This is a long post, and I apologize for that. I just wanted to fill in some background to give a better idea what I am looking for.
I have a party of high powered butt kickers. They are all about to hit 14th or 15th level and each have nearly a quarter million gold worth of gear. In combat they work together like a well oiled machine of destruction. While mostly combat focused, they are a pretty well balanced group. One covers magical support. The gunslinger is a ranged murder machine. They have a fighter with a maxed out CMB and defensive skills that keeps anyone from approaching within 20 feet. And they have a heavy hitter with great mobility that throws out damage with the best of them.
The party really only has one major weakness. They appear to be entirely unable to turn down the offer of a duel. In a one-on-one fight, the individual parts of that well oiled machine turn info flawed characters that, more often than not, end up taking a beat down.
That said, the campaign has a high profile duelist operating in the background. The party has heard about him and briefly met him, but he is about to be thrown directly in their path.
I built the duelist at 15th level with a slurry of classes and the Duelist prestige class. The concept is a crazy high touch AC and annoying attacks that don't do much damage but are demoralizing.
With a monk dip and Duelist he gets both INT and WIS to AC and gets a +8 to AC from Full Defense. When not engaging and going full defense his Touch AC is about 37 and Basic AC is about 45. When attacking he will both Fight Defensively and use Combat Expertise which will put his touch AC around 39. When moving he gets another +8 vs attacks of opportunity. Defensively he should be very hard to hit. Not impossible, but will require a good roll.
Offensively he will rely on feinting to get people flat footed and dirty tricks to de-buff. He is able to use two style feats at the same time. I'm using the Cloak and Dagger chain of feats to get free Dirty Tricks and Steal maneuvers. I'm also using Diabolic Style to periodically lay out a demoralizing slap to the face.
My hope for the NPC is that he will survive one or two or maybe even three encounters with the party and that when they finally put him down, it will be with a great sense of satisfaction. Even if he gets put down in the first combat encounter, I want him to make a good showing of himself so the party feels like they took out a real and unique threat and not just a monster with a big bag of hit points.
Now to what I am looking for:(Once again, I am sorry it is taking so long to get to my point)
1. I want to keep the NPC's gear under 50,000 gold. I'm looking for gear that works with the build and possibly offers a unique challenge for the players.
2. I could possibly shoehorn in one or two more feats. Any good ideas for feats that work with the theme.
3. Ideas for ways to play the character. He is supposed to be a charming sociopath. A Patrick Bateman or Alex Delarge kind of guy. Any good phrases or one liners you could give me to use in the game to help convey the character to the players. I recently re-watched, Spiderman: Homecoming. The scene where Micheal Keaton's character has a polite but deadly conversation with Peter Parker keeps coming to mind.
4. Any other advice or ideas to help make this a memorable and enjoyable story point for my players.
Thank you for you time and patience with my rambling post. I would appreciate any ideas you could give.
Those are all great ideas and things I would applaud. The DC of the tanglefoot stuff is pretty low vs high level characters, but it's a good de-buff for a few rounds even on a successful save. And who knows, there is a one on every die.
Grapple probably wouldn't work, as pretty much everything that boosts touch attacks also boosts CMD. You would have to be pretty good at grappling to make that work, but worth a try.
These are things I want the players to try. They are very good at what they do, but hopefully this encounter will push them out of their comfort zone.
This guy sounds like he would be annoying to fight, but only for someone who tries to engage him in melee.
You're non-melee PCs would probably just kite him around or use magic.
So make sure you give him some ability to deal with flying character and some resistance to magic that doesn't require attack rolls to be successful. A blindness spell would wreck this character I think.
He's going to need some sort of ability to dispel magic more than likely too.
Basically think about how you would handle such an opponent if you knew you we're going to have to fight them, what would you do? And then find a counter to that counter.
Good stuff. I definitely will need to gear him up with the standard utility scrolls for a high level character. A scroll of fly is a must. I'll also give him a load out of all those useful wands. A wand of Obscuring Mist could really mess with people that won't close in to melee. I'll probably also give him a Wand of Dispel Magic with a half dozen charges left on it.
His monk dip also gives him evasion for all those nasty area effects spells.
I didn't mean area of effect spells, I more meant things that don't target AC but your saves instead.
How are your fort and will saves?
Ring of delayed doom is awesome, but would eat up all the gold I've allotted for the character's gear.
The intelligent item idea is interesting, but there is already a similar item in the party. One of the characters gets dominated by it on a regular basis.
It is incredibly evil and we have been a WIL save away from him trying to slaughter everyone in the party a few times already.
I'll probably hold off on introducing another intelligent item into the game for a while.
Claxon
WIll and FORT saves are probably his biggest weakness. They are good, but not great. Most spells of that type require line of sight. If those spells start coming out the wand of Obscuring Mist shows its worth again. A game of cat and mouse in the mist could be interesting.
Or he gets unlucky right off the bat. Those things happen.
I will most like have him try to goad the non-casters into a fight first.
My wife played in a 3E game some years back that went to epic levels, with a GM who was very inventive and devious with his challenges. At some point in the teen-levels, her rogue had to face off with a obnoxiously good fencer while his companions took on the other PCs. His signature trick was to disarm you, grab the dropped weapon with his free hand--and then pop it into his glove of storing so you couldn't get it back until you beat him. (This was in 3.0, before the campaign got converted to 3.5, so he had TWO gloves of storing.)
I can work with that concept. The feat collection allows a free dirty trick with every AoO, and a free Steal maneuver after a successful dirty trick.
Won't be taking weapons, but can take the powder horn from the gunslinger and the component pouch from the casters.
He could then pitch the items to onlookers. Some may give the items back, but others may take the item and run.
I have a similar build I am playing now.
1. Inspired Blade Swashbuckler
2.-5. Kata Master/MoMS Monk
6. Hooded Champion Ranger
7.-9. Kensai Magus
He uses Panther and Crane styles fused, fights defensively, and has Opportune Parry and Riposte. Gets Panache with rapiers, unarmed strikes, and bows. Intelligence and Wisdom and Dexterity to AC. Intelligence and Charisma to Panache Pool.
He has not yet been hit with an attack.
Three more levels of Magus and my Ki Pool will be interchangeable with my Arcane Pool. My Ki Pool is already interchangeable with most of my Panache Pool.
He has Panther Claw and Crane Wing, right now, still working towards Panther Parry and Crane Riposte to really solidify his Opportune Parry and Riposte type stuffs.
He can TWF with his rapier and 9th level Monk unarmed strikes (via Monk's Robes). And Spellstrike/SpellCombat Snowball (via Close Range Arcana).
Definitely not anything earth shattering, but he is a lot of fun to play.
Yes. Magic will be his greatest weakness. Specifically the save or die spells(or their equivalent). I haven't figured out a good way around that yet, other than decent saves and making himself an elusive target. Very few of the one shot kill(or incapacitate) spells work on a target you can't see. The best I can think of is blinding his foes with dirty tricks and hiding him self with Obscuring Mist, smoke clouds, maybe a few other low level spells that can block line of sight.
Any good ideas?
He has 6 levels of magus and could acquire a familiar. Anything good I should be doing with that?
How's your initiative?
If you can guarantee you'll go first and can throw out something to block LOS that could help you against targeted spells and your presumably good reflex save will protect you from AOE.
Add in some blind fighting feats and an eversmoking bottle.
Something you'll want to think about from a DM perspective is how is this npc going to escape?
This is key if you want them around for multiple fights. It should probably be something like him having a timer where he "gets bored" with the PCs after 5 rounds and just "leaves".
some items that could provide an "escape" mechanism for him.
Cape of the Mountebank
Decoy Ring
Death’s Preservation Banded Mail
Ring of Retreat
It would also make the fight more interesting since it will force players to deal with him quickly instead of being forced to slowly whittle him down in 30 rounds. Sure, you want him to be annoying, but he shouldn't be tedious.
Yeah, having a GTFO card would be important.
I agree that he should "get tired" of the fight and disappear after a bit. With the eversmoking bottle this should be much easier since they might have a hard time noticing.
Acquire a familiar and get the Boon Companion feat, as well as Improved Familiar so you can get your hands on something with hands and Use Magic Device. Stick it in the bag with the rest of your wands, and let it deal with casting them instead of you.
As a duelist, I'm hoping to be able to sucker at least one into fighting in a formal duel. If I'm lucky, i can even convince them into fighting a non-lethal duel. Hopefully I'll be able to have the fight be in front of a bunch of witnesses. That may keep them from exacting retribution afterword if the duelist wins, and keeps the door open for the duelist to come back later.
Even if he gets killed, he is from a wealthy family and it's the pathfinder universe. Rich people don't need to stay dead in the pathfinder universe.
With luck, I think I can get at least two of the players to commit their characters to a formal honor duel. After that, he may just harass the PCs until he can draw them into a brawl.
As for GTFO stuff, I don't want to give the duelist an automatic escape. He won't run during a duel. He could try to make a break for it if things turn into a brawl and it looks like things are going badly. I will need to figure out something for that. The eversmoking bottle looks promising. But, if the players get lucky, smart, or some combination, I'll give them the win. The campaign is rich with background characters that could come forward and fill the roll of tertiary antagonist.
The duelist isn't a BIG BAD. He is supposed to be an ever growing annoyance that distracts and thwarts the party from their primary goals.
And I want to give a big thanks to everybody who has been helping out. It's given me a lot of ideas for shoring up weaknesses and making him a well rounded bad guy. It's also helped me think about the character and give him more depth of personality in my mind. Hopefully I can convey that during the gaming session.
Keep the ideas and critiques coming. They are very appreciated.
Acquire a familiar and get the Boon Companion feat, as well as Improved Familiar so you can get your hands on something with hands and Use Magic Device. Stick it in the bag with the rest of your wands, and let it deal with casting them instead of you.
That's a good idea. I'll see if I can squeeze in both those feats. Maybe just boon companion and a good archetype for it, like the protector.
Multiple one on one duels is clearly the only option.
Pump him up enough to actually destroy the first duel... leaving the party character alive out of only his own mercy or gameplay.
As they progress and encounter him again, it will become more and more equally matched as the party levels and meets his tactics with appropriate countermeasures.
Nemesis-
The brother thing gives me an idea. He does have a brother in the game that the players know. They don't like the brother but are at an uneasy peace with him.
One of the players challenged the brother to a dual with firearms. Rifles in fact. The brother agreed even though he was not a Gunslinger. He was, in fact, a Brawler.
After surviving the first volley, he proceeded to beat the gunslinger unconscious wielding the rifle like a club.
I had pondered the Brawler/brother taking vengeance on the party. Having him disguise himself as the duelist makes the idea even more delicious.