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Varnithis
2006-11-15, 04:01 PM
Alright, the BBEG i've been playing around with in my mind for awhile now goes sort of like this. It calls itself Varnithis and no one is really sure of where it came from. It has intelligence, and it defiantly makes plans. It's goal is to wipe out all the divine beings in the universe and use their energies to become all powerful, and Varnithis is well suited to do this as he emits an aura that effectivly cancels out all divine powers, including all DvR, all divine spellcasting, everything. He also is immune to divine energy. The catch is, even if though he CAN maul a divine beings abilites, Varntihs himself is actually vulnerable to most other forms of attack and is a beatable challenge on his own to a party of adventures at 20th level. This is why he has plans and is building an army of undead/demons/evil humonaids etc.

Anyways, I wanted to ask a homebrew expert with better knowledge of DnD rules and such id they could make me a DnD Varnithis with the properties I described plus some more I will list here:

Has to be beatable by a 20th level 4 man party, but the party does not include a Cleric, Druid, Paladin, or any other divine spellcaster.
Varnithis is Neutral Evil
Varnithis cast spells as a 20th level Sorceror
Can defend himself in melee, but prefers to fight as a caster
Resistant in some way to physical attacks, but not so much that he is too hard too damage.
While his natural form is more or less a medium sized amorphis black blob of shadow that can take any shape, he prefers to keep in a somewhat humanoid form. His "core" is a single Blood red eye, with a abyss like black pupil, and no matter what form he takes, the eye is present somewhere.
I don't know what type of creature he would qualify as. Mabey an Outsider or an Aberration.

I appriciate any help or suggestions offered.

belboz
2006-11-16, 01:19 PM
OK, here are some thoughts:

First, I assume you want an encounter level of about 22-23. 20, for your characters, would be a "standard fight" (costing them about 20% of their resources, and with nobody's life really in danger barring disaster). I've upped it 2-3 because I take it you don't really *want* a standard fight; you want a big climactic battle to end the campaign. On the other hand, 24 would be "evenly matched", which you don't want...it'd mean there'd be a 50% chance your characters would *lose*.

His cancellation aura (and the absence of divine casters in your party) is actually pretty rough--not because clerical offensive spells won't hit him, but because healing won't work.

Secondly, a 20th-level human sorceror is, IIUC, CR 20. So if you simply made him a 20th-level sorceror-equivalent with WBL and the cancellation aura, that'd be at least CR 21.

Is he going to be fighting alone? He sounds like the type of BBEG who would take Leadership, so we can give him an 18th-level cohort for no CR increase. But if he wants, say, a set of 4 CR 17 elite guards helping out, we have to count them, and that gets you up to 23 right there. (I know he's going to be fighting without his army. But only a *stupid* BBEG would hang out without is innermost circle. Unless the characters are going to be able to isolate him in some way.)

Now, that's without any of the immunities you want...but there's a trick you can use. Innate powers aren't much better than those granted by items, unless your characters are total sunder-monkeys. So you could, essentially, buy stuff with his WBL that confers the immunities and resistances you want,
and then just "internalize" them (he doesn't get the items or the money; he gets an intrinsic ability instead).

BlueWizard
2006-11-16, 01:23 PM
Use the Book of Vile Deeds for Corruption, Bone, and other Vile templates and or spells. Vile Deeds great for hyping up bad guys with some stuff a little different than normal! PM if you have specific questions and don't have the book.