@ginger: In his case, the heroes would mostly escape because they're very, very good at running.
Their goal is to not die.
His goal is to kill them. And keep in mind he chases them
halfway across the continent before he's finally stopped(And by Celestia, at that). Most of the time they get away it's because of the kindness of a stranger, not necessarily due to his own faults. And when he does find them, it's because he's acting the nice guy and asking around for them - being
clever, even if not necessarily duplicitous or scheming. His special talent is basically tracking(Well, his special talent is technically protection, but he stretches the definition in various ways - he will do anything to protect what he views as sacred, in this case racial purity - one could say his true talent is persistence). He introduces himself to the protagonists the first time as thus. "My name is Salem. It is an old word. It means
Hunter."
The other villain probably suits your purposes better - he connives, sneaks behind his master(A god, mind)'s back and spreads false propaganda to incite a war with a neighboring country, all while arranging the pieces so that his country will be superior due to a special weapon undiscovered by any other country. He loses not because he's outgambitted, but simply because the hero convinces the populace not to go to war. His 'plot' is never revealed, as far as anypony knows it was simply a diplomatic incident that was resolved peacefully. Also, there is the issue of one of the hero's companions sabotaging a few key plans on his part. Hi downfall is effectively the result of one very small mistake: Stealing the protagonists 'slave', which at the time he had no reason to believe would be of any import.
edited 18th Apr '12 7:49:41 PM by kegisak