Villainous Competition XX​IV: Wrong For The Right Reasons

[White Blade]

My idea was for a Saint Unicorn going into Apostle of Peace (Paladin of Freedom, Marshal, Apostle of Peace). He was going to be the leader of radical anti-war movements in half a dozen countries. He was a pretty obscene combat challenge at low levels (Globe of Lesser Invulnerability plus weapons breaking on less than 25 at CR 6), which was where I statted him for, but he was also a sucker, so people swindled him a lot. I also had him leading a sacred mountain sanctuary. I didn't have time though.

I may try my hand at judging this round, as time allows.

[Inevitability]

It was brought to my attention that one of the entries contained links prohibited by the forum rules. These have been taken out.

As they were part of the sources, and no essential part of those, I do not believe I have hurt this build's chances in any way.

[remetagross]

My idea was for a Saint Unicorn going into Apostle of Peace (Paladin of Freedom, Marshal, Apostle of Peace). He was going to be the leader of radical anti-war movements in half a dozen countries. He was a pretty obscene combat challenge at low levels (Globe of Lesser Invulnerability plus weapons breaking on less than 25 at CR 6), which was where I statted him for, but he was also a sucker, so people swindled him a lot. I also had him leading a sacred mountain sanctuary. I didn't have time though.

I may try my hand at judging this round, as time allows.

I had thought about pretty much the same; for once, the various BoED vows would have been pretty much completely be put to use.

[zlefin]

yeah, I was also thinking of making a supre exalted char. mostly they';re more annoyingly good (trying to get the party to donate to charity, solving problems without any of that pesky violence, guilting the party about things). but for them the build barely mattered, cuz past vows of poverty/peace, their real protection was that it would always be wrong for the party to actually fight them.

I also thought of making a LN tax collector.

of course these also have the problem that they're not "wrong" for the right reasons, they're simply right for the right reasons, and have some issues with the PCs.

[Thurbane]

Just an update: I've begun preliminary judging, but with the always hectic lead-up to Christmas, might take a little longer than I'd hoped.

1. Wraith: Legacy Monster Wraith Undead 8/Cloistered Cleric 15
2. Barson the Peaceful: Brass Dragon Dragon 31
3. Kayla de'Arcturaine: Vivacious Firre Outsider 15/Cloistered Cleric 1/Favored Soul 2
4. Miranda d'Ormin: Human Conjurer 5/Crusader 1/Silver Pyromancer 5/Jade Phoenix Mage 9
5. Diana, Fist of St Cuthbert: Lammassu Magical Beast 7/Cleric of St. Cutbert 12
6. Jack B: Human Rogue 7/Crusader 13
7. Jac Trocchi: Jaebrin Bard 7/Virtuoso 3/Sublime Chord 2/Heartwarder 8
8. Aeden Ó Connail: Human Druid 15/Ranger 1/Beastmaster 4
9. Rumble: Living Spell (Earthquake) Sentry Ooze Ooze 7/Warlock 6/Marshal 2

(Hopefully all those summaries are correct?)

[GrayDeath]

Take your Time.

After all, ideally a second Judge should appear soonish anyway, no? :)

[Boggartbae]

Yeah thurbane you get brownie points from me for stepping up, even if you don’t go any further.

I haven’t looked at past threads too closely, but if this has been a recurring problem, then I promise to judge instead of enter next time just couldn’t help myself!

[daremetoidareyo]

This would have been the right competition for my unhittable exalted VOP kender rust monster trainer...

I think I may judge.

[Boggartbae]

This would have been the right competition for my unhittable exalted VOP kender rust monster trainer...

I think I may judge.

"If I can't have things, no one can!"

Am I reading that right?

[Buufreak]

Well, I'm certainly glad I still have about a week left. Sorry for slacking guys, holidays, family, all that jazz...

I should have the next few days worth of time to power through all the sheets, though.

[GrayDeath]

Three Judges!?

Fantastic!

[Venger]

Well, I'm certainly glad I still have about a week left. Sorry for slacking guys, holidays, family, all that jazz...

I should have the next few days worth of time to power through all the sheets, though.

thanks for the update.

[flappeercraft]

So are there like basically no judges? Bumping to see if anyone joins the judges

[Thurbane]

So are there like basically no judges? Bumping to see if anyone joins the judges

I'm in the process of judging, but I can't honestly say how much time I can devote to it between now and Christmas.

This weekend, for instance, I have my work end of year party, birthday for one of my wife's friends, and a 40th for one of my friends...

[Venger]

I'm in the process of judging, but I can't honestly say how much time I can devote to it between now and Christmas.

This weekend, for instance, I have my work end of year party, birthday for one of my wife's friends, and a 40th for one of my friends...

Sounds good to me. Thanks for the update. For the december contests, it's not like we expect a quick turnaround anyway.

[flappeercraft]

I'm in the process of judging, but I can't honestly say how much time I can devote to it between now and Christmas.

This weekend, for instance, I have my work end of year party, birthday for one of my wife's friends, and a 40th for one of my friends...

Yeah, I saw your post and it is ok if it takes a while, I was just trying to see if I could get more people to see to judge as we had like 2 judges.

[daremetoidareyo]

I've read all of the builds completely. I just haven't written anything down yet.

[GrayDeath]

I've read all of the builds completely. I just haven't written anything down yet.

I'm in the process of judging, but I can't honestly say how much time I can devote to it between now and Christmas.

This weekend, for instance, I have my work end of year party, birthday for one of my wife's friends, and a 40th for one of my friends...

Dont feel pressured, its the End of the year. NOBODY has a lot of time around this time. ^^

[Thurbane]

Dont feel pressured, its the End of the year. NOBODY has a lot of time around this time. ^^

True.

PS my birthday is December 25th.

[Zaq]

I have neither the time nor the inclination to judge, but I want to say that Rumble is beautiful in every way.

[Buufreak]

Alright, sincere apologies, time has gotten away from me again. I don't think I will be able to squeeze in judgements. And that really sucks, this is the one I was really looking forward to.

[Venger]

Alright, sincere apologies, time has gotten away from me again. I don't think I will be able to squeeze in judgements. And that really sucks, this is the one I was really looking forward to.

no problem. thanks for the update.

[GrayDeath]

Hey, if the Chair agrees, I for one have no problem to wait till after Christmas, if we get more judgements (and better, non-rushed ones at that^^) instead! :)

[Inevitability]

I'd be completely fine with waiting a bit.

[Thurbane]

I'm back at work today.

Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still (slowly) working through my judging...

[jdizzlean]

I'm back at work today.

Just wanted to let everyone know I'm still (slowly) working through my judging...

what? a thread bump?? BY A JUDGE!!! (open thread)

bah humbug!

hahaha, oh how you cruelly twist the knife in my impatient back :D

no worries, thanks for the update

[daremetoidareyo]

Wraith:
Originality: The old Louie versus Lestat dichotomy in wraith form. The wraith has a heck of a sales pitch. The build is uniqueish. Monster of Legacy is a really cool template for a DM to build with. It allows you to drop some SLAs on your beast. 5.0
Elegance: Nothing illegal 5.0
Power: You undead. Between Turning, positive energy, and undead specific gear and abilities, Wraith isn’t packing a ton of heat, and he seems built to survive, not to kill. Actually pinning him down is the majority of handling direct conflict with wraith. Actually stopping him as a vector of wraithdom is a little different. Especially with timestop 1/day in there. This still isn’t the most powerful undead caster. 3.75
Villainy: I love this character. He generates so many plothooks, maybe even hires adventurers to create a wraith busters organization to hunt down wraiths who broke the code, maybe he unbalances the negative energy plane with his success, maybe he is a savior of sorts in Barson the Peaceful’s campaign world. Weirdly enough, most of the direct conflict with this figure doesn’t really pose a threat to properly CRed PCs and some good ole fashioned PC diplomacy might completely derail your Wraithtopia 4.5
18.25

Barson the Peaceful:
Originality: I considered making a dragon for this comp too. After reading yours, I’m glad that I didn’t, yours is really good. However, dragons description as haughty superiorists kind of lends them to villainy through good. 4.0
Elegance: Nothing Illegal 5
Power: Average for a dragon at all of those CR levels. Plus the inconvenience of the sacred vows on his hitability. Once players figure out how to change their type from humanoid, Barson becomes a normal dragon to fight. 4.25
Villainy: This character is great! Imagine a guy that is doing things that you know are wrong, but everytime you go to confront him, he convinces you that he is right. Plus, he’s a foreign sentient creature that belongs to the ever so proud race of dragons. That draconic superiority complex means that they can use their power in some callous ways and still retain their alignment. Plus, You can’t argue with him. He’s Hatable. And good aligned. 5.0
18.25

Kayla de'Arcturaine:
Originality: I considered template stacking a vivacious creature template for this comp, but your firre works really well. 4.0
Elegance: The only thing keeping this from a perfect score is squaring the exalted feats with the trauma/madness healing people to actual death backstory stuff. 4.75
Power: Kayla is tough for players who don’t think of ways to hurt themselves every round. If they figure that out, they then have to contend with the exalted feats, by 1.) telling them that what they are doing is hurting other sentient creatures and they must stop or 2.) stomping her from beyond the 60feet auras. 4
Villainy: I really appreciate that you basically made an elder evil type campaign with your entry. I think I would use Kayla quite differently than your prescription as a DM, but I’d keep the basic personality and story. I do feel like madness and warped by trauma narratives in their backstory hurt the villainy aspect of the good aligned villain but robbing them of the heft of pathos to make them a campaign long antagonist instead of a sidequest. 4.0
16.75

Miranda d'Ormin:
Originality: Miranda is a fell drain metamagic reducer agent of the church of silver flame with jade pheonix mage skillz. The conjurer abrupt jaunt aspect of her build was underaddressed and appears to be unrepentant power grabbing. This is a cool build for a PC. 4.5
Elegance: Everything looks legal. Catalogues of enlightenment to a specific campaign world domain? That’s a bit cheezey. 4.75
Power: Do I need to justify a 5 for a jade phoenix mage with abrupt jaunt? 5.0
Villainy: Miranda is a LG church of the silver flame wizard who is a lycanthrope hunter who uses fell drain and some fire optimization. If the PCs are shifters, lycanthropes themselves, or creatures of supernatural evil, this character is dynamic and difficult to chew on and great for a dramatic campaign roleplay. I feel like without the personal investment from the PCs, this villain is ultimately ignored in favor of other quests. Her “villainy” is the structural systemic intolerance of being associated with the big political organization of the church of the silver flame. To best highlight miranda, the church has to play a big role in the campaign. I just went and read a bunch about the church and Miranda could be a great example of the church’s lawful stupid behavior, but then she loses the emotional complexity exemplified in the blurb. 3.75
18.0

Diana, Fist of St Cuthbert:
Originality: Lawful neutral and St. Cuthbert are like narrative lobster and butter. Lammasu introduces a new element. 3.5
Elegance: Everything looks square. 5.0
Power: Lammasu’s are tough. Clerics are tough. 4.0
Villainy: A lawful Neutral lammasu cleric of Cuthbert with sway over politics posing travel restrictions and taxes. I like this character as an NPC but I don’t think that PCs will necessarily engage the villain directly and instead use subterfuge, lies, and avoidance to obviate what is mostly a crazy inconvenient geopolitical aspect of the game world. Unless Diana makes it personal, I suspect most players will refuse to engage directly, unless it is easier to do that than pass bluff checks being forced by local magistrate enforcers. I appreciate the “fall” from good to neutral built into the character arc but I feel like I don’t have a sense of Diana’s motivations, desires, and ultimate plans derived from them. 3.0
15.5

Jack B[redacted], Agent of [redacted]:
Originality: This is a good entry. I mean as an homage, it’s well done. Although I’m struggling with the shadow stride fitting on jack bauer. 4.5
Elegance: It appears that everything works.5.0
Power: For a multiclass mundane initiator, this is a solid build. He caves under the action economy at proper CR without an environmental advantage or buddies. 3.75
Villainy: “Before this, jack is not really meant as an Antagonist, much less a villain.” This adage remains true with the later build. Without a better demonstration of the nation states that he is supposed to be working for, it becomes difficult to cast jack as a villain. I suppose this effect is reduced if your players are fans of the show. As a leader of a semi-optimized anti-party, I reckon he’s pretty tough opponent if played tactically. He’s a hard striker. Weirdly enough, this character also has more of a potential redemption arc than other entrants. A number of life personal details are fixable things in this system! Family is resurrectable. Mind rape is a real option to fix trauma. So, I reckon this guy is a little better than the mid point between average and archvillain. 4.25
17.5

Jac Trocchi:
Originality: This is a cool concept. Jaebrin is a neat find. Good job on a well rounded spell list.5.0
Elegance: Everything appears legal 5.0
Power: Not a superpower in direct conflict. A real pain in the butt as a political enemy.3.0
Villainy: Anarchist zealot set in an oppressive society. I love this character. A Chaotic but Good punk who sees wealth as a form of violence. I don’t have a sense for why this jaebrin has adopted whatever town they’re set in. I think this antagonist is great for evil PCs to have to contend with, particularly lawful evil. Jac has a mastermind quality to his tactics, with diplomacy and bard optimization making them set events into action. He turns the game into a counter-insurgeancy mission, which could be quite fun. And direct conflict just exacerbates Jac’s goals. Against good players, I struggle to see how they don’t align with Jac, unless they have a vested interest in keeping the upper crust in place for some other greater good that allows them to accept the effects of the boot of oppression. This means that PCs will have to broker peace between Jac’s goals and the uppercrustites as intermediaries of compromise. 4.5
17.5

Aeden Ó Connail:
Originality: Literally every feat option has been chosen for advancing power and no attempt was made to square it all. He’s part abomination, cool, how does that square with his beliefs about balance? He’s a greenbound summoner. Why and how? Venomfired multiple fleshrakers: why? Your system mastery is rewarded in power.3.0
Elegance: It appears that everything is legal. Except: What’s your alignment? You need to be a neutral alignment to keep your druid features, and a non evil to qualify for the competition. I’ll bump this to a 5 if you tell me and it's legal. True neutral 5.0
Power You can wildshape into a zodar. And you can venomfire your many fleshrakers. And you can summon greenbound whales. 5.0
Villainy: A Nature themed Tyler Durden. Nice. I toyed with this concept as a possible entry of my own, so I like what you’ve done here. More than anything else, the aberration wildshape needed more explanation to justify it on this build. 4.25
15.25 17.25

Rumble:
Originality: Do i need to justify why or how this is a 5.0 in originality, really?
Elegance: Everything appears legal. I disagree about the assertion that he’s not visible by virtue of being a living spell, but no penalties about that. How does hideous blow interface with the ooze’s attack? I’m not sure it adds to the earthquake damage, but it doesn’t really negatively affect the build if it’s just bonus damage on the ooze’s strike. 5.0
Power: Your saves are a weakness for a long while, and you can be kited by a magical strikeforce team. 4.25
Villainy: You crazy. The only chaotic neutral entry in the bunch, and dang. I see a few reasonable implementation paths for Rumble; him harnessed by some other villain who has to use rebukes through a domain or opposed charisma checks. Having Rumble be some sort of force of nature that various factions are questing to control works too. If you are in charge of a country’s defense or offense, you want to control a flying sentient earthquake. Otherwise it’s a supernatural mystery investigation, scooby doo style, to figure out the cause of all of the quaketastic maladies. So far, the only pathos for Rumble is that he’s like tiny toon’s elmyra, in that he likes to hug things? That’s a little silly but can work in some campaigns. Regardless, Rumble is undeniably memorable. 4.75
19

Honorable Mention to Jack Bauer

Happy New Year!

As a Side note, I would set both Jac and Wraith in Barson’s Kingdom and run that as an adventure path.

[Inevitability]

Twofold disputes!

First, thanks for your Judging.


Now I only have 2 quibbles on your Judging, and both seem related to a tendency I`ve seen often.

First and more important: Villainy: Where does it ever say a Villain is onla a Villain if the Players HAVE to confront him directly?

Diana is meant to make Life hard for ALL Heroes and other travellers. And does so by using social, magical and religious means This is a much wider, more dangerous setup than "Local Lich abducts Child XY, go kill him and fetch it", which is what I would rate as a Villainy 3 if he was about as detailed.

Maybe it did not come across, but Diana is both an easily (well, not that easily, see Power further below) directly attackable Mid Campaign Villain as well as a "vastly influental Theocrat" late Game Villain. If the players try to engage politically, simply leave, or do the usual Murderhobo thing and "decapitate the Sna...ehm, Lion" is up to them, she proivides angles for them all.

Also her motives (Stability first, removal of destabilizing elements like the ones that hurt her) first and conversion second, are well explained and there....

Also dont forget, the Villains here are MEANT to be less Villainy, see the Competitions motto. ;)

To conclude. I can agree, if your definition of Villain is a more direct one, on you not awarding me a top score here, but I respectfully submit that a 3 is simply "Mediocre or lower Villainy", and that Diana is not.


Point 2: Power: This dispute is more along the lines of a bit nitpicking. She fulfills her role as dangerously competent melee/Buffer/Summoner Cleric very well.
Which, given the criteia should at least rate a 4.5, maybe a full 5.
Since you did not post anything about what detracted from full pts (which, again, means Fulfills what she is meant to extremely well", after all the Power rating here is nota most to elast powerful possible build ever", otherwise noone would use anything less powerful like any martial :) ) I am a bit at a loss udnerstanding why I only got a 4.

Thanks in advance for your time

hello antd thanks for your Judging.


I would like to dispute 1 point in your Judging, and ask for an explanation on a second one, overall though I mostly agree to my scores.

Point 1: Power. Just submitting that Power here is not objective Power but how well does it do what it is supposed to do, and jack is really good at his Shtick. Yes, unlike Full casters he has problems regarding Action Economy (no summons) and Flying, but again, comparing them with him is not the point of Power, otherwise we`d all build Domain or Evlen Generalist Wizards ^^
Now as I purposefully did not go the more powerful "add 1-2 Levels of Swordsage round, I do not expect full pts, but I think a value above 4 is warranted.

Quersion: Why would the Inclusion of SHadow Jaunt reduce the Innovativenes? If its only the "why does JACK ahve it" it was, like most of the build, a crack on the way he manages to be "just at the point where he needs to be to take Down Subject xys" the show plays up to in the later seasons.


PS: Villainy: I think I could do with a small increase in the Villainy. After all, this IS the "Wrong for the Right Reasons" Round, while in a normal round I would completely agree with your can be fixed" argument. :)

[Thurbane]

I hope to have my judging finalized in the next few days...

[Inevitability]

Another dispute!

Jac vs. Non-Evil Parties

It doesn't have to be a particularly oppressive society to have an underclass who are fed up with their lot in life, and can be convinced to revolt. I had imagined it to be a "normal" fantasy setting, not someplace that would be obviously just waiting for the PCs to overthrow the evil overlord. She doesn't want a revolution because the ruler is ****ty, she wants a revolution because there are rulers.

I had also expected her to go after them initially, not physically, but via propaganda; especially if they do any jobs for the wealthy denizens of the city. And even in the early-mid game, the PCs should be wealthy enough to be a target for Jac. She can specifically call them out if you want for paying hundreds to thousands of gold coins for a cloak or a shirt or whatever.

I also expect her brand of revolution to be too anarcho-socialist for your average party.

I probably should have elaborated more in the build, but I just wanted to clarify a bit.
I'm very happy with 4.5

Thanks so much for judging!

I hope to have my judging finalized in the next few days...

That's great to hear!