Finally cornered the main villain

Because as we know, there have never been any good stories where the bad guy survives the first combat encounter with the heroes :^)

When I run games most villains consider their plans to have gone tits-up the second the heroes show up at their doom fortress. Sorry, but I run villains who aren't suicidal.

>>he teleported away
How original.

Did you do anything that should've kept him from teleporting?

>He has no honor. He doesn't want to face us in combat.
Said a person who goes 4 against 1

Make a villain who can fight 1 against 4 so players have a duel with him
He is cheating, broken game mechanics, overpowered etc. etc

You can't never win with these kind of players

>implying people who whines on Veeky Forums would ever GM a game of anything for anyone.
lmao

user, consider yourself lucky. The bad guy might have teleported behind you instead, katana already unsheathed...

It's nothin' personnel

kid

Invisibility and illusions, retreating behind a locked door while guards hold off the party, using body doubles, making killing the villain a strategically or diplomatically bad idea, flying away, giving the party bigger things to worry about and feigning death long enough for them to be distracted, etc.

There's a bunch of varying degrees of better ways to have a villain escape. Teleporting is perhaps the cheapest and most transparent one unless you justify it and set it up first, say by having the villain leave through a magical gate that takes some time to recharge between uses (so if the party follows, they have to go through one at a time while the villain has had time to prepare for them)

I agree that it's disappointing but good on you for not being autistic about it. Mention it to the GM and point out that it's a pretty cheap way to rescue a wounded villain and suggest some alternatives to use in the future

If by runner you mean the horse, consider that he's got poor perception. It looks like that other horse is hogging something good, so he reaches over to get in on that, only to be really disappointed.
As a guy who's been fooled by a good Trompe L'œil before I can relate.

>poor depth perception.

Fuck it I'm going to bed.

I was in a game where the badly wounded and unconscious main villain teleported away just before we could kill him.

That's when we suddenly realized that the NPC we thought was the main villain wasn't really the main villain.

That is text-book railroading, no other name for it.

I just want people to stop trying to force their games into following a structured narrative.

I get it, you're influenced by a myriad of narrative mediums; you've seen films and read comics to get pumped for the big game. But tabletop roleplaying doesn't work like that. You're not "building a story" with your friends, you're playing a game. You're interacting with a collectively-generated imaginary world. You will have a story by the end of it, of course, but you shouldn't be actively trying to set one up. Just imagine hosting a party, and then planning out how you expect everyone to behave and events to take place during the evening; it's just not going to work.

When planning for an RPG, especially D&D, you should give the players situations, and let those situations play out in a natural way according to the player's decisions. Your storytelling abilities are nothing here; your skills to think on the fly and give the players what they want without compromising suspension of disbelief is what makes you a good DM.

No plotline is more important than fun.

Oh, have I got a story for you guys...

>That is text-book railroading

I'm firmly anti-railroading, but this is not that. The bad guy having an escape plan in case things go pear-shaped does not invalidate player agency. Not getting what you want isn't the same as having your choices be invalidated.
Sure it can be frustrating, and it may even be a dick move on the DM's part, but railroading is more than that.

The bad guy having an escape plan? Sure, that's not railroading.

But the bad guy just straight up teleporting out of a corner? Come on, man.

Yeah, next you'll tell me that people can throw fireballs or fly or summon demons or something, huh?
Oh wait, teleport spells are a legit thing in most fantasy universes, and teleport devices are often seen in sci-fi universes as well.

There are ways to prevent teleportation, and in any case if the guy is still able to cast you haven't actually beaten him. Teleport is a valid escape plan that's easily available to both sides; it's retarded to not expect a spellcaster to have an escape spell, and after a certain level it's always going to be a teleport.

I'd only consider it to be railroading if he had a bullshit countermeasure to your countermeasure, or if he wasn't a spellcaster and did not previously display the ability.

guys, read

Well, sure, if he was a spellcaster with an unused high-level spell slot, I'll agree with you. But OP did say he was on the "verge of death", which implies a big climatic showdown.

Making the villain save up a high level spell slot during an awesome setpiece encounter is, even if logical, a meta reasoning for saving up this one NPC and having things play out the way you want to. You've already decided they're not going to kill him no matter what.

If the villain turns out to be weaker than you expected and the PCs beat the shit out of him during what was supposed to be a showcase of EVIL wizardry, then you done fucked up on your GM prep, but you can still make it fun by having the PCs beat the guy, and then find out later he was merely a pawn of a much bigger villain, or even ending the story in victory for the party; there's nothing wrong with early victories. Having the villain suddenly just vanish makes the players feel powerless before your DM fiat shenanigans, and demotivates them from takin a proactive role in the game's pacing.

I am forever DM, I know it's tough to DM but I don't hold back on criticism, and I'd prefer my players didn't hold back on me either.

Having a deus ex machina save your villain from a fight they lost fair and square isn't very smart. They've lost, the party won't be afraid of them anymore. Alternatively, if their combat power wasn't their strength, then getting into a position where the party face them in combat means they've fucked that up too.

If they absolutely must escape, have it make sense, don't just have them use their sudden plot magic to disappear without given the players a chance to act, they'll feel cheated, like facing the villain didn't really mean anything. Depending on the setting, ressurection may be a better alternative to sudden teleportation, because at least the party can price themselves on having killed him

>a meta reasoning

How about "I don't want to die if this goes south?" That's not meta at all.
If I'm a dude trying to take over the world or whatever and I have 11 spell slots and a bunch of powerful adventurers hot on my heels, I'm putting teleport in 1 of them.
Hell plenty of my players have done the same, because it's not "meta reasoning" it's plain old covering your ass logic.

I had this happen in a video game actually, Star Wars KoToR (it counts because it uses the DnD combat system more or less). First time you fight the big bad, I actually beat him into the fucking ground because I optimised my character really well (tons of combat implants, very defensive stance but very precise attacks so even though my damage was low I could consistently hit and avoid being hit) but the game still acted as if you were barely holding on to your last strains of life. In ,y opinion, any game, TTRPG included, should account for the possibility that you are just that good.

>Star Wars KoToR
It's KotOR. "of" and "the" don't get capitalized.

Hey, I remember having the same thing happen to me. I was kitted out as a dual blaster scoundrel->jedi with all the speed and multiple attack things minmaxed so I could hit an enemy like six or eight times per round I think it was. Ludicrous damage from across the map.
Yet it was still all "wow that was so hard you barely did it!"

(Still not as annoying as when I played F.E.A.R., hunting the psychic guy, and in our first encounter I shot him RIGHT IN THE GODDAMN FACE, but the game just ignored that because he was scripted to pop out and hit me with a two-by-four, knocking me out so I could run down more hallways and be ambushed by the same four dudes some more. Oh and more spoopy little girl omg zzzzzzz.
Still peeved at that.

I disagree; saving a teleport in case things go wrong is not meta reasoning and can be prevented with proper countermeasures. I would be livid if our party's mage did not prepare a teleport for in case things go wrong for us during the climactic battle, and I expect similar from villains who are portrayed as not being retarded.

It's all in how you frame the victory, anyway. Let's keep going on the assumption that this was THE battle for the fate of the world. If you've made it that far, you've already gotten past his dark army of darkness and smashed your way through his doom fortress. If he teleports away at the end of the fight, where's he going? The players own his fortress now, and almost all of his resources with it. Sure, the guy survived, but you destroyed his plans and got his stuff. He lost, he knows he lost, and he's on the run. The threat he represented at the height of his power is no more.

You're right in that if the GM decided he survives no matter what it sucks, but that's not always the case. It's ONLY when there was nothing you could do. If you set a teleport trap or dimensional anchor and he got out with bullshit, yes, that's bad. But if you went it in under the assumption he'd fight to the death and didn't try to stop his escape with either of those things? That's on you.

You all suck at this game. Dimensional anchor exists. How the fuck do you even kill demons? Does your DM just ignore the teleport at will spell like ability?!?!?!

It is meta in the sense that you're using "survival instinct" to justify your Deus Ex Machina, and not the other way around.

If villains just opted for the most realistic approach to all situations, you'd be fighting medieval aristocratic bureaucracy instead of mad wizards in monster-filled dungeons.

The point I'm trying to make here is that it's not fun to have the villain vanish like that all the time. When you actually play it right, and the players are left in legit awe to this new villains power, it's great to have him just leave while they're still processing what just happened, curling his evil wizard mustache and laughing maniacally; but when they actual do give him a beating and are obviously powerful enough to just end him right there and then, the villain is ruined as an actual threat to the party: they know they can beat him any time, and only DM fiat can save him now.

If he teleports away, he's not getting stronger than the party because of it. They still KNOW they can beat him, but have been robbed of the opportunity to do so. It's like in video games when you're super fed and grinded out of the ass, and beat a boss extremely quick without losing any health, only to have HIM actually beat you and flee in the cutscene.

It feels like shit.

Just let them kill him at that point, and come up with a different solution for YOUR mistake during the prep for next session. The group should have their fun trampled on so you can play out your storylines the way you want them to.

I meant the group SHOULDN'T have their fun trampled on, obviously.

Am i alone in liking the use of teleporting villains? Especially super intelligent casters who always have a back up plan?

Claiming that someone who's probably a master planner doesn't have an escape plan (even something as cringy as teleport) is silly an dun fun in my opinion.

Good way of surprising the players (without Cheese) comes from Sir Badd, an Eldritch Knight.

He was the villian of one o0f the longest campaigns we ran, pretty much from lvl 1 to 20, we managed to kill him at 20 thanks to a lucky roll.

when we first met him, he was in a party of 4, Himself (we though he was a fighter) a Cleric a Rouge and a Wizard (necromancy). We managed to kill the other three, himself hard to hit and acting 'not bright' (the amount of Aoo's on him... staggering.), but exhausted ourselves down to our last Hp's and spells. He was pretty healthy, probably at half, but he had to deal with four mad as the hatter players. He manged to get us pretty low, droping our fighter into unconscious land.

Thing was, he had use magical device, and when we finally got him down to near death (it probably would have taken a single hit) he just smiled told us we were all going to die soon and that he was just stalling. He then popped his scroll and bailed, leaving us to some guards that showed up.

The next time, similar party (made from the corpses of his fallen comrades), except this time we kept getting hit by hidden spells and other highjjinx. We just though it was the wizard. Finnaly get him cornered and wear and he pulls out a scroll again. Rouge not today'd him and shot the scroll out of his hand (prepared actions are a dick), he then smiled, told us we were all going to die soon and promtly popped teleportation. It was at this point a player claimed cheese and an argument started.

we then learned he was an Eldritch Knight, was high enough to be able to cast teleport, and we all laughed at the dickery.

Continued;

The next time we set up some wards and magic traps so that when he teleported out (we knew it was comming) he'd end up with our mounts. One of which was an angry as fuck Dragon Sheep (i was playing a paladin of Baa-haumut).

It did not end well for Sir Badd. (or as my paladin said it Baaadd).

the point is, if the villan has reason to escape, he should. Just because they are crazy doesn't mean they don't want to live/see their plans through/not have their death as part of the plan. Not every plan needs to be a Thanatos Gambit.

You're still trying to frame it as a Deus ex Machina when it doesn't have to be, and you're arguing that the villain should die because the story says so. Characters using previously established abilities in ways that make sense aren't an asspull in sense of the word, nor is anything saving them. They're using something you know they can do but didn't try to prevent because you think the story should go a certain way. Are you going to be upset that the villain didn't over as soon as you entered the room, even though you didn't bring any weapons? That you should get to kill him no matter what?

You're just assuming that the only reason someone would teleport is because the plot needed them to, and I say that's wrong. Establishing a villain as not wanting to die is basic, and winning because they forgot about their abilities can feel equally hollow. The villain escaped not because the DM needed him to, he escaped because the players didn't prepare enough and fucked up an easy preventative measure. There doesn't need to be a "super special plot" the GM is attached to, it can easily come about because of previously established facts as part of an evolving story. You still get your victory, but now the previous villain is the new guy's bitch.

Failing to take the enemy's powers into account is YOUR mistake, and teleportation is a perfectly valid non-bullshit escape route that is easy to stop.

what kind of worthless villain has no powerful henchmen?

i think the difference between you and him is you care about a fun story, he cares about a fun game.

sucks to be him.

My villain just turned a lever and jumped out the window. A net was expanded and it caught him.

What the villain didn't expect was a paladin falling from 80 feet sword-first straight onto him.

What I want to say is: by simply "teleporting" them away, you lose some awesome moments like this one.

If teleportation exists through magic, then you can counterspell it.
If it exists through science, you can break/jam/EMP it.

If you deserve to win, you'll work out how to stop them.

I love this image.
I really really do.

When the villain has the stats and the items to teleport away, I would not be mad.
>party killed all the lieutenants, goons and has bloodied the villain
>he sees this and the barbarian is grimly screaming in rage "Let's finish him off!!"
>being an intelligent creature, he has a scroll as a background plan.
>he takes it out of his belt and reads the incantations upon it, vanishing from his current place and reappearing atop his trusty wyvern mount
>he then takes off, just as his foes run into the stables, cursing like sailors

If the GM instead describes
>the villain teleports away with 1 HP
That is just really bad DMing because it does not serve any other purpose but to make the Players feel like they lost. And that they were so close but in the end still lost because they couldn't take the villain out.

Teleport traps are fun too.
see;
in other games we've ran a beta team to the villains beta site and set up traps.

fun stories to be had abound.

Oh yeah, if the players actually have the levels/resources to PREVENT it, teleportation is fair enough. I'm mainly talking about early levels, where the players have no way of knowing/preparing for the instant teleport.

>resurrection better than an actual escape
>better

It literally makes his death pointless. He can return anytime.

even that can be fun too, if the players know how to hold grudges.

An assassin i played (Honest McTrustworthy) had a villain nope teleport out of the way while he was still a low level rouge.

I ignored the plot if i could, and hunted that guy down like the dog he was. it resulted in a lot o plot being torn to shreds, and new plot being awesome.

Sufficive to say, if handled right, it's fun. If it's a true Deus Ex,that is not follow up OR build up, it's kinda deflating.

But i don't RP to win, i RP to experience a world or story out of my control and i like when thing behave... sensibly. Mindless zombies fighting to the last man? fuck yeah! goblins doing the same without fear or an orc behind them? That's fucking dumb! \

Remember losing is !!Fun!!

So I've got a question, and this seems like the most relevant place to put it so here we go.
>PC's get captured by BBEG
>BBEG takes turns investigating each of them before interrogating them a bit.
>Not a single Good alignment among the bunch, flat Chaotic Neutral.
>PC's are willing to accept a Geas each to never bother BBEG for their lives.
>Save for the spell caster who has escaped.
>Said spell slinger has blasted a massive hole in the wall of BBEG's tower, sonic spells and taken off with flight magic over a heavily forested land to a mesa miles away.
>BBEG could expend large amounts of resources to get at the spell chunker, he's actually only a level 13 caster but he has a set of scrolls of geas for reasons.
>BBEG tasks the adventuring party that can no longer harm him into getting the spell hurler to sign on and then lets the go with a bit of money, they asked for the money for the delievery of the geas.
>Be the Ranger level 11.

What the fuck DC is it to Track a flying wizard down across heavily wooded terrain, thankfully I've got scent so I have at least a mild excuse, to a fucking mesa miles away from his starting point? Please help /tg!

You seem to handle this aspect of the game really well, but I'm afraid not everybody does. Some players play to fulfill their power fantasies (which isn't inherintly wrong) and these players are likely to get pissed if the BBEG decides to teleport out while flipping the bird.

they are the best to troll when DMing, because i actually despise people who let their power fantasy dictate what happens in my world. or the world of someone else creation. Their actions matter, i won't say otherwise, but if shit like that happened in real life, you'd just be like FUCK and move on.

But that's my gaming group, our rule is DM has last say, and if you say otherwise we won't play with you.

What are some good escape plans apart from teleport? Keep in mind that most systems make it so you're basically dead if you try to flee from an ongoing fight, specially if you're wounded. Opportunity attacks, bonuses for your enemies and other stuff like that.

Mist form is surprisingly good for folks not abusing some kinda damage transfer mechanic I've found.

Depends on how powerfull the villain is, you can go from "Extra backup to create a diversion" or "Hop into getaway vehicle" to "Create illusionary doppelgangers" or "Turn invisible".

Trap doors, smoke bombs, lots and lots of orks

That's basically a teleport, narrative-wise, isn't it? I bet half the faggots complaining about teleport being always deus ex machina would consider mist form to be one too. And, in general, any spell.

Lets clarify, as i'm typing fast due to being at work

If someone gets made at me for an apparent Deus Ex, they weren't really paying attention. I love the Chekovs gun trope, and i love letting players who arn't... Clever feel the gunmans wrath.

I'm going to have a BBEG teleport away? either you'll get a chance to fuck it up (if you think of it in time), or you'll be able to get revenge. I will always write Deus Ex's as preventable, or fixable.

>'if it got away, for any reason, it's a deus ex'
and reading that dudes comment again, it's clear that he believs villans that you've met don't grow. Which is just plain stupid writing if that's the case.

I treat villains like a GM-PC (especially if they are a rival party or have class levels), it levels too and the longer you take to find/kill/disrupt them, the more powerful they will be. Ofc, side quests that effect the fighting power of the BBEG also can change how powerful i make them.

It's called being Dynamic, and knowing how to adapt your stories.

>"Extra backup to create a diversion"
Tell me more.

>"Hop into getaway vehicle"
Probably gets stabbed in the back and killed in most systems.

>"Create illusionary doppelgangers" or "Turn invisible"
I feel like someone who complains about teleports will complain about this, unless his tastes are completely ilogical even for autist standards.

>Trap doors
Unless there's technology to activate it automatically under his feet, he probably gets stabbed in the back. If there's such tech, the teleport hater will cry deus ex.

>smoke bombs
Autist will cry deus ex, it's basically a non-magical teleport/turn invisible.

>lots of orks
"I still attack the big dude, can take care of orks later".

Consider, guys, that I'm always getting into a worst case scenario since I don't really think there's anything wrong with a teleport.

>If party is not satisfied, any member of party is welcomed to do the GMing
>if noone from party wants to do the GMing, then party should shut the fuck up

>villain has already been defeated, his plans stopped
>but I must KILL HIM

You're not denying anything meaningful unless killing was part of the plan. You already won.

some people don't feel like they've won unless they can kill the thing they dislike.

Which explains the entirety of the USA....

Your best bet is to travel in the direction that you saw the wizard fly off to and start gathering rumors about wizards flying in and flying off.

Scrying magic is also good. Locate person and the sort of spells will probably help if you narrow down the area the wizard ran off to

One of my favourite D&D items was always the "Cape of the Mountebank". It's a bright red opera cape that let can cast Dimension Door once a day (as an item, it doesn't need you to be able to talk or generate AoO either).

The best bit is the signature: you disappear in a puff of smoke, and the sound of running feet going off into the distance, like a vaudevillian railroad baron escaping.

What if one character in the party has a grudge and wants to avenge a friend that was killed by the villain?

>Be GM
>My villain is cornered and almost defeated
>Successfully Rolls (so not even bullshit) to fly through the window
>player with the lowest dexterity attempts to throw a water bottle at villain
>rolls a 20, his villain in anus as he's going through window, does enough damage to kill him
I had to give it to him, and now im stumped for today.

means more adventure.

This shit is why I like LOTW's rules. People can 'Surrender' and it's not just 'I give up'. It can also be 'Will you accept me escaping to end the fight?'. If the players accept, battle over. If they don't then it gets down to covering ground rolls to see if he can manage to escape.

The big thing with covering ground: If your init is higher than the guy running, you can interrupt his action. So a fast PC can knock a guy to the ground or slam the door before he can escape. Or, in a magical game I run with it, dispel the forming teleportation before it finishes.

Mind you, if your choice of dice on init means you all went AFTER the villain...well, that's the downside to being slow in the system. It's how it works.

this is when the plots the villain was holding together start t fall apart and come down on the heroes. Thin unmitigated hordes of undead that were in reserve for the final battle. A dragon that wakes up because you fucked his master up. a new villain, possibly a background character named Steve, pitchforks your wizard and steals the tome of evil sort of thing.

Make sure the bad guy is always carting around the 4 heavenly kings then

Wouldn't the player (not the character) be happy about this interesting plot not ending on the first encounter? I mean, it could even be the whole campaign main theme if he was the only player.

Of course the character will be frustrated, but that should seen as good for the player. It's an opportunity to see another facet of his PC. He should only get angry if it continues to happen constantly and by then the problem is more related to the DM and his plot being repetitive and unoriginal, not about the villain escaping.

Depends on how the GM presented the escape, see my first post

Even in the USA, if some dudes enter your house and kill you they're going to jail (if caught). Even if you're Al Capone or an exiled Nazi General.

yeah, but some people don't care about jail.

the consequences don't matter, just that you are dead.

Winning doesn't mean surviving, it means fulfilling the goal you have set out for. Which if it's to stab people and not GAF, there ya go.

>IT'S UNFAIR THAT THE ENEMIES CAN USE THE SPELLS WE HAVE, LIKE TELEPORTATION

>"It's part of the GM's plot, there's no reason to be upset, even if you are disappointed."
See
>As long as the party is rewarded with XP and/or good loot, I'm okay with it.
More or less this.
Delaying total and absolute victory is not denying victory.

>Chromatic Dragons tend to to pull this one often to my party, but my DM seems to make sure to leave a big enough part of their horde for it to make it worthwhile.
My compliments to your GM, this dragons done right.
No dragon is going to intentionally fight to the death when they can just kill your grandchildren and steal their horde back in a few decades.

>>That is text-book railroading
>I'm firmly anti-railroading, but this is not that.
This.

>No plotline is more important than fun.
Truth.
The core concept of your post is right, you just need to understand your terms better.

>no other name for it.
What appears to be "deus ex machina" can feel like GM "cheesing", "fudging", or "cheating" but sometimes, it's just "good planning" and even when it's not, "plausible improvisation" can make for a "dramatic escape".
If the escape makes no sense though, it's a total "dick move".

Can't argue against that, fair enough.

>"There will be no more railroading from this point on"
>"But thanks to this convoluted plot twist, if you decide not to go on this quest you will be tracked down and attacked by high level enemies."

people be crazy yo.

>players decisions shouldn't come back to bite them in the ass in predictable and preventable ways
>MFW i have no face

In exalted it's even worse, every major bad guy the party has encountered has a way to get away with almost no ways for the party to deal with that. Including

>The villain turns into a swarm of thousands of insects that scatter away, then hops his mind into a single one, then turns into a very tiny burrowing animal and wait till the party leaves.
>The villain is running away in literally supersonic speed. No, he can in fact run at supersonic speeds
>The villain was someone else who used illusions to look like the villain
>The villain is just a demon so he's still in hell, he just cant come back for a year.

It wasn't really a decision we made, though. We were asked to investigate something and fell victim to an unavoidable plot trap that set us on the course for another quest.

Worst part was: we would have simply gone on said quest if the character who set the trap had simply asked. They were coercing us into helping them.

That's just shitty writing. Or he wanted you guys to die.

I'm certain it's the former, but it's strange because usually his writing is very good. It was as if he felt he had to railroad us into doing something we would have happily done anyway, and the fact that we were railroaded into it was what pissed me off.

He tried to pass it off as the character needing us to do the quest being paranoid, but we are his friends and allies and owe him a favour.

"Have you any last words, Elias the Soul-Reaver?"

"Yeah, that you're all idiots and "

Bad day? might be planning something bigger and just seeding?

pay him back when the time comes...

Possibly. I'm not gonna hold a minor mistake against him and we're on track with the quest now, so it's all good.

That last one is easy. Go into hell and kill him.

And it creates a great setpiece for the party.

well if your toon is one to hold a grudge... *slasher smile*

So basically some bizarre Veeky Forums version of It's Always Sunny titled "The Gang Goes to Hell"?

HOW TO TAKE THE EDGE OFF A TELEPORTING VILLAIN IN 2 EASY STEPS

1: As the bad guy is hit bad, describe magic swirling around him suddenly, and have him look in surprise.

2: "No, NO! Not my contingency! Not when I'm this close to succeeding! NOT RIGHT NO-"

THEN the bastard teleports mid sentence. It shows a: he set up defenses beforehand, and b: it's clearly a major setback for the villain. Also have whatever he was going to do nearby for the heroes to smash and feel better.

It'll still sting, but it sets up a grudge match where BOTH sides want to kill the other real bad.

Did the GM demonstrate the villain's ability to teleport previously? If yes, then it's the players' fault for not taking that into account when developing their plan of attack. They either should have deployed some counter-measures against teleportation (if possible), or attacked as swiftly as possible, preferably with the element of surprise, to subdue the villain before they could escape.

And this is assuming that teleportation is one of the only magic abilities the villain has available. If they're a D&D Wizard, then the party may as well drop their pants, bend over and just let the villain sodomize them, because Wizards have so much broken bullshit to choose from that it's impossible to plan an attack against them.

If the GM did not demonstrate the villain's ability to teleport, then they are a poor GM, and should have considered the possibility of their villain's death ahead of time. Or even straight-up asked the party not to kill them OOC, because they didn't have anything planned for if the villain died and they're about to derail the campaign.

>It shows a: he set up defenses beforehand

You're supposed to establish that shit way ahead of time, not 20 seconds before it becomes relevant to the plot.

I swear, the fucking Marvel movies have ruined peoples' understanding of how to tell good stories.

I did this recently in a game I'm running. The PCs were attacking this cultist guy who had access to some strange powers they had never seen before. When the cultist was on the ropes and was about to be defeated, a small portal opened behind him. With a look of terror the cultist turned around to face it, and was sucked in. The party assumed I bullshitted his escape and he'll be a returning bad guy, but nope. He was sacrificed for failing to please his god off-screen.

It really depends how common it it, and how insistent you GM is about it. If say he fucks up and you catch the bad guy and it seems like your having more fun with it than the original plan is and he lets it happen, You should be able to let it slide if something similar happens again and he tells you to just go with it because the campaign planned out is lots more fun.
If he's just a dick, or this happens a lot, maybe get a new GM? Or offer constructive help if you can manage.

>[E1M1 intensifies]