As the GM of my home group, not PFS, I have been planning an NPC that the PC will eventually fight but he will be a blind barbarian (the arch type that doesn't use weapons but his bare hands), only his blindness has gone on for so long he has gained:
-Echolocation (ie Daredevil)
-increased sense of smell (ie wolverine)
-tremor sense
Those are 3 special abilities I want the NPC to have but with books to back it up, not home brew/GM discretion. What would be the best way to pull this off either racial or other things?
I remember back in 3.5 there was one of the demon books that had a torture rack that the longer one stood in in and survived they gained special abilities but I don't know if I want to go that route.
In the long run he doesn't see out of his eyes but off the bounced off sound waves he sends out (any sonic type attack would of course throw this off in a major way).
The overall plan is for him to be a mini boss before one of the main (My current campaign has 3 major plot points and each PC has their own goal as well)
With this plot point the main Boss is a Mid high level cleric of Cthulhu who is legit insane. 18 year old woman with the thought process of an 8 or 9 year old, pretty innocent (but still CE) until someone does something that rubs her the wrong way then the evil comes out. She is the chosen of her god as his High Priestess to spread madness (through horrifying nightmares) to corrupt enough followers to allow Cthulhu to awaken. She even dresses the part of wearing youngish cloths (that cover up a chain shirt) and even holds a teddy bear that acts as a bag of holding (she keeps her holy symbol and a curved enchanted dagger in there). She uses the Please help me I’m lost, young and cute to manipulate folks into helping her but isn’t above using spells.
Now the Barbarian in the OP is her body guard, is completely loyal and bound to protect her with his dying breath. The backstory of him is when he was free he was unfortunate enough to stumble upon the Cleric, thinking her a normal girl he tries to take her as a prize but as soon as he tries to force himself on her, she unleashes the full insanity of her God which drives him to rip his own eyes out to stop the horrifying images. He ends up dying but the Cleric with guidance from her god resurrects him and binds him to her as a slave/ body guard.
Because he is resurrected I don’t see it too far off to see Cthulhu granting the abilities I was going to give the mini boss to make up for his lost eye sight (ie other ways to see other than his own eyes)
Right now in the current campaign the Cleric has already manipulated the player characters into taking care of her and escorting her to a port city. The Body guard was in a giant box she traveled with (heavily enchanted (a permanent wall of force is one spell on the box, another one that allows her to manipulate the weight of it on a mental command, There is also a powerful illusion on the box to disguise the body guard as a little puppy in the box with air holes and such but a high enough will save will see through it ) To build suspense the Ninja of the group while peaking in the tiny air holes saw a glimpse of the body guard which through him off when it was opened to reveal the puppy. Both NPC’s are traveling with the players as they both need to cross the ocean to get to the other continent. I hadn’t planned for them to travel all the way together (have her be a reoccurring NPC to manipulate the PC’s to further her goals till they learn the truth) but one of the PC’s insisted they travel together at least until the ship that pulls in the next day lands on the other continent. Because of this turn of events I wanted to map out both NPC’s with actual stats and abilities should they (the One PC who does suspect) presses to far.
Bards get Echolocation as a 4th level spell, but this guy doesn't sound like he'd have 10 levels of Bard. I can't think of a simple way without magic to give an eyeless human echolocation or tremorsense, but if you combine Scent and Greater Blind-Fight with something to obscure vision during the battle that might be enough to make the barbarian pretty scary.
Alternately, maybe the big guy could be some sort of undead. A Graveknight might work well, especially if the PCs don't know what he is.
Yeah, only thing I can find follows MattR1986's suggestion of taking the 3 Blind-Fight feats (Blind-Fight, Improved, and Greater)...if the barbarian is 15th level (requires 15 ranks in Perception as a pre-req.).
Or...the barbarian had access to something akin to a wish or miracle spell and wished for blindsight (see below)
As GM this is what I would do...
Give the bad guy blindsight (not blindsense), which states "Using nonvisual senses, such as sensitivity to vibrations, keen smell, acute hearing, or echolocation, a creature with blindsight maneuvers and fights as well as a sighted creature."
That covers all your requirements in one (sensitivity to vibrations = tremorsense, keen smell = scent, echolocation = echolocation, etc.)
I would then describe the bad guys actions in, and out, of combat as using these aspects "he sniffs the air as you take your five-foot step to close on him." "As the wizard flies up in the air above him, he cocks an ear in the wizards direction." "When the cleric steps over to the pillar you see his toes crunch-up, clawing like, on the floor."
As GM you're not bound to standard character creation rules. It's not "homebrew" to create interesting NPCs and everything in the game other than the PCs are GM discretion at some level (It's GM discretion to throw the 1st level PCs up against a pit fiend, just a normal 'book-backed-up' pit fiend). The only thing you have to be concerned about is making sure the encounter is fun, exciting, and memorable. Oh, and deciding if the loss of sight and the gaining of blindsight justifies an increase in the bad guy's CR or not.
Essentially the bad guy is gaining the magical-item equivalent of something between Goggles of the Night (12,000 gp value) and a Lantern of Revealing (30,000 gp value, though more limited as only he gains the benefits from it and not all his minions within range); but it's not magical (can't be dispelled) and it's inherent (it can't be removed and it's not treasure the PCs can get from looting the body). Within range, the bad guy doesn't have to worry about invisibility (but still worries about ethereal), darkness, deeper darkness, etc. And he doesn't have to worry about sight/gaze-based attacks.
To mitigate, you could give the bad guy weakness to sonic based attacks, as well as things like stinking cloud (-2 or -4 to saves based against spells and spell-like effects that target his good senses). Then leave hints for the PCs to pick up on.
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You rock! That is what I'll do. Blind sight as ritual when the Cleric raises him and bounds him to her power.
The 3 main bosses of my campaign (not counting mini bosses I've set up or personal quest bosses are the following:
-Aasimar Litch Cleric/Wizard(Mystic Thurage(sp)) of Orcus (yes an angel that worships death) (trying to help his god ascend to True godhood)
- Human(? she may be a half something undecided) cleric of Cthulhu (trying to awaken her sleeping god to cause chaos and destruction)
-Drow Anti-Palidin of Selvetarm (or a demon lord)(I was going to imported some of the 3.5 gods for my game but after reading the demon book there are some good replacements for Lolth as mainly it was the drow gods I was importing as well as the two dragon gods but reading over the new gods and Demond/devil/daemon lords I may keep it to the PF lords and gods)(Hunting down two artifacts meant to work together created by selvetarm)
I've been using a pretty awesome NPC generator for the random encounters that has saved me crazy time for "random encounters" but for the big 3 fights I wanted to actually map out the "character" and I consider the Barbarian part of the three as he never leaves the clerics side.