NPC King, imperious command build

[JackRackham]

I am building an NPC for an upcoming campaign.

He is a very old king (mid-80's, human), descending into senility, not so strong as he once was, but still solid as an oryx. He would have been a fearsome conqueror in his youth, but now is a very popular, addle-brained old fool. His children have died off, and for years his scheming grandchildren have been jockeying to succeed him, and attempting to have him killed, to no avail. They would have to make it look like an accident or nature, but he's just too tough, and too wily in a Mr. Magoo sort of way, and too charismatic and popular, to kill.

I want him to still be formidable, in the sense that he's tough to kill, and I want to do it by maximizing his benefit from Imperious Command. As I understand it, the build works by getting enemies to cower before you, dropping their weapons, and possibly allowing you to Coup de Grace.

What I don't understand is that I've seen Marshal suggested in this build a dozen times, and for the life of me I can't figure out what benefit this class gives the build, aside from SF:Diplomacy. Anyway, help me pimp this king.

His stats before levels, buffs, etc are:

STR: 11
DEX: 13
CON: 16
INT: 7
WIS: 14
CHA: 18

PS: I'm the DM, so all books are on the table and I decide what's cheesy and how tough I want him to be. I'm looking at mid-upper levels. Probably around level 15.

PPS: Think the king from Princess bride, if he was sturdier, and had advanced combat training.

[Xervous]

Marshal's minor aura of Motivate charisma gives the marshal's allies the marshal's charisma mod to all charisma skill checks. The marshal counts as an ally for this purpose, so he may apply DOUBLE his charisma to his intimidate checks.

[Gildedragon]

are those stats after the age adjustments?

also what level you want this guy.

Paladin might be a good start

[JackRackham]

I wondered if that might be it. Okay, so Marshal (I'll go with four levels, for BAB reasons). What else in this build? Crusader? Warblade? Swordsage?

[Malroth]

Marshal's biggest benefit is "motivate Charisma" which essentially doubles the characters effective CHA modifier. With a +4 item. 3 level up boosts to CHA and the bonus mental stats from being Venerable He'd be looking at a CHA of 28 giving his imperious command a save DC of 46.

edit: Swordsaged

[JackRackham]

Yeah, after age adjustments.

For NPCs, I roll 4d6, drop lowest, in order. I roll dozens of characters and then use the weird numbers I come up with as inspiration for who each character is. In this case, the high constitution, high charisma and low intelligence les me to a tough old bastard, who's sadly becoming senile.

This guy will be around level 15 and will not progress. He'll have a bodyguard at all times (possibly a cohort; maybe not, though) and usually there will be an honor guard with him as well.

[avr]

The king wants White Raven maneuvers to help giving orders and to stay alive. Sounds like a Crusader to me.

[Diovid]

9 or 10 levels of Fighter with the Zhentarim substitution levels (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20060327a) would be nice. You could even combine that with the Thug (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#fighterVariantThug) Fighter variant for more skill points and bluff as a class skill. Fluff is mutable after all.

Make sure to give him the Never Outnumbered skill trick (Complete Scoundrel). The Dreadful Wrath feat (Player's Guide to Faerun) wouldn't be bad either.

This guide (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=3809) has some more tips.

[JackRackham]

Between that, feat stuff, and Marshal, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thanks guys.

[JackRackham]

New Question:

If a character trains a bunch of skills, then suffers a permanent loss in intelligence (in this case, it is implied that either repeated blunt force trauma caused this in his later years, or a particularly bad trauma in his 70's caused it), that would not cause them to lose skill ranks, right?

PS: Again, I'm the DM and this is an NPC, so I know how I will rule, I just thought it was an interesting question more generally.

[Brains]

New Question:

If a character trains a bunch of skills, then suffers a permanent loss in intelligence (in this case, it is implied that either repeated blunt force trauma caused this in his later years, or a particularly bad trauma in his 70's caused it), that would not cause them to lose skill ranks, right?

PS: Again, I'm the DM and this is an NPC, so I know how I will rule, I just thought it was an interesting question more generally.

Correct. Skill points are not retroactive.

[JackRackham]

OK, so now I have a charming old man, who can make you cower, and hope to kill you with the auto-crit from the coup de grace. What are some ways to get maximum damage from critical hits?

So far, I've got him wielding a Greatspear (2d6 damage, x3 crit), mostly for setting reasons. I know there are weapon enchantments that can up the crit multiplier. Anything else?

Researching feats, I noticed something. Dreadful Wrath is exactly the same as Frightful Presence, only better (lasts longer, includes spell casting as a trigger) and with easier prerequisites.

Intimidating Strike is kind of pointless given the rest of this build as well....

http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-guide-to-faerun--22/dreadful-wrath--751/

http://dndtools.eu/feats/draconomicon--92/frightful-presence--3261/

http://dndtools.eu/feats/players-handbook-ii--80/intimidating-strike--1676/