Im working on a BBEG for my campaign. I want him to be a minion master type, rarely going into combat himself but instead sending minions to do the dirty work. His abilities i would like to be partly support for his minions, partly creating new minions to serve him, and also hopefully a few tricks for the final showdown.
He will probably fight level 15 PC's
ill post some of the builds i've thought about later, since dont have time right now.
Conjurer 5/War Weaver 5/Mindbender 1/Malconvoker
With some loyal followers/bodyguards attached to the weave and wreaking havoc he could direct followers/taunt the PCs telepathically while invisible and summoning/buffing.
The Joker could make a pretty powerful conjurer, I imagine, and he's almost ridiculously destructive.
thats... nasty. however, im not sure i own the sources for spellguard of silverymoon and exalted arcanist.
but yeah, war weaver is nice for this.
I'm afb right now, but ill have a look at the war weaver once i get back. And certain other classes :manic grin:
Bard 2/Crusader 3/Warchanter 10/Crusader 5 with a focus on White Raven maneuvers and the Song of the White Raven feat should be ungodly when it comes to turning little peons into credible threats.
Hmm... in fact, this is actually a better combination than I thought. Song of the White Raven turns bardic music into a swift action-- War Chanters get a song that lets them grant temporary hit points to themselves and their allies. Combined with the delayed damage pool that they have access to, they could keep going for a very long time indeed while fueling furious counterstrike.
This build gets 12 + any Extra Bardic Music feats spent in uses of bardic music, 10th level inspire courage (+2, but it can give decent bonuses with the right items), initiator level of 14 for 7th level maneuvers, steely resolve 15, and all the war chanter goodies (notably giving every ally within 60 feet a BAB of 15 or higher and dual bardic music use).
Vampires are nice, and at CR +2 it's kinda easy to fit.
war chanter is very nice. damnit, now i cant choose bteween weaver and chanter!
You are missing out on some of the higher level stances and such with that though. (Maybe Bard 2/Crusader 3/War Chanter 10/Crusader 1 for a CR 16 cohort?) Just make sure that the PCs never encounter both of them at once until they level up a bit-- together they're going to be an EL 19 and with their bolstered minions it would probably be a EL 20 encounter easily.
You could fit Master Vampire (Libris Mortis) onto the War Weaver build pretty easily that way, which would give additional hit dice to control and better Str/Dex to the minion vampires and vampire spawn. (Not that it's actually necessary to build minions into the character's power suite, but if you want to, that's one way to bump it up.)
By (ab)using Metaconcert, Feat Leech, Thieving Mindlink, etc, he can access pretty much any Psionic feat or power, and can have insanely high save DCs for his augmented powers. And he can use all of this all from the "safety" of his fortress.
If anyone ever does threaten him there, they'd have to destroy the fortress to actually harm him, and he can animate objects to hinder them, as well as use his full range of powers on them.
You could even combine this and the vampire idea, as he has to be some kind of undead to be Haunt Shifted in the first place. He can "manifest" himself a few times per week to make new "converts".
Up until the confront him, they will be fighting an endless stream of believers and thralls, so you can vary the CRs and abilities of the enemies they face, but they'll all come from one "source". The augments for Thrallherds manifesting Psionic Charm/Dominate are also insane, and he can jack the DCs up to "You can't make this" using Metaconcert, so he can "supplement" his ranks with dominated creatures.
Why is it that all of my PCs seem that they would make great BBEGs? :D
once i dig up my stronghold builder's guide we can start optimizing his fortress too.
and in answer to your closing question, because you're a BBEP (big bad evil person).
once i dig up my stronghold builder's guide we can start optimizing his fortress too.
Our entire party took the Landlord feat, and applied it to the same Fortress. :D
but if you can stack it for fun and profit.... what if our whole thrall/believer army took that feat and smacked it on our flying castle?
EDIT: i checked out the feat, and 9th level prereqs will prevent believers from taking it. thralls can still do that, but its not really any use since DM fiat can give him whatever fortress he wants.
what did that feat do again?
but i you can stack it for fun and profit.... what our whole thrall/believer army took that feat and smacked it on our flying castle?
It gives you a crapton of free money to spend on your stronghold.
I think you need to be level 5 or 6 to take it, but it would definitely work for the thralls and higher level believers. And you'd get some monstrosity of a fortress/airship about like what we have in that game. ;)
4 party members+thralls+leadership+diplomanced followers...That's no moon...
Holy crap, I mean, I built my own mini-deathstar (obdurium walls, force screens, prismatic screens, traps, lasers, divinations, tornado eyes etc.) with one character. He spent all his cash, but he was a psion who became his fortress. (Remember the sandwhich trick? Yeah.)
4 party members+thralls+leadership+diplomanced followers...That's no moon...
Yeah, it's pretty crazy. We're only level 10, also, but I'm pretty sure we could take over some small countries with that thing. :D And yeah, my guy is a combo of the Psionic Sandwich + The Big Guy is with Me, with Thrallherd uberness tacked on. I can't wait till the game starts. :P
The spell sticks and stones from Shining South creates a humanoid skeleton with a wight's energy drain attack. The target for the spell is a small pile of debris and it's 3rd level-- because it's a ranged single target spell, that means it can be chained with Chain Spell. Or in this case, since it's a 3rd level spell, it can be chained with a lesser rod of chain spell for 27,000 gold.
Normally, these things would have trouble hitting anything even at the level you get them at-- but with a war chanter in the party, those go from minor (though dangerous) annoyance, to serious threat. 16 or 17 of these things from a single spell all with a BAB of 15 or 16 and dealing a negative level on a hit. If you add in Blood Wind (which can also be chained), all of that can be done with a ranged attack on top of that.
so...
human vampire psion 5/thrallherd 10
thrall one: bard 6/war chanter 8
thrall two: dread necromancer 13
the dread necromancer uses advanced learning to haunt shift us, and again to use sticks and stones.
the war chanter hangs out with our psicrytal, while the necromancer is a necropolitan and haunts the fortress with us. he also gets the boring job of manifesting whenever we need get a mug of haunting cofee.
I'm sure if I try I can scrounge up a lesser rod of chain spell.)maybe we can assume that one of his other minions are a kensai. or hire one.
then it'll be bard 4/war chanter 10.
Everyone get their stronghold builder's guide(if you have one)! time to build the fortress.
as for the stronghold: let me just tell you this: we have plenty of money. and when i say plenty, i mean plenty. if somebody want to have a go at designing the stronghold, dont be constrained by funds.
paladin of slaughter, then...