Making a New Martial Villain - The Mind's Eye View
Working on a new campaign villain and revisiting how to make a good martial BBEG.
Do I need to check you for a blowout?
-Michael Out-Of-Context, June 28th 2025
I have a number of 5e campaigns active and actively brewing, so that's where my head has been at lately. Which also means so has my music choices. So grooving to my "I Am A Villain" play and coming up with interesting concepts something indeed interesting came to mind. Why are so many villain abilities in 5e save or suck? Realistically I know that isn't true but so many times creatures with Legendary Actions are underwhelming when they take them. Moving, summoning, or making an attack or the main choices for them and it just feels so bland.
Maybe it's because combat is my least favorite part of 5e, or that I've been playing over a decade so I've seen a little bit of everything. Still it leaves me wanting to up my game. In particular I've been mentally theory crafting the "Martial Villain." The BBEG that has little in the way of magic or goons and is able to body the PCs with just prowess alone (Video for Reference)
I've run several iterations of this kind of villain with varying degrees of success but they normally boil down to being too beefy or tanky. Yes they are SUPPOSE to feel like that but balancing it so it doesn't feel like a slog is tricky. Especially because if you don't make them tough enough your party will slaughter them.
So I've rambled enough, let's get to the idea. I think the answer to the sweet spot a little large when making martial villains is to beef up Legendary Actions with some "always works" effects. Like an attack that will knock you away on a failed save OR give you Disadvantage on your next attack if you succeed the save. Sort of like a heavy blow that unsteadies you if you tank it. Or maybe a blinding attack that if you dodge it then you have a -2 to your AC for the villain's next attack on you. Small things that creates brief interesting interruptions to the flow of normal combat and give the players something to strategize around. Or maybe just having a Legendary Action that recharges your Reaction and have a bunch of those queued up. Reactions are, I think, the perfect example on what I'm trying to get at. They almost always will have some small affect.
This is an early idea but its something I'm going to work on and see how it works. I'll probably make a follow-up article for the site once I've finished poking with the idea.