Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Wizu 03-30-04, 07:53 AM	I have this large scaled campaing of mine, and I have encountered a problem. A party of four (due to seriously min/maxed character I just say theyre scout/skillmonkey/trapfinder/partyface/sneaker, raging tank, air mage and divine caster) at level 12 each has encountered a dwarf in a dungeon dwelve, blocking a tunnel leading to a large entrance into surface. They know it is a dwarf only by height and voice, and as you can imagine everything roughly the size of a dwarf who can alter its tone goes (undead, gnome, shapeshifter...). This is a level 15 npc, to be created to stop them from entering outside world, barring even magical means of escaping. Due to the somewhat evil nature of the party, they most likely will try to assault him, escape and replenish their supplies for further venture into this citadel inside a mountain, ruled by Borig the Quick (All that is known to outside worls is the sight of a shadow and the eerie tone of his voice when someone encounters the former duergar). The point is, I could just rule zero that "No you didnt just do 150 point critical into the blocking figure, instead you just did normal damage which sadly didnt seem to scratch him, thus angering the bugger" (To raging tank), "Nope, your 1337 skills werent enough to bluff him so you could feint and pepper the bugger with SAed daggers" (To the scout/skillmonkey/trapfinder/partyface/sneaker), "Your seeking for divine guidance miserably failed, the black slaad that appeared to tell you the message just glanced to the figure and said 'Sorry pal youre on your own' and you feel your god dumbing you, taking the kids but leaving the dog" (To divine caster), "Your scroll of teleport suddenly rewrote itself, turned into scroll of MDJ and you lost your casting ability for forever when the artifact posessed by the dwarf resisted your attack, but consider yourself lucky, youre not commoner with good willsave and high intelligence!" (To air mage). But that would pretty much be lame. Sure, impossible obstacles could be just impossible, just like in that Doom where you couldnt jump a few feet high ledge. But I prefer a bit more realistic approach. That is why, I would ask from those who view this post to come up with atleast one idea, how to create a character who can just say "Try me!" and stand like a living wall of fortress. Barring extremely clever idea he should be inderstructible/unkillable/unmovable/able to survive relatively major cavein. The ruler of said citadel has already barred ability to escape via magical means. To create the feeling that "I bet hes watching us now, were low on resources and paranoia keeps us alive and awake" is my primary goal, so here comes the details. 3.5, core, splat, no dragon magazines or stuff like that, elite array for stats (15 14 13 12 10 8 arrange how you like), 200k gold for items (remember to post only few crucial items to make your idea to work, I'm not asking complete equiplists here.), anything goes be it monk/wiz idea or whatever, only limitation is the ability to look almost like a dwarf in long cloak and have a tone appropriate for dwarf. My idea is still feral mineral warrior duergar monk/psywarrior with that feat that makes enemy unable to close in/escape if you receive aoo (the name of the feat escapes me) and using amulet that produces antimagic shell. Yeah, go figure, I bet he isnt even cr 12 =P The tunnel is 10 feet high and 5 wide, should you need that information. I'm taking suggestions. Not that I have anything against rule zero, nono!
Fwib 03-30-04, 10:26 AM	If the artifact resists then no problem. Its when you destroy stuff like that with MDJ that its bad - and even then you get an easy will save to negate. I suggest you need something with at least divine rank 0 for the job if you want your guardian to be able to resist whatever the party can do to it without butchering them.
Funny Slaughter 03-30-04, 11:58 AM	a good way to stop a party doint specific things are traps. they can cast spells relatively cheap if you look at the CR of them only, much cheaper then wearable items. with your guard standing on one place only it is a good place to put some dimensional anchor, cloud-spell, greater dispel and summoning together, for example. you can concentrate your guardian on fighting then, some high saves and a bit SR is not bad, though. make him a reach (psi) fighter with the stand still feat (thats the name you are looking for imo), maybe half-giant (psi-book excerpt), doesnt increase the size in fact, only virtual, and also qualifies you for stand still without actually taking psywarrior. gs Funny
Puskara 03-30-04, 01:01 PM	Well lets start at the beginning. By the way you phrased your post the exit he is guarding is not the one they entered so they could simply return the way they arrived. If that was just a slip in your wording and this thing is guarding the ONLY exit then your mistake is having a single lvl 15 NPC guarding it with no apparent reason. They can and should mash him into the ground. It would be much better to simply have a cave-in before they arrive at the exit. If you want to spice it up have the cave-in bring down an assasin vine (the underground variety) The first PC is strangles shoudl convince them to turn around. Puskara
HoshiAdam 03-30-04, 01:06 PM	Want to be kinda mean to your party? Make most of the armor and weapons the defender uses out of the stuff that drow use, it is in the Underdark book. So after they defeat him, anad take out all that nice loot, it disintegrates when sunlight hits it. +1 Adamantine full plate of heavy fortification all the way then. Give him spellblade armor spikes +1 to be immune to one spell, and a melee weapon with spellblade to be immune to another spell. Using that, have a few other tricks in the area. Put in a dispelling screen in front of the defender (from Tome and Blood I think). Don't use the antimagic field on the dwarf, it will limit your options significantly. For build, a fighter4 /psychic warrior4 /Dwarven Defender6, using a Deep dwarf, or upping it to 16th level, and use a duergar as the base race. Use a reach weapon, and armor spikes. Also, make the light up the tunnel an illusion, and make a switch up in the top of the ceiling (covered by an illusion) that the defender's reach weapon can unlock, which opens up the real tunnel. So if they bypass the defender somehow, they don't get out.
Tolstoy 03-30-04, 01:09 PM	I agree...They will probably attack him until he or they die...A better way to stop them from going that way is to just close the exit...Let your npc have high ranks in stoneworking...The have him caste wall of stone on the exit and work it so that the pc cant find the exit...or a high level illusion...If you insist on him fighting them a template that negates SA and Crits seems to be what you are looking for...Vampire comes to mind for me...
rilem 03-30-04, 01:14 PM	I'd second the high-level illusion idea — unless your campaign uses illusions so regularly that your PCs are trained to disbelieve everything they see. Consider multiple programmed illusions (heightened for the DC) that show the illusory dwarf to be unaffected by their attacks.
Andreas0815 03-30-04, 01:19 PM	Well, how about a dwarfen monk in an permanent anti-magic field. Now just put an Prismatic Wall (or an wall of force) in that field. No way to pass throug as all spells are dispelled in the antimagic field so noone can dispel the wall... The (undead) dwarfen monk should be able to stop the party as long as he stays in the AMF. And even if they manage to defeat him, they still canīt go out...
gorion 03-30-04, 01:24 PM	Originally posted by Wizu The point is, I could just rule zero that "No you didnt just do 150 point critical into the blocking figure, instead you just did normal damage which sadly didnt seem to scratch him, thus angering the bugger" (To raging tank), "Nope, your 1337 skills werent enough to bluff him so you could feint and pepper the bugger with SAed daggers" (To the scout/skillmonkey/trapfinder/partyface/sneaker) You could use some bracers of armor +X of Heavy fortification for it. You'll have to give up the antimagic shell. However if you really make a psi-warrior max out UMD and buy 3-4 scrolls of Antimagic-Ray(Draconomicon) to launch on enemy casters. The check shouldn't be much hard to do. Use stand still to prevent them from engaging you (you don't want to get criticals and sneak attacks, right?) while you beat the melee monkey of the group
MoogleEmpMog 03-30-04, 03:15 PM	I'm just curious, why the CR 15 limit? Anyway... the truly cruel and unusual: Awakened Paragon Duergar Zombie Fighter 11/Rogue 4 16d12+195 (387 hp) Initiative: +11 (+11 Dex) Speed: 60 ft. AC: 52 (+11 Dex, +12 insight, +12 luck, +7 natural) BAB/Grapple: +14/+23 Attack: Glaive +52 melee Full Attack: Glaive +52 melee Damage: Glaive 1d10+40 (19-20, x3) SA: Sneak attack +2d6 SQ: DR 5/bludgeoning, evasion, improved uncanny dodge, undead traits Saves: Fort +18, Ref +27, Will +16 Abilities: Str 34, Dex 30, Con -, Int 12, Wis 10, Cha 13 Skills: - Feats: Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Great Cleave, Improved Critical (Glaive), Iron Will, *Large and In Charge, Power Attack, Toughness, Weapon Focus (Glaive), Weapon Specialization (Glaive) CR: 15 Treasure: standard Alignment: Neutral Evil * can be used only when enlarged Equipment: Amulet of Enlarge Monster at will, Cloak of Resistance +5 (not represented in stats) How does this work? Simple. Take one Paragon Duergar, kill him (no easy task) and animate him as a Skeleton. Then awaken him. A skeleton duergar, even a paragon, is CR 1/2, so when awakened and given class levels, his CR is equal to his class level. Sure, he loses all his special qualities and special abilities as a paragon and a duergar, but he keeps all the luck bonuses, unnamed stat bonuses, insight bonuses, etc...
cryptictravler 03-30-04, 05:10 PM	Druid 12 Warshaper 3. Blind deaf dwarf. He gets the blind fight feat from the druid splat book making him pretty damn immune to any bluff ect as all he can't be lied to or see, plus the rp effects of him not even looking at them and the incredibly creepy lack of eyes help out. The warshaper gives him full immunity to crits (from the complete warrior) reach (which along with lrg and in charge from the ftr splat book make him hard to reach). His stats can be crap because he can shift into anything he pleases. That should solve some if not all of the problems. The give him leadership and a pixie cleric with nothing but silent, still healing spells memorized. It will take a while for them to figure out why he heals so quickly as regardless of skills an invisible, silent unmoving 2 foot tall pixie is really hard to find. As a bonus have her cast darkness all the time as neither of them are harmed by the inability to see. The build isn't so uber that players can whine about it, and when they do, just mention the trouble they has was with a blind mute and a pixie.
cryptictravler 03-30-04, 05:13 PM	Oh and grab the amulet of wildshape to turn into something big (like a dire bear advanced to huge), get the grapling/but not grappled feats from savage species, and eat them all in grapple...especially the uppity mage
iN.fuSioN 03-30-04, 05:37 PM	Some options: There is a magic item on draconomicon (on the dragon's part) that works like the heavy fortification enhancement, but it has a fixed cost of 35k. The best option i see is make the dwarf a cleric of mystra :devil: and take the cheesie Initiate of Mystra feat. Antimagic Field yourself and them blow them away with 200k worth of magic arcane staffs (spell and magic domains)! You could also get a widen spell metamagic rod (or invent one, i think there isn't one on the DMG). Then you negate all magical effects, SA. You could also cast antilife shell and magic circle against (alignment of most common party summon's). If PCs try to teleport you could invent something that bestows a permanent huge dimensional lock on the place.
Thorak 03-30-04, 05:48 PM	Or just a Duergar commoner or some such, holding a magical 'grenade' of Utter Nasty Boomness. On a dead-man's switch. Party attacks, he dies, BOOM, and the exit closes itself, more or less permanently. Or they can do the 'good' thing and not attack the relatively innocent dwarf, who really doesn't want to die but isn't going to let them leave. He's got orders, he does.
iN.fuSioN 03-30-04, 07:01 PM	Ya? commoner you say? Part 1: invisibility Part 2: sneak attack
balefire42 03-30-04, 09:02 PM	Part 3: dead man switch activates Part 4: explosion, tunnel calapses
MoogleEmpMog 03-31-04, 01:29 AM	Here's some alternatives to dealing with the kill-switch commoner. part 1: invisibility part 2: walk out OR part 1: invisibility part 2: sneak attack (with a sap) part 3: ease body to floor part 4: walk out OR part 1: hold person part 2: transmute rock to mud part 3: commoner begins to suffocate part 4: transmute mud to rock part 5: dead man switch activates part 6: it's under several tons of rock by then part 7: walk out OR part 1: suggestion part 2: walk out OR part 1: high Diplomacy check part 2: walk out Never send a commoner to do a CR 15 PC-class character's job. ;) Or a paragon duergar skeleton's, for that matter. :devil: Seriously, though, even a non-cheese version of that duergar, say, with the half-golem template from Monster Manual II or armor of fortification and Dwarven Defender levels, should be capable of beating even a min/maxed party if he's well prepared (permanent buffs, perhaps?). The keys are Large and In Charge, Combat Reflexes and a reach weapon for 'offense' and magic/crit immunity. Ooo... interesting idea... will post.
PhaedrusXY 03-31-04, 01:39 AM	There are a couple of nice (well... maybe that's not the right word) undead templates in the Unapproachable East book. One is the Dread Warrior and the other is the Juju Zombie. Both allow the creature to keep it's original special abilities, number of hit dice, feats, attacks, etc.
AviLazar 03-31-04, 01:59 AM	Originally posted by MoogleEmpMog part 1: hold person part 2: transmute rock to mud part 3: commoner begins to suffocate part 4: transmute mud to rock part 5: dead man switch activates part 6: it's under several tons of rock by then part 7: walk out Bad BAD idea. The pressure from the explosion (especially one made to mess up a tricked out group) will splinter that rock into flying shrapnel that will make any modern day frag bomb look sweet and soft. :) -A
MoogleEmpMog 03-31-04, 02:13 AM	Dwarven Guardian Golem This golem resembles a life-sized steel statue of a dwarf. In its true form, however, it more resembles a frost giant. Awakened Iron Golem Fighter 1/Sorcerer 1 (CR 15) Hit Dice: 19d10+1d4+30 (135 hp) Initiative: -1 Speed: 20 ft. Armor Class: 34, touch 12, ff 30 BAB/Grapple: +13/+28 Full Attack: Huge adamantine glaive +5 +30/+25/+20 melee; or 2 slams +24 melee Attack: Huge adamantine glaive +5 +30 melee; or slam +24 melee Damage: Huge adamantine glaive +5, 2d8+21 (19-20, x3); or slam 2d10+11 Space/Reach: 10 ft./10 ft. (20 ft. with huge glaive) Special Attacks: Breath weapon, spellcasting Special Qualities: Construct traits, DR 15/adamantine, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to magic, low-light vision Saves: Fort +6, Ref +5, Will +6 Abilities: Str 33, Dex 16, Con -, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 13 Skills: Intimidate +20, Listen +10, Sense Motive +11, Spot +10 Feats: Cleave, Combat Reflexes, Improved Critical (Glaive), Improved Sunder, Large and In Charge, Power Attack, Weapon Focus (Glaive) CR: 15 Equipment: Gauntlets of Rust, Amulet of Quickened Enlarge/Reduce Monster 4/day, Huge Adamantine Glaive +5, 10 scrolls of Empowered Fireball, 10 scrolls of Fireball This bad boy can cast fireball every round, probably striking the party each time and healing himself in the process. Immune to almost all magic (OK, he can be slowed by electricity, big whoop), he can make three attacks of opportunity per round - enough to fend off your entire party - without ever wasting his own actions on attacks. Since he's immune to rust, the only way to harm him is to overcome that DR 15/adamantine, and he's totally un-critable and un-sneakable. I picture his 'equipment' being part of his basic design - although his glaive might be retrievable, if the PCs could get it, the rest of his gear is just molded into his steel body - including his scrolls, which take the form of runes on his body. If you felt particularly nasty, you could have him attack the PCs weapons and equipment with Improved Sunder, just to teach them a lesson (or to kill of an overpowered item, if there is one).
Foolosophy 03-31-04, 07:51 AM	unless anyone has stone shape or similar just do this: have lots (and I mean lots) of trip wires and pressure plates in said tunnel. Magically hidden, normally hidden, doesn't important if you just take care that the trapfinder will miss at least one of them. Have that trigger a big explosion. When they go around the corner to see what happend describe the cave in (maybe the "exit" filled with huge rocks and a few pebbles rolling towards the pcs even as they enter) Probably also have something nasty slide in with the rocks, maybe a xorn or some plant thing. exit barred and a nice fight for the group to keep them busy.
Khazra 03-31-04, 01:39 PM	If you insist on him fighting them a template that negates SA and Crits seems to be what you are looking for...Vampire comes to mind for me... how about a vampire, enlarged (dwarven size), monster of legend rabbit. Eva seen monty python?
Wizu 04-01-04, 03:09 AM	MoogleEmpMog with his dwarven guardian shall be named "santas little helper of this year". Looks like my problem is solved, now I shall just create devious traps around him, in him, killswitch device somewhere and I believe their passage through that little hole is forbidden (Him standing in command word activated permanent wall of fire comes to mind.) To all who have posted and given their ideas I give my gratitude. To those who wondered was it the only passage, hell no, but would I really let them go so easily? Paranoia I tell you, paranoia! *Coughs* Consider your build shamelessly ripped off MoogleEmpMog! ^^