Lord Soth Help

[Rylan Killia]

Hello guys, I'm in search of some help here and here's my prediciment. I'm a first time DM for D&D (I had done some for D6 Star Wars LONG AGO). With this said as a group the people I play with are rotateing the position of DM every few months so we can all take part in the campaign without being bogged down 100% by DM duties.

Needless to say I've got the duty of breaking the guys in on Epic Level stuff. My campaign plans are to take them to Level 30. With that said I'm setting my campaign in the Dragonlance setting plainshifting the party (which in its current incarnation is a 6 member party. Two Half Dragon Fighters, 2 Human Duskblades, 1 Gnome Wizard, and 1 Rogue.

As of this writing they've been pretty much marching through most of the enemy encounters with very little difficulty. The Rogue has probably the hardest time atm while the others have a pretty good frontline tank/ damage abilities with two of them with weapons that do critical 17-20

I'm wanting to give the party a nice hard challenge where in this case don't neccessisarly 'complete' there mission by killing the bad guy and make it be known this guy means business. So I'm throwing at them Lord Soth, Kitiara and Skie (Kit's Blue Dragon mount). Soth's going to get a Vorpal Greatsword and +8 to all his ability stats through gear in his progression. With the sword itself I see that as a threat to the party letting them know he means business.

Soth in his initial stats is a Human Fighter 7/ Rogue Knight 10 (Source Dragonlance War of the Lance page 266) and os am ECL of Level 22 which conforms with Monster Manuel II rules for Death Knight 17 HD or more being character level +5 = ECL.

I want to progress Soth to ECL 30 and ECL 35. First issue is Rogue Knight I can't find stats for that class. Monster Manuel II recomends Blackguard levels which I'm considering for Soth to replace the levels of Rogue Knight if I can't track down the Rogue Knight progression.

Second Issue I have is the ECL leveling. One of my gaming members and I are debating the rules for Death Knight's ECL level. He said that The +5 recommendations for Soth's ECL (Character level +5 = ECL) is over as he hits Level 21 and achives Epic status. He claims Soth at level 25-30 is more along the lines of ECL +7 due to his abilities.

Can someone give me some clarification concerning determining ECL for Epic level characters? Any Refrences to books concerning determining ECL for Epic characters would be greatly appretiated since my group has access to most of the major books.

Thanks in advance guys.

[Jeremy Mac Donald]

I don't believe the method for calculating EL changes at all. That said its a pretty well accepted concept that EL gets less and less accurate the higher one goes in level. To many things can change the equation to dramatically at high levels - especially really high levels.

I've also got to say that doing epic 20th to 30th level for pretty much the first time DMing is gutsy to the point of foolhardiness but good luck in any case.

[Fizzban]

Well I can't really help with the EL or Epic, but maybe I can help else where.

Depending on what time period you are playing in you can make Kitiara into a Death Knight as well she did die. Soth liked her alot so maybe he brought her back? She was also a favorite of the Dark Queen so I could see her being the Dark Queen's champion of sort. Maybe she snuggled up to Chemosh?

Skie turn out to be this supered-up alien dragon. So you could add alot of things on to him. He roamed the universe and several demisions looking for Kitara's soul where he picked up alot of power and magic. So maybe he found her or some form of her.

This is all very time line dependent. If you are playing when the Dark Queen is dead you can't have Kit as her champion. If you are playing around War of the Lance time Skie won't be the monsterous dragon he turned out to be. But hey it is your game you can do what ever you want screw the time line if you like these ideas.

I'll try to find the Rogue Knight class. I know I saw it in one of my books.

I hope I didn't ruin any of the books in the above Dragonlance did get a bit weird. I think I've read most of the Dragonlance books. If you have any more question I'll be happy to help! I'll pop back with more info in a bit.

You may also want to ask on the Dragonlance Nexus message boards.

Fizzban

[Rylan Killia]

Well for starters the setting is during the entire War of the Lance. The entire Precipt behind the campaign is that something has happend to disrupt the timestream. Events are unfolding unlike what was orginally predicted. (Enter Rastlin jumping back in time to disrupt certain events). Either way the Dark Queen and her minions have aquired alot more power than anticipated to the point that the events in the plane where Kryn is would send a ripple effect to all other planes especially if the Dark Queen herself succeds.

With that said the entire party we know of from War of the Lance have been sent on there tasks as has transpired in the books. But now we have this other party of warriors arriving who in there own Plane have gainned a reputation as ones that can achieve goals that are deemed impossible. Two Half Dragon Warriors, 1 Amazonian Woman, 2 Half Celestials (1 being a Rogue and another being a Duskblade) and a Gnome Wizard. Yes a rather large party but in this case is needed.

There entire Purpose is to serve as an Advanced Strike Team to soften up the Queen of Darkness's Army. Kit and Soth as a team are a MASSIVE threat to the world and have ran through unchallenged by any foe and have greater power than they had in the books. The party immediately upon arriving is thrown right into the mix. They plane shift and find themselves appearing on the outskirts of a village in the last phase of being under seige. Buildings in flames and Draconians cleaning up the last pockets of hostility. Soth and Kit have already moved.

Those villagers who are still trying to escape and encounter the party are deeply frightened at the armored group especially upon gaining sight of the two half dragon creatures in that party wearing expensive armor that only elite soldiers could afford. To date any humanoid Half Dragon creature the people of Kryn have encountered have been Draconians. So yes there will be fear of them and initially they WILL be mistaken as Draconians until they gain the trust of various people and it is learned they fight for the cause that is good. But until then the party could very likely find themselves fighting a battle on two fronts. The battle against the Dark Forces and the forces of good.

They won't physically SEE Soth and Kit until a few sessions into this campaign but the entire principle behind the campaign is for the group as a whole to find inovative ways to find solutions to there problems. Hacking and Slashing not being the only way out they must earn the trust of the people of Kryn and prove they can serve a competent role as effective Generals.

My campaign based on what I have completed gives a good portion of bonus XP for being orginal and inventive. Those that remember and apply solutions from previous campaigns to solve a current problem etc.

With that said I actually sat down with a friend and we rebuilt Soth from the ground up and came up with the following:

Flaws: Estranged, Shaky

Feats:

Weapon Focus
Weapon Specialization
Superior Weapon Specialization
Greater Weapon Focus
Greater Weapon Specialization
Melee Weapon Mastery
Weapon Supremecy
Improved Initiative
Heavy Armor Optimization
Greater Heavy Armor Optimization
Power Attack
Daunting Presence
Improved Toughness
Death Master
Eviscerator
Improved Crtical
Combat Intuition

Epic Feats

Epic Weapon Focus
Epic Weapon Specialization
Armor Skin
Epic Toughness

So far here are Soth's Ability Scores are +8 for Strength, Dex, Intel, Wisdom, Charisma (No Con due to being undead) which makes him a 32, 22,18,24,28

HP of 283 and with Feats and Equipment his base bonuses are the following:

Attack +21
Damage: +20
Armor: +2
Natural Armor +2
Misc Armor +3
Initiative: +4
Deflect Armor +10
Universal Saves +10

His weapon of choice is an Unholy Vorpal Greatsword of Speed +10 with an attack bonus of +67 Damage 2d6+56 plus 2d6 evil vs good. Critical Range 15-20

The above is using 15 levels of Fighter and 10 levels of Blackguard.

As for Skie if you could find and refrence where the specs were found I'd appretiate that with revelation that he's not a Blue Dragon I'm now intrigued.

[Fizzban]

Rylan Killia wrote:

As for Skie if you could find and refrence where the specs were found I'd appretiate that with revelation that he's not a Blue Dragon I'm now intrigued.

In the War of the Souls you find out that Skie (real name Khellendros) is one of the dragons along with Beryllinthranox (green), Malystryx(red), and Onysablet(black) that came form another world/demension of nothing but dragons. He is a blue dragon, but in his world a Great Wyrm size would be a wyrmling. So during the War of the Lance Skie was very young. All these dragons along with a few Krynn's own become the Dragon Overlords. Skie gets really powerful and really big later on. If you have the Dragonlance campaign setting after the dragons there is a section call the Dragon Overlords, I believe in that area is a section on making dragon overlords or at least uping Skie's power.

The triology is good all of Krynn basiclly is destoryed or changed in some way after the Dark Queen stole the world. In the time line its after the War of Twins and Dragons of Summer Flame gets the world changing events rolling for the War of the Souls. Of the Heros of the Lance Goldmoon, Tas, and Laurana are in them, alone with some of their kids Palin, Steel, Githas, plus some new very odd characters.

Fizzban...Did you think I wouldn't know about Dragonlance...lol

P.S. I would find a way to up Soth's saves no Con can hurt. Oh and remember Lord Soth has an undead army and banshees at his command.

[Rylan Killia]

Appretiate the source I'll be hunting them down. Think the group's going to be getting a bit to much over there heads. Guys saw Kit's specs and were like "Level 15 only? and Blue Dragon's are the easiest to kill." HEHEHE.

The little stat block's not counting abilities such as Abyssal Blast, Undead Followera, Fear Aura, Power Word etc. BtW Progression for Abyssl is maxed at 20d6. The more I'm looking at this I think the party is digging themselves deeper and deeper into a pile of you know what.

The added knowledge you're firing my way helps out alot. My famiiarity with Dragonlance covers the War of the Lance Trilogy pretty much and I have Soth's books from when he was sent into Ravenloft hence why I'm hell bent and determined on letting the ol boy cut loose vs the party.

I'm definetely glad I came here to get some refrences you have definetely got me searching in the right direction and have got me thinking that the party will definetely be having a challenge. I was getting a bit worried when the one of the two 'experienced' D&D Players was saying that Blue Dragons go down easy. But I have a fallback on calling in the Red Dragons as well *evil grin*

Thing that could be interesting is when the party see's one of there tanks fall in open combat due to stupidity of challenging Lord Soth to single combat. (He's still insisting that he will do that). If Soth is going to loose Skie will be making an apperence with his lightning bolt attack to enable Soth to escape. The party was forwarned prepare to fight for your characters lives. If you want to live be smart, you screw up I'll have no problem moping the floor with there bodies.

[Fizzban]

Rylan Killia wrote:

Guys saw Kit's specs and were like "Level 15 only? and Blue Dragon's are the easiest to kill." HEHEHE.

I was getting a bit worried when the one of the two 'experienced' D&D Players was saying that Blue Dragons go down easy. But I have a fallback on calling in the Red Dragons as well *evil grin*

Glad to help. Blues go down to easy? A good rule of thumb is up a dragons CR by 2. No dragon goes down easy and God forbid if they get to fly. Blues are the second strongest next to Reds, but one thing to remember especially in Dragonlance is that Blues are extremely smart, tacital, and military. They make sure they have the best field, best warrior, tricks, and Kit was the same way. There's no reason for Skie and Kit to not have an advantage to start.

Fizz