Help with a BBEG

[Azoth]

So my RL group is getting tired and annoyed of hunting down and killing monsters and mad mages of destruction. I got the idea of making their next opponent a kung fu master. A high ECL is fine as long as it isn't an epic character. I already know you can get better kung fu out of a fighter than monk. My main debate is between swordsage and warblade. Possibly even some form of multi class or PRC option. He will have mooks for the final showdown, but not sure how to build or gear him up. I want him to mainly be the fast, agile, unarmed (ideally), master of smack down. Using a fair number of boosts and counters to keep him alive and maybe a few strikes for openers to soften up the tin can HP sponges in the party.

[ahenobarbi]

Could you post who is in the group?

[docnessuno]

So my RL group is getting tired and annoyed of hunting down and killing monsters and mad mages of destruction. I got the idea of making their next opponent a kung fu master. A high ECL is fine as long as it isn't an epic character. I already know you can get better kung fu out of a fighter than monk. My main debate is between swordsage and warblade. Possibly even some form of multi class or PRC option. He will have mooks for the final showdown, but not sure how to build or gear him up. I want him to mainly be the fast, agile, unarmed (ideally), master of smack down. Using a fair number of boosts and counters to keep him alive and maybe a few strikes for openers to soften up the tin can HP sponges in the party.

Half giant
LA 1 / Decisive strike monk 2 / Crusader 3 / War mind 10 / Crusader 4
Obviously with the Tashalatora feat.


War mind is an awesome class on himself, but comboes incredibly well both with a decisive strike monk and with martial manouvers.

[ahenobarbi]

Also Monk 2/ Barbarian 3/ Fist of the Forest 3 / Bear Warrior 5 / Frenzied berserker 7 for kung-fu bear :smallcool:

[Azoth]

Grey elf BFC wizard...really good at seperating enemy forces and locking down strong foes.

Dark necropolitan whisper gnome Rogue/ranger/dread commando with a few other dips. Really good guerilla fighter and death of casters.

Dragon born mongrelfolk DFA our MOOK ROASTER 9000

Buff/healbot cleric. Good support and secondary mele.

Half minotaur goliath barb/ftr/war hulk charging trip build. He is a living fireball on crack. Run, jump, land in the middle of a group and blender people. Also good damage against single targets when he has to stand still and just duke it out.

We also have a few casual players that join up when they have free time in their schedules.

[Azoth]

Also, I am not much for the kung fu bear option or the feral warrior that is FoF. I wanted the calm, cool, disciplined beatdown...with a hint of "screw you for trying anything to hit me"

Maybe a swordsage focusing mainly on Setting Sun, Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw with dabblings in shadow hand and a few cherry picks from desert wind and stone dragon.

[ahenobarbi]

Hmm how about low-CR but inteligent & taking advantage of the environment enemies?

http://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2012/04/04/tuckers-kobolds-redux/

Something like that could weaken them. After that let them fight a boss. If you go with kobolds for weakening PCs a dragon would fit thematically. It doesn't have to be very powerful. But make it cunning. Avoid melee, hide (a dragon with burrow speed?) and strike where they are vulnerable. It could also collapse the cave when it sees it will loose and run away (but you probably want to give PCs some way to survive this... and find & finish the dragon if they want to pursuit it).

[Malroth]

Also, I am not much for the kung fu bear option or the feral warrior that is FoF. I wanted the calm, cool , disciplined beatdown...with a hint of "screw you for trying anything to hit me"

Maybe a swordsage focusing mainly on Setting Sun, Diamond Mind, and Tiger Claw with dabblings in shadow hand and a few cherry picks from desert wind and stone dragon.

Young adult White Dragon unarmed Swordsage who abuses spring attack/his burrow speed to constantly refresh his manuvers without fear of retaliation.

[Azoth]

I know all about tuckers kobolds. My villains employ varrying degrees of their strategies fairly often. I am not really in the mood to use a dragon at this point in our story, it wouldn't fit well thematically. Later on perhaps, but not at the moment. I was looking to keep this BBEG humanoid at least in appearance and anatomy.

[ahenobarbi]

I can't help you with ToB optimization (I have no experience with them) bu I can at least bum the thread for you :smallwink:

Does the party have any significant weaknesses? Like they relay on you not disturbing their movement (grapple, solid clouds, difficult terrain)? Or maybe opening with decent (some flavor of) Dispell Magic[s] could temporarily disable some equipment they heavily rely on?

The thing is with some wealth to burn and UMD almost anyone can give PCs trouble :smallredface: So I'd figure out tactics & flavour (we got that part) and build from there.

[Jodah]

My advice is more on the story side, build advice is UaSs (with maybe fighter for feats and/or prestige classes).

If you want the players to hate him, make him ultra arrogant. He won't kill them in the beginning because they are too weak to deserve that honor, hence attacking briefly and then sending in the mooks. Also, have him correct them on their stances and such. For extra hate - give them cool armor/weapon, then have him sunder it (they lose/gain nothing - but hate that man forever). Hate is a big thing for a BBEG (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=170628), and more so the player hating him than the characters.

[moritheil]

Make sure that the kung fu villain has Diamond Mind save maneuvers and Mettle/Evasion. I believe Swordsage itself gives you Evasion; Mettle can come easily from Crusader or Pious Templar. (It might seem Hexblade is a viable source of it, but I don't believe the Hexblade Divine Grace equivalent stacks when Diamond Mind is being used. You could still use it as backup in case they spam save or dies, of course.)

Give him a level in Focused Conjurer for Abrupt Jaunt.

Stack cheap NPC only templates on him to put his AC sky-high, so they can't hit him without using maneuvers or wraithstrike. Give him ray deflection.

Give him Factotum levels for the ability to suddenly decide he wants to take extra actions.

[Runestar]

You need more actions for better maneuver spam goodness. Chokers with lvs in warblade and/or crusader? :smallamused:

My general advice is to pick a powerful high-HD/low cr monster to use as a base, assuming you allow racial HD to count towards IL. This allows the monster to quickly leapfrog up the maneuver tree and readily qualify for the better ones.

For example, an elder elemental is 24HD, and so comes with +12IL. Add 5 lvs of martial adept, and you basically have a cr16 foe that can access 9th lv maneuvers. In addition, they have excellent physical stats (tons of racial HD means tons of hp, easily 300+) to make up for lack of gear. Just give it a basic +5 weapon and you are good to go. :smallbiggrin:

What level is your party?

EL16 - elder elemental with 5 lvs in martial adept
EL18 - 2 such foes
EL19 - 3 of them and so on.

[moritheil]

You need more actions for better maneuver spam goodness. Chokers with lvs in warblade and/or crusader? :smallamused:

Yeah, I thought of chokers and spellweavers, but the OP said humanoid or humanlike. :smallmad: