Reducing Saves (3.5)

[Wadaro]

Hey there Playground, I'm just fishing around for ideas for an 11- level PC. I have a feeling my Dragonfire Adept may die in the next session so I may need another character.

I'm looking at running a Biological Terrorist hellbent on vengeance against the Big Bad Evil Empire of the campaign. For this I'm looking at building a cancer mage. Admittedly I WOULD like this character to be somewhat functional, which may be hard. So far my DM has NOT ruled out any books as of this time

Right now I'm thinking of running a cancer mage/blighter. Though its just an idea.

Anyway, All I ask are how would you go about reducing enemy Saves in a battle whilst having at least 1 level in Cancer Mage? I'm not picky on how you do it, as I'm just looking for ideas.

EDIT: oh yeah, and I guess having some way to fight undead and other things immune to diseases would help too. :smalltongue:

[Eldariel]

Hexblade (Dark Companion-variant [PHBII]) with Paladin of Tyranny gives you nice save-reducing auras. Since Cancer Mage allows you to get as many stacks of Festering Anger [Book of Vile Darkness] and Vile Rigidity [Book of Vile Darkness] as you want without the drawbacks, you basically get infinitely scaling boosts to your Strength and Natural Armor which is convenient for a warrior-type (might wanna talk it through with DM to limit the limitless growth as arbitrarily high stats are a problem for some DMs).

This means you can easily smack things immune to anything around by just being bestially strong and thick-skinned. Given both Hexmage and Paladin of Tyranny are good warrior-classes, this should be no problem. And yeah, Blighter works for the rest, I suppose; it's not a superamazing class but it works alright and it's a 10-level full casting which is kinda necessary for a shell like this to get high-level spells anyways. Another option would be Ur-Priest and just picking spells for the purpose of bioterrorism. Spellcasting and Rebuke Undead (all the relevant stuff is Cha-based too) also helps with undead and such. Spellcasting in particular solves anything. And of course, Divine Crusader offers a reasonable alternative to Ur-Priest; just pick a Domain that suits your purposes and go from there.

[tyckspoon]

Traditionally, Hexblade 4 with the Dark Companion ACF/Blackguard or Paladin of Tyranny 3. Dark Companion gives -2 saves to enemies next to it, Blackguard/Paladin has an aura that gives -2 to enemies within 10 feet of you. Add some Fear optimization and you can ladle Shaken on top of that.. unfortunately, those are all fairly weak classes and abilities except for the save-reduction thing, so they're really best placed on a Cohort if you can. On the plus side, that gives you a dude whose literal job is to stand around and look menacing in spiky armor (Fearsome armor property, Drow of the Underdark), which is the best accessory any rising evil mastermind could hope to have.

[Groverfield]

With the whole terrorism theme, I kinda find it hard to digest the Lawful theme needed for a paladin of Tyranny. If you can get away with surviving till you can make a level 12 character, I'd think a 1 Paladin / 10 Blackguard / 1 Cancer Mage would work; having the 4th level spells of a Blackguard, I think you'll have quite a few ways to spread disease throughout the city, if you can find the spells to do it.

[Big Fau]

Hexblade 4/Binder 4/Paladin of Tyranny 2/Ur-Priest 10 (or Ur-Priest 2/Bone Knight 8).


And please don't use Cancer Mage. It's either worthless (because everything is immune by the time you are taking levels in it) or absurdly overpowered (the diseases in the BoVD make you insanely powerful since they lose all drawbacks).

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

You have quite a few options given Cancer Mage's prerequisites....

Human, Ranger 2/ Crusader or Warblade 1/ Cancer Mage 8, taking the Ranger levels at 1 and 3. Use the Strong-Arm combat style (Dragon 326) to get Power Attack at Ranger 2. Any class that gets a good base Fort save could be substituted for Crusader or Warblade.

Human, Ranger 2/ Fighter 1/ Cancer Mage 4/ Blackguard 4, with the Strong-Arm combat style again. This has to take the Fighter level after Ranger 2 so it needs Int 12 minimum to get the skill points to qualify for Cancer Mage, and it barely has enough feats to qualify for Blackguard, though you can move it around if you use flaws. Continue taking more Cancer Mage and/or Blackguard levels as preferred. Blackguard gets Poison Use, so get max ranks in Craft: Poisonmaking. You can use wands of Ranger and Blackguard spells, such as Entangle, Camouflage, Faith Healing, and Rhino's Rush.

Swordsage 1/ Thug (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighterVariantThug)+Sn eak Attack (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighter) 1/ Ranger 2/ Cancer Mage 3/ Swordsage 1/ Blackguard 3, still use the Strong-Arm combat style and pick up Assassin's Stance at Swordsage 2. I'd get the fourth Blackguard level for spells and sneak attack, then more Cancer Mage and/or Swordsage. Since all of Cancer Mage's abilities are Wis-based, and since it gets a special set of light armor, it just makes sense to use Swordsage 2+ to get your Wisdom bonus to AC, plus your Blackguard spells are Wis-based as well. Be sure to have max ranks in Craft: Poisonmaking if you're going to include Blackguard.

Ranger 2/ Hexblade 4/ Blackguard 4/ Cancer Mage 1+, Strong-Arm combat style and Dark Companion ACF. As always, Craft: Poisonmaking is going to be extremely useful, as are wands of Ranger and Blackguard spells. This has the advantage of a higher BAB starting out and access to Hexblade wands, including Eternal Wands (MIC) of any arcane spell regardless of what class list it's from.

Any character with Sneak Attack will benefit greatly from Craven, a feat in Champions of Ruin which adds your character level to your damage when making a sneak attack.

With any of the above, try to get the feat Dreadful Wrath from PGtF, possibly along with Ability Focus for it (you'll need to use flaws to get that in a few of those builds). Also try to get Imperious Command in DotU, the Never Outnumbered skill trick in CS, and max ranks in Intimidate with Fearsome armor. Between fear effects and passive debuff auras your opponents' saves should be considerably reduced, thus greatly increasing your chances of infecting opponents with diseases and poisons.