MY PLAYERS STAY OUT! Help with BBEG

[SilverLeaf167]

You know who you are. :smallannoyed:

For my upcoming campaign, I have an idea for an interesting (?) lich BBEG. The campaign is set in the real world, though with fantasy elements, and resembles something like the 13th century. As all my players are Finnish and at least some of them know history fairly well, I thought it would be fun to make the villain a reference to Finnish national history. Thus, Bishop Henry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_%28Bishop_of_Finland%29) the Lich Cleric was born. I thought it might be cool to make Lalli (search the article) an actual paladin, who Detected Evil on Henry (who was alive at that time) and tried to kill him, however failing and being raised as undead to be his personal bodyguard.
I thought it might be fun to make Henry a former priest of Jumala (basically God in Finnish) who fell into Satanism. Earlier he was very uptight and devoted, but the freedom of unlife has given his personality a slightly chaotic bent. He keeps Lalli with him for protection and manual tasks. He is still a little angry at Lalli and likes mutilating him whenever he gets frustrated or just for fun. Also, after realizing that he "wasted his life" he has started partying, drinking (though he doesn't really need to and doesn't get drunk) and womanizing.

He's a level 12 Cleric, so he casts an Extended Gentle Repose on him and Lalli every now and then. Most of his undead minions are hidden somewhere and don't have the spell cast on them.

So, what I'm going to ask you...

What would be a good motivation/goal/plan for him? It would need to be something that can motivate a selfish Bard, a Paladin, an adventurous Rogue and a Good Cleric.
Is there a way to give Lalli Regeneration somehow, so that he just heals whenever Henry mutilates him?
I also need Lalli to be some kind of undead that allows him to keep his class levels (though he is now a Paladin of Slaughter) and some basic intelligence.
Any other interesting ideas regarding the character


Thanks for your help in advance!

EDIT: The ideas don't need to have anything to do with the original Henry, they just need to fit the character I described.

[Falin]

Okay, well the old Zorbak gambit is always fun. Take over the world with hoards of undead, there. Evil plan.

Lalli doesn't strictly need regeneration, if your lich has inflict then he should be set, but vampires get fast healing, and since their intelligent there's that too, and I think they keep their class levels, but I'm a bit foggy on that point.

Edit: One more thing if you have the time. Check out the Tome of Necromancy (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=34248) interesting stuff that.

[SilverLeaf167]

I wanted regeneration so that Henry could freely just cut his head off etc. for the dramatic effect. Cure/Inflict apparently doesn't regrow body parts. Making him a vampire is an interesting idea, but they don't get the regeneration I need.

[super dark33]

try to make him a creep-makeing battle-controlling machine, so he wont have a chance of killing completely the entire group, but would still cause some damage and trouble.

my suggestion, give him the leadership feat,with a hoard of skeleton warriors to fight for him, and a level 6 fiend figter or somthing as ally.

what level are the PC's? what classes,races and builds are they?

[Falin]

Hm, well the Vampire Paragon from Tome of Necromancy gets regeneration. It's a three level class and the third level gets regen.

[myancey]

Undead stereotypically cannot have regeneration as they lack constitution scores. Regeneration cannot work without a constitution score. The best undead can do is normally fast healing.

In that sense, Evolved Undead from Libris Mortis is a great template to add on. It's either 3 or 5 for fast healing.

Sense undead are usually immune to crits, it means they have no absolutely necessary body parts. You could say that it won't matter, then, if his head is taken off. On that note, fast healing would do just as good a job of putting it on again.

If he was living, I'd recommend the feat Troll-blooded as it gives regeneration 1.

[WinWin]

Evolved Undead grants fast healing.

Necropolitan allows class levels to be retained and turns the character into Undead.

You're brobably conna want some corpsecrafter feats on your warrior too, to counter the fact they has no more constitution.

These options are all in Libris Mortis.

[Fable Wright]

Regeneration? You need a constitution score for that.

Reason? Without a constitution score, you're immune to nonlethal damage, ergo, immune to damage. However, you can easily choose to allow his fast healing to regenerate body parts. Perhaps as a feat. But not with regeneration.

[SilverLeaf167]

Ok, I might make Lalli an Evolved Undead. As he's just a DMPC, I was thinking of basically giving him undead traits (with some extras like that) and calling it a day, so I guess he's basically an Evolved Necropolitan.

The game is level 6 gestalt: Dragonborn Paladin/Dragonfire Adept, Catfolk Bard/Sorcerer, Human Rogue/Ranger, Cleric/?
It's a fairly low-op game. I'm planning for the lich to be the BBEG for a long time, until they can beat him.

I know that it doesn't technically matter if he loses his head, but Henry would quickly run out of stuff to chop off. :smalltongue:

I think I'll just allow his fast healing to heal back body parts, in the same way that trolls can reattach (not regrow) their limbs.