Help making three level 10 midbosses?

[Nettlekid]

As a continuation of my previous thread, I'm now making three level 10 midbosses to serve as the key henchmen to a vampire BBEG. The midbosses will each be Half-Vampires, but I'm not factoring the LA into their level. So that's 10 class levels. Since Half-Vampires can have one of three abilities (Charm Person, Children of the Night, or Blood Drain) I want to have each of the three with one of those abilities, and even if their build isn't designed around it I'd like it to be thematically appropriate to their personality, which would suit the ability. For example, the Charm Person one would be charismatic and charming, and probably a Sorcerer or Beguiler. In contrast, the Blood Drain one would be quite savage. I'm thinking one caster, one brawler, and one sneak.

So yeah, ten (or so, plus or minus one?) level midbosses? The final boss is a Vampire Lord with 16 levels of Crusader, so while there's no magic involved (if I played a high level caster BBEG intelligently then the party wouldn't...live) he'll be very difficult to kill. I may introduce a boss figure inbetween the midbosses and the BBEG, like a regular Vampire maybe (so the party can exploit the Vampire's weaknesses, only to later learn that they don't work on the Vampire Lord.) I was thinking that I'd like to use some of the various five-level PrCs so make a pretty basic Base Class 5/PrC 5 build, but I can't find any good lists of those. Most of the ones I've found also can't be easily entered by level 6. Dread Witch is a good one that I may use for the Charm Person midboss. I was thinking Reaping Mauler for the Blood Drainer, but it has entry issues and is also just kind of lackluster.

So, any short and sweet build ideas for a caster-type, a fighter-type, and a rogue-type at level 10?

[Baroknik]

For the blood drain one, I'd go something like...
Paladin of Tyranny 2/monk 2/crusader 1/tomb guardian 3/crusader 3

Probably could use some tweaking, but he idea to me is to have it be a savage guardian of some relic to the BBEG. Tomb Guardian is insane for defending an area -- turning immunity + perfect knowledge of intruders locations. Build him to be a grappler (with a lot of CHA synergy), and have the dungeon basically be filled with traps that separate the party so he can try and pick them off solo. Throw in some ways to counter FoM and that should be a terrifying boss!

You could even have him be the curator of a museum; hide the relic under the noses of the PCs, and they won't even know that he is the subBBEG until the big reveal!


For the sneak, look at Lurking Terror. Hide in Plain Sight ats early as level 8 is pretty handy, and this PrC would advance Death Strike's DC!



EDIT: ixnay on death attack being advanced, but make the sneak the one with charm person and the DC goes up 3 from this class!

[Cespenar]

1) A simple Beguiler 10.

2) Rogue 7/Shadowdancer 2/Swordsage 1, taking some of the nice Shadow Hand techniques.

3) Dungeoncrasher Fighter 6/Barbarian 2/Frenzied Berserker 1/Warblade 1. Open Rage and Frenzy, leap down on opponents with Sudden Leap and Bull Rush them to the ground for some funny amounts of damage. You may use it with Pounce as well but that might be too much.

[Nettlekid]

1) A simple Beguiler 10.

2) Rogue 7/Shadowdancer 2/Swordsage 1, taking some of the nice Shadow Hand techniques.

3) Dungeoncrasher Fighter 6/Barbarian 2/Frenzied Berserker 1/Warblade 1. Open Rage and Frenzy, leap down on opponents with Sudden Leap and Bull Rush them to the ground for some funny amounts of damage. You may use it with Pounce as well but that might be too much.

I like these suggestions. I think I'm going to go with a Beguiler 5/Mindbender 5 for the Charm Person user (rarely fighting herself and using her Charmed allies as cannon fodder and human shield), a Dungeoncrasher Fighter 6/War Hulk 5 for the Blood Drainer (bludgeoning his foes into submission before drinking their blood), and Wildshape Ranger 5/Warshaper 5 for the Children of the Night user (Turns into a Wolf, has a Wolf companion, and summons 1d6 wolves for the combination of wolf madness and "which is the real guy?" dilemma). These guys are the three midbosses. I expect the party to first try to fight the Beguiler at level 5 or so, be overpowered and have to run, and then they can hunt down any of the three at their leisure. The three midbosses are serving as subordinates to a proper Vampire, who is in turn a puppet of a Vampire Lord operating from the shadows. The Vampire Lord is a 16th level Crusader, so there's going to be a melee final battle, although that Vampire Lord also has a dominated Bard/Lyric Thaumaturge (the same Bard the party will see at every tavern) as the caster of the various Necrotic Cyst spells he's using, and as caster backup (and taxi, because teleportation effects are useful). I'm pretty satisfied with that.

What I need to think of now is what that regular Vampire should be. I'm torn between a few things. With all of these class-level-built baddies, I might want to make this Vampire a guy who basically JUST uses his Vampire abilities to fight, and have classes like Master Vampire and Lurking Terror to power those qualities up. OR, to kind of throw a curve ball before the melee-using BBEG to make it a caster, like just a Sorcerer or something. Maybe a blaster, but not nearly as optimized as a Mailman build. It would be useful to give it Teleport and Scrying to explain how the bad guys know where the party is and what they're doing. I'm just a bit worried about a level 12 Sorcerer Vampire outshining the level 16 Crusader Vampire Lord, and the Vampire Lord being weaker. I was also thinking about a Psion or something, because that would be unusual, but then I run the risk of having too few classic Vampire-feeling things, and I wouldn't want that. Warlock would be pretty perfect, because it would be castery but not too strong, except that I would want to use Hellfire Warlock and a Vampire can't take Con damage. So yeah, I don't know what to do on that one. Any suggestions? Or should I just get rid of this 3/4 boss and have the Vampire Lord controlling the three midbosses on his own?

[Baroknik]

I would definitely suggest tomb warden 2 for the BBEG if you don't use it before. Having him know the exact location of any intruder in his palace is insanely powerful -- it basically lets him act like Lord Strahd (and if the BBEG is a vamp, that is amazingly good).

Another great take on the BBEG is a Shadow-Sun Ninja 10 who fell. Those guys are BAMFs and immune to the sun. Extra points if he was a mythic hero before the fall, but no one realizes that he was the hero until the end!