willpell
2012-12-22, 09:49 AM
I've come up with a neat NPC concept for one of the nastier organizations in my gameworld, but am not sure how to make it work mechanically, being a terrible optimizer. The players may well never actually meet this guy (especially given that I'm too busy worldbuilding to actually advance their plot most nights; they've gotten used to the idea of having to wait weeks for a post), but that just means I can relax and not worry about making him too insanely powerful for them to have a fair chance about, and just make him cool and awesome in ways that I'm afraid to do with anyone the players will have to interact with and hopefully not get moiderized by.
So here's the general concept: Beholder cleric of the Patient One polymorphed into a Human who pretends to be a Wizard. And so, the questions: Can a Cleric get Polymorph or does he have to also be a Wizard (probably a Mystic Theurge or some more outre variant thereof)? If he's a cleric, can he get Polymorph through a domain, PRC into it, or somehow access it as a spell-like ability? Or will he have to make do with illusions (the Trickery domain is a given, probably along with knowledge; he's big on "horrible revelations")? Could he even produce an illusion good enough to pass for human while really being a 10-foot-wide eyeball? And what the holy hell is his ECL? The Monster Manual lists a Beholder as CR 13, and CR seems to be roughly between ECL and twice ECL on average, tending higher if you have a lot of special abilities, but there isn't a listed level adjustment so there's no way to get his official ECL...regardless though, just how many class levels do I have to pile on this guy? Since his big evil plan is to awaken the Hecatonchires from the Epic Level Handbook, and it's a plot point that nobody will be able to stop them because my camp doesn't use epic levels (the Hecks are a deliberate rule-break for the sake of doomsday, not meant to actually exist but just be a threat), I'd rather if I could build him as an ECL 20 or less character, but that's tough since Beholders are so uber and he needs at least class 7 levels to get Polymorph anyway. I can conceive of maybe using a Gauth rather than a full Beholder, or even a Spectator, but it'd feel kinda lame. And I really want him to be an actual Beholder, not just a character with a thematic tie to them, although I may eventually end up concluding that's necessary.
I should note that there's no terribly great hurry; I'd like an answer now just to keep in mind, but actually building a character this high-level is far beyond my abilities (and what advice people give me is likely to make my eyes glaze over fairly quickly, though I will make an effort to comprehend it). This is all just speculative work, meant to enable me to lay groundwork by building low-level NPC members of this guy's organization, who will be a factor in the game for years dong deep-cover work long before anyone gets near the guy himself (you can't say I don't work on a grand scale, within the limits of my nonexistent optimization ability).
So here's the general concept: Beholder cleric of the Patient One polymorphed into a Human who pretends to be a Wizard. And so, the questions: Can a Cleric get Polymorph or does he have to also be a Wizard (probably a Mystic Theurge or some more outre variant thereof)? If he's a cleric, can he get Polymorph through a domain, PRC into it, or somehow access it as a spell-like ability? Or will he have to make do with illusions (the Trickery domain is a given, probably along with knowledge; he's big on "horrible revelations")? Could he even produce an illusion good enough to pass for human while really being a 10-foot-wide eyeball? And what the holy hell is his ECL? The Monster Manual lists a Beholder as CR 13, and CR seems to be roughly between ECL and twice ECL on average, tending higher if you have a lot of special abilities, but there isn't a listed level adjustment so there's no way to get his official ECL...regardless though, just how many class levels do I have to pile on this guy? Since his big evil plan is to awaken the Hecatonchires from the Epic Level Handbook, and it's a plot point that nobody will be able to stop them because my camp doesn't use epic levels (the Hecks are a deliberate rule-break for the sake of doomsday, not meant to actually exist but just be a threat), I'd rather if I could build him as an ECL 20 or less character, but that's tough since Beholders are so uber and he needs at least class 7 levels to get Polymorph anyway. I can conceive of maybe using a Gauth rather than a full Beholder, or even a Spectator, but it'd feel kinda lame. And I really want him to be an actual Beholder, not just a character with a thematic tie to them, although I may eventually end up concluding that's necessary.
I should note that there's no terribly great hurry; I'd like an answer now just to keep in mind, but actually building a character this high-level is far beyond my abilities (and what advice people give me is likely to make my eyes glaze over fairly quickly, though I will make an effort to comprehend it). This is all just speculative work, meant to enable me to lay groundwork by building low-level NPC members of this guy's organization, who will be a factor in the game for years dong deep-cover work long before anyone gets near the guy himself (you can't say I don't work on a grand scale, within the limits of my nonexistent optimization ability).