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View Full Version : Guess that BBEG!!!



Drevius
2010-03-15, 07:51 PM
I haven't posted for a good long while but this has me stumped....my buddy and the DM of the campaign I am in cooked up a big time villain for the campaign and knowing my friend....it's gonna be silly broken, unfortunately our party is severely underpowered in casting and healing and our only chance on whooping up on him is to figure out what he is and prepare excessively well for the fight before hand, rolling bardic knowledges, divining etc and figuring out from there what to do (as well as determining if he is legit or if our friend "bent" the rules for the BBEG). The only hints we have ascertained so far are that it tends to have full concealment a great deal of the time, spells have a hard time affecting it, although claims of spell/power resistance have been denied. A few out of game things I have picked up are that its LA is at least +4 and no greater than 7 or 8 and that it has animate object at will and is some sort of caster but not psionic (in class anyway). For some reason I am stumped other than to say it is a wizard/sorc with some big time cheese going, but the race has me wondering. Any ideas? strategy? We will have access to 6th level divine spells (druid) and potentially 5th or 6th level psionic powers (wilder unfortunately). Thanks for any comments.

jiriku
2010-03-15, 07:56 PM
Perhaps something wth the shade template. Shade is +4 LA and grants HiPS, spell-like abilities, and a pile of other benefits.

Yorrin
2010-03-15, 08:04 PM
Invisible Stalker in an Antimagic Field >_>

The stalker technically has a LA of "---," so I don't know if that would would be it for you, but I now officially want to throw this at my players and see what they come up with...

Beelzebub1111
2010-03-15, 08:43 PM
Isn't there some kind of Giant...Shadow giants I think...or is it Death?

Drevius
2010-03-15, 10:18 PM
shade seems the likely culprit, both of them have shade fetishes lol... but yeah my dm also told me to think how my friend always makes his characters, which tend to be casters who like to remain unseen and nigh untouchable and tend to focus on illusion and enchantment spells, and somehow he has animate objects at will and can possess both objects and people AND if his body is destroyed can take another host somehow (not a ghost or undead I double checked).

EDIT: I also figure it's something like magic jar being used for posession but the dm said it was similar but not it, and it wasn't mind switch either as far as i know.

Kuzimu
2010-03-15, 10:38 PM
Animate Object at will, huh? Only one thing I know of that does that.

Could it be a Ravid (MM 213) with class levels and a huge template slapped on it?

Drevius
2010-03-15, 10:56 PM
He said it wasn't a made up creature so it could be a Ravid, kinda weird but possibly.

illyrus
2010-03-15, 11:07 PM
For a bit more off the wall possibility:
In 3.5 there a demon template, around +2 CR you can stick on a... well a demon. They leave their body behind and can possess a person, dominating them for longer and longer periods and each day transforming them into more like their possessing demon self. After x days (< a week I believe) they can completely recreate themselves in the body. At that point if the body is destroyed they go back ethereal and can possess another body or even an object (animating it if they like).

They can also make a magic item out of a normal object or "enchant" a pre-existing magical item (they can alternate it's powers, pretend to be an intelligent item, or even make an item cursed). And even if you manage to kill one ethereally they just pop back over to their original demon body and cannot go back possessing again for a... few days I think.

Magic circle/protection against evil is only of limited use against them as they can "hide" inside their host and after transformation is complete the circle does little to them.

Drevius
2010-03-15, 11:12 PM
now THAT sounds right up their alley, now i just gotta figure out what to do about it.

illyrus
2010-03-15, 11:42 PM
Alot depends upon how your DM chooses to rule some things on it. I used one as a BBEG in a game at one point but went with the player friendly version for most of the gray areas (knocking a fully transformed demon out effectively trapped it there), if the demon is controlling the body mind effecting spells would effect him too etc.

If it is a possessing demon, then there are two likely prossibilities I see past the "it possesses an NPC family member". One is that the demon starts off in an object, from loot as innocent as a gold piece, a nice magical sword, or the door to the privy. The demon possesses one of the characters from the get-go.

The other is you get to fight the demon partially or fully transformed (and if you add it to a succubus then even knowing it's a demon in the first place would be hard). Upon defeat it attempts to takeover one of the characters.

If your buddy helped cook up the creature and is also a PC, I'm betting that his character would be the one possessed. A possessing demon can give some nice benefits to the possessed creature if it so chooses.

Heliomance
2010-03-16, 03:25 AM
Idea: It doesn't really have Animate Objects at will. Instead, it has the ability to possess objects at will, and move around in them, thus "animating" them. Look up the Fiend of Possession PrC, in the Fiend Folio IIRC.

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-03-16, 03:50 AM
It's a Shadow Mastiff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/shadowMastiff.htm) or something with the Shadow Creature template from Lords of Madness. It could also be a Shadurakul from the Fiend Folio, listed with the other Canomorphs, which is basically a lycanthrope combination of Shadow Mastiff and Human.

Animate Objects at will sounds like maybe a Fiend of Possession, a prestige class also in the Fiend Folio, which makes a lot of sense. It can possess and animate anything from a statue to a puddle of water to your buddy's corpse, and whatever it's possessing gains the stats of an animated object. The FoP is unaffected by any damage dealt to anything it possesses, and there are only a few very specific spells which will even affect it while it is possessing something, because otherwise the spell targets the creature or object it possesses. Magic Circle Against Evil, Protection from Evil, or a nearby Unicorn (via Summon Nature's Ally) would be extremely useful if this is the case.

Drevius
2010-03-16, 11:50 AM
Yeah I was looking at the fiend of possession last night, and fiend folio was like the one book i never even thought of looking in, it seems like that is the class so that means the race has to be some kind of demon.

Drevius
2010-03-16, 04:36 PM
okay well here is the update, it wasn't fiend of possession AND the guy is actually 10 levels of a prestige class from complete divine, so um yeah not a clue what he is doing to work this guy.

Forever Curious
2010-03-16, 04:40 PM
...DUNGEON LORD! At such and such a level they can use Animate Object at will on any item in their dungeon. Other than that I got nothing.

Drevius
2010-03-17, 12:55 PM
I guess its more of the fact that he is possessing said object than it is an animated object, anyway I am beginning to think it is fiat when he says it is a complete divine prestige class meaning probably favored soul or cleric, making me care less and less about race and template, he defends that it isn't a fiat and it is legit but maybe I can't see the forest through the trees and it is something very simple. I guess I am blowing this out of proportion with obsession but I do dislike cheap tricks when the dm discourages powergaming and gets my friend to make the BBEG who is the embodiment of the stuff :/ .

Biffoniacus_Furiou
2010-03-17, 01:07 PM
It doesn't necessarily have to be a demon/devil to be a FoP, just an Outsider with the Evil subtype. He could even be a regular Human with ten levels in Divine Crusader, having used the Ritual of Association in Savage Species to gain the Evil subtype. However, I'd still put my money on a Shadurakul, remove the four Fighter levels, and make it a Fiend of Possession 5/ Ur-Priest 10.