Hello once again, currently my players are returning from the Spire of Long Shadows and have yet to be sent to look for Lashonna.
The reason i am posting is because my players are, by my own foolish discretion, a bit more powerful than your average bear.
I knew AoW was hardcore before starting them off on it so i let them roll 4d6 for stats, Re-roll 1's, and keep all, no one has any stats starting at 24 but their are a couple of 22 base stats floating around.
Thusly with my characters being a tad on the overwhelmingly strong side i useually beef the NPC's and monsters they fight in some way.
The one i really want to go all out with, and need your help with, is the infamous Darl Quethos. Dont get me wrong, 18 levels of cleric can be fun, but i want to mix it up and throw in some suprises for any of my players that may be meta-gaming.
So any suggestions on prestige classes or feats, even a new race that mixes well with a class would be appreciated.
Wow...that stat generation alone is at least worth +3 AL.
I know that's not what you are asking, but you made a mistake by doing that. The AoW is difficult but not impossible. I have 5 PCs normal dice generation and they are not having that many problems.
Has for the Darl encounter...nothing to do there since your characters are at least strenght-wise 3-4 level ahead of their actual HD. Every encounter will be trivial for them no matter what.
I think you should admit you made a mistake and lower everyone of your PCs stats by 4. It's not going to be fun for you nor them.
Just add 1d6 to each ability score of each major NPC, to put them on equal footing with the PCs.
Darl with +6 Wisdom gets +3 to DCs, a whole bunch of bonus spells, and makes me scared just thinking about it (especially if his Con gets the 2nd highest d6 roll...).
Invent some kind of supernatural curse or somesuch that lowers each character's primary stat and maybe con by 4 points, have them contract it in some appropriate place. Make destroying Kyuss the only way of getting rid of it. When they find out what it is they will personally feel the power of returnig god.
Optimize Darl a bit just because he is so badass evil guy :) Give him the divine magician alternative class feature (complete mage) so he gets access to some sweet sor/wiz spells, especially Ironguard. Furthermore make him cleric3/warlock1/eldritch disciple10/cleric5 and take Eldritch Glaive invocation and memorize atleast 5 Knigh't Moves into 2nd level slots. Swap ring of mind shielding into ring of counterspells holding greater dispel magic. Ditch the shield and mace, our new & cooler Darl doesn't need physical weapon's, maybe give something to replace them.
Darl starts the fight with the buffs mentioned in the adventure plus ironguard and divine power online. Those combined make him almost impossible to harm and the ring ain't going to make things any easier for the players. Darl's underlings move around and create flank situations for Darl to knight's move into (swift action). Then Darl forms a dark spear from the essence of magic itself (glaive invocation)and brings about the retribution of GMs in whose game the priest has fallen too easily. Cast spell as necessary and plane shift away if things start to go badly.
Invent some kind of supernatural curse or somesuch that lowers each character's primary stat and maybe con by 4 points, have them contract it in some appropriate place. Make destroying Kyuss the only way of getting rid of it. When they find out what it is they will personally feel the power of returnig god.
They'll also slash the DMs tires. This sort of mechanic will tend to really piss your players off. I don't recommend it. Nerfing players after the fact is usually a pretty heavy handed and likely to be very unpopular.
Invent some kind of supernatural curse or somesuch that lowers each character's primary stat and maybe con by 4 points, have them contract it in some appropriate place. Make destroying Kyuss the only way of getting rid of it. When they find out what it is they will personally feel the power of returnig god.They'll also slash the DMs tires. This sort of mechanic will tend to really piss your players off. I don't recommend it. Nerfing players after the fact is usually a pretty heavy handed and likely to be very unpopular.
Normally I'd totally agree with you but it seems that in this particular campaign the player's characters are out off hand. Once players get too much power they are very diffucult to manage and campaign easily becomes boring (=end of story) when nothing is even remotely a challenge.
You could of course adjust the monsters but that is gargantuan sized chunk of work when applied in large scale. Telling the player's off-game that you were too generous with stat generation and they need to be nerfed a bit might also work (as mentioned above). Perhaps explain the situation off-game and make the thing happen in-game with cursefoo(TM), that might provide a satisfactory result.
In our campaigns we use 28 point buy (including AoWAP I,m currently DMing), makes perfectly capable characters :)
Since Darl uses scrying a lot, he is intimately familiar with the party’s tactics. Knowing this, you can metagame the crud out of him. Have him make himself immune to their best spells. Use a new tactic that your players aren’t use to, like battlefield control and force cage/walls on the party until they have to fight as individual instead of as a team. Give him more minions. Use 'anticipate teleportation' if the party is planning on getting the drop on him. He knows as much about them as you do, so just give him really good tactics.
--BS