon their tried-and-true tactics. Just be careful how distinctive your elites are. A party doesn't have to be full of pros to figure out that the foe with the most description is the one they need to take out first.

Tier Three: Ringleaders
At this tier we begin to see enemies which the party will have some knowledge of before a battle. They may be the head of a notorious thieves' guild or the chief of a rampaging barbarian tribe, but all Ringleaders are infamous enough that the players will hear their name before running into them. Ringleaders may even be working for villains further up the chain. Numerous criminal organizations could be funding a single tier two evil without even knowing it.

Putting Them to Use: Ringleaders can be little "mini-bosses" at the end of a series of encounters. Their lackeys might give the adventurers grief over a series of quests, but the Ringleader isn't going to be able to avoid justice for long. Putting a Ringleader down is a minor reward for the players, a chance to make life marginally better for the people under their sway. It's also a great way to point their ire higher up the chain.

Tier Two: Faces of Evil
Tier two villains are the major evils of the campaign. They are likely to be people that the characters have been seeing or hearing about for the majority of the adventure. For a while, the party may have believed these baddies were the highest rung of the evil plaguing their land. These villains have connections everywhere and a ton of influence. Going up against them will test the adventurers to their limits.

Putting Them to Work: The Faces of Evil should be major foes in your campaign. They are likely to be in positions of power and getting to them will require numerous quest's worth of favors and equipment. When the party does manage to corner a Face of Evil, it should be a very difficult fight. These villains didn't get where they are by being pushovers. With them gone, the world may become a little lighter or maybe the world is put into greater danger from the evil on the next tier.

Tier One: World Eater
When the Face(s) of Evil have been defeated, the party learns of a far more terrible threat to the world. The World Eater is the top of the evil food chain; the end all and be all of the villain word. It could be a dark God or an elemental monster or even a super-powered wizard. No matter what form it takes, the threat remains the same. If the World Eater gets their way, the world as the adventurers know it will be gone forever.

Putting Them to Work: The World Eater represents the ultimate ambition of the villains of your campaign. It may be ageless and putting it's malicious intelligence towards enslaving the planet. It could just be a mindless force of destruction that the forces of evil were planning to use on their enemies. Either way, its bigger and badder than anything the party has fought thus far and it should be the epic concluding battle to your campaign.