Best class for ability damage, and easiest ability to damage?

[killem2]

I'm trying to come up with a BBEG as possible back up plan for Three Faces of Evil, when the party fights the aspect of hextor. If past sessions have shown to me, my party always overcomes my fights no matter how much I think I've planned for it.

I would like this creature/class whatever it is to be very very good at ability damage, but I also want them to have access via spells, abilities, feats, whatever the means to hit what ever is usually considered the easiest ability to drain.

I'm not looking to exactly bring them down to 1 or 0, but watching say the cleric scramble as his wisdom maybe gets knocked down to 11 instead of 20.. Or the half orc who is enlarged has a str of 9. :)

[Dusk Eclipse]

Any psychic Assin 5 (ECL 10) can get Mind Cripple which deals 2 Int Damage per sneak attack, add the Maiming Strike feat (Exemplats of Evil) which let's you trade 2 SA dice for 1 Cha damage, add poisons (which you can get through psionic minor creation).

[elonin]

Being the dm you can just add any ability you want. If you want to adjust the cr of the encounter just figure the cost of the abilities you want to add as a template.

[Magnera]

Well as the DM you don't always have to follow the rules. Make it a 6 headed acid dragon that each head breathes a negitive energy cone that deals 1d3 ability damage to a single ability score! If you are looking for things that deal ability damage then poison is really good at just about everything. The 2ed lvl spell Ice knife deals 2dex damage and has a few other goodies.

[nedz]

Targeting Con is more likely to kill rather than targeting the other stats which just disable.
Targeting Str is generally the easiest, but also the least important.
Targeting casting stats will weaken the casters, obviously, and so may be the most effective in challenging the party.
Targeting random stats is the hardest to fix since it requires multiple Lesser Restorations (which might be all your clerics have left) or more powerful spells such as Heal.

[Mithril Leaf]

Dexterity is generally the choice for non-poison. Person Man has a handbook (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6342523). That guy is super handy as far as handbooks go.

[eggs]

Master of Shrouds is really good at this. An ECL 9 Wizard 1/Cleric 2/Master of Shrouds X can mass summon things like Shadows and Spectres as a standard action to do lay out silly amounts of strength damage and negative levels.

[killem2]

Targeting Con is more likely to kill rather than targeting the other stats which just disable.
Targeting Str is generally the easiest, but also the least important.
Targeting casting stats will weaken the casters, obviously, and so may be the most effective in challenging the party.
Targeting random stats is the hardest to fix since it requires multiple Lesser Restorations (which might be all your clerics have left) or more powerful spells such as Heal.


I dunno str weighs alot in my group, we have tons of melee, they love their strength.

We have fighter, barbarian x2, ranger, scout, two wizards, rogue, cleric.

[Jeff the Green]

Ego whip (psion/wilder 2) for Charisma damage. Lots of things (and characters) have low Charisma, so it can be fairly powerful. [Mind-affecting], unfortunately.

[Magnera]

Get a ghost! They have many was of lowering someone's ability scores. With drain touch you could attack them for 1d4 of the ability for each attack. Think furry of blows+ whirling frenzy barbarian+ haste+ two weapon fighting with fists! A level 20 example is 1barb/3monk+16barb. It would go like this with haste and snap kick. 16/16/16/16/16/14/11/9/6/4 All of them are with out any ability bonuses and are touch attacks. So you got 10 attacks that deal 1d4 ability damage with no save to any stat you want. Ghostly grasp will let your ghost interact with the world.

[nedz]

I dunno str weighs alot in my group, we have tons of melee, they love their strength.

We have fighter, barbarian x2, ranger, scout, two wizards, rogue, cleric.

Well their damage output will go down, but its also likely to be their highest stat and the most likely to be buffed. Targeting Cha on the other hand (since you have no Sorcerers or Bards) is more likely to drop them, especially since its likely a dump stat.

Targeting Str should work on the Wizards, and maybe the Rogue and Cleric, but again they are likely to have a spare Bulls Str, or some such buff, which can keep them going.

So targeting Str will annoy them and reduce the DPS, but it is the least likely to take them down.

[MarsRendac]

I dunno str weighs alot in my group, we have tons of melee, they love their strength.

We have fighter, barbarian x2, ranger, scout, two wizards, rogue, cleric.

They're playing all at once? With a party that big, I would definitely throw some mooks in the ring. Maybe every time you draw his blood, it falls to the ground and rises the next round as a Medium taint elemental or an umbral orc warrior. If that sounds like too much, just put a cap on it or make it only happen 25% of the time.

How about giving him a (Su) breath weapon that duplicates waves of exhaustion for those melees? A quick-and-dirty -6 penalty to Str and Dex, and no running or charging. Or raging.

Then have him summon, say, 1d4 or 2d3 Large+ monsters with high Str and improved grab to go after the wizards. If it summons more than you need, just have the remainders duel the exhausted barbarians.

Effectively, they'll be down to the rogue, the scout, and the cleric. Then have the BBEG focus on the cleric. You might not need to make him all that strong because of the amount of control he has. Just give him a nice pool of hit points, good spell resistance or Fort/Will saves, and possibly some vampiric abilities (a mass inflict would be stellar if he's undead) to make the battle feel extra-hopeless, when they're really just fighting a wall of meat and his 15 closest friends.

[grarrrg]

Well their damage output will go down, but its also likely to be their highest stat and the most likely to be buffed. Targeting Cha on the other hand (since you have no Sorcerers or Bards) is more likely to drop them, especially since its likely a dump stat.

Targeting Str should work on the Wizards, and maybe the Rogue and Cleric, but again they are likely to have a spare Bulls Str, or some such buff, which can keep them going.

So targeting Str will annoy them and reduce the DPS, but it is the least likely to take them down.

^This.

Do you want to ANNOY them?
Or do you want to DEFEAT them?

To annoy them, target their High Stats, it will make them less good at what they are good at, but has little/no chance of dropping them, as it IS their Highest Stat.

To DEFEAT them, hurt their Low Stats. Granted, since they are Dump stats, the first few lost points won't even be noticed. But if you can do that final point of damage...

So Annoy is Slow-gains, low chance of dropping.
Defeat is NO-gain, Higher chance of dropping.

[Silva Stormrage]

I second ego whip. A psion is a good boss anyway as they can soak a lot of damage with Share Pain+Vigor + Their Psicrystal.

[ericgrau]

Ego whip thirded. Except that it may be too good. When they fail the save, they lose cha. When they pass the save... they also lose cha. Then next turn he can try again on the same guy who saved and bam he's down anyway. Don't be surprised if he starts taking out a PC every 1 or 2 turns. If you really want him to be evil he can have henchmen who coup de grace.

Even cheesier than ego whip is shivering touch, but that's so good that it's a common ban target. Or even when it's not a ban target it leads to MAD nuclear tactics, or that is responding with equally broken tactics which make 100 other non-nuclear spells of the same type obsolete. Anyone without an encounter ending nuke or ultimate defense is bringing a knife to a gun fight. Beware, down this path lies rocket tag.

If you don't want ability damage to be that strong then the fix is to make it a penalty that won't reduce the score below 1. These spells are actually designed to reduce an ability rather than knock someone out. They are meant to be effective against a high stat rather than a low stat. The problem with that on a BBEG is that he must target con or else he must be able to target all 5 other stats and either figure out which enemy uses what or hit multiple at once. Or reducing str to 1 can keep even the arcane casters from moving, but by itself being immobile isn't horrible.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Spellthief 1/ Psion 4/ Psychic Assassin (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psm/20040723d) 6/ Slayer 9 is an extremely strong build in general, you can reduce it to suit your party's capabilities. Mind Cripple does 2 Int damage per hit when he's sneak attacking, which considering (Improved) TWF and a Wand Chamber with a Wand of Wraithstrike (usable via Spellthief's spell list) can easily disable an opponent in a single round. Get Practiced Manifester and Psicrystal Affinity, use Share Pain on the psicrystal and don't forget it has Hardness 8. Manifest Vigor and share that with it as well to double-up on the hp cushion. Put the psicrystal in a compartment so opponents won't have line of sight/effect to it but he still will. The psicrystal can even wear a Healing Belt and heal him for 2d8 three times.

Give him the feat Quick Recovery and/or a Third Eye Clarity to mitigate crowd controls. Throw on a Greater Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis (ToM) for Hide in Plain Sight along with Darkstalker (LoM) and he can do some hit-and-run strikes every few rounds. He can still use Ego Whip and even drop an Astral Construct to flank with if necessary.

[Spuddles]

I had a monster than sudden maximize summoned undead 5 for a bunch of allips which promptly drained the cleric to 11 wisdom.

Allip swarm + haste on allips = everyone dies. Target the guy with turning, first.

[killem2]

Thanks for all the replies everyone.

I think I am going to combine a bit of the undead flavor needed (since it is Age of Worms), along side the idea of mooks.

Let me know what you think of this idea.

I was going to start a spin down counter (a d20 that is arranged so you can easily count down with it), and each interval a new challenge comes out until they destroy the Ebon Aspect (miniature played by Aspect of Hextor).

Here is the entire team that will be making this up:

Level 2 Barbarian
Level 6 Barbarian
Level 5 Fighter/Level 1 Stone Lord (with a pretty stout Medium Brown Bear cohort)
Level 5 Rogue/ Level 1 Fighter
Level 6 Wizard
Level 2 Ranger/Level 4 Scout
Level 7 Wizard (NPC)
Level 5 Cleric/Level 1 Fighter
Level 6 Ranger with Swindlespitter

Ebon Aspect

Each round I turn the dial down.
20
19
18: 6d4+5 Human Zombies (As per default Monster Manual Entry)
17
16
15: 2d4 Human & 1d3+2 Bugbear Skeletons (As per default Monster Manual Entry)
14
13
12: 2d4+5 Ghouls (As per default Monster Manual Entry)
11
10
9: 2x Death Locks (As per default Libis Mortis Entry)
8
7
6: 1x Greater Shadow (As per default Monster Manual Entry)
5
4
3: 1x Gauth (As per default Monster Manual Entry)
2
1
X: Use the Zombie Mob. (from dmg II)

I want my cleric to get his turn undead checks in motion, he rarely has gotten a real chance to use it. He also loves to heal, so he is right there keeping people alive like nobody's business.

The normal room this takes place in, I have made bigger, so it is twice the size and will be able to contain this immense battle.

This is kind of the format I want to stick with for this battle. If you have not see this fight, there is a large black pool of thick liquid that is used as a sacrificial pit to call forth the Ebon Aspect. So these minions will crawl out of this place.

If you think I should swap these out or do something different, let me know. I have an abundance of the zombies/skeleton minis.