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In my current campaign I am eventually intending the party to fight a very powerful Lich Necromancer at the end of the campaign to save the world. By then the party should be in the 18-20 range in levels. Now the problem is I don't know how to stat out an NPC based on a background description. Suffice to say the big bad is the following:
1. Centuries ago he raised an undead army of huge proportions. Large enough and powerful enough that it took the armies of 4 nations hold his army at bay (These nations include a nation of Barbarians, a nation with a lot of Clerics/Paladins, a Strong military nation and a Mageocracy with a lot of powerful wizards).
2. In his death thrones he unleashed a death curse upon the land he was killed that makes it so the dead do not rest easy and making it so that anyone dying in the land has a chance of coming back as an undead creature.
Anyway at the conclusion of my campaign, I intend the big-bad to reabsorb the curse and be reborn as a Lich Necromancer more powerful that he was before. I'll probably make him a Wizard Necromancer but a mere 20th level wizard seems rather underpowered for the things this guy pulled off centuries before. He probably would be more powerful than a Runelord in terms of magical power but I don't want to make the fight impossible either. He'll probably have some kind of material weakness that will allow people to bypass his natural Damage Reduction but as he is a wizard he probably has a crapload of spells that could make him untouchable. Not to mention being a Necromancer, a lot of powerful undead minions as well. So what would you advise in terms of making a Big-Bad for a campaign ending antagonist?
My way of making encounters difficult usually involves the environment or the like. That is, I like to make it such that the villain isn't necessarily more powerful than the heroes; the villain just forces the heroes into situations that put them at a severe disadvantage.
Applying this to your Big Bad, we know the following:
1) He's a 20th level spellcaster of some kind, presumably with a high intelligence. This automatically means he's highly intelligent, and if he knows he's fighting the party, he will prepare to face them using his boundless intellect.
2) He's a freakin' NECROMANCER. Keep that in mind.
3) He's a freakin' SPELLCASTER. Keep that in mind.
And finally...
4) There's a battlefield somewhere upon which five massive armies clashed and decided the fate of the world. That means there are five massive armies' worth of corpses.
The scene writes itself.
Your necromancer perhaps planned this out before he died. He laid that curse upon the land out of spite, but also because he knew constant undead threats would keep the various kingdoms from growing too quickly, and that each war they wage against another makes things all the more dangerous for them. Furthermore, it means they wouldn't notice his return all too quickly...
...and his comeback is huge. He's going to use the battlefield that was the site of his defeat to raise an army of undead minions from all four of those victorious kingdoms, not to mention reconstruct several of his favorite lost lieutenants. It's here that he builds his powerbase, and it's here that the heroes have to come to stop him.
See, if they play the waiting game, his army will grow too large and then NOTHING will stop him. So, the party has to plunge through his rapidly growing army and fight him. This means the Lich has home advantage; he's the defender this time, not the attacker. He can set up a fortress, place antimagic fields, summon demonic minions to aid him in raising the dead, set up magical alarms and flying sentries and such... And what's more, assuming it takes the party a long time to reach this point, he can STUDY them. He's a powerful figure; he has spies, surely, or he will once he creates some Vampires.
Just a few ideas. A lot of these may not mesh with what you have in mind, but hopefully something works.
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Its the end of the campaign? feel free to go all out.
But well if you want my advice sure, let's do this:
Human Lich Necromancer 20 (CR 22, assuming wealth by level) , let's toss in the cleric creature template (CR+3) [CR 25] , basically he managed to make divine spells into arcane spells, just add some of them into his spell list. Should be noted that with all the time, he has been alive, he would taken the time to cast wish multiple times to max his stats, build him with a 25 point buy + 5 inherent bonus to his stats for all the wishes he did cast.
Now like necromancer, he shouldn't be fighting alone, Raveners, zombies, Bodaks, Shadows, Wraith, fill his castle and the final room with undead, that what they expect, so give it to them.
Your Lich will be rocking Wish and Miracle. Use Wish and Miracle to heal yourself and allies during the battle or switch up whatever is going on the battlefield. Of course, don't use wish or miracle to say the fight is over, it's just cheap.
The phylactry should be hidden somewhere in its own demiplane and the likes.
A good solo encounter should be like a woman's skirt, Long enough to cover the subject, short enough to be interesting
So the problem here is that the party will outnumber your actions 4-5 to 1. Lucky for cobra commander you have the great equalizer, time stop. Use it for cool things to happen without dragging out the combat for hours.
Spend your actions flying around and shooting whatever damaging magic you think is good enough to threaten the party without insta gib (I assume you want them to ultimately win)
At X health threshold He uses stop time in order to summon a bunch of necromancy flavored monsters. Create Greater Undead or just Summon Monsters. Skeletal T-rex's or Shades of former enemies (or dead allieS), at this point you can also have him cast any number of buffs that would make the encounter more difficult, but not directly ruin the encounter. (barbarian in your face? better cast invisible and buy time with my skeleton t-rex)
at further lower health thresholds, he can repeat the trick, time stop, buff as necessary, maybe he summons an even TOUGHER monster this time.
General Advice: Give the evil wizard something to do in an anti-magic zone that makes him not a total joke. If the party is competent enough to know how to fight a turbo-lich without meta-gaming, reward them but then say, "you didn't think it would be that easy did you??"
Polymorphing can give him all the tools he needs in melee to be a threat and can happen later in the fight when he is out of spells. like Ganondorf. This isn't even my final form!
Lastly, any necromancer worth his salt has a trick or two up his sleeve to ultimately avoid 'death.' These tricks more than anything make the necromancer infamous. My favorite is the classic Magic Jar, the party 'kills' the wizard and the party fighter picks up the loot, only to be controlled by the BBEG! What will the party do now? bonus points if encounter that follows is even more harrowing for your party.
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Well suffice to say the big bad has not fully risen yet in the campaign but has regained enough sentience to communicate with his chosen agents and to unleash some measure of his power and influence.
The setting is Thunderscape so with the Darkfall in full swing the nations that once defeated him are in shambles so the next time he rises there won't be as large an opposition force to stop his plans. Plus the Darkfall will make him more powerful than before.
The PC's are acting on behalf of a prophecy of a Seer they received at the start of the campaign. That they would face the Master of Flesh, Blood, Bone and Corruption and with the fall of four shall come the one darkness that shall consume the land unless brave heroes rise to defeat it. The four masters are agents of the Dark One, each working in some way to strengthen the Big Bad's forces so that when he rises. The Four Masters are:
1. Viseroth, The Master of Flesh: A powerful Necro-Mechamage who creates flesh/carrion golems and other hideous mutations and has recruited a good deal of Nocturnals to his cause as well. Currently has captured a Theylid creature and intends to use its nectre to create an army of Ant-Human mutations.
2. Carthoi, The Mistress of Blood: A dark cleric with some fallen abilities (such as the ability to create Blood Elementals). She has ensnared the service of a large army of goblins (Who now worship the Dark One as their god and her as his emissary) as well as a number of Razorwings, Ferrox and Blood Elementals in her service.
3. Drevakor, The Master of Bones: An powerful necromancer wizard who studied the writings of the Silent One to learn his craft. He is currently gathering an undead army as well as teaching necromancy to the Dark Dwarfves (Duragar) in order to secure their alliance in the upcoming war.
4. Triss, The Mistress of Corruption: The most subtle of the Masters, a fallen seducer she operates a spy network to gather information, spread disinformation as well as spark conflicts in order to destabilize the existing nations so that they are less prepared when the Dark One rises as a Lich.
Anyway, by defeating the four masters they will weaken the Dark One's efforts but nonetheless he will eventually rise and they will have to face off with him.
If the PC's fail to defeat the Dark One, his armies will be unstoppable as he marches across the world and turns all of Aden into an undead wasteland. If the PC's do defeat the Dark One, they will finally lift the Death Curse, allowing the land to heal and have hope to recover in the future.
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By the way this is a pretty Fighter-Heavy, Magic-Light group. We have no Full Casters. We have 1 partial arcane caster (Magus), 1 partial divine caster (Inquisitor) and 1 wildcard (bard). The next half of the party is a fighter, barbarian and steamwright. As no one will be getting above 6th level spells, antimagic fields won't be in their arsenal to use against the Necromancer.
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nothing above 6th levels? That's way too easy first, not only you are going to have your room filled with undead monsters, then you will use globe of invulnerability(Immune to spells 6th levels and lower) after making sure that you have all your buffs on. So you won't even have to worry about spells in the encounter. Use Shadows , greater shadows and the likes, touch ac are still low and sap their strength bonuses, have fun, they will most likely come with a wand of restoration or something but still going to be painful.
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The campaign has been pretty combative so far. Only the first session really had a good deal of Roleplay (Characters were at a festival where they could take part in numerous games and speak with some interesting NPC's). Beyond that there has been roughly 2-3 fights per session with small interactions with NPC's when visiting shops or asking assistance from the church. While I want more Roleplaying, the events that have been revealed so far have led to a lot of combat for the PC's.
Suffice to say the conflicts with the master of Flesh and Bone will be directly combative. The Mistress of Blood will be tricky to deal with as she has an army of goblins working for her and to reach her the PC's will either have to have an inventive solution to bypass the army, make an uneasy alliance with an opposing goblin tribe or find some NPC allies willing to help. The Mistress of Corruption will be a more social/investigative challenge for the party although in the end they will have to end up killing her to put an end to her influence.
Now the next problem is that the PC's are about to go against the first master. They are currently level 3, and I built the Master of Flesh as a Level 7 Mechamage (As to pull off the things he does, he really needs access to 4th level spells). He also a buffed up Flesh Golem Companion with a bunch of writ upgrades. I am unsure if I should throw him at the party now or arrange for him to escape and have the PC's encounter him again after they've gained a few levels. What's your opinion?