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So running a sequel to Rise of the Runelords with the Runelord of Wrath Alaznist being the BBG, so went all out and made her along with some unique equipment befitting her. Let me know what you all think! I know Alaznist isn't really expanded upon so I had to make her iconic ranseur and robes.
Runlord Alaznist CR 24
Female Azlanti Evoker 20
CE Medium Humanoid (Human)
Init +6; Senses arcane sight, see invisibility, darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +29
Defense
AC 46, touch 33, flat-footed 40
(+6 Insight, +6 Dex, +14 Armor, +5 Natural, +5 Deflection)
Hp 470 (20d6+420); Fast Healing 10
Fort +19, Ref +20, Will +26
Defensive Abilities Acid Resistance 20, Cold Resistance 20, Freedom of Movement;
Immune electricity, poison, confusion effects, polymorph effects, feeblemind, fire absorption; SR 25
Offense
Speed 30 ft.
Melee Alaznist’s Wrathful Ranseur +31/+31/+26 (2d4+18 plus 1d6 fire/x3 plus 2d10 fire)
Special Attacks Intense Spells (+11), Force Missile (1d4+11; 15/day), Elemental Wall (20 rounds), Mark of Pure Wrath
Spells Per Day 7/7/7/7/7/7/7/6/5
Spells Prepared (CL 20th; Concentration +32)
9 – maximized chain lightning (2) (DC 33), meteor swarm (2) (DC 33), energy drain (DC 30), time stop, wish
8 – clenched fist, polar ray (2) (DC 32), maximized cone of cold (3) (DC 32), horrid wilting (2) (DC 30)
7 - forcecage (DC 31), quickened fireball (3) (DC 31), prismatic spray (2) (DC 30), finger of death (DC 29), maximized ice storm (2) (DC 31)
6 – chain lightning (2) (DC 30), contingency, forceful hand, disintegrate (2) (DC 27), flesh to stone (DC 28), sign of wrath (2) (DC 30)
5 – cone of cold (3) (DC 29), wall of force, empowered fireball (3) (DC 29), empowered lightning bolt (2) (DC 29)
4 – ice storm(2) (DC 28), quickened magic missile (2), wall of fire (2), wall of ice (DC 27), enervation (DC 26)
3 – fireball (2) (DC 27), lightning bolt (2) (DC 27), wind wall, vampiric touch, fly, keen edge, slow (DC 25)
2 – flaming sphere (DC 26), scorching ray (3), shatter (3) (DC 26), spectral hand, invisibility
1 – burning hands (2) (DC 25), magic missile (3), shocking grasp, true strike, ray of enfeeblement (DC 23), reduce person (DC 23)
0 (at will) – detect magic, read magic, ray of frost, light
Thassilonian Specialization: evocation; Opposition Schools: abjuration and conjuration
Statistics
Str 28 Dex 22 Con 22 Int 35 Wis 20 Cha 20
Base Atk +10; CMB +19; CMD 45
Feats: Scribe Scroll, Empower Scroll, Maximize Spell, Quicken Spell, Widen Spell, Arcane Strike, Arcane Armor Training, Spell Focus (Evocation), Greater Spell Focus (Evocation), Defensive Combat Training, Toughness, Martial Weapon Proficiency (Ranseur), Weapon Focus (Ranseur), Weapon Focus (Ray), Elemental Spell
Skills: Acrobatics +30, Appraise +39, Craft (Alchemy) +39, Escape Artist +20, Fly +38, Intimidate +29, Knowledge (Arcana) +39, Knowledge (Dungeoneering) +39, Knowledge (History) +39, Knowledge (Planes) +39, Knowledge (Religion) +39, Linguistics +29, Perception +29, Spellcraft +39, Use Magic Device +29
Languages: Thassilonian, Common, Azlanti, Giant, Shoanti, Varisian, Abyssal, Aklo, Infernal, Draconic, Ignan, Goblin, Elven, Dwarven, Orvian, Terran, Auran, Aquan, Cyclops. Celestial, Halfling, Gnome, Osiriani
SQ Arcane Bond (Ranseur), Arcane School (Evocation), Cantrips, Intense Spells, Force Missile, Elemental Wall
Combat Gear Alaznist’s Wrathful Ranseur, +4 mithral chain shirt; Other Gear 3 Scarlet and Blue Sphere Ioun Stones, Incandescent Blue Sphere Ioun Stone, Pink and Green Sphere Ioun Stone, 4 Pale Green Prism Ioun Stones, 2 Pale Blue Rhomboid Ioun Stones, 2 Dusty Rose Prism Ioun Stones, 12 Emerald Ellipsoid Ioun Stone, 4 Amber Spindle Ioun Stones, Amulet of Natural Armor 5, Ring of Protection +5, Bracers of Armor +6, Alaznist’s metamagic rod, Robes of Xin-Bakrakhan, Ring of Freedom of Movement, three rubies inscribed with the rune of wrath worth 1,000 gp (focus for sign of wrath), Runewell Amulet, Boots of Teleportation
Special Abilities
Contingency (Sp) Whenever Alaznist would be flanked a sign of wrath spell is cast.
Exceptional Stats (Ex) Alaznist was raised from birth to be one of the most powerful evokers of her age and had several pacts with both demon and qlippoth lords. As a result, her ability scores were generated using 25 points, rather than using the standard 15 point buy used to create most NPCs. Additionally, Alaznist being the ruler of Bakrakhan has far more gear than a PC of equivalent level would. These modifications increase her total CR by +2.
Long Lived (Ex) Alaznist was in her prime when Thassilon was in power and when she went into suspended animation. She has lived for 10,000 years and still looks like she did when Earthfall happened. She gains the +3 to Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma for having lived passed venerable age but has none of the penalties associated with venerable age.
Quite Mad (Ex) Alaznist was possibly insane; nearly all statues of her depict her with a mad look in her eyes. No one knows if it was the result of the many bargains she made with demons and qlippoths but Alaznist does have a certain kind of madness none can truly explain. She is immune to all forms of madness (including confusion effects and feeblemind).
Fiendish Pacts (Su) Due to the many pacts Alaznist had with various demon and qlippoth lords, Alaznist has many of their traits. She is immune to electricity and poison, and has acid and cold resistance 20; she also gains a +2 profane bonus to her Strength, Constitution, and Intelligence scores and she has the aura of an evil outsider for the purpose of detect evil. Her pact with her patron Yamasoth grants her immunity to polymorph effects. Unfortunately these pacts also make her count as an evil outsider for the purposes of spells and effects that harm them or do increased harm to them (to include evil outsider bane weapons). These modifications increase her CR by +2.
Permanent Spells (Sp) Alaznist has made the following spell permanent on herself: arcane sight, darkvision, read magic, see invisibility, and tongues.
Inherent Bonuses (Ex) Through liberal use of the spell wish Alaznist has given herself a +5 bonus to her Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, and Intelligence scores.
Mark of Pure Wrath (Su) Alaznist developed her own special mark of wrath called the Mark of Pure Wrath. It provides her with a +2 insight bonus on AC and on attack and damage rolls. Also, once per day as a swift action, she can call upon the mark to protect with both a maximized fire shield (CL 20th) and a sign of wrath (CL 20th). The flames her mark generates are black in color and the mark unlike normal marks of wrath does not transfer to the brow of another upon her death.
Fire Absorption (Ex) Alaznist’s Robes of Xin-Bakrakhan not only make her immune to fire but when targeted or hit with a spell or attack that would deal fire damage, she heals herself half the fire damage she would have been dealt.
Alaznist’s Wrathful Ranseur CL 20th
+5 Adamantine Dancing, Flaming Burst, Speed Ranseur
Alignment: CE; Ego 23
Int 20, Wis 14, Cha 15
Communication: Speech
Languages: Abyssal, Thassilonian
Purpose: Defeat/Slay all who oppose the rightful runelord of wrath.
Powers: Alaznist’s ranseur can cast shout 3/day
Special Purpose Powers: Alaznist’s ransuer can cast slay living (DC 20) and cure critical wounds (on Alaznist) at will.
Destruction: The ranseur must be hit with a full blast from the kaiju King Mogero’s breath weapon (not his reflexive blasts) without interference from another kaiju while there is no runelord of wrath living.
Robes of Xin-Bakrakahn
Strong Evocation CL 20th
As much a mark of her position as ruler of Xin-Bakrakhan as a source of protection, these elegant and semi-revealing crimson robes upon closer inspection seem to be made of a combination of pit fiend and red dragon scales with various Thassilonian runes embroidered onto the folds. The robes grants spell resistance 25 and the fire absorption ability when worn.
Alaznist's CR seems too high unless you have a rather unoptimized 19th-20th level group facing her. Without increasing her CR, I suggest tacking on the half-fiend and half-dragon templates, then incorporate an ability similar to that of a White Witch: energy spells (acid, cold, electricity, fire) ignore resistance to energy and deal half damage against creatures immune to energy. I suggest reworking her absorption from the robes to "Elemental Absorption" (su) which includes acid, cold, electricity and fire.
Edit: I don't see what her metamagic rod does, so the suggestion is that it automatically maximizes every spell that she casts, all day.
Alaznist's CR seems too high unless you have a rather unoptimized 19th-20th level group facing her. Without increasing her CR, I suggest tacking on the half-fiend and half-dragon templates, then incorporate an ability similar to that of a White Witch: energy spells (acid, cold, electricity, fire) ignore resistance to energy and deal half damage against creatures immune to energy. I suggest reworking her absorption from the robes to "Elemental Absorption" (su) which includes acid, cold, electricity and fire.
Edit: I don't see what her metamagic rod does, so the suggestion is that it automatically maximizes every spell that she casts, all day.
I based her off of Karzoug who has a similar challenge rating (since he is the only fully statted runelord currently) until the PCs are able to knock him down a few levels towards the end of ROTR but I see your points, I'll have to rework her a bit then using the inputs you and Myrryr gave me.
Originally she was supposed to be mythic based off of her profile in Inner Sea Magic being a CR 20+ but due to how broken mythic can get I've decided against going mythic with this campaign and her.
Also her metamagic rod allows her to empower any spell she casts, i'll have to find what book I found it in.
Alaznist's CR seems too high unless you have a rather unoptimized 19th-20th level group facing her. Without increasing her CR, I suggest tacking on the half-fiend and half-dragon templates, then incorporate an ability similar to that of a White Witch: energy spells (acid, cold, electricity, fire) ignore resistance to energy and deal half damage against creatures immune to energy. I suggest reworking her absorption from the robes to "Elemental Absorption" (su) which includes acid, cold, electricity and fire.
Edit: I don't see what her metamagic rod does, so the suggestion is that it automatically maximizes every spell that she casts, all day.
I based her off of Karzoug who has a similar challenge rating (since he is the only fully statted runelord currently) until the PCs are able to knock him down a few levels towards the end of ROTR but I see your points, I'll have to rework her a bit then using the inputs you and Myrryr gave me.
Originally she was supposed to be mythic based off of her profile in Inner Sea Magic being a CR 20+ but due to how broken mythic can get I've decided against going mythic with this campaign and her.
Also her metamagic rod allows her to empower any spell she casts, i'll have to find what book I found it in.
Scuttlebut is that there are but two Mythic Runelords: Sorshen and Xanderghul. I statted up Sorshen as a Trickster 3 Wizard 20 with the equivalent of 3 templates. CR over 20 is quite doable without Mythic. ;)
I'm not familiar with the revised Karzoug from the Anniversary Edition (since I was a 'converted subscriber' back in the day and the price tag for it was prohibitively expensive), but he was CR 20 or 21 originally.
I would suggest the following approach. Since she's gonna be the BBEG of your campaign, she should be suited to better take your pcs, which, if you follow Runelords, will probably be armed with lots of anti-evocation effects. So, lets consider the encounter in which she's involved more than her stats for the moment.
What do you want? a foe that goes toe-to toe with your melee fighters or a sadic blaster or a summoner blaster. If we look at Karzoug's stand, he's got a few giants and a little dragon/throne thing, so he's basically the caster/blaster/effect guy there
If you want an angry melee Alaznist, then pump her with the half fiend template (like "scion of Yasomoth") and make her use a wish to be able, for 1 minute, to channel her spells throught her weapon like a magus. Also, don't forget quickened true strikes ...
Give her 2 sponges (2 qlippoth with fire powers or fire template something) and a flanker (giant magus runeslave?) and you have your match
If you want an evey angries blaster, then keep your stats and make so that the robes give her fiery form 1/day; the base tactic is to bomb herself to heal.
Also, put in there the same giant and 2 cr 15 creature to be her shields/sponges. A planar effect that blastes the place with raw elemental energy (abyssal fire, deep magma?) to heal her would be quite interesting to handle.
What i would also suggest, is to make the "sins" the pcs have accumulated work in the final battle. Possibly, near the arficats she's using to "accumulate" sin magic (i suppose she also got one like K) she gains morale bonuses while doing wrathful things (like attacking), while other pcs could get morale bonuses in other things tied to sin magic.
Personally, I went with Alaznist being a Magus. She ends up not getting the higher level spells, but there were just too many stories about her and the whole Wrath-"group" being some kind of rune or magic knight to pass up on a Magus runelord.
Canonically all the Runelords are specialist Wizards, so folks wanting to stick true to that are going to generally build them that way. Me personally I made her a straight-up blaster Sorcerer, with some abilities to shift around her elemental affiliations and bypass resistances and immunities, but my Runelords are a lot more varied as a whole (Krune is a Theurge, Sorshen is also a Sorcerer, Xanderghul is an Eldritch Knight, etc.), but my games are also not set in Golarion so I play pretty fast and loose with the historical canon.
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I remember at one point during the Ask James Jacobs Anything thread that he mentioned that all runelords are specialist wizards. Since the campaign I am using her in will be an unofficial canon sequel to ROTR I went with that. I'm loving the feedback so far. I began looking into the searing spell metamagic feat from 3.5's Sandstorm to help her power through any energy resistance spells but with all the feedback i'll be reworking her.
I'm making her the blaster while her meatshields are the bruisers.
So far I have a few meat shield minions with her, one advanced fiendish entropic inverted giant, a shemhazian demon, and one flame-spawned Augnagar Qlippoth.
So far it was confirmed during Wrath of the Righteous: Herald of the Ivory Labyrinth that Xanderghul and Sorshen are confirmed mythic. But Inner Sea Magic has all of the runelords listed (with the exception of Karzoug) as 20+ which going off of nearly everyone else listed who has a + next to them turned out to be mythic I could assume Alaznist is mythic.
Has there ever been anything that said their actual class was all wizard? I know that, thematically, they were all implied to be experts in their school, but I didn't see any reason not to take some liberties with that. :)
James Jacobs has said so repeatedly, yes. In 3.5 Karzoug had a prestige class or two, but in PF they're all straight-classed wizards.
But yeah as I said, if you're up for bending or breaking the canon, or don't play in Golarion, absolutely no reason to not retool them to something you consider more appropriate. Speaking completely personally I just think Sorcerer a better fit for her and Sorshen, for example.
Here's Sorshen, the Runelord of Lust my group crushed after 7 rounds of not touching her. And I consider Xanderghul 3 higher CR than her at a minimum.
Note that she had 2+ Villain Points remaining after they killed her... ;)
This is probably before my time, but what be these runelords?
The most I know is that Rise of the Runelords seems to be a popular PF AP, but that's it.
Here is a starting point.
Has there ever been anything that said their actual class was all wizard? I know that, thematically, they were all implied to be experts in their school, but I didn't see any reason not to take some liberties with that. :)James Jacobs has said so repeatedly, yes. In 3.5 Karzoug had a prestige class or two, but in PF they're all straight-classed wizards.
But yeah as I said, if you're up for bending or breaking the canon, or don't play in Golarion, absolutely no reason to not retool them to something you consider more appropriate. Speaking completely personally I just think Sorcerer a better fit for her and Sorshen, for example.
Inner Sea Magic has capsule entries for Alaznist, Karzoug, Sorshen, and Xanderghul (each a specialist wizard - evoker, transmuter, enchanter, and illusionist, respectively, of level 20+)
Krune ...
As Orthos mentioned, James Jacobs has said in the past that all are Wizards. Karzoug is/was intended to be in the middle, with 3 stronger and 3 weaker Runelords.
There is also an article on the Runelords in Shattered Star vol 6, providing a 2-page history for each of the Runelords, though no stats.
