Saintheart
2011-04-12, 08:24 AM
Ordinarily, since I sort-of oversee the Red Handbook of Doom (thread in sig) I'd make the request there, but I'd like to cast a slightly wider net for suggestions and thoughts in this case.
The brief, in essence, is to come up with a druid-based character that can smash the hell out of a party of eight characters in relatively close quarters on his own. The party is pretty strong on melee options -- all level 8; one beatstick cleric with no turn undead, one pretty optimised barbarian who is capable of laying out 100+ damage on a full attack (though thankfully he hasn't gone down the Pounce route). Arcane options are down to a bard who pumps out the +5s from Inspire Courage, and a straight wizard who has the expected loadout including Glitterdust, Dispel Magic, and so on.
There are a couple of significant parameters for the build, though:
- The original "book build" of the Ghostlord was as a Druid 6/Blighter 5 (yes, yes, I know, it's crap, it sucks, etc etc) and I would prefer as far as possible to try and stick with the theme of "druid gone bad".
- The campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms, and without building him yet I've already sort-of rewritten him as a former druid of Nobanion/Silvanus who has been seduced to evil by Malar.
- The druid is lion-themed.
- He is pretty well insane.
- He is also a lich. (Yes, I know normally druids =/= undead, but just go with it.)
- He likes to experiment with necromancy and creating ghost lion undead.
- Feat counts are slightly higher for named characters as he is: a bonus feat every second level; advance two stats by +1 every four levels. No flaws.
- He's meant to be a supremely kickass fight. I've been building him up as plain deadly (as the book does), so he needs to really smash the hell out of the party.
In terms of the thoughts I had thus far:
- Because he's going to be alone for his fight I had thought to pump him from his 11 levels build to 13 druid levels so he can access Antilife Shell (Druid 6; it's a pity Blighters aren't any better, because they get A/Shell as a fifth level spell) and then cast/summon his way to profit. Also need to go this way because the party's got a Staff that can cast Heal, which is potentially a one-hit kill in this instance.
- Initiate of Malar feat's obviously available, I guess.
- Greenbound Summoning is an option for me, but is there a more undead-themed template that might suit better?
- What's the rules on templated creatures being summoned via Nature's Ally? Can't be done except for Green. Summoning?
And what sort of tactics (right down to suggested spell selections) should I be using here?
And lastly -- bit of an out there question, but one tactic I have decided on is to have an Unhallow effect on the battleground, keyed to a Dispel Magic effect that affects all nonevil characters. This'll blast the spell-based buffs off the characters round by round, but ... could you argue that it would also attempt to Counterspell an attempted Dispel Magic from the party's arcane caster?
The brief, in essence, is to come up with a druid-based character that can smash the hell out of a party of eight characters in relatively close quarters on his own. The party is pretty strong on melee options -- all level 8; one beatstick cleric with no turn undead, one pretty optimised barbarian who is capable of laying out 100+ damage on a full attack (though thankfully he hasn't gone down the Pounce route). Arcane options are down to a bard who pumps out the +5s from Inspire Courage, and a straight wizard who has the expected loadout including Glitterdust, Dispel Magic, and so on.
There are a couple of significant parameters for the build, though:
- The original "book build" of the Ghostlord was as a Druid 6/Blighter 5 (yes, yes, I know, it's crap, it sucks, etc etc) and I would prefer as far as possible to try and stick with the theme of "druid gone bad".
- The campaign is set in the Forgotten Realms, and without building him yet I've already sort-of rewritten him as a former druid of Nobanion/Silvanus who has been seduced to evil by Malar.
- The druid is lion-themed.
- He is pretty well insane.
- He is also a lich. (Yes, I know normally druids =/= undead, but just go with it.)
- He likes to experiment with necromancy and creating ghost lion undead.
- Feat counts are slightly higher for named characters as he is: a bonus feat every second level; advance two stats by +1 every four levels. No flaws.
- He's meant to be a supremely kickass fight. I've been building him up as plain deadly (as the book does), so he needs to really smash the hell out of the party.
In terms of the thoughts I had thus far:
- Because he's going to be alone for his fight I had thought to pump him from his 11 levels build to 13 druid levels so he can access Antilife Shell (Druid 6; it's a pity Blighters aren't any better, because they get A/Shell as a fifth level spell) and then cast/summon his way to profit. Also need to go this way because the party's got a Staff that can cast Heal, which is potentially a one-hit kill in this instance.
- Initiate of Malar feat's obviously available, I guess.
- Greenbound Summoning is an option for me, but is there a more undead-themed template that might suit better?
- What's the rules on templated creatures being summoned via Nature's Ally? Can't be done except for Green. Summoning?
And what sort of tactics (right down to suggested spell selections) should I be using here?
And lastly -- bit of an out there question, but one tactic I have decided on is to have an Unhallow effect on the battleground, keyed to a Dispel Magic effect that affects all nonevil characters. This'll blast the spell-based buffs off the characters round by round, but ... could you argue that it would also attempt to Counterspell an attempted Dispel Magic from the party's arcane caster?