Crystalgate
Member
First let me say that your idea is wonderful in that it has a great potential for both character development and characterization. If you can do both well, you have something that will be really memorable.
Anyway, I think one requirement for this to work is that the cliché do-gooders (hereby referred to as CDG) keeps seeing more crime that they believe the heroes committed. That will reinforce the idea that they have to stop the heroes. Now, you wrote that they keep showing up in a bad situation, but unless there's a logical reason for them to do so, it's quickly becomes unbelievable that they just happens to show up in the worst time.
However, the CDG doesn't necessarily have to actually continuously see the heroes during inconvenient moments, it can be enough that they do so once to assume further crimes are committed by the heroes. Let's say that the heroes are chasing a bad guy that for some reason murders people. While the heroes are investigating a murder, the CDG shows up and the circumstances are such that it looks like the heroes committed the murder. After defeating the CDG, the heroes keep chasing the bad guy. The bad guy keeps killing people while the heroes chases him. Since the heroes are trailing the bad guy, they will naturally arrive at the murder scenes. The CDG see that the heroes are always there when people are murdered and will assume the heroes are responsible for those murders as well.
This specific example may not work with your game (especially not if you don't have a bad guy going around murdering people), but it should be possible to make the heroes look guilty for the CDG without utilizing way to many coincidences.
As for the encounters, they may look something like this:
First the CDG just happens to run into the heroes and a fight ensues, they lose and retreats. Alternatively the thief uses a bomb to collapse something so that the parties are separated by a barrier. This way the paladin doesn't yet have to compromise the stereotypical paladin ideal of not retreating.
The CDG prepares for a second battle and this time make up tactics and are equipped specifically to take down the heroes. They lose and retreat (the paladin now has to compromise at least one of his ideals) knowing that they simple are inferior in straight combat.
The third encounter consist of them ambushing the heroes. Since they can't win in a straight combat, they have to stack the deck in their favor. This would require the paladin to further compromise his ideal and fighting dirty may not suit well for some other CDGers as well. A big advantage with the CDG ambushing the heroes is that you have a perfectly good reason as to why the heroes never gets a chance to explain themselves. Anyway, the CDG still loses and retreats.
This can now be followed by the CDG further stacking the deck in their favor to overcome the superior combat prowess of the heroes. This can drive them towards trying methods they wouldn't have used otherwise since the heroes are now cautious and the CDG has to do something unexpected. One thing they may try is to poison the heroes and a lot of other people using a slow working poison. Their plan would be to defeat the heroes in their weakened state and then give all innocent people an antidote (actually sacrificing the lives a lot of innocent people seem a bit to extreme IMO).
The paladin is probably the most uncompromising member of the CDG. If you can make his development believable, the rest should be much easier. A good first compromise of his ideals may be something most people would consider a bad idea, such as never retreating no matter what. The paladin may object to the idea of retreating, but the cleric could point out the if he dies here, he will never be able to stop the heroes.
Another method you can use is to let the thief perform the "means" and then lying to the paladin about it. The paladin knows deep inside that it was the thief who did it, but choose to believe him out of wishful thinking.
That's the few idea I can think of. Whether you like them or not, I do believe you need a combination of the CDG feeling an utmost necessity to defeat the heroes combined with the inability to do so without using questionable means. As for how you want the final encounter to look like and what would be a good outcome, I think you have to decide that. However, I suggest against having them redeemed via a fast and easy mean. Just having the bad guys reveal that they did whatever the CDG thought the heroes did and that way instantly redeeming the CDG will come of as very flat after all that development you did before. They have sunk rather deep and there will be a price to pay.
Anyway, I think one requirement for this to work is that the cliché do-gooders (hereby referred to as CDG) keeps seeing more crime that they believe the heroes committed. That will reinforce the idea that they have to stop the heroes. Now, you wrote that they keep showing up in a bad situation, but unless there's a logical reason for them to do so, it's quickly becomes unbelievable that they just happens to show up in the worst time.
However, the CDG doesn't necessarily have to actually continuously see the heroes during inconvenient moments, it can be enough that they do so once to assume further crimes are committed by the heroes. Let's say that the heroes are chasing a bad guy that for some reason murders people. While the heroes are investigating a murder, the CDG shows up and the circumstances are such that it looks like the heroes committed the murder. After defeating the CDG, the heroes keep chasing the bad guy. The bad guy keeps killing people while the heroes chases him. Since the heroes are trailing the bad guy, they will naturally arrive at the murder scenes. The CDG see that the heroes are always there when people are murdered and will assume the heroes are responsible for those murders as well.
This specific example may not work with your game (especially not if you don't have a bad guy going around murdering people), but it should be possible to make the heroes look guilty for the CDG without utilizing way to many coincidences.
As for the encounters, they may look something like this:
First the CDG just happens to run into the heroes and a fight ensues, they lose and retreats. Alternatively the thief uses a bomb to collapse something so that the parties are separated by a barrier. This way the paladin doesn't yet have to compromise the stereotypical paladin ideal of not retreating.
The CDG prepares for a second battle and this time make up tactics and are equipped specifically to take down the heroes. They lose and retreat (the paladin now has to compromise at least one of his ideals) knowing that they simple are inferior in straight combat.
The third encounter consist of them ambushing the heroes. Since they can't win in a straight combat, they have to stack the deck in their favor. This would require the paladin to further compromise his ideal and fighting dirty may not suit well for some other CDGers as well. A big advantage with the CDG ambushing the heroes is that you have a perfectly good reason as to why the heroes never gets a chance to explain themselves. Anyway, the CDG still loses and retreats.
This can now be followed by the CDG further stacking the deck in their favor to overcome the superior combat prowess of the heroes. This can drive them towards trying methods they wouldn't have used otherwise since the heroes are now cautious and the CDG has to do something unexpected. One thing they may try is to poison the heroes and a lot of other people using a slow working poison. Their plan would be to defeat the heroes in their weakened state and then give all innocent people an antidote (actually sacrificing the lives a lot of innocent people seem a bit to extreme IMO).
The paladin is probably the most uncompromising member of the CDG. If you can make his development believable, the rest should be much easier. A good first compromise of his ideals may be something most people would consider a bad idea, such as never retreating no matter what. The paladin may object to the idea of retreating, but the cleric could point out the if he dies here, he will never be able to stop the heroes.
Another method you can use is to let the thief perform the "means" and then lying to the paladin about it. The paladin knows deep inside that it was the thief who did it, but choose to believe him out of wishful thinking.
That's the few idea I can think of. Whether you like them or not, I do believe you need a combination of the CDG feeling an utmost necessity to defeat the heroes combined with the inability to do so without using questionable means. As for how you want the final encounter to look like and what would be a good outcome, I think you have to decide that. However, I suggest against having them redeemed via a fast and easy mean. Just having the bad guys reveal that they did whatever the CDG thought the heroes did and that way instantly redeeming the CDG will come of as very flat after all that development you did before. They have sunk rather deep and there will be a price to pay.
