|
For my Cotct campaign one of my characters had the unhappy childhood trait but I alterd it so that it wasent just Lamn but rather him and another NPC of my own creation that he wanted revenge on (NPC killed his family except him and his younger sister, he got grabbed by lamn whilst the sister ended up being found and raised by Trina) Now I was planning to have them meet for there final confrontation at the end of History of ashes. Now for the actual fight it will be the Player (a Catfolk barbarian) and his cohort (catfolk sorcerous who happens to be his little sister) against the NPC (Human duskblade.). The barbarian and soreror were built using the pathfinder Alpha rules for classes and should be abou lvl 12 and 11 when they finaly confront him.
So my question is what lvl can I make the Npc duskblade (using the pathfinder alpha race rules and the duskblade class from Players handbook 2) to make him a very challenging fight but still beatable?
Good luck. It is my experience with 3.5 rules that you never really know how bad a bad guy is until you get there. For example, in my Age of Worms campaign, Dragotha was a cakewalk, while the druids on "Library Island" would have been a TPK if I hadn't fudged. You can follow all the CR and EL rules you want, but at the end of the day, it's a crapshoot.
That said, here are some of my thoughts ... If it's really just a two-on-one and doesn't include the whole party, then he should be about 13th level for a 50-50 chance at PC victory. Duskblades are pretty tough, though, (one of players is running one now in RotRL, and he is mighty) so you might want to try level 12. Of course, I assume you're not planning to fight in an infinite open plain, so your terrain and lighting options might favor one side or the other. For example, the duskblade wants to just teleport close to its enemy, hit three times (with shocking grasp on each hit), and then cast swift invisibility and avoid return fire. Rinse and repeat. This nullifies the barbarian's movement and the sorcerer's area attacks. So maybe you want to set up something that allows the barbarian to engage and withdraw, which allows the sorcerer free reign and doesn't devolve into a (boring) "see who can hit the other one until someone falls down" slugfest.
Also, shouldn't the cohort be 2 levels below the PC?
O
|
|
Duskblades are tough, indeed. Handle with care. I'd stat him up, have a copy of the PC and cohort's character sheets on hand, and run a mock battle. You may need to adjust spell choices of the duskblade villain to make him tougher/weaker based on test runs. Spell and feat selections, especially for this class, can greatly influence their overall power.
Yep, cohorts should perpetually be at least two ECLs lower than the character with the Leadership feat.
If a cohort gains enough XP to bring it to a level one lower than the associated PC’s character level, the cohort does not gain the new level—its new XP total is 1 less than the amount needed attain the next level.