Angels? I hate angels.

[aphoticConniver]

I'm trying to stat out 3 hosts of angels for a goddess, Lacarda, Mistress of the Sun and Moon. And, since I haven't DM'd successfully in quite a while, I'm at a loss for what to do. I'd like to focus on the Sun/Moon aspect for the casters, but other than that, in terms of power level, I'm clueless. The three hosts, or "Lumens" as they're called for her, are:

Umbrals, the highest ranking. Generals, armed with greatspears, skilled with magic. I was using Solars as a base but that seems too unoriginal.

Penumbrals, the casters. They wield scythes and are more skilled with magic than the Umbrals, but can't really hold up in battle.

Antumbrals, the footsoldiers. Lowest rank, very little magic, but very eager to fight and disciplined in battle.

Any help would be most appreciated.

[cerin616]

I'm trying to stat out 3 hosts of angels for a goddess, Lacarda, Mistress of the Sun and Moon. And, since I haven't DM'd successfully in quite a while, I'm at a loss for what to do. I'd like to focus on the Sun/Moon aspect for the casters, but other than that, in terms of power level, I'm clueless. The three hosts, or "Lumens" as they're called for her, are:

Umbrals, the highest ranking. Generals, armed with greatspears, skilled with magic. I was using Solars as a base but that seems too unoriginal.

Penumbrals, the casters. They wield scythes and are more skilled with magic than the Umbrals, but can't really hold up in battle.

Antumbrals, the footsoldiers. Lowest rank, very little magic, but very eager to fight and disciplined in battle.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Well, what CR are we looking at here? whats the party thats looking into these guys. Are they planning on fighting? and are you planning on these angels being killable?

ALSO, while I really like what your doing with the shadow stuff, I don't know how well focusing all on shadows fills her fluff (unless of course these arnt all her hosts, and only a few of them)

Since she is sun and moon, you might want tome names that involve both light and shadow. Maybe a host of light, a host of shadow and a host of a stance between the two.

Maybe Luxin's, Umbral's and (aequivalerein's?) I dont have a good word for the middle ground of light and shadow...

[aphoticConniver]

Well, what CR are we looking at here? whats the party thats looking into these guys. Are they planning on fighting? and are you planning on these angels being killable?

Our party is about to hit 17th level, we are fighting an army of things Trollocks, Mordull, and Drakkakar from the Wheel of Time, plus devils and demons. I was aiming for something around there. Probably with the Umbrals at CR 20+, the Penumbrals at CR 18, and the Antumbrals at CR 14. Around those numbers.

[cerin616]

Our party is about to hit 17th level, we are fighting an army of things Trollocks, Mordull, and Drakkakar from the Wheel of Time, plus devils and demons. I was aiming for something around there. Probably with the Umbrals at CR 20+, the Penumbrals at CR 18, and the Antumbrals at CR 14. Around those numbers.

Im actually not sure what a mordull is, but then again i only read the books, i haven't played in the campaign. Which I think is awesome.

In this case, it makes a lot of sense your guys are only seeing agents of shadow.

I figure then you are aiming for the Antumbrals to be primarily martial based (ToB is a good place to start for class builds and abilities, shadowhand would be AWESOME for this) Penumbrals are high magic users, like straight wizard and stuff. I would limit their spells and not allow them to do too much fo the broken stuff. And then Umbrals to me sound like gish builds. 9th level spells and a +16 min BAB.

sound about right?

EDIT: oh man, and think of the TOB flavor if you rename the abilities to things like "boar rushes down mountain"

[aphoticConniver]

Im actually not sure what a mordull is, but then again i only read the books, i haven't played in the campaign. Which I think is awesome.

In this case, it makes a lot of sense your guys are only seeing agents of shadow.

I figure then you are aiming for the Antumbrals to be primarily martial based (ToB is a good place to start for class builds and abilities, shadowhand would be AWESOME for this) Penumbrals are high magic users, like straight wizard and stuff. I would limit their spells and not allow them to do too much fo the broken stuff. And then Umbrals to me sound like gish builds. 9th level spells and a +16 min BAB.

sound about right?

EDIT: oh man, and think of the TOB flavor if you rename the abilities to things like "boar rushes down mountain"

I probably got the name wrong then. It's the pale eyeless guys with the Thakandar blades, if I'm spelling that right. And I'm not sure if this is clear but the angels are fighting on our side against these creatures. Other than that, it sounds pretty good. Of course, reflavoring, say, "Fireball" as a ball of light and shadow. And you're saying to stat them out as characters, then apply an angelic template, yes?

[Traab]

I probably got the name wrong then. It's the pale eyeless guys with the Thakandar blades, if I'm spelling that right. And I'm not sure if this is clear but the angels are fighting on our side against these creatures. Other than that, it sounds pretty good. Of course, reflavoring, say, "Fireball" as a ball of light and shadow. And you're saying to stat them out as characters, then apply an angelic template, yes?

I think the guys with the blades are Fades, Myrddraal

[cerin616]

1. Myrddraal - yea, its a funky word to remember. But right on. Good things to fight. EDIT: swordsaged! gah!

2. I see, so they are the good guys then, well in that case this gets a decent amount easier to do. If you start using them and feel like they are a bit too powerful you can easily cause some crap to happen to knock them down a peg.

3. As for statting out as characters, you really have 2 options. If you stat them out as a character, and then apply a template, you will have an effective level character, which gives you a pretty solid reading of their power. (20 levels of classes and a +2 ecl template, you have the power of a level 22 character pretty much) The downside is that its a little bit less creative, and sometimes restricts you to what the game needs.

You can of course, instead, just build them from scratch. If you want a creature with the power of a 20th level character, give them some decent starting stats, add in the normal bonuses you would get as you level, then start hashing out what kind of powers you want these angels to have.

Caution: that tequnique can easily lead to super broken overpowered creatures.

Last, and what I prefer, is build out a character for your creature as one would normally build a high level character. Add your template. Now switch an ability or two out for something else. This gives your character a bit more flavor, it creates something that has never existed before (usually) and limits how broken your character can get.

But seeing as you are dming these NPCs, you can easily just alter how they skills work if they start to look too strong, and there sint a risk of accidently wiping your party.

NOTE: Also, are your players aware of what these beings are? Shadow usually indicates evil, even more so in wheel of time.
Plus players might try and kill it anyway. that whole "free will" thing

[aphoticConniver]

1. Myrddraal - yea, its a funky word to remember. But right on. Good things to fight.

2. I see, so they are the good guys then, well in that case this gets a decent amount easier to do. If you start using them and feel like they are a bit too powerful you can easily cause some crap to happen to knock them down a peg.

3. As for statting out as characters, you really have 2 options. If you stat them out as a character, and then apply a template, you will have an effective level character, which gives you a pretty solid reading of their power. (20 levels of classes and a +2 ecl template, you have the power of a level 22 character pretty much) The downside is that its a little bit less creative, and sometimes restricts you to what the game needs.

You can of course, instead, just build them from scratch. If you want a creature with the power of a 20th level character, give them some decent starting stats, add in the normal bonuses you would get as you level, then start hashing out what kind of powers you want these angels to have.

Caution: that tequnique can easily lead to super broken overpowered creatures.

Last, and what I prefer, is build out a character for your creature as one would normally build a high level character. Add your template. Now switch an ability or two out for something else. This gives your character a bit more flavor, it creates something that has never existed before (usually) and limits how broken your character can get.

But seeing as you are dming these NPCs, you can easily just alter how they skills work if they start to look too strong, and there sint a risk of accidently wiping your party.

NOTE: Also, are your players aware of what these beings are? Shadow usually indicates evil, even more so in wheel of time.
Plus players might try and kill it anyway. that whole "free will" thing

Well we know that we're getting help from Lacarda and Pelor in this fight, and seeing as my previous character has become the chief servant of Lacarda, I offered to stat out the angels to take the load off the DM. The scene should be set like this:

Evil army outside the walls of the city, not unlike Helm's Deep. It's mid morning, the sun is strong. Suddenly the sun is partially eclipsed by the moon, and down fly the Lumens to aid us in battle. Pictures I'm using for them in my head are as follows (and yeah I know they're all from Magic but I'm unoriginal)

Umbral
http://th03.deviantart.net/fs70/PRE/i/2012/364/9/d/avacyn__angel_of_hope_by_entroz-d5pqjj0.png

Penumbral
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/ur/ur240_angel_2.jpg

Antumbral
http://media.wizards.com/images/magic/daily/sf/kdertyyghjkfsdoitg645ertwe87uoirfposuuhs.jpg

So they don't look evil per-say, their abilities just focus on the sun, moon, light, and shadow.

[cerin616]

MMk, I see where this is going.

(I just recently took some classes on fiction writing, and we learned a lot about the symbolism of names and such, so its just odd for me to see the good guys named after shadows)

Are there going to be armies of these angels or just a few? Do you have armies, or are there just a few of you? I guess really, what are the odds here?
Your party is prety much superheroes, and (from what I can imagine) can hold halls and walls from hundreds of Trollocs, dozens of Myrdrraal, and plenty of Draghkar.

Do they have dreadlords? (evil casters) because then this **** gets real. Maybe a Gholam or two? Those can be pretty nasty as well.


This is what I'm picturing:
probably close to 100 or so "fists" of trollocs (so about 10000)
A myrddraal or two per fist, so 100 to 200.
Not as many Draghkar, maybe 100 or so.
No gholam, too much to keep track of, and they usually dont deal in "battles" anyway.

The only thing im shakey on si if there would be dreadlords. I dont know what you guys are doing as far as magic.

As for your forces, Im picturing probably 2k+ commoners. and maybe 1-2k soldiers, queens guard level training. So While some of your guys can hold their own, they are going to get overwhelmed without some solid help.

[aphoticConniver]

MMk, I see where this is going.

(I just recently took some classes on fiction writing, and we learned a lot about the symbolism of names and such, so its just odd for me to see the good guys named after shadows)

Are there going to be armies of these angels or just a few? Do you have armies, or are there just a few of you? I guess really, what are the odds here?
Your party is prety much superheroes, and (from what I can imagine) can hold halls and walls from hundreds of Trollocs, dozens of Myrdrraal, and plenty of Draghkar.

Do they have dreadlords? (evil casters) because then this **** gets real. Maybe a Gholam or two? Those can be pretty nasty as well.


This is what I'm picturing:
probably close to 100 or so "fists" of trollocs (so about 10000)
A myrddraal or two per fist, so 100 to 200.
Not as many Draghkar, maybe 100 or so.
No gholam, too much to keep track of, and they usually dont deal in "battles" anyway.

The only thing im shakey on si if there would be dreadlords. I dont know what you guys are doing as far as magic.

As for your forces, Im picturing probably 2k+ commoners. and maybe 1-2k soldiers, queens guard level training. So While some of your guys can hold their own, they are going to get overwhelmed without some solid help.

It falls to the DM to decide how much help we're getting. We know they have a Psion on their side that is at least 20th level. And I haven't heard any mention of dreadlords, so I don't believe that would be an issue.

Our forces consist of:
-The City Guard
-The Thieve's Guild
-The forces of Pelor and Lacarda, including a 20th level Druid with Frozen Wildshape and a Chosen of Lacarda template.

Plus us. Our party consists of a Tashalatora Psychic Warrior with a ranged focus, A Paladin/Crusader/RKV, a Rogue/Shadowdancer, a Rogue/Swashbuckler, and a Druid who is currently imprisoned due to treason. Selling your soul to pull your brother's soul kicking and screaming from Elysium down to the material plane is a very fast way to shift to Evil, by the way. He's probably going to be running a new character who is definitively not a druid.

[cerin616]

Well, I would probably call that psion they have a dreadlord. Dreadlord isnt like a class or anything, just means you know how to cast magic or somesuch (and WoT magic is often described as similar to psions in dnd). Dreadlord is really more of a title. and you team up with the bad guys. But if its just him, then this is a lot less sheep imminent slaughter and a lot more like war.

But if i am right in considering the armies of the shadow outnumber you probably around 4 or 5 to 1, then I personally would make the antumbrals EFC 18 or so, the penumbrals EFC 20 or 21, the Umbrals efc 23 or 24.

Stat out a couple different antumbrals as some of these options (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=127026) I recommend some power hitters and some battlefield controllers.

build the Penumbrals as More caster types, again give the DM some options to work with. Heavy arcane, heavy divine or moderate theurges.

Last, what I would do personally, is make a few level 20 Gish type build, heavy casting with a high BAB. Things like Jade pheonix mage, abjurant champion, eldritch kngiht, spell sword, and such. then, to make them a touch stronger, I would look at some special abilities that boost the entire group. Inspiration (bard) or Auras from the Marshal class.

[ksbsnowowl]

Quick answer: Take a Planetar or Solar from the MM, and add on the Dark Creature template from the appendix of Cormyr: The Tearing of the Weave.

That gives you a CR 17 or CR 24 creature.

Alternatively, give them the Shadow Creature template from Lords of Madness. Maybe the Shadow Creature template for the more "dark" ones, and the Dark Creature template for the moderately dark ones.

Other alternative base creatures to use include Movanic and Monadic Devas from Fiend Folio.

[captain fubar]

it may not be the most elagent way of doing things but you can always use the srd good outsiders as a base then switch out domains and sla for somthing more thematic and if you dont want your charicters to imeadeatly know what you have done change their name and description. thematicly tied domains might be somthing like sun, moon, darkness, and sky.

[Gildedragon]

I second taking base angels and templatimg them. Give them some shadow magic slas, though flip the pseudo reality to fire as opposed to cold damage

[aphoticConniver]

Yeah, I'm just going to edit the Astral Deva, Planetar, and Solar stat blocks with a template and appropriate abilities.