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  1. - Top - End - #1
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    First off, I'm not playing Chaotic Stupid.

    I would like help in designing a character for an Evil Campaign. (3.5)
    - We're starting off at 8th level, in a custom world.
    - Any Official books are allowed.
    - 25 point buy
    - 8th level gold (~27,000 GP iirc)
    I haven't asked about Psionics yet, and I might do that later.

    I'm thinking Lawful Evil, with the mindset that that I know whats right and most people don't.
    Or a kind of "Survival of the Fittest" mindset. Where it's Right and Just for the strong to take from the weak, etc. Law of Nature, Law of the Jungle
    -----------

    Background about this campaign:
    - The rest of the party is Caster Heavy (Mostly Rogue/Assassin and Rogue/Sorc.)
    - There is currently no Healer or Tankish character.
    - We're basically working as Mercs for different political factions for now (monetary motivation)

    I was thinking about a (I know, I know) Barbarian/Bard. My "gimmick" being that I sing while in combat. Or I sing while Raging. Something along those lines. (Was thinking Heavy Cha and Bluff/Intimidate a lot.)

    Basically I'm trying to come up with something that has decent Utility and will be fun to play. Maybe more support?

    Also if anyone knows any good non standard races or classes that would fit an Evil Campaign, feel free to suggest!
    Last edited by Rigor_Mortis; 2010-08-02 at 02:29 PM.

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    Colossus in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    barbarian/bard might work for NE or CE. Goes well with "survival of the fittest"

    If the character has a few virtues to offset his vices, it can make them more interesting (as well as easier for the party to trust). Unusual loyalty to allies or minions for an Evil character, for example.

    Something along the lines of "no-one leans on my people but ME."
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    Titan in the Playground
     
    Starbuck_II's Avatar

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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Paladin of Tyrrany/Hexblade ?

    You give opponents -4 penalty to saves and -2 to AC.
    Aura of Menace + Dark Companion (alternate class feature).

    LE can be survival of fittest.

    The save reduction makes it caster friendly.

  4. - Top - End - #4
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    I plan on staying clear of a Paladin of Tyranny. Our DM is a Pun-Pun paranoid. I'd hate to have my character never capable of keeping gold or dying in mysteriously convenient rolls of the die.

  5. - Top - End - #5
    Colossus in the Playground
     
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    "Law of the jungle" where anyone may murder to get what they want- is more a NE or CE societal perspective- LE ones tend to be a bit more ordered.
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  6. - Top - End - #6
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Okay, I forgot about something that kind of screws my Barbarian/Bard Idea.

    Barbarians can't use any Cha, Dex, or Int based skills while raging. Or any ability that requires concentration or spells/skills with a command word.

    So there goes my idea of a character that would fly into a Rage every time he sang a song, and continue to sing while slaughtering.

    Back to the drawing board for me.

  7. - Top - End - #7
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Also keep in mind you can be evil and never commit an evil act in your whole life, if you happen to be a horrible person on the inside. You may want to rape, murder and steal but be too timid to actually go for it. You're still evil due to wanting to. You can play an evil character exactly as you would a good or neutral if you want, but instead of freeing the villagers from the dragon because it's good, maybe you did it because they can pay you, or because you want slaves. Or maybe just because you love to look into the eyes of an intelligent being as you drive the blade in, and rescuing the villagers is a happy side effect that gets you money.

  8. - Top - End - #8
    Barbarian in the Playground
     
    NinjaGuy

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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Rigor_Mortis View Post
    Okay, I forgot about something that kind of screws my Barbarian/Bard Idea.
    Barbarians can't use any Cha, Dex, or Int based skills while raging.
    Try the Savage Bard Variant in Unearthed Arcana. Granted, there's still the issue of raging, but from the way it looks with spells, it buffs first then rages (when multi-classed) when needed at the fight if needed.
    Failing that, there's the Druidic Avenger. I never looked into the class, but a raging bear form could do damage.

  9. - Top - End - #9
    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Crusader/warblade bards (Song of the White Raven) are also solid, if you aren't dead set on taking barbarian.

  10. - Top - End - #10
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Crossblade View Post
    Try the Savage Bard Variant in Unearthed Arcana. Granted, there's still the issue of raging, but from the way it looks with spells, it buffs first then rages (when multi-classed) when needed at the fight if needed.
    Failing that, there's the Druidic Avenger. I never looked into the class, but a raging bear form could do damage.
    Okay, both of those look pretty awesome. Who doesn't want to turn into a bear?

    @Jota
    I'm not dead set on Barbarian, it was just my first thought as our party still has no meat shield.

    I was actually looking into a PsiWarrior/SoulKnife combo just now.
    "Let me get this straight, None of you bought rations?"
    "Nope."
    "Okay, you all starve to death in the desert."

  11. - Top - End - #11
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Psion/Thrallherd, and bring an infinite supply of meatshields* with you that constantly replenish themselves without penalty.

    *Also, trap detectors. And monster distractors. And trail rations.

  12. - Top - End - #12
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    I just want to toss this out for anyone wanting to make an evil character:

    Ode to the Minions

    Having a great singing voice to inspire your allies in battle or potentially using diplomacy to turn your enemies to your side (or avoid unnecessary fights) is totally okay for evil characters. After all, the best villains out there have to have enough charisma to be likable by their underlings and preferably their enemies. Just because you are on one side and your opponent is on the other doesn't mean you have to enemies personally.

    Don't feel bad about using nonlethal damage to knock your enemies unconscious, keep them tied up until you finish their task, and then release them later (possibly for a ransom or something). Those 'good guys' may not have any qualms about slaughtering entire tribes of goblins or kobolds and looting their caves but you are a BAD GUY. You might want to have minions of your own and the knowledge that you treat other peoples minions with respect should rub off on how they know you treat your own.

    If you want to steal all the treasure from somebody's cave then that's all right, everyone is doing it. That doesn't necessarily men you have to kill them to do so. You break in, beat everyone up, take their stuff and leave. No need to add murder/genocide to your list (who are you gonna rob when you kill all the goblins in the area?).



    As for what your build should be... I'm not sure but I suspect that having some healing power would be good if your group lacks a dedicated healer (though you can always grab a bunch of Healing Belts from the MIC to deal with healing needs).

  13. - Top - End - #13

    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Do you want to be evil, or VILE?

    Because I can do you a horrific favor:

    Race: Vashar (Super-Evil Humans from BoVD)
    Class: Psi Warrior 3/Fighter 2/Disciple of Dispater 10/Blackguard 5

    Focus your feats on Combat, some psionic, and Devil-Touched/Vile feats.
    Weapon-Wise, I actually suggest a Keen Brutal Surge Iron Scythe (Your Crit range drops if it's made of iron)

  14. - Top - End - #14
    Pixie in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    I think I've got it.

    Class:
    PsiWarrior (4) /Soulknife (4)
    This way I walk around with no visible weapons or armor at all. (It also frees up that 27,000 gp for other fun magic items.)

    Powers:
    - Inertial Armor
    ideas?

    Background/Storywise:
    (We're required to pay allegiance to 1 of several "Lords" in the city.)

    The Lord I'm serving has my fiance/wife locked away (for debts she or I have incurred) and I have agreed to do his bidding in exchange for her eventual release. If I don't, he's going to suck the life out of her. (He's a Vampire)
    So now I'm stuck doing the Vampire Lord's evil work, even though I don't really want to. (That begs the question of intent though. Would I still be considered "evil" if I'm doing Evil things for a good cause? I think so at least.)

    Race
    Still need help coming up with a decent race for this combo.
    - I want something with a sense of "mystery," The DM isn't going to tell the rest of the party my race/class, but leave it up to them to figure out, and I want something where if someone decides to go Chaotic-Stupid, they'll pause and wonder if they can actually kill me or not.
    - Preferable something with innate Spider Climb, Levitate, Fly, or Teleport.
    - Also, LA on the low to none side.
    "Let me get this straight, None of you bought rations?"
    "Nope."
    "Okay, you all starve to death in the desert."

  15. - Top - End - #15
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Soulknife? Nooo.

    Plain and simple, Soulknife sucks. It sucks hard. Its an entire class whose class feature is "has a magic weapon".

    If you like the idea of being able to walk around "unarmed" and call up a weapon from nowhere, use Psychic Warrior 8 and take the Soulbound Weapon ACF. It's the exact same bonus scaling as a mindblade, for free, more flexible, and you get full PsyWar power progression.
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2010-08-02 at 08:13 PM.

  16. - Top - End - #16
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Glyphstone View Post
    Soulknife? Nooo.

    Plain and simple, Soulknife sucks. It sucks hard. Its an entire class whose class feature is "has a magic weapon".

    If you like the idea of being able to walk around "unarmed" and call up a weapon from nowhere, use Psychic Warrior 8 and take the Soulbound Weapon ACF.
    You can also do a natural weapons PsyWar with Claws of the Beast (+Bite of the Wolf if desired.) The claws last hour/level and can be summoned and dismissed during that duration at will as a Swift action.

    - Preferable something with innate Spider Climb, Levitate, Fly, or Teleport.
    - Also, LA on the low to none side
    .

    These things are incompatible.
    If you're going psionic, Kalashtar is always a pretty good choice. Especially with PsyWar levels, since the class can use any source of extra PP it can get.

  17. - Top - End - #17
    Ogre in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    I'd go with something like Changeling from Eberron or similar. Your natural ability to change your features at will would effectively let you become whatever race you want (just stay as your chosen race at all times when you are around your allies).

    If you are going psion/soulknive and don't need expensive magic items then just grab whatever fly/teleport/spider climb stuff you need with magic items.

    step 1: Be a changeling
    step 2: Introduce yourself to your allies as whoever or whatever you want
    step 3: stick with that persona as long as you need to
    step 4: If things go south then change clothes, change your face, keep your magic items in a secret place of your choice and make up a new persona as needed.
    step 5: If anyone follows you, hit them with something scary, turn into a mindflayer/vampire/rakashra/demon/weeping angel/'vaguely humanoid waxen mass of eyeballs and unspeakable runic symbols' or whatever the hell else you want and start cutting them up while the wonder just what the hell kind of race you are playing.

    step 6: Make sure nobody figures out that you are a changeling. You are technically living a lie and therefore EVIL! Bad changeling for marrying a woman and making her think you are human when in fact you are not... you're not getting into Lawful Good afterlife with that over your head. Also, if the vampire knows or suspects your secret then thats another thing he has over you other than the love of your life. Not to mention what the kid will look like.


    Also, if you are a member of a class that doesn't need equipment to work... you could try something like stripping naked and changing into a human-like statue or change your skins appearance to blend into the background.

    Not sure how effective that would be but if you reliably demonstrate that you can turn from Joe Average McTotallyhuman into a wolflike thing or maybe a stone colored gargoyle then your allies might suspect you are a lycanthrope or demon or half-chameleon or something if they ever manage to see you using it. If those have LAs then you can just look like a freaky monster while keeping all the level adjustments to spend on increasing your class level.

  18. - Top - End - #18
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    GreenSorcererElf

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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    You could go classic and play a warlock, and UMD healing wands CMW/lesser vigor

    or have all you party members take lich-loved and play a dread necromancer

    or if you want something a little less over-the-top evil, an ur-priest (obviously start with something else for the pre-reqs) who believes the gods are unworthy of worship and thinks it's right to rebel against them.

    If the ur-priest took the the correct base class (I don't have the ur-priest entry on hand, but I remember it was keyed off BAB) you could be both tank and healer

    Thinking of tank and healer, go evil druid, cleric of an evil god, or even a neutral god like We Jas (from vanilla 3.5) and have him just a darker member of his flock.
    "When the DM is smiling, it's already too late"

    Paranoia is fun, other games are not; play paranoia (and also 3.5, I play that alot too)


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    Originally Posted by NNescio
    "Of course all magic manipulates energy, First Law of Thermodynamics, duh!"

    See, the thing is, energy in D&D does not mean the same thing as it does in Physics.

  19. - Top - End - #19
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by tyckspoon View Post
    These things are incompatible.
    I guess you've never heard of Raptorans from RoW? They can fly and are LA 0.

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    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Marnath View Post
    I guess you've never heard of Raptorans from RoW? They can fly and are LA 0.
    Don't they start with slow falls, work up to gliding, then eventually full flight? I would have suggested Dragonborn, but they have the same problem. Unless he's starting at level 8+ (I think), he won't have the mobility that Flight would give, and that he probably wants.

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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Different direction for my post
    I have run an evil game and one thing that really derails it is the "evil for evil sake."

    The easiest suggestion for running an evil character (regardless of L/N/C) is to do whatever you want or need in the easiest way.
    Do: steal from everyone when you need money
    Don't: kill the farmer after he has given you directions
    Don't: steal the farmers stuff if you live in a heavily patrolled area
    Don't: then hunt down the farmer's family to finish them off
    Do: think about consequences
    That which creates life has power to take it right back .

  22. - Top - End - #22
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Glyphstone View Post
    Don't they start with slow falls, work up to gliding, then eventually full flight? I would have suggested Dragonborn, but they have the same problem. Unless he's starting at level 8+ (I think), he won't have the mobility that Flight would give, and that he probably wants.
    Yeah well it doesn't get flight right away, but it is free once you do hit that level and i can't think of any other LA 0 race besides dragonborn template that get flight at all, let alone at level 1.

  23. - Top - End - #23
    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Marnath View Post
    Yeah well it doesn't get flight right away, but it is free once you do hit that level and i can't think of any other LA 0 race besides dragonborn template that get flight at all, let alone at level 1.
    Correct*. It should be elaborated that "flight/spider climb/levitation" are incompatible with "low LA" at low levels.

    *Well, there's always Incarnate Construct Warforged with the Winged Creature template.
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2010-08-02 at 09:13 PM.

  24. - Top - End - #24
    Dwarf in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    I don't want to beat you over the head with the crusader if you don't want to play one, but it is one of the most natural tank classes written by Wizards, seeing as most of what's above it in power are casters.

    PsyWar 8/Crusader 2 makes for a pretty damn good zone controller with Thicket of Blades and a spiked chain (and expansion, obviously). You can keep going PsyWar afterward, which will net you sixth level powers (but has medium BAB), or you can go war mind, which has sweeping strike and full BAB.

    The only full BAB/full manifester prestige class I've found is the Ghostbreaker, from Hyperconscious (non-WotC).

  25. - Top - End - #25
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by The_Glyphstone View Post
    Correct*. It should be elaborated that "flight/spider climb/levitation" are incompatible with "low LA" at low levels.

    *Well, there's always Incarnate Construct Warforged with the Winged Creature template.
    Say it with me: "Winged Creature is an inherited template, warforged cannot have inherited templates because they aren't born." A warforged only qualifies for that AFTER the awaken construct spell is used, by which time it's already past the point where he could have genetics from a winged parent.

  26. - Top - End - #26
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Quote Originally Posted by Marnath View Post
    Say it with me: "Winged Creature is an inherited template, warforged cannot have inherited templates because they aren't born." A warforged only qualifies for that AFTER the awaken construct spell is used, by which time it's already past the point where he could have genetics from a winged parent.
    The fact that warforged are artificial creations means almost any 'inherited' template can be justified as a different design of warforged, assuming the template in question can be used on Constructs to start with. There's not that much difference between 'mommy was a shape-changing bird' and 'the Artificer tweaked the settings on his magic forge' when it comes to templating.

    Edit: The major problem when trying to pay down templates with Incarnate Construct is that there aren't a lot of templates that can be applied to constructs, and Incarnate Construct can only counteract LAs that were there before the Warforged was Incarnated. Winged, for example, can not apply to Constructs. So you'd have to be an Incarnate Warforged first, making you humanoid.. and LA 0, because Incarnate is -2LA minimum 0. You then apply Winged, somehow (Savage Species transformation ritual or something) and you're LA 2 again.
    Last edited by tyckspoon; 2010-08-02 at 09:40 PM.

  27. - Top - End - #27
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Winged creature can only be applied to animals, giants, humanoids, monstrous humanoids and vermin. So you can fluff it all you want, it still doesn't work by RAW.

  28. - Top - End - #28

    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    What about that Wings warforged componet? Wouldn't it be fair to give the Warforged the Winged template if he became Incarnate?

  29. - Top - End - #29
    Troll in the Playground
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    I...hadn't considered that. Components are technically part of your body, so i could almost see calling that the spell converts them too. I guess that would work if you had a nice DM.

    *edit However, the price puts them well out of reach for a level 1 character, so that defeats the point a bit.
    Last edited by Marnath; 2010-08-02 at 10:12 PM.

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    Eldritch Horror in the Playground Moderator
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    Default Re: Help me with an Evil Character!!!

    Well, with a nice DM you could probably get the Winged template applied anyways via Rule 0. For that matter, it'd take a nice DM to pull any Incarnate Construct tricks in the first place.

    Regardless, I think we're dragging this significantly off-topic (though a new thread to discuss what templates do qualify RAW for Incarnate shenanananananigans might be interesting).

    Back to discussing how to make EEEEEEBIL characters. (And not even one comment yet on the many and varied uses of Thrallherd believers to a suitably unscrupulous party?)
    Last edited by The Glyphstone; 2010-08-02 at 10:13 PM.

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