The charismaitic villian

[dantiesilva]

So I just finished half of a two part build for an upcoming game for my players and ran into a wall. There is a 23 level difference between the two villains, and the one who is suppose to be weaker is the stronger. I am here asking the playground to help me finish this super villain so that the levels are the same at the least. This is what I have so far.

STR 18 4
DEX 19 4
CON 18 4
INT 20 5
WIS 18 4
CHA 21 5

Human
10 Blackguard/10 shadowbane inquister/rogue 16

Sneak attack +15d6+3d6 see Divine stalker If a rogue can catch an opponent when he is unable to defend himself effectively from her attack, she can strike a vital spot for extra damage. Basically , the rouge's sneak attack deals extra damage any time her target would be denied a dexterity bonus to AC, or when the rogue flanks her target.Ranged attacks can count as sneak attacks only if the target is within 30 feet. A rogue can't strike with deadly accuracy from beyond that range.

Feats
Exotic weapon proficiency
Power attack
Devoted inquister
Force of personality
Cleave
Mounted combat
Ride by attack
Leadership
Dragon cohurt
Daunting presence
Divine stalker
Undead empathy
Dodge

Animal companion Raven
Cohort Tarterian dragon
Undead companion Bugbear zombie

I was thinking of making Shadowbane inquister a progression chart past 10, but rather not if I do not have to. The build is a gestalt one for the fact I have a total of two players. And well wish my old DM would allow gestalt. Angelis ( the character in the making) has been described as Xantos from gargoyles by some of the fellow members of the playground. He is the type of villain that is in the city with you but you don't even know it. If something is going on he is there or knows about it and has someone there. He has his hands in every form of government because he is so charismatic and well evil. I have most of the forgotten realms books, as well as eberon. I got CW,CA, CAr, CD, The libris mortis, epic level handbook, and quite a few others. So please help me make up the 23 levels. This is a very high diplomacy build if that helps any. Again thank you and I can not wait to see your advice.

[Giegue]

I think the issue with the character is not the level, but the build. Last time I remember, the other villain you had was a GESTALT in which one side was a fullcaster. A SINGLE CLASS full caster would be stronger then this guy, and gestalt only adds insult to the injury. If you want this guy to be stronger I'd suggest making him a gestalt as well. The other side? Since your already going for melee have both good wisdom and charisma Favored Soul seems like a good idea. Buffs to make you scary in melee, weapons focus to add to your melee-ness and since he actually has a super high cha AND a high wis you can afford to actually have him use some offensive cleric spells too. If you want to make him even stronger, switch favored soul for archivist since you have 20 int and go to town with pretty much any spell you want, espcially the good cleric melee buffs.

If you go with either favored soul or archivist I'd probably swap some of his feats out for DMM: Persist to use that weak blackguard Rebuke to make him a melee beast. The most obvious feats to cut would be Leadership and Dragon Cohort. Why? He's the BBEG. He doesn't need a feat to have minions. As a NPC and the main villain, you as a DM can give him as many minions as you want, including a dragon cohort. Simply put; leadership only exists for PCs to get flunies, NPC villains can have them simply because the DM wants them to have minions, no feat is required.

If you want him to stay single classed/not be gestalt then I'd swap the build aroind majorly. Instead of going rogue/blackguard/shadowbane inquisitor I'd go Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric X. If Shadowbane Inquisitor has spellcasting progression keep it in the build, I don't know if it does or not since I don't know the class. Either way, lose no more then 1 caster level. Maybe 2 if Shadowbane Inquisitor is that good. The most important feat for this build is Sacred Outlaw.

Sacred Outlaw allows you to stack cleric levels with rogue levels for the purpose of determining how many sneak attack dice you get among other things. So a rogue 1/cloistered cleric 35 would sneak attack as a 36 level rogue, have full spellcasting, and would gain 6+ Int modifier skill points every level and with the right domains would have all the rogue skills they need(Hide, Move Silently ect.. ) as class skills every level too, meaning they'd all be max'ed. The only thing is with this build you'll need to have your character have at least 19 wisdom OR have him take the dynamic priest feat to make cha his casting stat for everything except spell DCs(which won't suffer with an 18 in wisdom). Also, since he's epic level, and he has 9th level spells, he would be able to pull off epic spellcasting.

So, what would this look like?

Abilites:
Str: 18
Dex: 19
Con: 18
Int: 20
Wis: 18
Cha: 21

Class(es): Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric(Or if you want heavy armor and better BAB instead of skills standard Cleric) 35. You may also throw in some CL progressing PRCs if you wish but it will weaken your sneak attack.
Domains: Trickery, Whatever domain adds move silently to your class skills(Kobald?)

Key Feats:
Sacred Outlaw, Dynamic Priest, Divine Stalker, DMM: Presist(Make your cleric buffs last all day), Extra Turning(More DMM Presist and Divine Stalker uses.)Epic Spellcasting(An epic level BBEG without this is a joke. A epic level BBEG with this is a living nightmare.)

This build can do roughly the same thing as your build, but also has full spellcasting, which makes him a terribly powerful combatant who can still be sneaky and good at melee. Sacred Outlaw makes his sneak attack as good as a rogue of the same level, he has all his rogue-ish skills to boot as well. He can fight better then a fighter with cleric buffs + DMM persist, with Dynamic Priest he has full spellcasting, including 9ths, AND has epic spellcasting, which is the most broken ability in the game.

I hope all of this helped you out.

[dantiesilva]

It is a gestalt build. I traded in the paladin levels for blackguard that's why it is so low even though the build has over twenty something levels at the least. Saddly Shadowbane inquister dose not have spell casting, but it stacks with paladin levels, thus blackguard gets major buffs. And with the feat devoted inquister Sneak attack and smite can be combined. And your paladin levels count towards rogue, and vice a versa. Though 9th level spell casting sounds amazing. I was hoping on just adding to what i had but you made some very good points. Thank you for pointing out that I do not need them feats thus loosening up the build a bit feat wise. I originally thought favored soul would be best but then saw it didn't have the flow of the paladin/rogue into a shadowbane inquister, plus you couldn't do it with it, need smite and sneak attack to enter prestige class. But I defiantly like the ideas you are throwing. So should I just throw in the cleric for the 9th level casting saying its 23 levels? or is there any prestige classes that would help. For example I was looking at legendary commander.

[Giegue]

well, that depends, what level is this character. I did not know it was gestalt and thus assumed it's level was 36. However, if this is a gestalt then I'll need the aproximate level do do anything as the you can't have a 16/20 gestalt unless there is some LA on the 16 side and since this guy is human I don't see any LA. If you where going for a standard Lv. 20 gestalt I'd probally go Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric 19///Blackguard 10/Shadowbane Inquisitor 10. Key feats being Sacred Outlaw(Have rogue and cleric stack for SA), Dynamic Priest(You CAN'T get 9th level spells without this feat unless you swap Int or Dex with Wis.), Presistant Spell and Divine Metamagic: Persist. I believe Persist requires you to have another metamagic feat(not sure) before you take it, in which case I'd sugjest Empower Spell. Divine Metamagic: Persist allows you to burn rebuke attempts to apply persistant spell to your spells for free/no slot increase, meaning you can cast your cleric buffs and have them last all day by burning rebuke attempts. Since you have both high cha, you have plenty of rebuke attempts to burn, though you may want to take extra turning.

As for PrCs, Legendary Commander is not nessicary since he's an NPC. Since your giving him minions and not using leadership, the leadership bonuses from that class, which is the main reason to take it, are a moot point. If the build was an epic level 30 build and your ok with using homebrew I'd have it look like this..

Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric 19/Divine Trickster 10 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?p=9623145#post9623145)///Blackguard 10/Shadowbane Inquestor 10/Bloody Reaper 10 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=157566)

Since your the DM, you can wave the non-lawful requirement on the Bloody Reaper. What this build offers is as follows. Full cleric casting if you take Dynamic Priest. Full Blackguard casting. Divine Trickster powers making you able to combind your divine tallents with your sneak-ness as well as gving you moar SA damage and the ability to SA undead(if need be.) All the blackguard and shadowbane inquestor abilites. All the AWESOME melee-based abilites of the Bloody Reaper. Plus DMM Persist to make you fight better then a fighter, Divine Stalker for better SA, rogue skills and, of course, because you WILL take it. Epic spellcasting.

If you don't like using homebrew AND are planing on using heavy armor, then I'd make the build look like this...

Rogue 1/Cloistered Cleric 29///Blackguard 10/Shadowbane Inquisitor 10/Divine Crusader 10

This build actually gets 9th level spells on both sides, though on the blackguard side you only get 1 9th. Make sure to pick an awesome domain on Divine Crusader as Divine Crusader gets all their spells on the domain they get by level 10(hence the dual 9s). Same feats as the homebrew-using build(Dynamic Priest, Sacred Outlaw, DMM: Persist ect...)

Hope this helped some.

[dantiesilva]

It did and it also brought up questions. Divine Trickster works against my build for he controls undead armies. He is going to become a vampire. The level Cap is 40 though. A feat every even number, and two ability modifiers like in 4e every four levels. Bloody reaper though just sounds amazing. And if i lose all the rogue levels i lose the special abilities of being so high up there. I was only looking for 23 more levels to add onto my build which as is a 17 level build.

So 10 cleric/Bloody reaper takes care of ten
10 more cleric and ten epic blackguard makes 20
and then 3 rogue/ 3 epic shadowbane inquister which i will have to make myself but shouldn't be to hard. That gives 9th level casting for cleric, and blackguard only gos up to 4th level casting.