[3.5] bbeg help

[slaydemons]

hello people I need help with my big bad evil guy for a small campaign I am going to write back story wise he is going to be like a pirate of the seas and air, rest of the back story will come in later but what kind of classes should he be, is race is human and lets say the part is going to be 15 at the end of this campaign. level 20 builds are fine as well. the party is probably not going to be optimized to the best abilities. if you guys could please help me out that would be awesome also go nuts on any books you want

[sonofzeal]

Er.... maybe it would help if you gave us an idea what you're looking for. What kind of campaign is this? What do you have for the plot?

[slaydemons]

Er.... maybe it would help if you gave us an idea what you're looking for. What kind of campaign is this? What do you have for the plot?

damn why do I always forget something right sorry, I wish the campaign to be a sea faring campaign and haven't come up with the plot but getting a class build is my first thought and anything you think is pirate like

Edit: god now I think I understood,twenty minutes later, something with a rapier and a dagger

[Amnestic]

Swashbuckler/Rogue/Dread Pirate (ComAdv) seems like the obvious class choices to me, maybe some Bard (a pirate has to be good at singing sea shanties me hearties!) too.

[slaydemons]

Swashbuckler/Rogue/Dread Pirate (ComAdv) seems like the obvious class choices to me, maybe some Bard (a pirate has to be good at singing sea shanties me hearties!) too.

thanks I assume more swash buckler then anythign else? or no

[sonofzeal]

Swash/Rogue with Daring Outlaw is good.

Legendary Captain might be more interesting for a boss though. The fight is not against him, but against his fleet of ships, and as long as you can get your players to play by the rules of ship-to-ship combat, he'll be a real terror. The campaign then becomes about outfitting and upgrading their ship, and recruiting allies, to take him on.

The danger of course is that a mage with Overland Flight and Fireball has little reason to abide by ship-to-ship combat. Maybe part of the plot involves the power of magic weakening, and warn your players before hand that arcane spells may become unreliable as the campaign progresses, steer them away from playing that sort of character in the first place. Maybe the Legendary Captain's activities are preventing the work of people working to save the magic? Maybe there's a precious artifact he captured, that's needed to bring balance back to the Aether?

[Elvenoutrider]

Ive seen campaigns where the wood that the ships are built is resistant to magic. This would make mages a lot less of dangerous.

Maybe the campaign could be that a pirate has found an island full of magically resistant wood and he has been hiring mages to make himself the undisputed master of the seas

[Dralnu]

I highly recommend looking at Stormwrack. It has a ton of useful information regarding sea faring campaigns, which includes information on boats, water environments, naval combat, sea monsters and sea-oriented classes. You should be set with just that.

[Runestar]

IF you have fiendish codex 2, use the stats for aspect of levistus and reskin him. He seems swashbuckler'ish enough to me. :smalltongue:

[slaydemons]

Swash/Rogue with Daring Outlaw is good.

Legendary Captain might be more interesting for a boss though. The fight is not against him, but against his fleet of ships, and as long as you can get your players to play by the rules of ship-to-ship combat, he'll be a real terror. The campaign then becomes about outfitting and upgrading their ship, and recruiting allies, to take him on.


~snips long part~

now to find these things of info that being ship to ship battles and legendary captain

Edit: found daring outlaw

[Show]

Just for first thoughts: Maybe you don't actually want to throw any levels of rogue in there. With the build as it is, you don't really seem to be gaining from SA, and it isn't really a characteristic that you'd expect a highly visible pirate captain to have. Perhaps striking precisely(swashbuckler), but not trying to set up sneak attacks.

Also, I tend to see sneak attack as a slightly gimmicked way to go about killing stuff. You seem to always end up using the same tricks over and over, and much less useful without them. That's just my opinion, though. I haven't had a massive amount of experience with rogues, so...

[slaydemons]

Just for first thoughts: Maybe you don't actually want to throw any levels of rogue in there. With the build as it is, you don't really seem to be gaining from SA, and it isn't really a characteristic that you'd expect a highly visible pirate captain to have. Perhaps striking precisely(swashbuckler), but not trying to set up sneak attacks.

Also, I tend to see sneak attack as a slightly gimmicked way to go about killing stuff. You seem to always end up using the same tricks over and over, and much less useful without them. That's just my opinion, though. I haven't had a massive amount of experience with rogues, so...

hmm you make a good point maybe replace said rogue levels with bard levels with skills in singing

[sonofzeal]

hmm you make a good point maybe replace said rogue levels with bard levels with skills in singing
"Perform {ARRRRRRRR!!!}" might fit better than singing.

And "Legendary Captain" and ship-to-ship combat are both in Stormwreck, which should be your go-to book the moment you mention pirates and D&D.

[playswithfire]

This is a bit of a multiclass mess, but it ends with with some decent tricks. When you said sword and dagger, I remembered, there was a weapon style feat in Complete Warrior (Crescent Moon [style]) that was based on that and reminded me of a goofy build idea I had a while ago.

Bard 4/Unarmed Swordsage/Mashal (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20030906b) 2/U. Swordsage+1/Crusader/Jade Phoenix Mage 3/Crusader +1/JPM+2

Feats (assumes human or 1 flaw):
1. Combat Expertise
H/F. Improved Disarm
3 Snowflake Wardance
6 Ascetic Mage
9 TWF
12 Crescent Moon [style]
15 open
with Improved Unarmed Strike and Weapon Focus(shadow hand weapons) as bonuses

Important gear: Slippers of Battle dancing and Gloves of the Balanced Hand.

Active stance: Press the advantage (5th level White Raven, gotten with 2nd crusader level)
Marshal auras: Art of War and Motivate Attack

You get Charisma to: AC in light armor, Will saves and, disarm attempts; with snowflake war dance, you add it to your attack rolls; with slippers of battle dancing, you use it instead of Strength for attack and damage rolls after moving 10 feet.

So, you activate snowflake wardance as a free action, take 2 5ft steps thanks to Press the Advantage (thus having moved 10ft for the slippers) and full attack (12/12/7/7/2 + 2*CHA) someone. If you hit with both sword and dagger, you get a disarm attempt (16+3*CHA) as a free action.
And you have casting as an 8th level bard and a total of 15 martial maneuvers when you want to change things up.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Another suggestion, if you can wait for a week or so, you can check the builds for the current Iron Chef competition, the secret ingredient is Dread Pirate so...

[slaydemons]

Another suggestion, if you can wait for a week or so, you can check the builds for the current Iron Chef competition, the secret ingredient is Dread Pirate so...

well I got until the other gm finishs his campaign which he hasn't started so yeah I got enough time