Party consists of 5 12th gestalt builds
Psion/psi wep master archer varient
Favored Soul / Psion (self buffer type)
Sorcerer/Swift Blade/Scout
12 Monk/Occult Slayer/Fighter/Scout
11 Paladin/Warmage/Duskblade
I had some random ideas like a Vampire Lord / Warlock
Necromancer / Blackguard (fallen Paly version of course)
BBeG w/ some A grade charisma followers?
-a Skulk Assassin
-1/2 fiend brute
As you can see Im all over the place and thusly open for...no NEEDING your expertise. I wanted to push the CR of encounters, they think they're untouchable immune to defeat.......ie they have become cocky. I would love love love the nastiest, meanest, baddass BBeG to make them pee their collective party pants! ...of course encounters fun for a good 6 hour session
3.5, no dragon mags, no eberron, and we dont have ToB (yet) other than that templates, feats spells, races...bring it!
Blight
But, for something a bit more level-appropriate -
Okay, not really.
Here's a unfinished quite nasty wizard assassin:
Feats: Craft Magic Arms & Armor, Quickdraw, Two-weapon fighting, Silent Spell.
(CMA&A is for flavor, really...)
Optionally Rapid Shot.
1st Rogue, 2-5 Diviner, 6 Assassin, 7-12 Arcane Trickster.
Equipment:
At least TWO spell-storing daggers, all stealth-boosting items you can afford.
Max UMD and Rogue Skills. Able Learner is a good choice for humans.
Use your divination spells to scry AND RESEARCH your target, walk next to them silent & greater invisible - be sure to sneak, true seeing doesn't help against that.
Slam home the daggers charged with the nastiests spells you have access to.
The daggers should also be poisoned, preferrably.
The carrier effect will be, for an example (1d4 + 5d6 SA + str + 8d6 fire + poison + death attack) per dagger. Or use vampiric touch for temp HP. Or, if you're almost certain the target won't die at a piddly 26 dice damage, use Ray of Exhaustion. After the assault, you should dim. door to a safer location and observe. If the target survived, recharge daggers and try, try again.
You should use Silent spell for things like True Strike, since your AB is tiny at this point, and you only have about +6 vs. flatfooted AC before stats or items. Stealth has been ruined more often than I can count due to the resounding voice of spellcasting. Although, look at ventriloquism spell, too...
Brilliant enchantment is not a bad idea on some daggers, since most of your targets will be armored mortals.
Outside core, you start using stuff like Wraithstrike. Also, you could, especially further in your career, snatch few initiator levels for Mongoose. Do note Wolf Fang Strike is essentially a no-penalties single-shot TWF.
This is almost as nasty as the character who can create 16-18 dice never-miss traps with a single shadow conjuration.
This scales pretty well, too - outside core, at higher level, we'll be EASILY looking at 4-6 blows, each carrying almost rogue-level SA dice and, for an example, 10 dice vampiric touches, combust spells or something similar.
Do note this is one of the places where Focused Diviner is really useful, as you need quite a bit of divinations to figure out the target's protections and pierce them.
Divination for intelligence, Illusion for primary defense, mostly Necromancy for offense. You can surely find use for rest of the spell schools too, so it's a bit hard to recommend what to drop. Probably Enchantment or Evocation as per usual, with Evocation having the largest amount of spells duplicable by other schools - in fact, Illusion can duplicate all of 3rd or lower. Yes.
Tome of Battle has some goodies and in fact, allows you to drop TWF from the build. Spell Heroics can give you an extra attack, or even sufficent penalty-free TWF with Martial Study: Wolf Fang Strike.
*edit*
Templates are BROKEN. I suggest staying away from ones which scale CR, but take a look at Dungeonbred.
Think Dungeonbred Dungeonbred Dungeonbred Dungeonbred ex-Colossal Monstrous Spiders.
Also, scaling monster HD is also pretty broken, especially for ones which increase 1 CR for 4 HD.
So... for an example
Take Satyr, advance it to 10 HD, making it CR 4, apply Half-dragon for CR 6.
Then, start applying some non-associated levels, say, Wizard, equal to it's HD. Since we're applying class levels, we're using Elite Array, so put 14 on Con, 15 on Int and 8 to, say, Wis to start with.
A Half-dragon Advanced Satyr Wizard 10 is CR... 11. 20 HD. Decent, though not amazing STR, 20 Con nets 100 total HP, so it's not lightweight there, either.
To put it other ways, compare this to another CR 11 monster - Human Wizard 11.
Take a standard Ogre, slap on a were-dire Tiger and have fun with your CR 8 Opponent.
want to go a little nastier?
Try a mountaintroll-dire polar bear. CR 14 with 400 HP and a grapple check that makes bones crack.
Want some surprise? Who had thought that the ogremage was a were- battleTitan-dinosaur... CR 13 or 14 with an ECL of about 50... while flying, invisible with Great saves and loads of Nastyness
On the other hand if you want to smite them with some magic, Try to set up a coven of sistersof which everyone has at least one level of Hathran some followers and some circle magic, if FR is allowed, welcome welcome Mrs Divine magic who may freely choose which spell to use in the current situation from all Cleric/ Druid Spells ever published! :D
Crabs really mess up the CR curve.
yah but 1 remove desease and ffffttt! there gone.
the bad guy
his side kicks
encounter set ups
I read somewhere a vamp lord, is this a 3.5?
BB
Make this a monster of legend? (Pretty sure this is what PoL was talking about)
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a
As for scenarios:
Giants on top of mountains,
Advanced Wyverns on their roosts,
Kobolds in their own ancestral tunnels
all are very traditional scenarios and can be totally lethal, depending on the amount of access the PCs have on Teleportation and incorporeality/etherealness line. for a boss, pick an appropriate dragon from d20 npc wiki, give them a totally favorable environment and a tribe of kobolds to trap any non-invite routes, and you're often done. I mean, a completely submerged lair of a black dragon, who has access to antimagic? Deadly (as in TPK) to most PCs thanks to drowning rules.
Vampire lords: LMGTFY.
http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a
As for scenarios:
Giants on top of mountains,
Advanced Wyverns on their roosts,
Kobolds in their own ancestral tunnels
all are very traditional scenarios and can be totally lethal, depending on the amount of access the PCs have on Teleportation and incorporeality/etherealness line. for a boss, pick an appropriate dragon from d20 npc wiki, give them a totally favorable environment and a tribe of kobolds to trap any non-invite routes, and you're often done. I mean, a completely submerged lair of a black dragon, who has access to antimagic? Deadly (as in TPK) to most PCs thanks to drowning rules.
what the LA of a Vamp lord
1)What CR are you going for? I.E. assuming I'm going to be equally cocky and make a single BBEG, what level should I make him?
2)Can you take PrC's on both sides of a gesault as most house-rule, or strictly vanilla UA Gesault rules?
3)How bad of a lesson are you wanting your players to learn >
I mean look at this guy and what he did...
I think the vampire is a total LA of 4 or 6?
I wanted to make a gestalt Vamp+vamp lord + ? sorcerer or Warlock?
The Vamp Lord hidden lair will be in Kobold caverns: Here the party will run into a couple of Kobold Assassin's, Kobold Sorcerers and several Kobold Warlock/rogues...
BB
Vampire Lord, with a CR of about 15
Lawful Evil,
gestalt 12th Sorcerer, 3rd Warlock /
natural armor +12
strength +12
dex +8
Int +4
wis +4
cha +8
with the warlocks beguiling influence +6 to bluff, intimidate and diplomacy, a +4 cloak of charisma and a 30 pt buy to start out with he should have a 32 CHA and some hellafied cha related skill cks around +30 to bluff intimidate and diplomacy before any dice rolling.
oooohhhh how about some little vamp kobolds...........aaahhhh man this is gonna be brutal!
A master pick pocket with detect magic, skill focus and a bunch of sleight of hand. He sidles up to the heavily armoured character in town (who is likely to be pretty non-observant) - preferably when they are alone - and swipes a treasured magical item.
A scrying mage. He scys on the party, summons in a creature capable of teleportation, and sends them to beat up the party. Do this half a dozen times a day or more. Preferably when the party have their guard down (they need to go to the out-house SOMETIME!) or are in another combat.
sniper! Wait until the party are in town with their guards down and one of them (mages are best - low HP, not observant and easy to hit) wanders off alone to do some shopping, and then pop them with a crossbow from the safety of a rooftop. 5d6SA + 1d8 + Dex (crossbow sniper feat) + con drain poison should probably do the trick. For extra fun, have it a crossbow of spell storing with something nasty in it.
Ive never heard of those feats Tarasque rapid strike?
BB
Rapidstrike line are feats from Draconomicon.
For a party of level 10 or lower, drop a Dread Wraith on them, and they die. Pretty much, yes.
Makes a good challenge on an approximately cr appropriate party.
BB
I am having prob finding info on Vamp Lord, other that pre reqs there is no LA for the template? just a +2 on the CR?
BB
Yep... It isn't exactly balanced (and probably isn't intended for players).
As it stands what do you think about a Vampire Lord Thrallherd? It would certainly create a feeling of overwhelming odds.
I put him on a huge gallion and placed 50 5 hd vamps 30 of them were raptorians, 2 Sahuagin, the rest were a mix of races: human, Orc, Elf, Kobold, Dwarf etc The gallion was full of coffins and fancyfull goth deco...basically it was an old spook house on water. I did however make the inside several times bigger than the outside so it was much more like a full sized dungeon on water, or at least a spooky hotel. **By the way what spell or magic item could do this? I just made it up; that is to make a space like a boat bigger on the inside than it actually is??
I hit the party as they flew towards the boat with quickened FB and meteor swarm, and a contingiency spell of a twinned FB.
I caused ...ok damage but not the earth shattering amount I was a hopen for
I then swarmed the players with 30 raptorian vamps...I had the dread emp with a corrupted wand of mass cause moderate wounds (which also healed the vamps)...hay I was trying to up the anti a bit sure but its a gestalt campaign so this stuff is necessary.
Has any body else discovered the Dread Emp was a wussy! especcially vs a party with good saves and evasion. Dont get me wrong it was a great competitive fight and the enervation just destroyed our Psion.
anyways just thought I would give up some of the info on what BBeG I selected and the party lost an avg of 2 levels do to drains (natural 20's rolled by vamps)
BB
2. The vamplord should do 6 levels of drain on a critical slam. (gaining 30 temp HP, I always forget the temp hp...)
No idea what a dread emperor does...
50 5hd vampires - if such a thing exists - is probably too many for accurate CR calculation, but it's alone a CR 20+ situation, but standard math... naturally, as each and every one can deal a 2-level drain on a slam. Those can deliver 100 negative levels per round, potentially....
I added the vamp lord template on to the Dread EMp - page 17 BoVD sample character.
BB