I am starting to work on a campaign that I do not plan to run for a long time, but I've wanted to begin working out some of the weirder details. Namely, that the main villain of my campaign is going to be an awakened animal with class levels.
Specifically, a level 17 Anti-paladin...Horse. I know you are laughing but this horse is g%%*!*n scary.
People are not going to know this right away, because it is always going to appear to have someone riding it and acting in it's stead. That someone being the bound Glabrezu that is the horse's Fiendish Boon, acting as a generic evil overlord with Veil, while the horse is really the true threat. Seriously, solid black, red eyes, and more dangerous by half than it's summoned companion.
Naturally, actually finding this out and getting to the level to fight off the Anti-paladin's forces, his demon, and the anti himself will be the main course of the campaign. Not sure about the details, but I can work those out as I get further into this. I just want to make sure the villain is ready whenever his day comes.
So, yeah, he is a horse. That makes things a little weird, doesn't it? Spells could be quite hard to cast if they require material components, etc, however I think I can probably get away with most of that. My real issue is what stats to use as a base while I build him. The horse was once an animal companion, so I think I should use the Animal Companion version. The question is whether to leave him with "Horse" levels or simply to retroactively scale him with Anti-paladin BAB and Saves.
After all, he spent a lot of time as just a horse, but that was before he was awakened. I am really not sure how to go about it. I feel like I should take the evolved horse, add in the natural armor, str/dex bonus, and free feats of an appropriately leveled animal companion (without it's master), roll it up stats for it's INT and CHA when it was awakened...maybe cheat a little bit on those rolls since it is the villain, and then apply all the BAB, Saves, and abilities of the Antipaladin...which would really make it more like a level 17 Horse/17 Antipaladin mixture, except that it lacks the BAB, Skills, or HD from being a horse and just has the feats and bonus stats for being an animal.
Then I need to figure out how many feats I am giving it, what feats I am giving it, and etc. This thing is the main villain of the campaign, so I am willing to make it a touch overpowered so that my PCs do not just wreck it with a little magic.
Basically, any advice on how to smooth the transition from animal companion to world-conquering horse would be helpful.
Bad Horse Bad Horse....
You are making a custom bad guy. Feel absolutely free to adjust the stats as you wish, it isn't your average awakened horse after all, it is the awakened horse that had the stuff to be super villian.
Frankly, you are probably better off working out the stats, abilities feats etc than you want than worrying about following any sort of rules for character creation. If you think it needs some extra feats or extra natural armor, SR or whatever you can just add them in to make it an appropriate (hard) challenge for your PCs.
Now, I do recommend its main offensive and spells etc actually be totally based on the class you want, it is fair that PCs be able to figure out what it really is and thus have a good idea what it can do, but fiddling with stats and defenses to get the bad guy you want is perfectly legitimate and you don't need to justify it with a 'build'.
I like the idea, and used an Awakened Animal Companion as a cohort before; here is an example:
Snow Claw CR 5
XP 1600
Female Snow Leopard (Former AC)
CG Medium Magical Beast (augmented animal)
Init +9; Senses low-light vision, scent; Perception +8
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Defense
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AC 17, touch 15, flat-footed 12 (+5 Dex, +2 natural)
hp 35 (3d8+10)
Fort +8, Ref +10, Will +3
Resist cold 2
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Offense
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Speed 60 ft., climbing (30 feet), sprint (1/hour)
Melee Bite +8 (1d6+3 plus grab/x2) and
Claw x2 +8 x2 (1d3+3/x2) and
Rake x2 +8 x2 (1d3+3/x2)
Special Attacks pounce, trip
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Statistics
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Str 16, Dex 20, Con 15, Int 15, Wis 13, Cha 8
Base Atk +3; CMB +6 (+10 Grappling); CMD 21 (25 vs. Trip)
Feats Combat Reflexes (6 AoO/round), Improved Initiative, Rugged Northerner, Skill Focus (Stealth), Weapon Finesse
Traits Northern Ancestry, Winter Warrior (Irrisen)
Skills Acrobatics +10 (+22 jump), Climb +15, Knowledge (nature) +3, Perception +8, Profession (Scout)
+3, Stealth +15, Survival +5, Swim +10
Languages Common, Halfling, Sylvan
SQ +4 stealth and survival in icy or snowy terrains, +8 to acrobatics when jumping, snow walking
Combat Gear Quick runner's shirt (1/day), Ring of swarming stabs (2/day); Other Gear Amulet of natural armor +1, Cloak of resistance +1, Belt pouch (5 @ 0 lbs), Carnivore feed (per day) (4), Carnivore feed
(per day) (4), Pack saddle, exotic, Saddlebags (8 @ 40 lbs), Gemstones (5), 250 GP of Valuables
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Special Abilities
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+4 Stealth and Survival in icy or snowy terrains (Ex) +4 Stealth and Survival in icy or snowy terrains
+8 to Acrobatics when jumping +8 to Acrobatics checks when jumping.
Climbing (30 feet) You have a Climb speed.
Combat Reflexes (6 AoO/round) Can make extra attacks of opportunity/rd, and even when flat-footed.
Damage Resistance, Cold (2) You have the specified Damage Resistance against Cold attacks. Grab (Bite) (Medium) (Ex) You can start a grapple as a free action if you hit with the designated weapon.
Low-Light Vision See twice as far as a human in low light, distinguishing color and detail.
Pounce (Ex) You can make a full attack as part of a charge.
Quick runner's shirt (1/day) As swift action, take an extra move action to move on your turn. Ring of swarming stabs (2/day) Activate to deal 1d6 sneak attack dam vs a flanked foe. Rugged Northerner Frostbite, hypothermia, and extreme cold effects lessened
Scent (Ex) Detect opponents within 15+ feet by sense of smell.
Snow Walking (Ex) With your large spread out paws, you can walk on snow or thin sheets of ice as though affected by water walk, but still leaves a trail on such surfaces.
Sprint (1/hour) (Ex) Can move ten times normal speed (500 feet) when you make a charge.
Trip (Ex) You can make a trip attempt on a successful attack.
Winter Warrior (Irrisen) +1 trait bonus on Stealth and Survival checks in ice- or snow-covered terrain.
I have found using the Animal Companion table works great, then increasing the CR 1 (or 2, if the Animal Companion can fly) works out well.
After that, use the Adding Class Levels Monster Advancement rules, with most Awakened Animnals Companions being Combat Roles.
I would love to see the end product, =) Good luck!
Bad Horse Bad Horse....
You are making a custom bad guy. Feel absolutely free to adjust the stats as you wish, it isn't your average awakened horse after all, it is the awakened horse that had the stuff to be super villian.
Frankly, you are probably better off working out the stats, abilities feats etc than you want than worrying about following any sort of rules for character creation. If you think it needs some extra feats or extra natural armor, SR or whatever you can just add them in to make it an appropriate (hard) challenge for your PCs.
Now, I do recommend its main offensive and spells etc actually be totally based on the class you want, it is fair that PCs be able to figure out what it really is and thus have a good idea what it can do, but fiddling with stats and defenses to get the bad guy you want is perfectly legitimate and you don't need to justify it with a 'build'.
A fair point, and it will be a totally fair Anti-paladin in regards to the spells it casts and abilities it has. No promises on magical items however, since the Fiendish Boon summon will be pretending to be the bad guy for most for most of the campaign, and will need to mimic being an anti-paladin to hide the "Totally evil demon" thing it has going for it.
I like the idea of having a build to work off, though I should probably mix that with looking at similarly tough foes in the bestiary. Which is why I like the idea of basing it off the animal companion. The build makes sure I keep the horse reasonable, my first campaign when I started Pathfinder the GM was a bit of a dick and I try to stay away from making saves through the roof or the enemy simply impossible to hit. < 25% chance to hit sucks.
Is this horse going to wreck people? Yes. But it will wreck people because it is an antipaladin with natural weapons at full BAB, not because it is GM'd to near impossible to kill status. There will be ways around the fight probably, but PCs being PCs I expect the need for a throw-down at some point.
Challenging but fair, not "Well it hits you on a 7 and you need a 17 to hit it," because that's crap.
Now I don't know much about awakened animals but yea lack of verbal components for spells could be an issue. I don't know a lot about metamagic either as I hate being a pure caster but maybe make him use silent spell on everything if you don't want to bend the rules that much. If you don't mind bending the rules that much than just ignore the verbal components. You are the gm after all. What you say goes. But I feel bending the rules in the enemy's favor could possibly frustrate the players. Just be careful if you do plan to bend some rules and insure the changes aren't drastic.
Awakened animals can talk, it's more the somatic parts and getting material components for spells together since a horse has no hands. Perhaps I could custom design a feat to allow a permanently summoned creature spellcast for it's master and allow anyone with a permanent familiar and spellcasting ability to take advantage of it: with the obvious caveat of it using both character's turns.
Also, on the topic of Awakened Animals with class levels, once I show this off to my players they are going to want one. How would I best go about giving people barbarian dinosaur familiars and magical monkeys?
Oh see I told you I didn't really know them to well lol. Well does eschew materials work for divine spells?
Also, on the topic of Awakened Animals with class levels, once I show this off to my players they are going to want one. How would I best go about giving people barbarian dinosaur familiars and magical monkeys?
I would suggest making them Cohorts via Leadership, =)
That is probably the best way to work things, though I shudder to think of what combinations people will come up with.
Do you think Swarms of creatures can be awakened? Or would that not work. I imagine someone will want a Murder of Crows or something.
For a Murder of Awakened Crows, I would still use Leadership. The lead crow, which could gain levels as the player does, would be a Cohort. The rest of the crows within the murder could be Followers, and thus wouldn't increase in levels, but as the player gains levels, more and more crows could be added...
I was thinking the Murder of Crows would be more of a communal being of sorts, speaking with We instead of I...but that works too.
Man, I kind of want to run a campaign with ONLY awakened animals with regular class levels now...I wonder how that would work.
I was thinking the Murder of Crows would be more of a communal being of sorts, speaking with We instead of I...but that works too.
You could always have the stats for the Followers made up in general, then apply the Troop template instead of a Swarm template to the group as a whole, getting the same feeling...
Man, I kind of want to run a campaign with ONLY awakened animals with regular class levels now...I wonder how that would work.
I think the easiest way to do this would be to use the Advanced Race Guide, picking an appropiate amount of Race Points (each player getting the same amount) and making each of their individual Awakened Animal Races. Then, you could just do character creation as normally, with your customized race completed and chosen.