I have a homebrew campaign where undead feature heavily in the first arc (taking them through levels 1-6 or 7), and as a special threat to my players, I want to build an enemy that will harass them through in the upper-middle levels of this arc. I wanted specifically an enemy that would serve as an objective lesson in the importance of positioning. For this I wanted an enemy that needs to be whittled down a bit at a time, distracted, an absolute dread in melee, but with a ranged option so that cover is considered as well.
I want my players to face Pathfinder Nemesis.
From Resident Evil 3, or Resident Evil 2 in the movies
Thus far for design I can't help but be drawn to a Carrion Golem with class levels in a Gun Tank Bolt Ace. They would be in heavy armor, and use a crossbow for ranged combat, and their melee slam attack at close range.
However, I understand that there are a few issues with this:
Carrion Golems are mindless, and the convention is that mindless creatures don't get feats, skills or class levels, which means that I'd effectively be fudging things if I use a carrion golem as a base creature to add class levels to.
One possibility I'm looking at is simply modifying the carrion golem to have an intelligence score, leaving it susceptible to intelligence drain, and having an impact on its number of skills, or simply leaving it mindless but treating it like it had an intelligence of 10.
I'm also thinking of removing the carrion golem's foul stench aura in favor of granting its slam attack a grapple, for flavoring purposes of its combat.
As for how the party will encounter this enemy, they will fight regular carrion golems prior to facing this class-levelled one. The part consists of a monk, a gunslinger, two bards and a rogue. I'm planning it so that their first fight with this carrion golem (hereafter referred to as Nemesis) will be an encounter at level 4 or level 5 after having faced other encounters (I.E. their resources will be diminished). Nemesis will fight for a few rounds, but then retreat (as it/its master has another goal it needs to fulfill). This first encounter will be a fairly open environment, an abandoned village with busted carts, a fountain, and some derelict buildings to take refuge in.
Players can be expected to fight and kill this monster at level 6.
I understand if the previous bits were all rather scatter-brained, so I'll just go over some things I'd like to weigh in on a few factors:
- Is there perhaps a better undead (or even an aberration) creature to add Gun Tank/Bolt Ace levels for much the same flavor?
- How many class levels should I add to ensure it will be a terror to fight at 4-5 without all their resources, but beatable at level 6 when the party can plan ahead and face it with full resources? (I'm guessing 5-6 class levels)
- Given the party composition, are there any factors which could make this creature unfairly hard or overly easy?
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Ecorche would have been perfect for this but well since the lowest Ecorche are CR 16 probably a bad idea.
You could simply go for the easy way and make him an ogre zombie lord (CR 4) then add gunslinger class levels to it.
You want it to be tough for level 5-6 and terrifying for apl 4-5 party. A CR 9 Nemesis I guess:
Ogre Zombie Lord Guntank 5 (CR 9)
In my opinion at least.
Zombie lords retain their intelligence.