对手 Rivals

（没人翻译，等待热心人士补全翻译）

Rivals are NPCs who oppose the characters and make their presence felt whenever the characters are engaging in downtime. A rival might be a villain you have featured in past adventures or plan to use in the future. Rivals can also include good or neutral folk who are at odds with the characters, whether because they have opposing goals or they simply dislike one another. The cultist of Orcus whose plans the characters have foiled, the ambitious merchant prince who wants to rule the city with an iron fist, and the nosy high priest of Helm who is convinced the characters are up to no good are all examples of rivals.

A rival's agenda changes over time. Though the characters engage in downtime only between adventures, their rivals rarely rest, continuing to spin plots and work against the characters even when the characters are off doing something else.

创建一个对手 Creating a Rival
In essence, a rival is a somewhat specialized NPC. You can use chapter 4 of the Dungeon Master's Guide to build a new NPC for this purpose, or pick one from your current cast of supporting characters and embellish that NPC as described below.

It's possible for the characters to have two or three rivals at a time, each with a separate agenda. At least one should be a villain, but the others might be neutral or good; conflicts with those rivals might be social or political, rather than manifesting as direct attacks.

The best rivals have a connection with their adversaries on a personal level. Find links in the characters' backstories or the events of recent adventures that explain what sparked the rival's actions. The best trouble to put the characters in is trouble they created for themselves.

对手Rival
d20 对手
1 Tax collector who is convinced the characters are dodging fees
2 Politician who is concerned that the characters are causing more trouble than they solve
3 High priest who worries the characters are diminishing the temple's prestige
4 Wizard who blames the characters for some recent troubles
5 Rival adventuring party
6 Bard who loves a scandal enough to spark one
7 Childhood rival or member of a rival clan
8 Scorned sibling or parent
9 Merchant who blames the characters for any business woes
10 Newcomer out to make a mark on the world
11 Sibling or ally of defeated enemy
12 Official seeking to restore a tarnished reputation
13 Deadly foe disguised as a social rival
14 Fiend seeking to tempt the characters to evil
15 Spurned romantic interest
16 Political opportunist seeking a scapegoat
17 Traitorous noble looking to foment a revolution
18 Would-be tyrant who brooks no opposition
19 Exiled noble looking for revenge
20 Corrupt official worried that recent misdeeds will be revealed
To add the right amount of detail to a rival you want to create, give some thought to what that NPC is trying to accomplish and what resources and methods the rival can bring to bear against the characters.

Goals. An effective rival has a clear reason for interfering with the characters' lives. Think about what the rival wants, how and why the characters stand in the way, and how the conflict could be resolved. Ideally, a rival's goal directly involves the characters or something they care about.

Assets. Think about the resources the rival can marshal. Does the character have enough money to pay bribes or to hire a small gang of mercenaries? Does the rival hold sway over any guilds, temples, or other groups? Make a list of the rival's assets, and consider how they can be used.

Plans. The foundation of a rival's presence in the campaign is the actions the rival takes or the events that occur as a result of that character's goals. Each time you resolve one or more workweeks of downtime, pick one of the ways a rival's plans might be advanced and introduce it into play.
Think about how a rival might operate in order to bring specific plans to fruition, and jot down three or four kinds of actions the rival might undertake. Some of these might be versions of the downtime activities described later in this section, but these are more often efforts that are specific to the rival.

A rival's action might be a direct attack, such as an assassination attempt, that you play out during a session. Or it might be a background activity that you describe as altering the campaign in some way. For example, a rival who wants to increase the prestige of the temple of a war god might hold a festival with drink, food, and gladiatorial games. Even if the characters aren't directly involved, the event becomes the talk of the town.

Some elements of a rival's plans might involve events in the world that aren't under the rival's control. Whether such an event can be easily anticipated or not, the rival's plans might include contingencies for taking advantage of such happenings.