Help me kill a character (3.5)

[Karuth]

The title may be a bit misleading, so let me clarify :3
The character in question has angered a powerful organization and they wish to end his current material existence. For this they send an assassin… one of the best there is. Now the character is built to withstand a lot of punishment. Knowing the stats of course it would be easy to custom fit an assassin that is able to kill for sure him using his all weaknesses.
But I want of course a realistic assassin that works off the in game information and not the meta game information (and thus will hopefully fail at killing him). And since I am afraid my judgment is impaired in this case, I’d like to ask you for help.

Here are the basics:
We are playing in a Forgotten Realms Setting in the Dale Lands (3.5)
It is known that the character is a Clerik of Gond and is heavily armored. He travels around using a war trained mule (also heavily armored). Both he and the mule like to drink alcohol (mostly vine). He has often used magic to construct stuff (repaired a whole village (3-4 buildings) within a day after a storm for example) but is also a good Smith without magic.

What kind of information would you try to obtain about him before planning your move?
How would you try to kill him?

Assume the character that is sent out to kill has about Level 18-20 (he is supposed to be one of the best after all)
You do not need to write definite numbers. You can keep it general.

[TroubleBrewing]

Frankly, if that's all the information I'm given, I'd tell whoever offered the contract on this guy to stuff it.

High-level players, and this goes triple for Clerics, are damn near demigods. As an assassin for hire, I am not about to risk my neck for payment, because if I get killed, I don't get paid. If I'm going to take a contract on a high-level spellcaster, I'm not going to do it without proper information.

[B!shop]

With the basic information you gave us the first thing that comes to mind is to use poison in his alcohol.
Get the best poison and find a way to put it in his beverage: it should kill or or debilitate him enough to let the assassin finish him easily.

[TroubleBrewing]

With the basic information you gave us the first thing that comes to mind is to use poison in his alcohol.
Get the best poison and find a way to put it in his beverage: it should kill or or debilitate him enough to let the assassin finish him easily.

You're an assassin hired to kill a high-level Cleric, and your first thought is to poison him?

Poison the guy with Neutralize Poison on his spell list?

[The Succubus]

You're an assassin hired to kill a high-level Cleric, and your first thought is to poison him?

Poison the guy with Neutralize Poison on his spell list?

Actually, I could see a way this could work.....

Instead of poison, is there any way you could curse the alcohol instead or perhaps if he has a favourite mug that he likes to drink from? It would be fun watching him cast Cure Poison over and over again and it not having any effect....:smallamused:

[B!shop]

You're an assassin hired to kill a high-level Cleric, and your first thought is to poison him?

Poison the guy with Neutralize Poison on his spell list?

Yes, if the guy isn't aware of the poison (as he shouldn't if he's not paranoid), the poison itself is fast enough to impare his spellcasting (or kill him) of the guy is already drunk.

But perhaps I'm thinking too "fluffy", probably the crunch won't help my plan.

[SilverSheriff]

Poison the guy with Neutralize Poison on his spell list?

the way I see it:

Neutralize Poison -> Alcohol is a Poison -> Alcohol turns to Water.

Put a more deadly poison in his Mug of Ale and he'll never suspect it.

[Ducklord]

Is the assassin limited on class selection? Does he have to be a skillmonkey-type character?

If not a lvl 18 wizard could probably take down this guy no problem.

The only thing that could potentially stop a well prepared wizard is epic spellcasting on the side of the cleric. I'd try to find out if he has any epic abilities before taking the contract. After that scry & die is the name of the game. Find cleric, cast a maximized time stop, teleport to cleric's location, cast maw of chaos on him a few times and wait for the time stop to end. Oh, and use my astral projection to do it of course. If the cleric survives and kills my projection I can return tomorrow with a different tactic.

[Krazzman]

Rust Cubes (Complete Scoundrel), Dust of sneezing and choking, "insanity poison" (does Wisdom damage)[High enough and he can't even cast anymore :D].

As a High level Assassin I would check his team mates, and ALL his flaws. How to iniciate that another one does the killing for you or the weakening or similar. If the reason for the assassination is revenge: look up Hoar, they have Paladin Assassins. Confront him to a 1:1 duel after weakening him or advance the party and demand that this cleric is by law (of hoar) sentenced to death.

Again Assassin can have more meanings. Is the assassin a gish, mundane or caster?

[Inkpencil]

The assassin would want more information. High bluff and have him insinuate himself into the party's trust. Non-detectable alignment, half-truths, and a full on shady-but-useful cover could get him close enough to pal around a little with the party. For best effect, give him some fun characterizations that make the players want him featured in the story. Maybe he's a former assassin for that god himself, but had a crisis of faith and is now a strictly mercenary "security consultant". He arranges some nasty attacks through some lower-level dupes and helps fend them off, while also paying attention to how the guy handles things.

At some point, it's party time. Get the party drunk, half-asleep, away from arms and armor, and cause that "ohcrapohcrapohcrap" moment most players covet so much.

[Karuth]

Okay. So much more info is needed. I can give you that.

First a little detail I forgot to mention first ^^. The future victim is a human.

The assassin character does not have to be a rogue or skill monkey. He/she basically can be any class/race combination, but try to keep it within reason (A half-dragon 20th level caster will have other things to do than to work as killer for hire).

Any halfway competent Assassin can easily get this additional information on the subject without alarming the subject or endangering himself:

The strongest (obvious) Spell the Clerik has cast so far is Wall of Stone (buff spells are hard to identify via testimonies from bystanders).
He avoids attacking himself and only attacks to finish off weakened enemies (when with a group). Apparently that is because he couldn't hit the broad side of a barn (especially with ranged weapons). Recently he seems to have gotten at least halfway decent with his mace though.
His armor and shield are made from adamantine (shield shows symbol of Gond).
Apart from working with metal, stone and wood he is also skilled in alchemy.
He has a magical flask that can produce very large amounts of water, alcohol and other liquids. But he always buys food and drink when in an area (to get to know new drinks and stuff).
He does not kill if it can be avoided and his weapon seems to be enchanted so that it does not inflict lethal wounds.
He is usually gives everyone a chance and does not try to be biased because of race or status.
He is known to be very resilient even for hero standards, resisting all kinds of attacks with relative ease regardless of source (magical, physical, mental) and he often jumps into the way to protect the softer group members from strong blows.

The group he is most often seen with has a fighter, a wizard, a rogue and a barbarian. It would be possible to catch him alone as well, but since it is supposed to be a group experience they should be considered in the attack plan.
Since the group is traveling almost any terrain is possible (Forest, Road, City, Desert) if you wait for the right moment.

Known enemies the group has been going against were:
Werewolves that were invading a city (and controlling it for a while) with one strong pack leader (1 size larger and with magical powers).
A cloud giant that had seized a mountainous region for himself and keeping it winter far into spring.
Defeated a surface raid of the Drow they ran into.

I hope this helps you.

[SilverSheriff]

Have the Assassin slip something into the PC's brews when he finds a new town, something with massive WIS damage and a high Fort save DC, then blast him with a spell that requires a Will save.

Hint: Drow tend to be masters of Poisons.

[Ducklord]

One thing really interests me, do you wish to kill this player? I don't know how familiar you are with the game, but at those levels there are classes/builds, that have really small chances of not killing him before it's his turn if they set their mind to it.

If you want to kill him google up builds like the mailman or cindy. Or wizards in general.

If you just want a tough opponent, that can pull many tricks out of his sleeve and that can challenge a party of four mid to high level PCs... that's another story.

[Zeru the Dark]

Alright, depending on the disposition of the organization in question, they could just as easily summon and bind a fiend of some sort to serve as their assassin, or even grab a Lawful Outsider if their grievances are legitimate. This lets you grab something around the proper CR much more easily. If you're not interested in summoning things, however, this is more or less what I would do;

Start giving the Cleric regular checks to sense being scryed; say, once every few days. This is the organization gathering information. Assuming they can scry him while he's adventuring, they should be able to Spellcraft a good amount of his spell list, and figure out what buffs he likes using that way, as well as any other magic items he has on him. Similarly they should check the other members of the group. Once they have that information, they should hire accordingly; generally, I'd say send a group of assassins. No one guy is going to last that long, but three assassins, including a rogue/fighter with poisons, a cleric of Mask(or Cyric) that focuses on his more lethal clerical magics, and wizard to buff and back them up should prove appropriately challenging. The wizard can focus on slinging Dispels to try and strip buffs off of the party, the cleric can wade in against the low will and/or fort group members with nasty spells, and the fighter/rogue can try and take down your cleric player(hopefully with quickdraw and a bandolier of poisoned throwing knives).

As a side note, if the organization in question is smart, and has access to magic, they can find out almost anything about your player. You actually really should tailor an assassin to fight the party, because that's what the organization is going to try and hire.

[Barlen]

The assassin(s) should arrange for the cleric (and the group) to be in a series of fights earlier in the day. Hire or coerce the attackers (or the party for that matter) to fight. Bonus points if they can get the party to fight enemies of those who hired the assassins. Preferably 3 or more fights that wears down the group. Since it's known that the target is a spell caster these fights should force spells to be cast (spells the wizard and the cleric are known to cast). Use poison early and often to draw out any spells/potions/scrolls to counter them. Separate them and attack. Poison the wine and attack.

Since you don't want to metagame this write out the way the assassins think it should go and let the PCs foil it if they can.

[TheOasysMaster]

Make your assassin Boba Fett...
The organization (The Empire) pays him, and also gives him money to hire mercs and such in a grand display to lure him into a trap.
Your next campaign arc or chapter can be an entire adventure in which the assassin is working up to kill this character.

"They won't be coming back." -Boba Fett.

[KinnetDynamon]

Why not try to arrange it so that the Cleric kills/almost kill himself? Have the assassins somehow trick him into 'Wall of Stone'-ing himself into some room, which causes an highly corrosive, mundane acid fog & anti-magic field trap to spring, thus causing him to be dissolved away.

Or even better, set up a situation in which the Cleric must choose to either kill himself or a group of children/innocents will die.

Or perhaps turn him into a 'monster' so that everyone else will want to kill him.

Or just have the assassin(s) track him into some sort of 'normal' fight and strike at the most inopportune time.

I really hate poison would be the point of this, haha.

[VanIsleKnight]

I'm assuming we're going to have a lot of time to prepare for this, so I would learn more about the teammates in general as well as the group dynamic. How well they get along, who is friends with who, their vices, their goals, etc. I want to do this because I want to create a situation where the target is separated from his allies in one way or another. I could do this in any number of ways, and I'm assuming that the organization that is paying me has a -lot- of resources at their disposal to help me accomplish this.

Wizard? Let it slip to the party that there is a classist powerful archmage in a tower that will refuse anyone that isn't a wizard into his tower (or something to that effect)

Thief? Well, if they're the type that like to sneak off and do things on their lonesome or there is a situation that absolutely -demands- the highest level of finesse (like a quest that involves the subtle theft of an artifact from a vault somewhere)

Fighter and Barbarian? If you can, have them enter some sort of competition where glory, fame, and titles can be won along with riches. Or organize some sort of enormous brute that would DEMAND their focused attention as the damage dealers, something that's right up their alley and not requiring the others to help them with.

If the cleric is with the fighter and barbarian, and he is the sort that goes to defend the innocent, manipulate the battlefield as best as you can so that he is the absolute closest to some children or something being taken away into a secluded area. Like through a portal or something, that looks like it's going to be open for awhile and have the bait call out for the cleric specifically. In case sense motive is a factor, make them -actual- victims who are close friends with the cleric.

Anti-magic fields are fantastic as well if they are an option, especially if he's not very good at hitting things. That eliminates most of his abilities to do anything, and if the organization -really- wants him out of the picture that badly I'm sure one could be arranged.



Essentially, you want to do the following:

- Render the Target's allies unable or unwilling to provide him any aid. Bonus points if you can do so without them being aware of this at all.
- Render the Target unable or unwilling to use his primary offensive and defensive strengths (anything that reduces concentration checks, lowers his Wisdom, or would risk the lives of innocents)


If you didn't want to be subtle about it you could even just arrange for several close friends/loved ones of the party to be kidnapped/taken into custody and held hostage in a random area. Have the bad guy/lawful authority demand that the cleric come with him, or they die (taking into consideration the power output of the party) but make the wording so that it doesn't exclude the remainder of the party to go after their loved ones themselves. They will (with luck) come up with the clever idea of using the loophole in the terms to their favour, and will leave the Target on their own of their own volition.


**edit: I forgot to add, odds are at this level of play they can afford to have their teammate resurrected, so trapping the cleric's soul in a gem or something like that would be something the assassin or the organization would have to take into account. Otherwise you'd have spent all your time and resources preparing for something that can be reversed relatively easily.

[Treblain]

How about an Arcane Archer who attacks him with an imbued Enlarged Antimagic Field arrow followed by a tanglefoot bag or immobilizing poison? After that, pile on the damage.

Another neat spell is Armor Lock if he loves wearing heavy armor.

[Vixsor Lumin]

If there going to be scryed alot, let them know through rolls (as mentioned above) then drop hints of a psion who can manifest scrying trap. You now have an excuse to roll up a high level psion that the group is going to keep with them so that he can re manifest whenever necessary. Find a way to get the cleric alone and BAM!

[Karuth]

Thank you for the many replies. I am at work at the moment (like last time... ironically I don't seem to have enough free time in my free time to check in here :P) and thus I can't write longer and reply to everyone directly.

First of all some additional info. I would prefer if the character does not die. He (and the group) should merely get a sense of real danger (seeing that their actions do lead to real consequences).
The assassin should get away after the (hopefully failed) attack in the group.
Raising the dead is no trivial matter in our setting (has some house rules of course) and there are harsh limits on it (only can be done a few times, hard to come by etc.) so you don't need to account for capturing the soul or something.

If you want a money figure assume the assassin is going to blow an absolute maximum of 50 000 gp on the attack (meaning money he won't get back, from single use items, poisons, hirelings, magic casting etc.). Preferably less (he is greedy ^^)
___________________________

What I have gathered so far are the following.

Poison: Especially poisoning his vine. This idea I also had (seeing as the most obvious) and I will take it as a given to soften up the group.

Separation: From the assassin's point of view that would be the most obvious choice of course, but gameplay wise I would like the group to help of course, since this is supposed to be an evening filling adventure. That is the predicament of RP and RL.

Softening up/distraction: Using hirelings or summoned creatures to challenge the party to get them to use up resources. Sounds like a solid idea.

Using the heavy armor against him: With spells and tanglefoot bag and whatnot. Or luring him into bad terrain (swamp, or water in general)

Infiltration: Become part of the group for a strike. It would be kinda strange if some NPC suddenly wanted into the group, so I'd have to make for a plausible backstory.
____________________________

An additional idea, that might be interesting too.
I thought it might be cool to have the assassin announce himself to the victim via card telling him exactly when he is going to kill him (kinda like Cat's Eye (anime) does when announcing their heists) like "At the stroke of midnight of the next full moon your time will be up".
And then when the group researches they learn that he has never failed to eliminate a target before and full in panic try to get together a defense.
I doubt this would be possible without epic levels or a lot of money on the assassin's part though.

[Dimers]

I thought it might be cool to have the assassin announce himself to the victim via card telling him exactly when he is going to kill him ...

Have a copycat killer leave a note just like the kind left by the true master assassin. Let the party work themselves up and spend resources. Don't do the deed at the appointed time -- have the copycat come after them later, once they've let their guard down (preferably late the same night). This isn't very compatible with the wine-poison method, though.

I'm against poisoning wine/food, tactically speaking. (Um, and in real life, duh. :smalltongue:) Clerics are tough, hearty souls in general, and this one sounds considerably tougher than normal. He's probably got piles of Fortitude. And if not, he may very well have a Neutralize Poison memorized or scrolled to use on himself. Touch attacks and stuff that targets Reflex will see a much better rate of success.

Antimagic and terrain both sound like great ideas. One of those illusory-terrain spells from the PHB can set up an ambush pretty well, and the assassin could cast (or scroll or contingency) antimagic just as the cleric hits the weak spot. Depending on the circumstances, the party might not even realize that the magic is gone until after they've wasted an action trying to cast a spell. Of course, that all assumes the party is still actually walking from place to place despite having fourth-level spells or better.

The cleric's love of crafting might also be useful as a weak point. Have someone approach him asking for construction help; chances are, the player will think it's a roleplaying or solo thing, and the rest of the party won't even want to be there. Then give him a cursed smithing hammer that grabs his hand and arm and suddenly weighs eighty pounds, preventing him from using spells or weapons or a shield with that hand, or work gloves that lock to each other, something of that nature. If you want to make this a warning shot to the player, have expendable mooks jump him; the assassin doesn't even need to show up in person.

[Jothki]

Look for weak links. Do attended mounts get their rider's will save? If not, hit it in the stable the night before.

I doubt anyone expects a Dominated mount.

[The Mormegil]

Look for weak links. Do attended mounts get their rider's will save? If not, hit it in the stable the night before.

I doubt anyone expects a Dominated mount.

This idea is pure genius. Dominate his mount and lead him into a trap. The party will follow, but a warhorse running 5x is difficult to reach fast enough and lackeys / summons / whatever can slow them down. That way the party can help - if they are fast to kill the mooks they can reach the cleric - but you can attack the cleric alone, and trap the hell out of him beforehand.

[icefractal]

I actually wouldn't use poison. Why? Heroes' Feast. It's a spell that any Cleric could have, and while higher rank than Wall of Stone, it isn't much higher, so it's plausible he may have it. And if he does have it, it's not unlikely that he'll be eating one every morning, and thus immune to poison all day.

Sending minions to exhaust some resources is solid. Also, if you can find out what time of day he prays for spells, attacking him during that would be a good idea. He'll at least be distracted, and hour/level buffs will likely be lapsed. And if you're lucky, the Wizard will be preparing his spells at the same time, putting the party at significantly reduced strength.

Also, the mind-controlled mount thing sounds like a great idea.

[Silverlich]

Have the Assassin be an Elder Evil. Make the calling cards the sign of its approach, and have it's powers affect a more localized area (i.e. the party).


Have the malefic property be Dark Visiting if you feel like forcing lots of will saves, Divine Enervation if you feel like giving the campaign a sense of urgency and need to conserve resources, or Impervious to the Divine if you feel like being mean.:smalltongue:

[Xyk]

Stab him in the face while he's sleeping?

[Sudain]

Poison is great, curses as well.

Gear - steal his gear and or the party's gear. If you steal the party's gear(focus on weapons) then hide them inside the town and instigate a hide and go seek routine. The cleric will start locating object(not using his spells for combat). Also consider starting a small plauge in the town so he should feel compelled to help cure it(again blowing spells).

Seperation - Kill him in the Tub or shower - he's really going to wear armor in the tub?

Infilitration - Surely he'd want to help an old lady get to the next town to see her family one more time. After all, she may not last next winter. Little does he know she's in a great position to coup-de-grace him while he sleeps. Hook up a contingency teleport or greater invisibility and she has an escape plan.

Frame him - make him wanted for murder or something else. If he's good he'll own up to the consiquences and then the assassin (in the guise of his defense laywer or a concerned citizen) can strike without him expecting it.

Assassin's resources - He may only spend 50k on the inital hit; but if he kills his target properly he can loot the body. What's the cleric's gear worth? If cunning he can get some of the party's gear as well. He can probably recoup a good chunk of his costs this way.

Combat damage - have a caster(Sorcerr) - with an emphasis on blasting join a fight(should very easily be a hireling) focus on casting lightning bolt and damage spells(reflex based). Cleric starts casting a spell? Well make that hireling caster in the corner shoot you and now you need to make a concentration check. Annoying and it'll start adding up damage. Also take a look at battle field control spells like sleet storm, ottulke's resiliant sphere, solid fog, to name a few. Line of Sight, Line of Effect, and Concentration Checks all cripple casters.

Paranoia - Look up Shrink Item, Explosive Runes, Sepia Snake Sigil, and Confusion. Shrink item(his armor), Explosive Runes anything, Snake Sigil pretty much anything(but much worse than explosive runes), and Confusion is great for combat. After alot of runes or sigils he will get really paranoid and stop reading stuff. If properly keyed they can be liberally sprinkled through out town and not triggered on harmless innocents. Or he decides to leave town have them start triggering on innocents and let it be know he's at fault. It's a little disconcerting to have a mob form because they find out you are the reason (if not directly by casing it, then by being the reason it is happening here at all) all of their signs are exploding and killing people.

Butcher his mount. Do it in a horrific and graphic way(having his horse drawn and quartered) - that'll send a clear message that he's ticked off someone. And they are not the type to forgive and forget.

Royal Fork(Chess reference) - give him a situation where it's either his life or some innocent.

Dominate Party Members - As referened with the dominated mount; dominate the fighter & parbarian and force them to kill the cleric. Also look at Geas and Quest spells. For added fun look up all the enchantment spells. After all why would an assassin risk himself when he can eliminate a supporting party member(or cleric's minion) and have that same guy kill the cleric. And if the figher/barbaian fails then the party member is still out of the picture. Another spin on this is to Quest/Geas(no save but 10 min casting time) and have HIM kill people.

Summon a great and power-full demon(Gate in a pit fiend or Balor) with the instrucitons "If you help me kill a champion of good and don't harm me I'll let you wreak destruction to your hearts content." What demon wouldn't take that up? And I bet the party will come running. Who said this hit had to be subtle?

He likes his armor? Look at rust monters or rusting grasp. Also look at sundering rules. :)

Look at cursed items - there is some fun there. I'm a fan of helm of opposite alignment.


And my Favorite:
Take a long and hard look at the symbol of xxx spells. Then look at perminacy. Get a Symbol of Death/Pain/Sleep/etc... perminacied on a dagger or weapon for the assassin: any serious assassin should have one or two of these regardless of class. Or if you REALLY want to mess with him; put the symbol on his shield so it keeps triggering when he's walking through town.


I appologize if some of these are distrubing and super effective. I uhh.. make a good villain... Let us know how it goes. :)

[molten_dragon]

He has often used magic to construct stuff (repaired a whole village (3-4 buildings) within a day after a storm for example) but is also a good Smith without magic.

My first thought would be to take advantage of this. Destroy something (preferably something large and complicated to fix, like a decent sized town) that the Cleric cares about. Wait until he has burned a bunch of spells fixing the place, and then go after him when he is low on spells and weakened.

My second thought to go after a character like this is an enemy wizard using hit and run tactics.

Wizard teleports to where the cleric is.
Wizard casts a save or die at the cleric.
Wizard casts a quickened teleport and is gone.

While the cleric will have a good fort save, he'll fail it eventually if the wizard keeps it up for long enough.

[eulmanis12]

he is wearing heavy armor?
Drown him. You just need to get him near the water, then attack the things around him.
Sink the boat he is on.
Blow up a bridge
Break a dam
flood a basement
Or simply walk up, engage him in a pointless but entertaining conversation, then push him overboard.

Pretend to hire the party for a task, offer to teleport them to a relevant area, and then teleport the whole party to the middle of a lake. Swim away while the cleric sinks.

[TheThan]

Lets see if I was going to send an assassin after a party member (particularly one that stands a very good chance of succeeding), I’d send in a wizard. Have that wizard scry the crap out of his target and prepare his spells accordingly. He would then set up his battlefield to favor him (in this case, big open ground with no low hanging obstacles). The wizard should be able to figure out what spells he likes to use, what sort of weapons he likes to use, what sort of tactics he likes to use etc. and plan accordingly.

But remember to be fair about it. The wizard should be CR appropriate for either the single player, or for the party (which ever you feel is approached), and allow him the chance to figure things out. For instance if the party is constantly detecting scrying, it should trigger. You should also let it slip that this guy is a paid assassin, or reveal who is after your target’s hide.

[KinnetDynamon]

he is wearing heavy armor?
Drown him. You just need to get him near the water, then attack the things around him.
Sink the boat he is on.
Blow up a bridge
Break a dam
flood a basement
Or simply walk up, engage him in a pointless but entertaining conversation, then push him overboard.

Pretend to hire the party for a task, offer to teleport them to a relevant area, and then teleport the whole party to the middle of a lake. Swim away while the cleric sinks.

This gives me a great idea, assuming the cleric does not have SR of some sort. Two assassins, with high UMD mods and/or levels in wizard or the like. All you need is a scroll of gate, a scroll of dimensional anchor, and a scroll of invisibility. Send the cleric through the gate to the elemental plane of water or the negative energy plane or the like then have the other (invisible) assassin cast dimensional anchor through the gate at the cleric, at which time the gate-caster ceases concentration. It is something your cleric could theoretically survive while also being very severely miffed/endangered. 8825 (gate) + 700 (dimensional anchor) + 700 (greater invisibility) = 10,225 gp, plus any money you might give the cleric to travel to the plane for you.

For something 'less' dangerous that can trap the whole party but is more expensive, send him to a small (less than 20 feet in radius) cavern in the elemental plane of earth and use a scroll of dimensional lock to seal the area off for a few days. 8825 + 3000 (dim lock) +700 = 12,525 gp, plus the money for the party.

The second assassin never even has to be seen nor does the first ever have to appear to be a foe - thus opening up the possibility of a second assassination attempt from the same assassin.

[Madara]

His armor and shield are made from adamantine (shield shows symbol of Gond).


First rule of cleric hunting: destroy the symbol of their faith. Although, having him lose his powers would be a good way to kill him. I'm going to hire some monsters to terrorize a village, and live in a near by dungeon. In this dungeon will be a magic shield, which will have better powers than his current one, (maybe animated and such). I will hire this group to retrieve my "brother" from the monsters. While in the dungeon, the party will find the shield, and he will switch to that one. That shield will not have the symbol of his deity. When they start to head back to the village, I will have my hired men start fires all over. The party will probably proceed to try to save the village. When the party is in the city trying to put out the fires, I will attack him. I will try to have him inside a burning building where his armor is uncomfortable.

The combination of not having a holy symbol, being weakened from the dungeon, and the heat in the building should allow me a good opportunity to attack him. I will have minions ready to collapse the building should anything go wrong, along with having a scroll of teleport(or teleport prepared).


He does not kill if it can be avoided and his weapon seems to be enchanted so that it does not inflict lethal wounds.
He is usually gives everyone a chance and does not try to be biased because of race or status.

This will allow me to convince him to "save my brother".

[eulmanis12]

Is 23 kegs of gunpowder in the basement of the inn he is staying at acceptable?. Or better yet in the room next door to him.

[Sudain]

First rule of cleric hunting: destroy the symbol of their faith.

Genius! Pure genius!

How did this turn out BTW?

[BerronBrightaxe]

The most sense would be to do something sneaky (blow up the inn he's in, poison him, etc.) or send a group after the cleric.

sending a group, nasty edition:
cast forgecage on the barbarian and fighter

have the wizard grapple by a monk (focused on grapple and with a stone with silence cast on it)

Have the cleric flanked by 2 spellthief 1/rogueX/assassins3 (min) . Give them the feats 'Staggering Strike' and 'Master Spellthief', access to the spell 'Wrath strike' (IIRC it is on the spell-list of a Assassin), TWF/ITWF, enchant their weapons with extra damage dice (like the '+2d6 sneak damage'-enchant) and make sure they are under the haste effect.
Reduce his speed (tanglefoot bag) and make sure the spellthiefs are able to cast 'Wrath strike' atleast 3 times.

With this setup you are able to drain the cleric of his high and medium lvl spells (one spell per attack, which would be about 10 to 12 per round). In this focus on known quickened spells and escapespells, then on highest lvl.
Second thing: it will keep him 'staggered', which means he only can take 1 move action per round. The staggering is caused by the sneak attacks. The Fort-save for this is damage dealt (which is pretty high, due to the lots of sneak-damage and additional dice). Eventhough his Fort save shall be pretty high, it is unlikely he will make his Fort save about 10/round.
Third: Make sure they spellthiefs cast 'Wrath strike' This will make all the attacks done ignore normal and natural armour (so essentially touch attacks). And considering they ignore the normal armour, the reduction from adamantite doesn't count.

additional nastiness:
If you have 2 lvls to burn, give them 2 fighter lvls and the feats 'power attack' and 'oversized TWF'. This allows them to use one-handers in both hands and thus power-attack with both hands. Considering they need only to hit his touch AC, this should add about 100+ hp damage per round



Wizard teleports to where the cleric is.
Wizard casts a save or die at the cleric.
Wizard casts a quickened teleport and is gone.

This prob would work the first time (if they aren't paranoïd).

The second time: There is a spell called 'anticipate teleport'. It will delay the arrival of the teleportee by one or more full rounds and it will alert the caster of the spell of the arrival.
*Wizard arrives and is considered flat-footed*
*Wizard dies*


Originally Posted by Madara
First rule of cleric hunting: destroy the symbol of their faith.

First rule of being a cleric, always have multiple holy symbols.
I presume a cleric can't cast when he/she doesn't have a holy symbol as focus?

Also there is a 0-lvl spell: Summon holy symbol.

[jiriku]

he is wearing heavy armor?
Drown him. You just need to get him near the water, then attack the things around him.
Sink the boat he is on.
Blow up a bridge
Break a dam
flood a basement
Or simply walk up, engage him in a pointless but entertaining conversation, then push him overboard.

Pretend to hire the party for a task, offer to teleport them to a relevant area, and then teleport the whole party to the middle of a lake. Swim away while the cleric sinks.

Or, fight them, with your water breathing and freedom of movement spells already active and running, while the party contends with the triple threat of your attacks, sinking, and drowning.

[killem2]

is the assassin female?

[Rubik]

What about a properly set up shadowcraft mage? Spells that are 120% real suck for high Will save characters. Scry the heck out of them, then get them away from crowds and start throwing around beceiling'd mazes of obdurium and such; you know the layout, but they don't.

Then start a Tucker's Kobolds hunt (with real kobolds even, but ones with casting class levels) and harry them to death using hit-and-run tactics before your Shapechanged astral projection moves in for the kill after they've wasted a ton of resources.

[Venger]

With the basic information you gave us the first thing that comes to mind is to use poison in his alcohol.
Get the best poison and find a way to put it in his beverage: it should kill or or debilitate him enough to let the assassin finish him easily.


Yes, if the guy isn't aware of the poison (as he shouldn't if he's not paranoid), the poison itself is fast enough to impare his spellcasting (or kill him) of the guy is already drunk.

But perhaps I'm thinking too "fluffy", probably the crunch won't help my plan.
firstly, your cleric doesn't sound in the least optimised, wearing armor, using a shield, using weapons at lvl 18-19 (not that that's a bad thing, just that it informs my suggestions about what are something powerful enough to challenge but not kill him. the loloporter/mailman suggestions thus far would likely curbstomp your player without much ceremony which isn't what you want since you said you wanted him to not die) so my suggestions are rather lower on the power scale than stuff prior, but I think that this might work better for your game (with the impression I have of the general level of optimisation going on in your group)


May I direct your attention to the black dog prestige class from dragonmarked (p95) ?

its whole shtick is poisoning people's food and booze (especially booze) without actually having to touch it or get near it.

you said that the cleric likes going to bars and restaurants. have the assassin (not the class, you know what I mean) just be present there (possibly in disguise) and when the barkeep gives him his drink, the black dog makes a sleight of hand opposed by the cleric's spot (wis aside, they don't have it as a class skill) and then bingo bango the cleric has drunk a whole mess of poison.

since you don't want to kill him, only shake him, give him some id moss or oil of taggit or something to KO him. (depending on how many drinks you have and how many prestidigitations/food and drinks/day your dragonmark of hospitality gives) then your tuxedo mask assassin can leave his calling card threatening the cleric's life

speaking of threatening, no class is better for inspiring that sense of dread in your players like the humble bloodhound (masters of the wild p50) who suits your purposes to a T.

- not immediately in danger of killing a cleric (nothing is)
- possesses a wide array of abilities that allow him to deal nonlethal damage to the cleric at no penalty (OOG, you don't wanna kill him, IG, I'm getting the impression this is the cocky bounty hunter type character who is driven on by the thrill of the hunt and doesn't want his/her mark to die without providing some entertainment first
- will find your character, no matter where he is
- is very difficult to be tracked down by your character (and as a result, hard to be killed)
- spell resistance against a fairly broad spectrum of things, making him an unexpectedly difficult encounter (assuming he soloes the cleric) for your cleric without giving him much real chance of success (but great chance of injury and scaring your player)

bloodhounds can track at full speed without a penalty, can make an AoO by saying what the mark will do before he does it (ex: he's gonna put up a wall of stone, he puts up a wall of stone, bloodhound gets an AoO w/melee or ranged.) they can sneak around in armor with no ACP and can shatter any barrier (like a wall of stone) put up between themselves and a mark at will. they can also disintegrate sections of objects that shatter doesn't apply to (like adamantine) and have SR against walls of force and the like. they can see invisibility, leave no trail of their own and use "find the path" on their marks.

the very mechanics of bloodhound inspire determination. if you switch your mark to someone else before taking in/arresting/etc. your existing mark, you lose xp equal to what you'd've got if you'd beat him. not important for an NPC, but a good reason for why your assassin will be such a hardass about catching the cleric.

does this help?

[Diefje]

Succubus type assassin. If it's out of character for the cleric, you can get him drunk first. The rest of the party can notice something is off, kick the door in while his pants are down, succubus makes a heroic escape.

Sabotage. He likes to help people rebuild stuff. Plan a big project for them to help with, like a cathedral or something. While he's casting spells underneath, the tower crumbles on him. The party gets to help dig him out, and/or chase after the suspicious construction worker.

Sabotage 2. This is a bit more solo, but you could orchestrate a blacksmithing accident. He's working with blazing hot furnaces and molten metals. He could have some of his tools tampered with. Perhaps not life threatening, but it might scare him a little.

Some more scare tactics:
-Mark every inn they stay in. When they come out the next morning, you notice a mark on the door that wasn't there when they checked in.
-Glimpses of recognition from random NPCs. They've never met them, but it seems almost like someone has been expecting them.
-Stranger on the horizon, but never there when you try to find him.

[candycorn]

Personally? I'd go with a low DC sleep poison. Mimics alcohol very well, make it 1 dose per glass in the mix, and go from there. If someone passes out after drinking, nobody expects it. From there, levy a misdirection to get the party out of position... Then slip in a patsy (low level warrior of some sort, say, level 3, with Quickdraw, Power Attack and a Greataxe). Use the assassin (or more patsies) to decoy the party, with an escape route (I'm a fan of dimension door), while the 'drunk at the bar' (the patsy), on his first action, does a coup de grace with power attack for 3. Assuming an 18 strength, that's 3d12+27 (average damage 46.5). It's fairly likely to get the kill, relying only on the failure of the initial save to get things rolling. If that takes a while, well, good killers are patient.

[Aegis013]

IMO, Assassin uses Magic Jar. Familiar or hireling or something that will go unsuspected carries the gem near party. Assassin tries to possess whoever is likely to be the lowest willed (the Cleric if he's drunk... that's probably a pretty hefty circumstance penalty to Will).

Attack Cleric with his ally. Or coup'de grace self if able to take over the cleric.

If you need a whacky way to get Magic Jar, have his base Wisdom be 15 (or get it to 15 with level points, tome, or non enhancement bonuses). Make him a Spellstitched (Complete Arcane) Necropolitan (Libris Mortis). Use Owl's Wisdom to bump Wisdom when becoming a Spellstitched so he gets additional SLA's. (pretty sure that works by RAW).

[Rubik]

Psion/thrallherd (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/prestigeClasses/thrallherd.htm) 1/body leech (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040925a) or psion/thrallherd 1/ghost?

He has tons of followers that he stations in every town, and can haunt bystanders all over the place so he can follow them personally. If he uses, say, shaper as the entry into thrallherd, he has access to lots and lots and lots of poison via Psionic Minor Creation, and he can float around incorporeally, possess everything from barkeepers to hiveminds, and you can end up with some really creepy things going down when the party starts noticing weird behavior, glowing eyes from the things he possesses and from his thralls, and so on.

Has the party ever had a swarm of rats stop its advance and just sit and stare at them with glowing green eyes? Or had children suddenly stop laughing in their play and turn to regard them with those same eyes as they pass? Or had an old beggar whisper dire warnings of their being marked before snapping out of it and not having a clue what just happened?

Play it right and they'll be creeped the hell out.

Give him the Human Heritage feat and the cleric won't even be able to turn him, and if he's destroyed he'll be back in a matter of days to try it again.

[Mnemnosyne]

I haven't quite finished reading the thread and may post more before I get an answer, but my primary question is, who's trying to kill him? You said it was in the Realms, so the various power groups that he may have pissed off will probably all have differing styles that you want to account for in their choice of assassin.

Edit: Heh, just noticed this is a little old. I suppose the event has already happened, or at least you no longer need advice on this.

[molten_dragon]

This prob would work the first time (if they aren't paranoïd).

The second time: There is a spell called 'anticipate teleport'. It will delay the arrival of the teleportee by one or more full rounds and it will alert the caster of the spell of the arrival.
*Wizard arrives and is considered flat-footed*
*Wizard dies*

Except that Anticipate teleportation is a sorcerer/wizard spell, so the wizard would know of its existence, and it's a relatively small area of effect, so he can just teleport outside of it, causing it to do precisely nothing.

[BoutsofInsanity]

Your in the forgotten realms, and you need a high level assassin, It comes packaged with one. Artemis Entreri is allready made and high level. Just use him, have a group of higher level mooks weaken the party first, and right as they go to rest, bam Arty jumps in for the kill.

[missmvicious]

How about broken glass? Grind it up into a fine powder and slip it into the Clerics food?

It's how Artemis Entreri did it once. Detect Poison won't catch it, because it isn't a poison, and it's flavorless and odorless, but it could start a terrible hemorrhaging that cure spells (fluff-wise, anyway) wouldn't be able to stop (just replenish lost HP). In fact, I'm not sure what you could do to stop the internal bleeding. The glass powder would have to be removed somehow.

I don't know what the damage stats would be on something like that, but with the quick research I did online, it would appear to be more of a Hollywood technique, than anything. The medical site I found says that consuming broken glass will likely not do much damage (surprising, actually) and doctors prefer to take a wait-and-see approach to the treatment, expecting it to pass naturally:

www.corecharity.org.uk/The-Hazards-of-Swallowing-Glass.html

However, I think an argument that the glass was doing severe internal bleeding damage to your Cleric would be believable enough. I wouldn't have questioned it in game, and it would cause your Cleric to have to burn a Heal spell each round. Of course, if you could do this in a tavern that has an Anti-Magic field in it, because of a no-magic-allowed policy, that would really put a stop watch on the encounter.

To really seal the deal, while your assassin is pretending to help because he suspects poison, he could open a flask of some multi-purpose antidote and feed it to the (most likely willing, at this point) Cleric. The flask could actually be Sovereign Glue. That will seal his mouth shut so he can't explain what's going on. During the chaos, the Assassin could slip out of the bar and watch from a safe distance.

Even if the kill is successful, they're obviously in a city at this point, and are pretty high level. It shouldn't be impossible to afford a resurrection spell to bring the Cleric back. Whether the Cleric survives or not, make sure the heros have a good reason to suspect that the Assassin may not be as friendly as he first seemed... but not until after he slips from the crowd. Now, you've got your alley-delving, revenge-gasm side quest in the city.

[Emmerask]

Since you play in Faerun, there is antimagic poisen, ie poisen that is encapsulated in tiny antimagic bubbles which renders it immune to most spells (except for cheater of mystra stuff).

It was used in the Cormyr saga so I would consider it canon ^^
Also Dalelands is right next to Cormyr so there should be a way to get this stuff.

[Icestorm245]

Make it a multistage operation. A lot of the things here would in fact work well in conjuction with each other. Get a poison with a super high fortitude save, that does wisdom damage. Make all the rolls yourself so the player doesn't suspect anything. The only way he would in fact, know about his lowered wisdom, is if he casts a spell while affected. Put it in his favorite drink. Preferably done by an invisible stealth-type character. It would probably benefit you to poison the entire keg, or bottle or whatever. That way you are rolling against the tavernkeep and not against some super awesome high level cleric.

After that's done, wait till he goes to bed and takes off his armour for the night. Have a wizard constantly scrying him. Teleport in, cast a dominate person, and open a gate to the elemental plane of fire. Tell him that the "red water" will give him untold, amazing godlike power if he swims in it. Watch as he burns to death.

[TheVileVillain]

If you really want to rock this guy's world send out a Lantonese artificer (Use the Eberron base class, not the Faerunian prestige class). Make him 17th level but give hi 20th level gold and XP resources (I'd still put that at CR 20 for an Artificer).

Some Gear to consider:
Staff Containing

Ruby Ray of Reversal (Spell Compendium p.177)
Greater Dispel Magic
Break Enchantment


Scrolls of Mordenkainen's Disjunction

Weapon with the Greater Dispelling enchantment (Magic item Compendium p.33)

Multiple Wands of Mass Whelm (caster level 10) - use your artificer abilities to apply the Twin, Empowered, and Maximize Spell feats when you activate it. Make sure you've popped at least one scroll of disjunction before using this wand.

[Mnemnosyne]

Scrolls of Mordenkainen's Disjunction
First off, this thread is a bit old, pretty sure the OP's situation has already happened by this point, but I still had to comment on this anyway.

I wouldn't suggest pulling Mordenkainen's Disjunction on a PC unless you really, really want to hurt the player because it's got a good chance of destroying every magical item the character has on them. And if a DM ever pulled MDJ on me, my next step would be planar binding wish loops, gate loops, whatever, so unless you want to be the one to go 'the gloves are off' and turn the game into DM Vs. Player then just...don't.

[Karuth]

I hope the mods will forgive me for posting in this (now) old thread, but I wanted to thank the people the took the time to post in here. And of course I wanted to apologize for not responding sooner. I had some very busy weeks in Nov/Dec and then holiday season started and I simply forgot.

As some have guessed, yes the situation has changed in the meantime. As mentioned in the first post (I hope) we switch GMs regularly so everyone (that wants) can get a turn. And we had two switches in the meantime and the newest GM runs a long story arc.

Of course the cleric has accumulated some levels in the meantime. Nevertheless I got many good ideas (and some went pretty much overboard with their ideas ^^). But I am not sure I can still do my thing as the cleric might slip into epic levels before the end of the arc (we do plan to retire the characters then).
If we ever restart with the characters though (when we want a high power campain) it would make a nice intro.

__________________________________________


And lastly, here are the details I didn't want to give out in the beginning so people would think up stuff based on in-game info and not out-of-game info. I guess some of you are probably interested what levels he had and how effective the idea would have been.

The character was a Level 9 Cleric, Level 5 Survivor, Level 1 Divine Disciple (with the Artifice, Shadow and Renewal Domain). Artifice is from Gond of course, while the other 2 are RP gained (he had an accident with powerful shadow magic artifact that cost him an arm. It later regrew as a semi-real shadow-arm and changed one of his domains. The Renewal domain was chosen for flavor (there are much more powerful domains)).

For those that don't know the Survivor class (I was told it is rather obscure). It is a pure defense class. You get all good saves, but no base attack.
And you get pretty much all defense feats there are.
Improved Evasion, Improved Mettle, Endurance, Die Hard, Toughness and Impr. Toughness, Iron Will, Lightning Reflexes, Great Fortitude and DR5/-
And from Libris moris I took the two feats that make you basically immune to level drain (That have Die Hard as prerequisite Lasting Life and Enduring Life I think they are called).

Together with adamantine fullplate he had DR 8/- (We let it stack), with Divine Armor feat he can pump it up to 13/- for 1 round (yes, we let that stack too). And he has the Divine Cleansing (forgot the correct name) feat that allows him to end an ongoing negative effect by spending one turn undead use.

So... the best chance would probably have been simply ranged touch attacks with lots of energy damage.

Thank you :)

[Venger]

...The character was a Level 9 Cleric, Level 5 Survivor, Level 1 Divine Disciple...

I know that your issue's been since resolved (glad to be of help) and this is probably moot by now, but I had to ask.

survivor is indeed a somewhat obscure PrC (mainly due to it being from the reviled Savage Species) but it's also obscure because it's awkward to qualify for due to its prereq of having its highest save lower than its HD. what is divine disciple? is it the same as divine minion? is it a different thing? if so, where is it from?

[Karuth]

We are not that strict with prereqs and also modified the class slightly I think.

Due to the high fluctuation we get people with super power equipment, with no equipment and average equipment, as well as rolled and point buy'd with different amounts of points (once somebody tried to enter (at level 10) with +8 enhancement bonus to all physical and +6 enhancement bonus to all mental stats, a +13 weapon, etc...). Some even used character from 3.0 system.
So I thought using such an obscure class wouldn't be that much of a problem. It was certainly a lot less broken than some of the other characters.
Also we had met an NPC with that class who became my character's teacher (it was a goblin who we have met time and time again. And he always survived somehow ;3) and thus RP-wise it was covered.

Divine Disciple is from Forgotten Realms setting. 5 level prestige class for divine casters. The "best" bonus is 1st level, where you get an extra domain.
Later you get resistance to divine spells, a free Imbue with spell ability, and on last level you become an outsider yourself. But it has no turn undead progression.
Due to the mediocre charisma and the 5 levels lost already my ability to turn undead was pretty bad anyway (and I use the turn undead to fuel my other abilities) so I went for that class.

[FearlessGnome]

Again, this'll be long over, but for future reference, if someone warrants unconditional termination, have the angry NPC buy a single dose of Godsblood (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ei/20021110a), or one of the cheaper ones, as appropriate.

"But I'm immune to poison!"
"That's nice. Next time, try not to piss off everyone."

[Sudain]

Not a problem, we are happy to help.

But again, being epic doesn't mean you shower with your clothes on. :)

And sleeping targets are always considered willing - plane-shift + sleeping target == hilarity. If the campain is going epic, might as well go EPIC. :)

[Red_Dog]

EDIT!: WOOPS realized that you have solved a problem a while ago. Will teach me how to read. Sry. ^^ If I get smote for Necro-ing so be it.
============================================>
*sry if this sounds rushed, sleepless night, other junk on mind*

Offering super mundane (hence not to likely to be used, as people like to be creative so mundane stuff rarely appears these days ^^) solution.

Is MMIII in play? If so=>

Hire War Trolls as minions.

WAR TROLL MERCENARIES
War trolls often gather together in mercenary companies. Although
their unruly nature and sheer power makes these mercenaries
difficult to control, few armies can stand against them,
and they command premium prices. A mercenary soldier (an
ordinary war troll) will not sign on for less than 30 gp per day, and
a war troll sergeant (4th-level fighter) requires 75 gp per day.

Even with increased price (say 1k each?) that's hell-a-lot of War Trolls.
Split them in groups of 15-ish, to give a party a good chance to live. This will waist groups reserves.

As you main man, anyone with decent bluff+disguise will do. After party tries to rest, a Bluff-Disguise high character approaches the Party [hell he can be the one who leads them to War Trolls under cover of scared villager that needs help to kill said War-Trolls]. After that, he gives a cursed item to the cleric as reward. Pick your poison [DMG has great selection] they are all bloody cheap. A bag of Chocking can do if you want. Hell a poisoned Wine can be a great "thank you".

After the person drinks it, attack a spell-less poisoned Cleric.

P.S. I can give a build for Factotum/Assassin lvl15 that has Death Attack of 40-ish, but you are not looking to kill him. So really any sly talking man will do. A bard, master Spy or w/e tickles ya fancy ^^