Help statting out two villains

[LansXero]

Greetings everyone.

For next session in my Eberron campaign the party will likely at last catch a mildly important villain, who is an ex-party member that betrayed them a few level ago. So I would like some help to make the encounter memorable mechanically as well as from a RP standpoint.

The character at the time of the betrayal was a Drow Ranger 4; it was played as a very selfish archer that tend to hide and attack from as far as possible, so Id like to keep both those aspects. Ive thought about making him a Sublime Ranger (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19519074/Sublime_Way_Variant_Ranger) focused on Falling Star (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10707) maneuvers (ToB is allowed but no PC is using it, so I like to use regular and homebrew disciplines for enemies to give them an exotic power source), but Im not sure that would be challenging enough.

The party consists currently of:
Half-Celestial Human Cleric 8
Electric Creature Druid 6 / Stormcaster 5
Human Paladin 11
NPC Human Knight 11
NPC Alchemist 8
NPC Cleric 7

The campaign reduces all LA by 1, and gives stats by rolling 1d8+10, so its rather high powered. All material is allowed and WBL has been broken since level 3 I think. The druid is the only one with optimization in mind, and I would welcome suggestions on any LA+0 / LA+1 options for the Paladin, or interesting PRCs, since he seems the weak link atm.


The character's betrayal was induced by diabolic influence and a promise of power, so if there are elements of that it would be a plus. Im guessing ECL 12 - 14 would be OK.

Also, a few sessions ago the party's old leader character died (and the player has left since then, due to finals in college and a new GF). It was a Paladin whom the party had frozen in ice for resurrection, but the Drow Ranger stole the corpse alongside its equipment. I would like to put his zombified person in the encounter, but what would be a good mechanical representation of an Undead Paladin, besides Blackguard? ECL 10 - 12 would be great.

All sources allowed (well, Dragon may not be the best idea) including Pathfinder / Homebrew. Thanks for any help!

[Fox45]

Well if I were making an encouter like this I would try and keep in mind a couple things: the Who, and the Where. Who is fighting, how can that I portray that character's personality in a fight? Just how evil is this character? Just how smart is this character? And where are they fighting? Fighting in the streets is a bit different from fighting in an old dungeon or a specially prepared hideout.


The villian is a ranger, and a sniper at that, so I would see him trying to use the terrian to his advantage. Shoot at them from a distance and try and corral them into some traps or an ambush preferably in a place where the players will have a disadvantage in combat.

You could have the villian at the end of a really long room, there are a few pillars set up that the PCs can try and run from one to the other while moving towards him. And this big room has plenty of space for traps. You could use some kind of bear trap or a hold person spell to stop the PCs in their tracks, and this is Eberron so you could make the bear traps just be animated floor tiles that try and eat their legs. There's also room for some minions that can push the PCs out of cover or into a trap.

Another option is to have the cover in the middle of a room and have the villian be able to teleport to different sides of the room so he can hit the PCs while they think they are safe. He starts shooting at them from the North, then once the heros are all behind cover he teleports and hits them from the South.

Or for something a little more high budget action filmy, this is Eberron after all, you could make the encouter in a crumbling dungeon with some sort of unstable crystal powersource that is giving of a pulse of energy every so many rounds. Or even make the encounter 3D with the PCs having to climb up a hazardous set of walkways to get to the sniper, just try and come up with some way that would make the PCs not want to just cast fly and circumvent your perilous obsticle course.

Well I hope that helps that's just some stuff that jumped to mind.

[LansXero]

Well if I were making an encouter like this I would try and keep in mind a couple things: the Who, and the Where. Who is fighting, how can that I portray that character's personality in a fight? Just how evil is this character? Just how smart is this character? And where are they fighting? Fighting in the streets is a bit different from fighting in an old dungeon or a specially prepared hideout.

So far he has appeared 3 times to the players. First one he was being crowned as ruler of a Sulathar (Eberron fire-obsessed drow) enclave, and having his ex-friends killed in a gladiatorial match for amusement, faced against another adventuring group who was being blackmailed into it. The other he killed one of the party members and stole their captain's remains as well as a lot of their loot. So he has proven to outsmart and ambush them when convenient, and Ive been pointing out he really wants to corrupt or twist them over outright killing them.

They are currently in a volcanic ridge, searching in old giant ruins for one of the arms of destiny (Secrets of Xen'drik). He would ambush them when they are all spent after retrieving the weapon, probably assisted by outsider cohorts and his new paladin toy.


The villian is a ranger, and a sniper at that, so I would see him trying to use the terrian to his advantage. Shoot at them from a distance and try and corral them into some traps or an ambush preferably in a place where the players will have a disadvantage in combat.

Thats a good plan, although Im not so sure archery can challenge them adequately. Ive been throwing inflated CR encounters at them from the start, and they've gotten very good at surviving. I guess if I pin them down with the cohorts and he just stays afar taunting and teasing them it would make them hate him all the more. . . except that all the players fly, so no idea how to keep them from just rushing to him and beating him down.


You could have the villian at the end of a really long room, there are a few pillars set up that the PCs can try and run from one to the other while moving towards him. And this big room has plenty of space for traps. You could use some kind of bear trap or a hold person spell to stop the PCs in their tracks, and this is Eberron so you could make the bear traps just be animated floor tiles that try and eat their legs. There's also room for some minions that can push the PCs out of cover or into a trap.

Another option is to have the cover in the middle of a room and have the villian be able to teleport to different sides of the room so he can hit the PCs while they think they are safe. He starts shooting at them from the North, then once the heros are all behind cover he teleports and hits them from the South.

He did have a ring of lesser invisibility 3/day, an ankhlet of traslocation and a bolt shirt back then before he betrayed them, so the teleportation would both be valid and allow for full attacks on them. Also, he has been spying on them IC for a while now, so metagaming him to counter their strengths would actually make sense IC (and its player would be really amused, as he used to put a lot of ranks into knowledge and metagame the hell out of encounters when he was playing him, so its an actual trademark of the character=.


Or for something a little more high budget action filmy, this is Eberron after all, you could make the encouter in a crumbling dungeon with some sort of unstable crystal powersource that is giving of a pulse of energy every so many rounds. Or even make the encounter 3D with the PCs having to climb up a hazardous set of walkways to get to the sniper, just try and come up with some way that would make the PCs not want to just cast fly and circumvent your perilous obsticle course.

I can work with that, they would be inside something like the Volcanic Ruins site from Secrets of Xen'drik so aside from finding out a way to keep them grounded (or maybe make him fly as well? :O) there are plenty of justifications for hazardous terrains


Well I hope that helps that's just some stuff that jumped to mind.

Thank you for the help. All ideas are welcome :D