I'd appreciate folks giving a look over the following Big Bad, which will be part of the finale of the current campaign I'm running.
I expect to have 6 out of 8 players showing up (1 is out for military duties; 1 has other obligations), all of which are well-optimized and APL is 16 (1 two-handed fighter, 2 witches, 1 inquisitor, 1 rogue, 1 cleric). Five out of six have high system mastery under their belt.
Etain, Witch-Knight of Mordent.
The idea is based off a PC I considered making a while back; she's a melee/hybrid, using the witch spells as debuffs (ill omen) off criticals with the eldritch knight capstone, spell critical (unwilling shield, touch of idiocy, etc), and has limited support. The amount of time she has to prepare for the party will depend on key accomplishments, but there are basic spells she'll have going regardless (mage armor, false life, ghoul army). The fight will occur indoors with limited movement options, though the PCs can certainly move the fight elsewhere.
If you see anything I should do differently, please let me know, or otherwise have questions or comments.
Edit:
I almost forgot. The Sidhe are a custom race for my setting and are Humanoid (faerie).
At the bottom of the page to the following link, you'll find their statistics: Faerie.
Bump.
I know you bumped this thread, but I'd still like to share a few thoughts! Personally I really like this concept. I think the vast arsenal of spells and abilities at Etain's disposal makes her a force to be reckoned with. More important however this villain would radiate power and inspire fear in the adventurers. Nothing's worse than when a group of adventurers fail to take interest in the villain, and then proceed to indifferently cut said villain down, without concerns of their own safety. That being said I don't think this is the case with your villain as it is very well rounded and geared for what ever your players might throw at her!
I also like the race you've cooked up here!
All in all good job and keep it up! :)
Thanks, I really appreciate the feedback!
The race is a player favorite in my group, along with the other faerie style races I included.
I intentionally left off the dominate line of spells from her, as it'd almost guarantee a party wipe. Specifically, she'd use this on the two-weapon warrior and he'd decimate the other party members (it's happened before with a succubus warlock - the wizard of the party was able to teleport away and got folks raised, afterwhich they came back, rescued the fighter, and killed the succubus).
A concern is that she really targets the party's weaknesses and can outright ignore some of their preparations. They've mistakenly identified her as a "death knight" instead of a lich and have improperly prepared. Pretty much no one in the past 11 years (real life, same group for even longer) carries bludgeoning weapons on their characters so they won't be able to bypass her DR/bludgeoning & magic, but they've crafted weapons with properties that specifically ignore a death knight's resistances, so on and so forth. The dice gods abandoned them on several knowledge checks (three to be precise) to identify her and determine her abilities and weaknesses.
In essence, I think there is a high chance of a lot of the party members getting killed (especially after she opens with waves of exhaustion), if not a TPK, but only if they take the bait and fight her on her own terms.
While normally, I make the battles really tough at the end so they feel real concern for their characters, I'm not sure if I should give them extra opportunities to realize their mistake (the bad skill rolls).
Well I understand your concerns about getting the party wiped, especially so many long hours that's been poured into each and every one of these characters.
As you mention they have mistakenly identified her as a Death Knight, but this doesn't have to be a weakness for the campaign itself! Use this to spice up the final chapter of your campaign, and let the characters face her prematurely on their terms only to discover they were wrong. Deliberately let Etain escape as this will give her time to draw the characters into her trap, but more importantly the characters might buy some much needed time to make proper preparations now that they finally realize what they are up against.
We've had campaign finale's where they were pitted against overwhelming odds (which they understood would result in death) and their characters died heroic deaths to buy time for other external factors to occur (in the same vein as Aragorn at the wall distracting Sauron's forces while the one-ring got chucked into the mountain - except the PCs all died).
It really helps immersion when the PCs past characters become part of the legends of the game world (my campaign overview includes the historic battles of their 1st characters, for example); my goal for this one was the epic battle, but the PCs live (most of them) and retire.
Your solution is one I hadn't even considered. Thank you, very much!
You are welcome I hope it was useful :)It really seems like you've put quite a lot of thought into your campaign I like that! Especially the fact that your players can retrace the actions of their previous characters!
I've tampered with something similar! I had my group write a journal of their adventures only later (same group of people, new characters) to discover said journal, from which they gathered much info on a lich they are chasing :)
Very useful, I assure you. I must be getting old, because it never dawned on me to do that.=)
My home setting is roughly 15+ years old, with the same core group of players, ages ranging from 29-52 and a 50%/%50 split of male/female players. Admittedly, using their previous characters to help flesh out the lore was due to me being a little lazy, but they took to it so well that it's become a staple of the campaign, a sort of "living world" where the PCs actions have a long-lasting impact on a small to large to world scale.
Journals are great things and I'll wager your players absolutely loved it.
I honestly expected to see adoration inducing magic and butterfly powers in her stat block haha!
Which on a lich would have just been hilarious.
Hope the battle goes well, let us know how it turns out.
You're 100% spot on there, that WOULD be hilarious. The two-handed fighter plays up his looks and vanity a lot, so I'm considering changing out cloudkill with Smug Narcicism and sincerely hoping with ill-omen he'll blow his save. Without spellcraft to identify the spell (which I know they'll use), I'm not sure they'd be able to tell the difference between him with or without the spell, lol.
Thanks, and I definitely will!
very cool concept.
Thank you! I'm a huge fan of the witch class, and haven't had one as an NPC of significant importance in a while, so it was about due.=)
I'd try to lead the group into a stalemate with the lich and have both parties back off and live to fight another day. I think it would be fun to have the party wondering what happened with all the anti-death knight gear failing. If the lich knows they have prepared for fighting a death knight and is setting a trap for the party, it could really have some fun messing with the pc's by starting off looking like a normal person via an illusion and casting undead anatomy to look like a death knight further confusing the party. Is the bbeg a human pretending to be an undead? Is it toying with them? Purposely messing with the party could put them through a loop. Lichs are extremely intelligent so I wouldn't put underhanded tactics like this past them. Imagine the look on your players faces after being led to believe the lich was first a death knight, then a human pretending to be an undead...then finding out it's a lich and they have no idea where it's phylactery is. Perfect opportunity to have the bbeg toying with the heroes like bbeg's are supposed to do.
I'd try to lead the group into a stalemate with the lich and have both parties back off and live to fight another day. I think it would be fun to have the party wondering what happened with all the anti-death knight gear failing. If the lich knows they have prepared for fighting a death knight and is setting a trap for the party, it could really have some fun messing with the pc's by starting off looking like a normal person via an illusion and casting undead anatomy to look like a death knight further confusing the party. Is the bbeg a human pretending to be an undead? Is it toying with them? Purposely messing with the party could put them through a loop. Lichs are extremely intelligent so I wouldn't put underhanded tactics like this past them. Imagine the look on your players faces after being led to believe the lich was first a death knight, then a human pretending to be an undead...then finding out it's a lich and they have no idea where it's phylactery is. Perfect opportunity to have the bbeg toying with the heroes like bbeg's are supposed to do.
I think that's how it is going to play out (though she's unaware of the planned assault, at least till they enter the haven), with the cleric getting some nasty looks for a low knowledge (religion) and horrible rolls.
As for the phylactery, that's the funny part (to me, at least). They found it (an amulet) a while back and sold it to a merchant. I used the rule of three for clues to attempt to avert the sale, but it didn't work.
Mordent, Ravenloft? If yes, more backstory please.
Switching scimitar for rapier lets him use dex to BAB.
Mordent, Ravenloft? If yes, more backstory please.
Switching scimitar for rapier lets him use dex to BAB.
Yes, the name Mordent is indeed a Ravenloft reference. When I began working on my homebrew campaign setting many years ago, I included "nods" to certain campaign settings which heavily influenced me - the former home of Rudolph van Richtin was one of these nods. Prior to adopting the name, I designed the nation around a lich-king seeking ascension to godhood (not terribly original, I know), one of the last of his race who had been destroyed by their slaves rising up against them. While sorting through my RPG books, Van Richten's Guide to the Lich was "re-discovered" and I went with the name.=)
I almost went with rapier, originally, but adopted the scimitar instead to use with Dervish Dance to get both Strength and Dexterity to Damage & Hit.=)
I have some commentary on unearthly grace if you would like to hear it.
I'm always open to criticism, advice, and/or suggestions, I particularly value yours and a handful of others' - feel free.=)
I'm always open to criticism, advice, and/or suggestions, I particularly value yours and a handful of others' - feel free.=)
ok then, cool. As someone who once tried to make a charisma based monk disciple I have looked into this quite heavily. While the non-stacking with ring of deflection helps slightly, all it really accomplishes is freeing up the ring slot (with casters having several powerful rings available this is a big one) and handing an overall more powerful effect to the caster free of charge. While Samurai/cavaliers/ and paladins might not want to give up their armor, the bard/ninja/sorcerer/oracle/summoner won't be crying over the loss. The lore oracle build can easily start with a 20 AC before items and spell effects. That becomes a mighty attractive dip for many classes as well as straight oracle. A synthesist summoner would faint at the chance. I have 2 possible recommendations that might help.
1.make the charisma bonus restricted to a maximum of 1/every 2 character levels. This will still be potent, but as a later in game effect and therefore more reasonable. Example, being able to apply a +6 at level 12.
2.simply make it a +2 bonus(stackable). Which would be closer in line with other racial traits.
honestly I like number 1, because it increases the Champion of Ioris viability by reducing MAD...but that's personal bias speaking.
Believe it or not, you've made this suggestion before and I took your number 1 option - it appears that while I updated it in my PDF files for my gaming group, I didn't remember to do it on the google drive. I just changed it to match my PDF with your suggestion. Thanks!
Hah! I guess this did seem too familiar.
LOL, yeah, you helped me with it ages ago; most recently, you helped Tenshi no Shi with a similar trait for a similar race.=)
Ive done so much homebrew i am starting to forget some of it. Nearly 2,500 posts in little over a year, estimating about 90% homebrew.
Ive done so much homebrew i am starting to forget some of it. Nearly 2,500 posts in little over a year, estimating about 90% homebrew.
You've been working harder than me; been on and off the boards since just before the end of beta and just broke 950, lol