Best Defensive Mage

[Rickshaw]

I'm needing a BBEG to confront a high lvl group of moderately optimized PCs. He need high AC as well as being a caster of some sort, and is extremely defensive based. Here's my ideas so far:


Adamantine mountain plate with a tower shield (Dm creation, so he can be granted the feats required to use and cast in those)


Abjurer focused wizard, PrCed into Initiate of the Sevenfold Veil.


and that's as far as I got. I'd like to see a build with top survivability in terms of AC, SR, DR, and defensive spells, and since it's going to be a BBEG, no real restrictions in terms of resources and/or extra feats (points though, if you can make it playable by a PC, since i've always wanted a char like this :smallbiggrin:)

[Snowbluff]

I heard Initiate of the 7fold Veil is nearly unkillable. Seconded.

Swiftblade can give some Ex ways of being tough while keeping you casters from dispelling it.

[Alienist]

Persistent Resilient Sphere, with Extended Monologuing


:D

[Lostbutseeking]

Abjurant champion into Io7V, houserule the mage armor line into abjuration (it doesnt belong in conjuration).

[Andvare]

Dwarf Mage -> Rune Mage -> Seven Veils.
Full casting in heavy armour and the awesome power of IotSV.

Could easily be more fromage, but the fermented milk have only so much place in an RP.

[Piggy Knowles]

Andvare beat me to it, but a dwarven Cleric 1/Wizard 4/Runesmith 3/IotSV 7/Abjurant Champion 5 wouldn't be half bad.

[Randomguy]

Abjurant champion into Io7V, houserule the mage armor line into abjuration (it doesnt belong in conjuration).

This, plus 2 levels of argent savant.
This would make it so that greater mage armour gets you +13 to AC, and shield gets you +11.

You could also alter self or polymorph into something with high natural armour. Casting scintillating scales afterwards is optional, but boosts your touch AC.

A monk's belt couldn't hurt, either, and a levels of monk can get you Int to AC with the kung-fu genius or Carmendine monk feats. I think.

You could also make one end of your quarterstaff a +5 defending weapon, for +5 to AC.

[Sudain]

Don't forget rods of quicken spells.

Every round they spend dealing with a negative status or terrain is a round NOT spend killing him.

[gorfnab]

Luminous Armor Greater (BoED) is awesome with Abjurant Champion.

[tyckspoon]

Are you particularly attached to having a Wizard? Psions can make themselves pretty dang tough if they're willing to devote enough power selections to it:

Inertial Armor: Psychic Mage Armor, basically, but with psionic scaling so you don't have to go looking for or researching better versions.
Force Screen: Psychic Shield.
Defensive Precognition: Insight bonus to saves and AC.
Thicken Skin: Enhancement bonus straight to armor class (this is..weird, because as far as I know this is about the only way to get an enhancement-typed bonus directly to AC. Usually it's an enhancement to Armor or Natural Armor.)
Concealing Amorpha (,Greater): *Non-illusion based* miss chance. True Seeing does not ignore this.
Share Pain: Give half your damage to somebody else. Usually a Psicrystal is used for this, because of the synergy with the Vigor power and Share Powers, but it would be typically BBEG to have a slave/servant who is nothing but a huge pile of HP whose primary function is to absorb damage with Share Pain.
Vigor: Giant piles of temporary HP. Combine with Share Pain.
Energy Adaptation (,Specified): Resist Energy, only you can augment it to use it as an Immediate action. Notably, the Specified version (which only protects against one type) can be used Immediate for the same cost as the general version manifested normally, so you can just immediately give yourself resistance to whatever type the party likes to use.
Psionic Freedom of Movement, Personal Mind Blank: Because nothing says 'lol no' like absolute immunity.
Dispelling Buffer: Makes your junk harder to dispel.

Now, a lot of those aren't overly-long duration, so you'll need an efficient way to get stuff up mid-combat if you want to pile in the entire package. Fortunately psionics are *also* pretty good at that- Temporal Acceleration, the Linked Power feat, Schism.

(Also, psionics does not have Spell Failure, so you can wear that Adamantine Full Plate with the Tower Shield if you're willing to put up with the non-proficiency penalties.. but I'd probably use Inertial Armor and Force Screen for the AC and just wear a light armor and shield loaded with more defensive properties.)

[KillianHawkeye]

Luminous Armor Greater (BoED) is awesome with Abjurant Champion.

True, but only accessible by Good-aligned characters. OP says this is for the BBEG.

[Snowbluff]

True, but only accessible by Good-aligned characters. OP says this is for the BBEG.

Yeah, but he's evil. What's keeping him from figuring a way to extort the spell off some deity or something? He's a DM creation anyway, why not just refluff as an evil spell?

[Otomodachi]

For casting in armour, consider Runecaster from Races of Stone. Either make him a dwarf, use that Stonebrother PRC to get him to count as a dwarf, or handwave it. Only needs one level to ignore somatic element of casting (negating ASF) as long as he doesn't lose his pouch of runes.

EDIT: Shoot, wow, everyone beat me to it. I swear, I swear, I usually read more carefully before posting. :( At least I was first to mention Stonebrother?

[FearlessGnome]

-Psion says 'no'-I knew there was a reason I wanted to make a Psion next. :smallbiggrin: Even without going overboard, there's plenty of stuff there that could preserve your life on a daily basis.