In my main game, my players have defeated a Mythic Lich wizard whose rank was CR 27. Now they are in a post apocalyptic future where undead roam free. In the kingdom to the west, this means there is a magically perpetual night, and the kingdom is now ruled by a wicked vampire king. The population consists mostly of Dhampir and evil humans, who have managed to enslave the other kinds of creatures that once roamed there.
Orcs and hobgoblins who were once enemies that ravaged the land are slaves, gnolls that came down from the mountains are now owned as pets, and everyone is forced into swearing into the new religion of the new evil god, Dizbareth (custom deity, lawful evil).
Since the last BBEG with a special mythic template I threw at them was a wizard, I want to throw something else at them. I want a thematically appropriate enemy for them.
Antipaladin seems obvious, but weak. I like the dread vanguard. Cleric seems okay, but I'm not sure I want to do another full caster.
The players are going to be at APL 25-26ish, so the Vamp king will need cronies. I like the idea of vampire princes who are dhampir, and three vampire brides who are each different kinds of full casters.
I'm also open to using Nosferatu or other vampire types, but I'm not sure if they are thematically appropriate since they have different origins and abilities.
Any big vampire buffs out there who can help me with some character tropes to write up this guy, or general ideas for strategies to challenge my players?
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Legendary games path of villains has some cool stuffs but well...
Mythic vampire have their own templates out of course. Well they are 25-26, so look for a CR 29 encounter, if you want it to be somewhat challenging.
So xp budget of 6 553 600 with your vamp being 28 (4 915 200), So you have 1 638 400 xp to throw around. Which could be one CR 25/MR 10 monster , for a great vampiric duo.
Or just a bunch of monsters (5xCR 20 Vampires could be fun, but that would be a lot of paperwork).
Or guess bump the levels for few vampires, like 2xCR 23 Vampires with your CR 28 vampire.
With vampire being a template, I would strongly recommend to consider for the allies of your vampires, some other creatures, like Nymph vampires, Lamias vampires, Medusa Vampires, Rusalka Vampires, could make some interesting and unusual encounters.
If you are a bit of a castlevania fan, you could even throw in the grim reaper: Grim Reaper. in the encounter, guess feel free to toss him some templates or mythic tiers, so he is more challenging to your players.
I'm really tempted to go with a Hellknight build.
If it matters for prospective suggestions on builds, house rules are in effect which expand available alignments for paladins and antipaladins to any good and any evil, respectively.
I think the three wife idea is really cool, with something like a witch, cleric, and possibly druid each representing different kinds of threats. If they are all vampires, then 20th level characters yields 3x CR 21s.
Not sure how that maths out with the Vampires CR of presumably 27.
There may also be a need for meat shields, so I figure the druid could be focused on summoning? Bats and/or wolves are thematic, is there any kind of archetype that facilitates a Neutral Evil vampire druid?
They've already faced a necromancy army of undead kind of cleric, this one can probably be some form of melee presence.
That makes the witch the primary caster and debuffer.
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Well if you are going with the bat theme, might as well, just go with a Bat shaman druid. You would even get the chance to pick up the Darkness or Night subdomain. It's not optimal but heh, at level 20+, it doesn't matter much.
Melee clerics, you have many choices out there, so just have fun with it. But something you might consider and it is less paperwork, is to go with an Oracle, plus you would get an oracle massive bonus from vampire, Oracle are great melee clerics. She could be an oracle of Battle or Ancestor or Metal etc...for a solid melee type.
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Bard!
If given minions, Bards always make the best main villains. Remember, Bardic Performance is a Competence bonus and totally works on the undead, as do several other buffs (like Haste)...and they've got absurd Enchantment spells out the wazoo to boot if built for it.
And 4 CR 21s make a CR 27 creature, a CR 28 Encounter. An Antipaladin, Druid, Cleric, and Witch, for example, might make an excellent entourage.
Bard!
If given minions, Bards always make the best main villains. Remember, Bardic Performance is a Competence bonus and totally works on the undead, as do several other buffs (like Haste)...and they've got absurd Enchantment spells out the wazoo to boot if built for it.
And 4 CR 21s make a CR 27 creature, a CR 28 Encounter. An Antipaladin, Druid, Cleric, and Witch, for example, might make an excellent entourage.
Or an Evangelist Cleric for 9th level spellcasting!!!!
But for real I'm not feeling the bard, I may do the evangelist thing for my cleric though.Imma look into the oracle stuff. All that CHA synergy is a little scary and may result in a misleadingly low CR.
Remember that undead are immune to morale effects.
Note that your mythic vampire king can make more mythic vampires!
I ran a mythic vampire where I made him a marshal, but gave him mythic vampire abilities in place of some path abilities. And tweaked some of them to be better. Like he was outright immune to the various vampire weaknesses until his mythic power was exhausted, at which point he'd downgrade to the mythic vampire functionality. Also, he had a destruction condition (Stake with an artifact) to take him out if he wasn't run out of power.
He also had maxed out divine source, so his mythic vampire harem (who are were all L19/rank 9) included an antipaladin and a cleric of himself. (Along with a sorcerer and a summoner - background wise, his harem was an adventuring party that had challenged him and lost many centuries ago.)
Inquisitor.
Make him Whip based, a twisted Belmont that beats the shit out of the party with ridiculous base stats and loads of self buffs.
Open the fight with Overwhelming Presence.