Ground Control To Major Tom - Help Me Create My BBEG

[house.au]

First of all, MY PLAYERS STAY OUT. This means you Leo (not that he's the most likely to peek, just that he's the most likely to be on these forums).

I'm hoping that the Playgrounders will be able to help me out, as I'm sure you'll have better ideas than I will. I'm running a really short (4 session) throwaway dungeon crawl for the players in my group while our regular DM is jetsetting around the world. The simplest way to explain it is imagine it's a dream sequence, when he gets back we will all revert to our existing characters and this campaign basically never happened; we're just playing for the sake of playing really.

This gives me a great deal of freedom, as whatever loot I want to give them to use in the dungeon etc won't have any long-term impact. I expect the players might be a bit reckless because at worst a TPK means they just pick up again in the new year.

On with the show.


I want to base my CR-appropriate BBEG on David Bowie :smallbiggrin:

Limitations: Please no classes that aren't included in d20srd. Custom spells are fine for magic-user Bowie if they fit with Bowie-fluff, but preferably nothing too obscure. The same goes for custom magic items (Ring of Commanding Spiders From Mars springs to mind). The party are all at level 5. They have a Dwarf Fighter, Elf Wizard, Half-Elf Sorcerer, Human Monk, Human Cleric (no evil party members). None of them are into optimisation with the exception of the Monk (ironic, yes?) and they're all relatively inexperienced players.

David Bowie a la Labyrinth is perfectly acceptable (and probably the most thematically appropriate - there are a lot of goblins planned for them to carve through), as is Ziggy Stardust, or anything in between. It's not desperately important to me that they "get it", if they miss the references then I won't cry a river, but I imagine they'll catch on. I'll probably pop a best-of album in on in the background the night we expect to get to the reveal :smalltongue:

Perfectly happy to play this character for the lulz, I don't want him to be Chaotic Stupid, he should present a challenge in character, but I can't exactly expect them to take him super-seriously out of character.


So, I'm really interested to see what you come up with!

[candycorn]

Well, if you're going for Labryinth? Bard, obviously.

Beads of Force, certainly are an option for the balls.
I wouldn't put him in less than Padded armor (have you SEEN the codpiece? Something there is padded!)

Beyond that? Crystal Balls, and Suggestion/enchantment themes would work well.

[Allanimal]

Someone in red shoes could be dancing in pale moonlight.

The BBEG could have a couple of canine-shaped constructs made out of diamond.

[house.au]

The BBEG could have a couple of canine-shaped constructs made out of diamond.

Bwahaha my girlfriend looked at me oddly when I burst out laughing suddenly...


Well, if you're going for Labryinth? Bard, obviously.

Beads of Force, certainly are an option for the balls.
I wouldn't put him in less than Padded armor (have you SEEN the codpiece? Something there is padded!)

Beyond that? Crystal Balls, and Suggestion/enchantment themes would work well.

Mmm yeah I do see Bowie as an Arcane Caster... lots of illusion... good call on the beads of force, though I'm worried that three of those could do a lot of damage to the party...

[Thorin]

Some Beads of Force could be simple illusions, so they are threatening to the players, but not in combat

[Piggy Knowles]

I would go with psionics. Make him a psion, probably a seer. Give him a psicrystal and the Up The Walls (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#upTheWalls) feat for when they confront him in his MC Escher staircase (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a3/Escher's_Relativity.jpg/250px-Escher's_Relativity.jpg) dungeon. Give him some crystal-based damaging feats while you're at it.

Alternatively, make him a shaper, because astral constructs can easily be diamond dogs. Call him Halloween Jack.

[house.au]

Some Beads of Force could be simple illusions, so they are threatening to the players, but not in combat

Aaaaah, an excellent point! I guess also if he hits one of them with the real deal it'll put The Fear into the others even if subsequent beads turn out to be illusions.


I would go with psionics. Make him a psion, probably a seer. Give him a psicrystal and the Up The Walls (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/psionicFeats.htm#upTheWalls) feat for when they confront him in his MC Escher staircase (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/a/a3/Escher's_Relativity.jpg/250px-Escher's_Relativity.jpg) dungeon. Give him some crystal-based damaging feats while you're at it.

Alternatively, make him a shaper, because astral constructs can easily be diamond dogs. Call him Halloween Jack.

Hmmmm I'm not really familiar with Psions, but it'll likely be a month or so before they confront him so I imagine I can learn :smallsmile: I really like the wall-walking Escher Staircase idea, and a similar effect could be achieved with a Cloak of Arachnida (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/magicItems/wondrousItems.htm#cloakofArachnida) if I struggle too much with my understanding :smalltongue: The Shaper stuff looks cool though... Thanks!

[Piggy Knowles]

Psionics are actually pretty straightforward and easy; although I don't find myself playing many psionic characters, I find that they are one of the cleanest systems in D&D 3.5.

Basically, you learn powers like a sorcerer would learn spells known. Each power has a PP cost, and you can "cast" as much as you'd like until your PP runs out for the day. So, if I had 100 PP total, I could manifest one hundred powers that cost 1 PP (such as a typical level 1 power), or eleven powers that cost 9 PP (which is what a level 5 power costs), or anything in between.

Some powers can be augmented, where you spend additional PP when manifesting to add extra damage, or have additional effects. And like metamagic, there's metapsionic feats, which also increase the PP cost. But the single biggest rule in psionics to remember is you can never spend more PP on a single power than your Manifester Level (ML). There are some ways to break this cap slightly (the Overchannel feat and the Wilder's surge), but only by a level or two, and always with a drawback.

Anyhow, back to the original topic, psionics have a heavy crystal theme built into their flavor, and are also pretty good at doing a lot of the things Jareth does in Labyrinth (walking up walls, viewing things from afar, making crystal balls go boom, creating dreams, etc.).

[Almaseti]

For the race, since David Bowie is such a master of reinvention, you'd need to make the guy a changeling. Or possibly some kind of feytouched.

[house.au]

Psionics are actually pretty straightforward and easy; although I don't find myself playing many psionic characters, I find that they are one of the cleanest systems in D&D 3.5....

Well that DOES sound a lot more straightforward... I'm looking into it and getting less worried by the second :smallsmile: My chief concern is, as there are no psionic characters in my party, they have no real defense against one?


For the race, since David Bowie is such a master of reinvention, you'd need to make the guy a changeling. Or possibly some kind of feytouched.

Hehehe very good points, however I'm sticking to Core/d20srd.org for this one (as our regular DM does so).

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I'd go the route of the Sovereign from Venture Brothers; Shapeshift at will.

[Ason]

Sticking only to core but still desire a shapeshifter, eh? One option would be to run a Doppelganger (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/doppelganger.htm) with a few class levels as your BBEG, but the issue there is that you'd have to consider LA or CR or whatever it is that you worry about when adding class levels to monsters. (I don't recall that off-hand: it's been too long since I've DM'd.)

As for your boss's lair, there's a free module that one designer released awhile ago centered around a theme of paradoxes, just like The Labyrinth. It was made intentionally to not have a specific system or CR, so you can adjust its monsters and traps to suit whatever needs your group may have. I believe the creator called it "The Halls of the Mad Mage (http://thealexandrian.net/creations/misc/mad-mage.pdf)," though obviously you can rename it "The Goblin King's Castle" or whatever. Just insert your BBEG in one of the final rooms, and you're good to go.

Lastly, I agree with the others that this BBEG should either be a bard or a psion, but I personally would lean towards psion, given the points made by my fellow playgrounders.

[Shyftir]

There is also beguiler but I'm not sure that's in the SRD.

[house.au]

Doppelganger/The Halls of the Mad Mage/psion etc

Some really great info in there, thanks! A doppelganger sounds like a really good idea, provides for lots of "flavour" opportunities...


There is also beguiler but I'm not sure that's in the SRD.

Yeah unfortunately not, thanks though!

[Flickerdart]

Adding 7 levels of a casting class onto a Doppelganger would give you a CR8 creature, which is a good ballpark for a boss encounter. However, I would recommend using a Succubus as a base. Shapeshifting? Check. Magic? Check. Give it the Half-Fey (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/sp/20040213a) template for +1 CR and a bunch of SLAs for more magic, or Phrenic (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/monsters/phrenicCreature.htm) for a similar end but with psionics. Because let's face it, anything with less than 30 Charisma calling itself David Bowie is a filthy liar.