[3.5] Stating up the Lord of Blades

[fishbrains]

Ok so I am running a Gestalt Eberron game, and I plan on using the Lord of Blades as a primary enemy for a large portion of the campaign. However, I don't like the build WotC has for him.

I would like to keep the same flavor, which should be easy as this is a Gestalt game. I was thinking something like Artificer//Warblade/Warforged Juggernaught. Maybe a Barbarian dip for pounce. I would like this guy to be a threat to a 8-10th level party. If you want to get into all the little details, 32 point buy for stats and standard WBL is fine. I don't mind having less work to do! :smallbiggrin:

[Thomar_of_Uointer]

Have you read Marked for Death? It features an adventuring party infiltrating the capital city of the Lord of Blades. The city itself has many non-mobile golems to make it function (the city travels around the Mournlands on automated feet). The Lord of Blades (or one of his generals, I can't recall) uses a megaphone to kill one of the party members by commanding every part of the structure in an enclosed space to crush him.

Anyways, the standard in Eberron is that mortal shakers and movers are at least 10th level. Making him a 10th level warrior boss-type is fine, just make sure he has enough backup that they won't wipe the floor with him.

You could also use all of the standard mastermind tropes for cheating death. The 3.5 ECS sourcebook has a Warforged component that basically acts as an winged escape pod for the warforged's soul. Perhaps the Lord of Blades has developed a way to clone any warforged in a creation forge, and made some doubles of himself (and his key generals) to prevent assassination (for added fun, have them fight two or three of them at once). An entire campaign arc could be based around finding the device for duplicating warforged and destroying it, and this gets even more fun if you include the giant war machine warforged.

Don't discount the fact that the Lord of Blades has access to some really interesting resources in the Mournland, mostly in the form of horrible shambling monstrosities or living spells. He may have some "pets" to throw at the party to slow them down.

Bear in mind, healing is inhibited in the Mournland. This is already a big deal for the party when they're about to fight a boss.

[Inferno]

I think you're probably on the right track with Artificer//Warblade/WFJ.
I'd probably go more along the lines of Artificer/Barbarian//Warblade/WFJ
You probably won't be using his Artificer stuff for anything more than a buff or 2, so even a 1 lvl dip is probably plenty. Lord of Blades just seems like the sort of guy who should be raging anyway.
More important than his personal stuff should probably be his minions, I mean he's got his own Cult-army.
He should have a proper Artificer buddy hanging around if he feels he might need healing. And this guy is so awesome he's got his own clerics...

[fishbrains]

Thank you both for the suggestions! I have not read Marked for Death, is that an adventure? It sounds fascinating. The various incarnations of the Lord of Blades I've found just don't have the right level of power for my group. I figured Warblade was better for Int synergy than the 2 levels of Fighter that he has. Barbarian will probably be used on the Warblade side of things as a normal build would do to cover that wonky initiator progression. Besides, Pounce is a fantastic ability I plan to fully utilize.

EDIT: It was late and I had several errors that made this difficult to decipher. Also added a few things in.

[ThiagoMartell]

Well of course you need a gestalt boss for a gestalt group...

I wouldn't make him level 10, though. A level 10 party will just trounce him. 12 fits better and IIRC the canon Lord of Blades statblock is level 12. The OP's idea seems to fit pretty well.

[fishbrains]

Notice that I said I want for him to be a threat to a group 8-10th level. Not that he himself should be 10th level. :smallwink: Level 12 is fine.