So the story I have for her so far is that her patron is the Demon Lord Orcus. She sold her twin children to him in exchange for his favor. As such, all (or most) of her hexes, spells and feats are going to be geared towards necromancy and undeath. She is the BBEG at the end of a nearly year-long campaign.
A few necessities:
1. She has to be an elf.
2. She needs to have the Slumber, Ice Tomb and Eternal Slumber hexes. Summon Spirit is a plus.
3. As far as the possession, I'm pretty sure it's gonna be a Balor who will fluff- and crunch-wise be undead themed. As such, his SLA's probably would be as well. My players won't know she is possessed, so just as they kill her, he pops out and summons his Glabrezus.
A note about her hex DC: I don't necessarily want it bumped up too much since she's already getting +4 to Int from being possessed, and she'll likely have a headband of Int or similar.
What feats, spells, hexes, etc. should I be looking at? I want her to be pretty beastly. My players all like optimizing. Thanks guys!
Here is the information on demonic possession on the SRD.
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She has to be Elf? :( You want to give your players a show make her a halfling jinx witch.
That being said, split hex/split major hex depending what level she is. I would say accursed hex, but the real challenge will be her spellcasting. (Quickened Stinking Cloud + Black Tentacles to hopefully keep them perma nauseated?) Spell Focus/Greater Necromancy. Spell Perfection enervation for the witch if shes going to be 15? pump out empowered/quickened enervations, or pick another spell necromancy spell to favor.
Rod of Abrupt hexes, for 3/day swift action hexes, gloves of storing and switch out her rod as a free action for a staff of the master and get some meta magic bonuses.
Thats some suggestions I have for her.
She has to be Elf? :( You want to give your players a show make her a halfling jinx witch.
Yeah the players already met her children, who are both elves. :/ Slight error of forethought on my part.
That being said, split hex/split major hex depending what level she is. I would say accursed hex, but the real challenge will be her spellcasting. (Quickened Stinking Cloud + Black Tentacles to hopefully keep them perma nauseated?) Spell Focus/Greater Necromancy. Spell Perfection enervation for the witch if shes going to be 15? pump out empowered/quickened enervations, or pick another spell necromancy spell to favor.
Rod of Abrupt hexes, for 3/day swift action hexes, gloves of storing and switch out her rod as a free action for a staff of the master and get some meta magic bonuses.
Beautiful. Thank you. Any thoughts on the Balor? I was hoping for him to be a nasty surprise and be on par if not even stronger than her. I was thinking 1/day Horrid Wilting but I'm not sure if that's too strong or not strong enough. I was also thinking at-will Create Undead, 3/day Create Greater Undead and 1/day Wail of the Banshee but idk.
Oh I should probably mention that she is level 20. No mythic ranks...yet. I'm open to the idea, though.
Yessir. And while I'm thinking about it, her kids are fully-grown, so her age is probably at least revered. Also, she (probably) would have an implanted Nacreous Gray Sphere Ioun stone.
Wrath of the Righteous AP has several variant ability Balor in it, you could give it a skim for some inspiration.
Wrath of the Righteous AP has several variant ability Balor in it, you could give it a skim for some inspiration.
Awesome thanks! Yeah I'll take a look. One of my players has been wanting to run a WotR campaign so I might end up buying the materials in a bit.
Are her children evil/witches? Could be a coven....
They're actually good-aligned. Her son is a Hexcrafter Magus and her daughter is an Arcanist/Eldritch Knight. Definite scarring from the whole demonic imprisonment thing, but they turned out more like their Cavalier father (Who was bewitched and seduced with a love potion).
I hope your grave digger witch has an army of undead to command, 1 BBEG has a hard time against a team in most cases. Smart tactics make up a little bit, having an army of undead? Could be a great fight. Or even 2 or 3 big undead minions.
Yeah I was thinking about that. She actually does. One of the biggest themes of the campaign was finding out where all of the undead were coming from, and then stopping them. Turns out what the witch has been doing is Slumber-ing, Ice Tomb-ing, and Eternal Slumber-ing an army's worth of victims, then CDG-ing them and turning them into minions. So she does have several mooks constantly around her. I was actually thinking, though, that some of her personal guards would be demons of some kind, like Mariliths or Vrolikai, as kind of a foreshadowing to the Balor. Barring that, some zombie or skeleton giants might work. I wasn't planning on that, though.
1 BBEG has a hard time against a team in most casesIn most cases? Yes. For a level 20 witch? Doubtful. Chances are you'll need to pull some punches just to avoid taking everyone out in the first round.
What level are the players?
*A Level 20 Balor-Possessed Witch.
Right now they're 18, but by the time they get to her, they'll be 20. That's why I was hoping for a higher CR encounter.
If she's possessed by a Balor you just have a weak woman's body with the Balor's BAB and SLAs. Both the witch and the demon would be more powerful without the possession.
If she's possessed by a Balor you just have a weak woman's body with the Balor's BAB and SLAs. Both the witch and the demon would be more powerful without the possession.
That's kind of the point. The witch is a red herring. She should be pretty powerful on her own, but will be defeated by the PC's, which will free the Balor. They'll be weakened (possibly severely) when they have to fight him, and he'll be fresh.
Speaking of demonic possession, what supernatural ability were you planning on transferring to the witch herself? Death Throws would give the actual balor a dramatic entrance, but wouldn't actually be that dangerous with half damage. Vorpal Strike would be absolutely terrifying if she started handing out temporary vorpal scythes to Juju Zombie Cyclops minions.
I hadn't thought much about it. This is why I posted this in the first place. I wanted to get people's ideas and see what we could do. I really like the idea of the Death Throes, though.
Speaking of undead minions, well-placed minions with wands of ill omen or enervation could be absolutely devastating to your PCs' saves. Hence the need to pull punches, because if you boost your hex DCs and initiative high enough you could take out the entire party with a split ice tomb hex and an abrupt split slumber hex on the first round, without even needing to use any spells of your own.
Right now in the party we have an Oath of Vengeance Paladin, a Transmuter Wizard, an Archaeologist Bard with a rogue cohort, a Draconic/Abyssal Crossblooded Bloodrager and an Oracle of Life. My plan was to open her up with Slumber on the Bloodrager to show them she means business but have her fairly neutered otherwise as her minions would do a lot of the fighting toe-to-toe while she sat back and cast hexes and spells out. She could also make great use of her poppet and the deliver touch spells feature.
Speaking of spells of your own, what sort of spells did you want her to have? Any sort of theme in mind? I'm guessing her combat list would have mainly enchantment, necromancy, and debuffs, if only because those would probably be the most fun for everyone involved. She doesn't need save-or-dies, she has hexes for that. She doesn't need summoning, she has undead minions for that. She doesn't need buffing because she doesn't have a party, and who buffs their undead minions? Maybe a little battlefield control could be nice.
My thoughts exactly, but again, these are the questions I'm opening up to the message boards.
A big 'thank you' to everyone who has helped me with this! I'm getting closer but I still need some help with spell selection. Thanks again, guys!
Awesome guys, thanks! Well, she's on track. If I get a chance, I'll post her build here. My players should be getting to her two (maybe three) sessions from now so I should have time to iron her out.
Also, I didn't know that the Demon-possessed thing was 3PP. On the SRD I didn't see that. Doesn't change anything, but there you go. :)