Though Experiment: Evil Caster that is emminently nice and helpful

[GrayDeath]

A friend and myself got talking this evening aftrer our Game ended, about what Evil Guys and Girls we remembered most vividly from our games.

Aside from being nice (and with beers each, relaxing) we also came across a great big hole shaped like the "Nice old Grandma/Grandpa" Type of Evil Guy or something similar.

Now my question would be: How would you Build/Play a character that has to fulfill the following 3 limitations:

1.: Must be Evil (and stay Evil for the foreseeable Future).

2.: Must be seen doing mostly Nice and helpful stuff (exclusively if possible by the aprty)

and

3.: Must be a caster that has more spells helping him doing "regular" helpful Stuff than Evil things while still being at least vaguely powered by an Evil Source.


Maybe hes an oracle, or a very weird Favoured SOul, or whatever?


I am looking forward to your versions (and if you have experience with such characters, even more so your stories!^^).

[Buufreak]

Alignment isn't prescriptive, it is descriptive. It doesn't determine your actions, it doesn't control your person/character. I maintain that I myself am evil, but I tend to be a very kind and helpful person (right until ignorance and stupidity shows up, then I tend to be a ruddy ****.)

[RatElemental]

Easy. Wizard who personally likes the party or has a stake in whatever their goals are. Has lots of spells he can cast for whatever the party needs done. Also has a hobby that just so happens to be torturing the sentient lifeforms in his basement that he magically created for the sole purpose of having something he could torture consequence free.

[Bohandas]

Look into the character Hank Scorpio from The Simpsons. He's a supervillain who's super generous and friendly to the employees at the facility where he's building his death laser. The episode he's in ends with a parody of the Goldfinger theme that's all about how good the employee benefits are at his organization.

Also check out the Head Head-Vampire from the Billy and Mandy episode Billy and Mandy Save Christmas. "You will always have a special place in my heart. And in the new world order."

[King of Nowhere]

I can't think of a pc concept right now, but i had several npcs who fit the description in my campaign.
Simply put, each one had a long-term nefarious plan that required him to have good public relations. It's much easier to carry on your evil plan with good PR. Less chances of adventurers interfering.
They were also great bosses to their employers, because they were all familiar with the overlord list, and they'd rather have loial minions

[GrayDeath]

I know ALignments arent Prescriptive, and really dont need advice on "dont let one thing define a character (^^), I am simply looking for stories about when you usesd such, and/or Inspirational concepts.
To shamelessly copy them. :D

Sp please keep them coming!

[Particle_Man]

I had a Baron that invited a PC squire of a PC knight for tea and sounded like the biggest fanboy ever, wanting to know all about the adventures of the PC party. Useful way to gather intel, after all.

[redking]

This sounds like the affably evil trope.

[Wizibirb]

I had a nWoD Mage that was probably the second worst villain in the game. She abhorred death, and was a Life, Spirit, and Mind mage. So instead of killing people, she'd just change them into something useful. When she got blinded by backlash from a stupid spell, she turned werewolves that were trying to kill her allies into her seeing eye dogs.

Alternatively, and for d&d specifically, I have an evil noble that just has little to no inhibitions on what kind of actions are a-okay, but is otherwise a nice and charming woman. She enjoys your company, and will help you if she can, because she believes in making the world better, because that circles around to making where she lives better. However, again, she's an enchanter and is totally cool with all sorts of creepy mindbending.

[rel]

Lawful Evil necromancer wizard.

Laid back, nice and easy going. Always has a good buff or utility spell ready to help the party in whatever plan they have going on. Likes the party and absolutely has their back. Is loyal towards friends and ruthless towards enemies.

Doesn't see himself as evil and generally considers alignment to be gods and god botherers forcing their backward views upon the world.

Fights for the intelligent use of undead for the betterment of society, the decriminalisation of necromancy and the reform of laws governing magic to better achieve the above.
Puts resources towards public works and political backing to achieve these ends.

Sources bodies ethically, takes pains to ensure the undead creations do not cause trouble, run amok or even inconvenience people.

Would be neutral or maybe even good if not for the regular use of [evil] spells like raise dead, close association with a horde of undead servitors and the occasional killing of a do-gooder in self defence.

[RatElemental]

Sources bodies ethically, takes pains to ensure the undead creations do not cause trouble, run amok or even inconvenience people.

The easiest way to do this is to make sculptures (or commission some) then cast stone to flesh on them. They turn into corpses that were never alive in the first place.

[Bohandas]

How about a character who abhors violence, so instead they seal people up in tiny rooms like in The Cask Of Amontillado

[Endarire]

Smart evil knows who to treat civilly or kindly for maximum personal benefit, short- and long-term. Palpatine from the Star Wars prequels came to mind immediately.

[sleepyphoenixx]

The easiest way to do this is to make sculptures (or commission some) then cast stone to flesh on them. They turn into corpses that were never alive in the first place.

The easiest way is to kill whatever people want killed anyway.
In a standard D&D setting there's an endless supply of things for adventurers to kill. What's wrong with using their remains?
Sure, people don't want to see their family members bodies used to work the mines, that's understandable.

But who cares about a bunch of orcs or bandits or whatever other low level acceptable target the locals wanted dead anyway?
The only objection people have to that is the general bias against necromancy.

Smart evil knows who to treat civilly or kindly for maximum personal benefit, short- and long-term. Palpatine from the Star Wars prequels came to mind immediately.

The question is if the OP wants a villain who just pretends to be nice to further his goals (like Palpatine) or one who's a genuinely pleasant guy that just happens to also be evil (like the mayor from BtVS for example).

[Malphegor]

1.: Must be Evil (and stay Evil for the foreseeable Future).

2.: Must be seen doing mostly Nice and helpful stuff (exclusively if possible by the aprty)

and

3.: Must be a caster that has more spells helping him doing "regular" helpful Stuff than Evil things while still being at least vaguely powered by an Evil Source.

Oh hey you've basically described my next character, a obi-wan type who's tapping into taint's power to help their heroic proteges.

So, here was my plan:

Gorthaur, the Necropolitan Tainted Scholar.

Because

name: why not steal from Sauron's extensive names? :p

Necropolitan: Immunity to the negative aspects of Taint via being undead, plus you get a bit of a leg up on your starting corruption score. Bare bones basic undeath. heh, bones.

Classes:

Wizard 5: No way out of this. Maybe look at Domain Wizard (Enchantment) from UA to get Charm Person for free I guess.

Mindbender 1: 100ft telepathy, plop on Mindsight feat and now you've got the ability to telepathically see in a radius around you and let you know their intelligence in that radius, allowing you to better control all in your range.

Tainted Scholar: Now we're cooking. So, now your taint score is your caster level, and you can get this infinitely high. Taint largely is meant to corrupt you, but as an undead you're immune to its main negative effects, though I believe you still might get the odd mental quirk. That's fine, we're a wizard, eccentricity is our game (note I REALLY need to study the Heroes of Horror book. Taint is a weird system that has 3 different versions I think- Oriental Adventures version, the srd version which might be the OA one, and the Heroes of Horror one. and I haven't fully got my head around any of these. As far as I can see you could now squat in an evil place for a few years and keep getting regular improvements to your caster level. DM-dependant of course, but getting into the habit of checking with the DM if there's any sign of Taint in truly evil places is always handy.)

Now mainly pick spells that help your party. Your save DCs for a lot of spells will quickly get arbitarily high so now you're in a weird situation where a lot of spells that normally aren't viable at high level due to increasing saves are probably not too bad for keeping. Enchantment and illusion especially, with necromancy on the curses side.

That's it so far. Tainted scholar doesn't necessarily require you to be evil, but you're drawing power from evil sources and taking on that corruption, so you're going to dip your toes in evil a little. Pick spells as normal.

[Bohandas]

I think taint level may be fixed for undead, depending on how you read the rules

[Telonius]

Good and Evil aren't the same thing as Nice and Mean, respectively. As long as the party is not the target of the Evilness, an Evil character can be compatible in a group. My go-to shorthand for alignment is this: Most characters tend to Neutral. They'll do Good, Evil, Lawful, or Chaotic things in a reasonably equivalent mix, depending on how easy it is. They won't go out of their way to respect or disrespect laws, rights of sentient beings, or whatever other components of the alignments you can think of. A character with a non-Neutral alignment will go out of their way to act in ways compatible with that alignment; making the Lawful, Good, Chaotic or Evil decision even when it's hard, inconvenient, or dangerous. (Banal, "habitual" aligned decisions are possible too, but they're more obvious and not really as interesting).

So for an Evil caster, they're doing Evil things even when it's risky or inconvenient. This is a character who goes out of their way to hurt others. At the same time, it has to exist in a group without alienating everybody in the group, or going Stupid Evil. Totally possible; hurting others doesn't have to mean "hurting all others," just some others. Maybe they've got something against Orcs, or Goblins, or some other creature type, so they're totally fine working with the party. Any kind of overkill spells, or spells that induce suffering on that group could work. Or maybe it's someone who gets off on controlling other people with no regard to their thoughts on the matter. Wizards, Sorcerers, or Beguilers can go overboard on the Charm and Compulsion spells to get to that idea.

Maybe the easiest "works well with others" Evil character would be a Cleric. Maybe an Evil Cleric of a Neutral deity, or just an Evil Cleric of an Evil deity. Focus on buffing and protecting your party for your spell selection, then use your out-of-combat time to dispense punishment to the unbelievers.