Build-A-Baddie Workshop

[Rob Roy]

My lack of knowledge proves disastrous once again!

Well when you're making a tiefling it helps to know what was once the most popular 2e setting. But more seriously, Planescape is a fascinating setting, and I recommend reading the fluff, it's just that good. Have fun!

[centuriancode]

I tried to point out that ajadea mentioned "slight mothering tendancies". they seem to have slipped again.

I'm just saying, If we're making two versions, one to work with/against Draug, and one as a full fledged stand-alone BBEG, the draug-version could hinge off of that small fact.

So: this is dealing with the work-with-draug version, so spoilered

Spoiler

Show

Draug as a friendly mate to the kids, and (we need a name!) as a parental figure. maybe she could even treat Draug his-self as a kid. He'd hate it, of course.
And I finally found a trope! She could be a Mother to her Minions. I'd like to point out the second paragraph. Goes well with Manipulative bastard, no? except the emotionally detached part. Although she could be the "stern fathermother" version.
Not to mention that she'd have Cute little kids as minions. They'd be hanging around Draug all the time, anyways, so why not exploit them? And the only reason Draug hasn't gutted her for exploiting them is because she's, of course, a manipulative b****, right? And, since the kids look up to her as a motherly figure, they don't feel they've been exploited.
This might turn our already (mostly) finished villian (don't tell me you already forgot draug!) into the woobie...
espesially if we make our new villian (again with not having a name for her!) the starscream.

Well, "tut, tut, dear Draug. you can be such a child sometimes."
"Hmmph. Not true."
"Don't try to deny it. I know you're upset because I had Julia assassinate <insert notoriously rich person>, when you were going to play 'family' with her. Now, don't forget your axe again today."
"Grooooan. I forgot. It. once. Can't you forget about that?!"

I love it. It has just the right mix of cheesiness and trope to be excellent flavour base, without being so heavy it becomes cliché.

Most tieflings are born on the planes, and there are other ways of getting from plane to plane without plane shift.

True, but they don't have to be, and the slightly mothering thing has too many possibilities not to be used. You could even turn any fiendish tongues the tiefling might konw into something that sounds suspiciously like Yiddish, which would perfect the manipulating/mothering combination.

[Rob Roy]

True, but they don't have to be, and the slightly mothering thing has too many possibilities not to be used. You could even turn any fiendish tongues the tiefling might know into something that sounds suspiciously like Yiddish, which would perfect the manipulating/mothering combination.

This sounds so awesome that I retract my previous statement and now think that we should do two versions. I still however, maintain that the standalone one should be a planar villain, operating exclusively off the Material. She should then be incredibly biased against Primes. Planar Yiddish ahoy!Corrections in bold.

[Fable Wright]

I think just a minor connection to the planes would be a better idea. I still stand by an undead army concept, possibly with plans to create a large number of connections between the material plane and the negative energy plane to fuel the army. One way to tie in to the abyss is to make it so that she has demons with animate dead in her employ, possibly through planar binding, and at the end of the duration she kills the demons and animates them. However, she does this while posing as a completely different mage each time through the disguise skill, and possibly with the feat from Cityscape that makes you change the apparant origin point of a spell, and a Mirage Arcana spell to make it look like a different lair every time. In this way, demons are getting enraged at the material plane, and spellcasters in general, and start attacking everything. This is a fringe benefit of her overall plan to connect the material and negative energy planes, though, which she uses to good effect. A build idea would be a Dread Necromancer 14//Duskblade 3/Cleric 2/Boneknight 9 with Arcane Disciple (Summoning) and Battlecaster, the Deathbound and Evil domains, and the normal tiefling racial stat modifiers replaced with with Aasimir stat modifiers. Fluff maybe being her having a succubus as the fiendish ancestor, which, mixed with human blood and good-natured parents, gave her better mental stats and a motherly attitude.

[Rob Roy]

If we're meddling with the normal tiefling stats then we should at least replace the Outsider(Native) with Humanoid(Human,Planar). I never really understood why they were Outsiders in the first place.

[Fable Wright]

If we're meddling with the normal tiefling stats then we should at least replace the Outsider(Native) with Humanoid(Human,Planar). I never really understood why they were Outsiders in the first place.

Well, there's two things with that. First, that opens up the character to being effected by lower-level spells and abilities, such as Hold Person, and the like. Outsiders are immune to that. On the other hand, by making them outsiders, we run the risk of some smart-alec PC repeatedly using Greater Planar Binding to eventually summon <BBEG name here>, and then using magical traps and such while <BBEG name here> can't do anything. I personally think that it's a decent trade-off, but that's just me.

[AyeGill]

planar handbook has lesser planetouched for LA +0 tieflings/aasimar that become humanoids with the planetouched subtype.

[Fable Wright]

planar handbook has lesser planetouched for LA +0 tieflings/aasimar that become humanoids with the planetouched subtype.

Which has the disadvantages of both outsiders and humanoids. The only benefit to that would be to the players; the only difference between a tiefling and a lesser tiefling is that the tieflinghas LA. No increase in CR or anything. That is, IMO, the worst way to handle this. This is the BBEG, and <BBEG's name here> shouldn't be affected by just about everything the players throw at them. Just saying.

[AyeGill]

damn, thought there was a CR boost on tieflings. nevermind, then.

[Nopraptor]

Hey guys, sorry for the long absence
Well, here's my to cents: an undead army sound's good and the whole mothering thing can tie in well with that to make a Miko (was that her name? [the necromancer from OOTS with mismatched eyes]) and the whole connecting between the negative energy plane with the prime thing is an awesome evil plan

[Fable Wright]

an undead army sound's good and the whole mothering thing can tie in well with that to make a Miko (was that her name? [the necromancer from OOTS with mismatched eyes])

That would be Tsukiko, not Miko. Miko was the (ex)paladin. That was the first thing I thought of, too... weird.

[Nopraptor]

Thanks for the correction and I guess that great minds think alike

[centuriancode]

So what that turns into is a demonic necromancer tiefling that acts like Tsukiko (through as yet with less of the fetish side), and is actually an Aasimir but for the purposes of fluff is still allegedly descended from a succubus? Potentially with Planar Yiddish?

Sounds cool. Anything else we need to figure out for fluff?

[Rob Roy]

So what that turns into is a demonic necromancer tiefling that acts like Tsukiko (through as yet with less of the fetish side), and is actually an Aasimir but for the purposes of fluff is still allegedly descended from a succubus? Potentially with Planar Yiddish?

Sounds cool. Anything else we need to figure out for fluff?

Don't think so, but we should give the tiefling the tiefling INT bonus and figure out what classes she has crunch wise. I would think dread necromancer/conjurer, because the wizard specialization for necromancy sucks.

[Fable Wright]

A build idea would be a Dread Necromancer 14//Duskblade 3/Cleric 2/Boneknight 9 with Arcane Disciple (Summoning) and Battlecaster, the Deathbound and Evil domains, and the normal tiefling racial stat modifiers replaced with with Aasimir stat modifiers.

But why would she have levels of conjurer? Summoning walls, webs, and grease isn't exactly what this character would want to do. This build gives Maximum Undead Goodness. (Seriously. Also gives access to planar binding through the Arcane Disciple (Summoning), can cast arcane spells in medium armor, has epic boneknight armor, has access to Desecrate, etc.). Also, consider giving her a Minor Ring of Spell Storing to circumvent the material component for Animate Dead, and possibly a higher-level spell storing ring for other undead creating spells and Awaken Undead. As well as a Ring of Wizardry and taking the Arcane Strike feat, to give a use to all of those spell slots.

[Rob Roy]

But why would she have levels of conjurer? Summoning walls, webs, and grease isn't exactly what this character would want to do. This build gives Maximum Undead Goodness. (Seriously. Also gives access to planar binding through the Arcane Disciple (Summoning), can cast arcane spells in medium armor, has epic boneknight armor, has access to Desecrate, etc.). Also, consider giving her a Minor Ring of Spell Storing to circumvent the material component for Animate Dead, and possibly a higher-level spell storing ring for other undead creating spells and Awaken Undead. As well as a Ring of Wizardry and taking the Arcane Strike feat, to give a use to all of those spell slots.

I remember you posting that, I just couldn't find it at the time in order to quote, as I had to leave soon after that. Conjurer? Gate negative energy elemental to buff undead and kill things was my line of reasoning, but I like what you said better. I still think you should give her the tieflings INT bonus, and have the rest of her modifiers be aasmir modifiers.

[Fable Wright]

I remember you posting that, I just couldn't find it at the time in order to quote, as I had to leave soon after that. Conjurer? Gate negative energy elemental to buff undead and kill things was my line of reasoning, but I like what you said better. I still think you should give her the tieflings INT bonus, and have the rest of her modifiers be aasmir modifiers.

On the other hand, absolutely none of the tiefling's abilities use Int at all... both of her (major) spellcaster levels require Charisma and Wisdom. Both of those stats are Needed. Desperately. She could still have a high Int, but she really needs Wis and Charisma.

[Rob Roy]

On the other hand, absolutely none of the tiefling's abilities use Int at all... both of her (major) spellcaster levels require Charisma and Wisdom. Both of those stats are Needed. Desperately. She could still have a high Int, but she really needs Wis and Charisma.

True, all I'm saying is give her the INT modifier in addition to the aasmir modifiers.

[centuriancode]

Since she's a BBEG, why not give her extra bonuses? It just makes her more interesting/difficult for the players.

[edit:] Oh, and could I get a list of the books Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, and Bone Knight can be found in? I know I have them because I've seen them before, I've just temporarily misplaced them.

[Nopraptor]

well I'm not much of a cruncher so I'll leave you guys to that stuff.
anyone has an idea about her appearance? (talented artists her my plea!)

[Fable Wright]

Since she's a BBEG, why not give her extra bonuses? It just makes her more interesting/difficult for the players.

[edit:] Oh, and could I get a list of the books Dread Necromancer, Duskblade, and Bone Knight can be found in? I know I have them because I've seen them before, I've just temporarily misplaced them.

Dread Necro is from Heroes of Horror, Duskblade from PHB 2 and Bone Knight from Five Nations.

[centuriancode]

Thanks a bunch, I'll look through them A.S.A.P and see how what it looks like. I think the domains are good, though.

[Serpentine]

Could I get some help with a villain in here? He's somewhat connected to a particular city - Zena du Fulihal, City of Mammals, a place full of all the weird furry races - but it should be easy enough to drop him anywhere. He's a low epic level Rakshasa Sorcerer who controls the city with an iron but subtle and shadowy fist. Tends to concentrate on manipulation and people-controlling, but has plenty of lethality.
So, watchathink? Wanna help me build him?

[Fable Wright]

Could I get some help with a villain in here? He's somewhat connected to a particular city - Zena du Fulihal, City of Mammals, a place full of all the weird furry races - but it should be easy enough to drop him anywhere. He's a low epic level Rakshasa Sorcerer who controls the city with an iron but subtle and shadowy fist. Tends to concentrate on manipulation and people-controlling, but has plenty of lethality.
So, watchathink? Wanna help me build him?

What kind of people controlling? By gathering a number of followers, a la thrallherd or leadership, by pitting the different people against each other, or by just causing the people to follow him whether they want him to or not? How visible is he? Does he run things from behind the scenes? Is he visibly in charge of the city? We need details.

[Serpentine]

Hokay, if there's interest, here's the deal:

The City of Mammals is a disorganised plains city build on a large hill from the top of which a spring wells up and out, watering the lower city and feeding its wells. The city is built on a strict hierarchy based on race and wealth, with representatives from the “superior” races having greater say on the council. At the moment, the very last say and real power on the council belongs to a bobcat-like rakshasa called Capac.

There was another Rakshasa on the council under Capac's control, but the party tried to interrogate him and Capac Power Word Deathed him. More on that later.

He currently runs things from the background. There are actually several rivals in the city, though. He's powerful, but he's not the most powerful around. His chief rival is probably a Jackal Lord, but there's others. Point being, he has had to and still has to work hard to maintain his position. And he does it in secret.

On the other hand, thanks to his position he has near infinite resources. At the point the party has... come to his attention, he has been running a scheme whereby his minions have been robbing passing adventurers of magic items. Some he keeps, some he passes on to his faithful or as bribes, others he keeps around 'til he finds a use for them. So, basically, he's loaded. He can have access to pretty much any item I want him to.

Capac isn't the Big Bad Evil Guy of this campaign, although I don't mind if they decide to switch campaigns and strive to defeat him. He is meant to be impossible, or close to it, to defeat with the party as they are. Maybe if they do a veritable crap-load of planning and get a whole lot of backup, they could do it. But not in a one-on-one fight.
My original plan was that the party would be killed by one of Capac's minions (see below) and then resurrected by Capac to be pressganged into a side-quest. If they beat the minion, they'd kill her, take the item she stole back, and move on with the main plot. No biggie. As it turns out, though, they managed to take her alive, interrogate her, find out about Capac, spent the next ten minutes blasting her in the face with acid (long story short, I screwed up an item) and then decided they were gonna take it all the way to the top. For the record, they've had 4 people tell them that the guy at the top is very, very bad news.
I intend/expect that the party will either run away, get captured or get killed. I'm undecided on whether Capac should aim to kill or capture - kill and resurrect results in more dramatic dialogue ("I went to a lot of expense to bring you back. If you don't perform this task for me, I shall expect a refund". Something like that) but it also might seem more cheap or railroady or something, and there's also the whole "reluctant soul" thing, although I'm willing to homebrew some sort of ritual to allow someone to force a soul back to life. Any thoughts on that?
Speaking of railroading, Capac is extremely powerful, but he's also extremely arrogant. He won't really give the party any choice, but he also assumes that they wouldn't dare double-cross him. They may have some opportunity to escape before they set out on the task, or they can perform the task and scheme against him later, or they can pretend to perform the task but deceive him, or they can recruit help, and so on.
The task will involve being sent to another city - City of Birds, probably, dominated by Raptorans and others, or possibly the City of Reptiles, mostly kobolds and lizardfolk and a healthy portion of yuan-ti - to retrieve an item desired by Capac. I'm not sure what that item will be. Capac will tell them, honestly, that it isn't magical, that taking it won't hurt anyone, that he won't be able to kill anyone with it, that sort of thing. It will be something more a matter of pride, that will only hurt the pride of the owners to have it stolen, but will hurt that pride a lot. I'm thinking it will be some relic of a long-dead hero, an urn of ashes or a piece of bone or somesuch, possibly someone who once vexed Capac. Maybe he intends to force-resurrect the person and do horrible things to them, but I think his most immediate concern will be the humiliation of the owners.

For generic use, he's pretty much your typical sinister-shadow-behind-the-throne fellow. He's a blackmailer, a manipulator, a briber and a schemer.

At this point, items, spell and feat selection are the main things I'd like help with. I've decided to give him 5 levels of Sorcerer, 5 of Mindspy and 2 Mindbender. He will focus on spells that will let him control and/or manipulate people (either directly or otherwise), and destructive and/or death- and pain-dealing spells. I'm aiming for CR 25ish. The party consists of 7 level 13 characters (if anyone's keeping track of other discussions, that's one of the reasons why I intended to get rid of my DMPC...). However, I recently put them against a level 16 minion of Capac's and her two underlings, and they absolutely pulverised her, in large part thanks to Irresistable Frigging Dance. So I need to make sure that there really is no way they could beat this guy in a fair fight right now - maybe later, but not now.

Oh yeah, the Word of Death thing. As it turns out, he can't actually cast 9th level spells at this point, not if I give him levels in Mindspy. However, it's reasonable that he would have access to scrolls, wands or other items that can do it. Is it easy enough that he'd be able to use them, and are there any in particular anyone could suggest?

Hrm. There's rather a lot there, isn't there... Anything else?

[Fable Wright]

My first impression of what you should do is this: When the party goes charging into the Rakshasa's private abode and tries to attack him, he's sitting at a table sipping tea or what not and invites them to a chat as if they weren't wielding weapons, broke down his door, etc.. Following this, if they continue to attack him, he uses Forcecage on them to get them to stop, and then proceeds about talking to them with a job offer. Throughout this, he casts Dominate Person (possibly with an Arcane Thesis, and Rapid Metamagic while he stills and silents it) on them repeatedly throughout the conversation. He also might use mass suggestion on them during the chat. Eventually, if they are not immune to enchantments, they will be under his control, and you don't need to deal with the annoying issue of resurrecting the party. If the party uses an antimagic field, possibly equip him with a ways to get around that. One might be through the use of bodyguards throughout his estate to arrest the PCs if they don't act reasonable. That's my take on it, anyways.

[Serpentine]

I was thinking of having him used Improved Invisibility (or maybe just a Ring of Invisibility, while he's talking), and an illusion of himself at least to start with. So he could have an illusion of himself sipping the tea while he lounges off to the side.
At least one of the characters is, apparently, immune to enchantments from Lawful creatures. But he's also the most... morally questionable character, so he might be more likely to go along of his own free will. Really gotta check out his character sheet, he keeps, shall we say, "sitting" on everything I throw at them

My main problem with capture is that I really wanted to use the "refund for your resurrection" line, but I should probably let it go

Any thoughts on equipment, spells and feats?

[Fable Wright]

Equipment? Probably a staff of Enchantment and a Staff of Power, to start. Golems can be a nightmare for spellcasters, and tough on the melee fighters. They would make for decent body- and house- guards. Especially the drakestone golem from Draconomicon; it had paralyzing breath and was designed to look like a statue, which certainly falls within this character's ideals (i.e., take them alive). There should be a Scrying mirror, as well, and possibly some other items for keeping tabs on people. I remember from somewhere (not sure where though... I think it might have been a dragon magazine?) there was a small beholder statuette that had 10 masterwork daggers with eyestalks as the hilt (Each worth 450gp apiece). By touching the central eye of the statuette, you could scry within 30ft of any of the daggers at will. In addition, each of the magical daggers register as non-magical, as the magic aura spell, if I recall. Several of those (if you can find the source, tell me) would be enough to keep tabs on pretty much every major character in the city, aside from him. I think it cost either 4,500gp or 45,000gp, but it would be something useful. Possibly something he can plant on someone. Another bit of gear would definitely be metamagic rods. As a sorcerer, he needs his feats, and applying metamagic without increasing the casting time is a major bonus. A ring of spell turning should also be used, as the Rakshasa will be on the lookout for dispel magic and other goodies the PC caster will throw at him. Other things such as a Marvelous Pigments could be used to dot the household, detailing the Rakshasa's personal hobbies.

[Serpentine]

Oooo, those are all good ideas. Especially the golem one - I didn't think of that. Now, if you were an extremely vain and arrogant sorcerous cat-man who lives at the height of the feline part of town controlling the council to advance the interests of both yourself and the other felids, what big hard thing would you have decorating your home...?
The beholder-thing sounds pretty good, too. The Rakshasa counsellor we accidentally got killed had a staff. I haven't decided what it was, yet, but the players took it, and it would fit well enough to have that staff given to him by Capac and for it to have something scryey incorporated into it.