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I recently acquired a new miniature for my homebrew campaign and I was curious how anyone would stat up a CR 21 awesome-sauce Big-Bad-Evil-Boss-Guy as a kind of finisher for a campaign. I can see him as a kind of Spell Slinger, Sword-and-Board guy (mostly as he actually carries a shield and sword), but I'm open to a lot of suggestions, as long as the boss is Undead (Lich or Skeletal) in some way. Any thoughts?
Sword and board + spell-slinger is going to be a kinda tricky combo to pull of, especially with spells requiring somatics to cast. Another option that you could try would be to give him a dancing shield, bonus cool points for surprising the party when all of a sudden your BBEG looses his shield to hover in midair while he blasts the party with something unpleasant. Option B would to be to use a Force Shield ring, which can be summoned or dismissed as a free action, keeping him still be able to keep a shield and cast spells. Option C of course would be to just have him Still Spell all of his spells.
For a sword and shield undead spell casty guy, might not be a bad option to try making him a fighter/wiz(or sorc)/Eldritch Knight, then heading into making him up as a lich. On the other hand, since the requirements to lich are Craft Wonderous items and cast spells and have a caster level of 11th or higher, you could always try making a cleric lich as an alternative option....
make him a 20th level cleric, apply both the Lich and Death knight templates. i can't remember what 3.5 book the death knight template is in, but it provides some nice boni, go for a buckler and a greatsword. take the somatic weapon feat (whatever book that's in) and the improved buckler defense feat. make him worship Gorum. and make him a self buffing fighter type. he is still slinging spells, but just to make himself a better fighter. he is a proud warrior. greatsword and buckler is still sword and board, you just trade 1 point of AC for a signifificant boost in damage. give him a few liched, death knighted 18th level clerics of the same god and same style as him to make a challenging fight. make all of them humans or half orcs. strength, wisdom and charisma are key. (undead base HP off of cha due to having no con score) remember, harm becomes great healing in this case. and mass harm even more so.