Readied Action Revival BBEG

[rmnimoc]

I've come up with an interesting idea for a BBEG, but I wanted to run it through you guys first to make sure it made sense:

The Big Bad in question is a high level wizard in an alliance with Asmodeus with the intent of converting the entire planet to lawful evil. To this end, Asmodeus has given him a large number of clerics, to ensure he will live long enough to finish his plan. The BBEG has been using PaO shenanigans to turn all of the clerics into diminutive creatures. The clerics hide in his pockets with readied actions to cast "quickened raise dead" and "Inflict" spells the instant he dies, to revive him and heal him up to full life (at the cost of a level). The players will likely be defending a city from him at first, with the backup of an army to help wittle him down. The BBEG will be higher level than the heroes by a fair margin, and once he is dropped down to level 20 he will try to retreat. The party will then take the fight to him, and the clerics will be casting "revivify" instead.

So a few questions:
1a. Is there any reason mechanically this would not work?
1b. If so, how do I make this work mechanically?
2. Any thoughts on how to improve this?

[Omegas]

LOL like it but I really would not want to be one of his clerics. Could you imagine any caster that would not want an army of pocket clerics?

Regardless in battle healing is a joke not to mention a sign of weakness. A better method would be to plan a retreat. They would not even have to bring him back there. They could simply drag his body through a portal or something and do it when they had free time.

Honestly you will have a problem with spells that destroy corpse. There are a number of spells that do so and once gone it takes a much stronger spell to bring him back.

A easier solution is simply using magical jar. Give the BBEG a familiar like a fling one (bat/bird) and have it carry the jar around. Then the Bad Guy has no worries about being defeated and they can use a different peasant every time so if the party does not have a detect sensor active all the time they cant see him coming.

[KillianHawkeye]

Raise Dead has a casting time of 1 minute. It cannot be Quickened.

[rmnimoc]

LOL like it but I really would not want to be one of his clerics. Could you imagine any caster that would not want an army of pocket clerics?

Regardless in battle healing is a joke not to mention a sign of weakness. A better method would be to plan a retreat. They would not even have to bring him back there. They could simply drag his body through a portal or something and do it when they had free time.

Honestly you will have a problem with spells that destroy corpse. There are a number of spells that do so and once gone it takes a much stronger spell to bring him back.

Step 1: Army of pocket clerics
Step 2: ???
Step 3: Win
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I'm sure the first thing running through the heads of the people being slaughtered by the super wizard probably won't be along the lines of "He may have just wiped out half our army, seriously injured our champions, but you know what? He got healed mid combat so he's a total wuss."

I imagine it would probably be more like "Arghhhhh!!!!!!! Bob!!!! JIM!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

You can't tell me you can't imagine the feeling people get when they beat the Big Bad, saving the world, turning and smiling and cheering......Then he gets back up. I'm happily awaiting the swearing.

Plus retreat totally doesn't fit what I'm going for. He wants what is there, and he won't stop until he gets it. Or at least until he realizes his unstoppable power isn't quite so unstoppable and falls back to come for a plan B. This guy thinks he is unbeatable, and rightfully so. First time they take him down "Fluke", second time "Aghh! Well they are almost dead, might as well finish them off and not let them recover from this and pose a real threat", etc. This guy will have mostly borrowed/stolen power, like V after that deal with the lower plane denizens.
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The corpse destroying spells could be a problem, I'll have to come up with a solution to that.


Raise Dead has a casting time of 1 minute. It cannot be Quickened.

That is less than ideal. Know any revival spells that still cause level loss that can be quickened?

[Omegas]

Alternatively an easier solution is simply using magical jar. Give the BBEG a familiar like a flying one (bat/bird) and have it carry the jar around. Then the Bad Guy has no worries about being defeated. He also makes it harder on the heros as they are forced to kill an innocent, and the BBEG can use a different peasant every time he encounters the party. Unless the party has a detect sensor active all the time, they wont see him coming, and he has full use of all of his spells.

Conceptually if a party defeats a boss the threat diminishes if they come back weaker. Another thing you have to think about is that when the BBEG is raised they could lose half their remaining spells per day each time they are raise. Also Raise Dead and resurrection does not raise "undead" creatures. They come back a living creatures.

[weckar]

A point to consider is that your difficulty scaling is balancing out the loss of resources on the defending side, as the fight gets easier on each revival. You'd better also have stats ready for every level it will go through, and consider the possibility of cleric mutiny once he hits the low 20s: Crazy High Size AC and no spell variation by size combine to form no laughing matter.

[rmnimoc]

Alternatively an easier solution is simply using magical jar. Give the BBEG a familiar like a flying one (bat/bird) and have it carry the jar around. Then the Bad Guy has no worries about being defeated. He also makes it harder on the heros as they are forced to kill an innocent, and the BBEG can use a different peasant every time he encounters the party. Plus unless the party has a detect sensor active all the time they cant see him coming.

That's an interesting idea, but not how I want him to be.


A point to consider is that your difficulty scaling is balancing out the loss of resources on the defending side, as the fight gets easier on each revival. You'd better also have stats ready for every level it will go through, and consider the possibility of cleric mutiny once he hits the low 20s: Crazy High Size AC and no spell variation by size combine to form no laughing matter.

I'm aware of the fact that the fight is leveling out up until the point where the party can almost take him out on their own.

I'll also have stats per level (I have an odd habit of doing this anyway, just because).

The clerics will be following him to help him pull off the plan, not because of any loyalty to him, so the mutiny is a bit less likely. I can easily imagine them getting upset at him as soon as they feel he is threatening the plan by his actions, and forcing him to leave and approach this from another angle. I also already intend on them turning their backs on him for the final battle, leaving him (mostly) alone against the party. Then he pulls out all the tricks in his hat (dominating the clerics for level-lossless revivals and summonings, all the desperation stuff).

[Omegas]

Another thing you have to think about is that when the BBEG is raised they could lose half their remaining spells per day each time they are raise. Also Raise Dead and Resurrection do not raise "undead" creatures, they come back as a living creature. This may also mess with your concept. I am of course assuming they are undead because you referred to inflict spells to heal him.

[rmnimoc]

Another thing you have to think about is that when the BBEG is raised they could lose half their remaining spells per day each time they are raise. Also Raise Dead and Resurrection do not raise "undead" creatures, they come back as a living creature. This may also mess with your concept. I am of course assuming they are undead because you referred to inflict spells to heal him.

I had a nice huge response written out, but then you edited and left the whole thing invalid. x.x

The BBEG losing spells could be a problem, and Raise Dead probably won't work at all for the spell with a full minute casting time.

I had no intention of him being undead, I apologize for not properly clarifying that. Tomb-tainted soul tends to be something I mentally assume most of my BBEGs have, just so any cleric lackeys can heal them without preparing healing spells.

Also to clarify about a point you erased from your post about him seeming as less of a threat because they beat him (cause I already wrote it):

This guy will be around level 30ish to begin with. The army they will probably fight him with will almost certainly have all the strongest people in the setting, with all the countries working together. He won't kill 30 level five warriors before they drop him, but multiple level fifteen wizards, clerics, and such.

I intend on the fact he gets back up after his death as being truely dangerous, with a rather decent chance of dropping the party.
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Also, any idea what spell I can use in place of raise dead, or a way to make casting raise dead faster?

[Omegas]

Again the best spell for your application sounds like magic jar, just you need to spin it right. This alternatively only gives him one extra life, and although he does not lose a level, he does not regain any expended spells, and he could pop back into the battle in as little as 3 rounds.

One for the bird to teleport to his body
Two to jump back into his body
three to teleport back to the battle.

A better use of the clerics would be to cast the buffing spells and protections on his body as it is reanimated from the magic jar. That way he does not have to waste extra rounds gearing up before returning to battle.

[Deophaun]

The big problem with this plan is disintegrate stops it cold (as does any form of corpse mutilation, even by mundane means). I also like having barghest's feast for particularly DM-loved stubborn DMPCs NPCs.

This means magic jar is likely your best bet, provided he starts out in another creature's body. Keep a supply of willing mooks around, and I believe he can attempt to commandeer a new host if the old one dies. He might even be able to possess a PC. How lovely.

[rmnimoc]

Again the best spell for your application sounds like magic jar, just you need to spin it right. This alternatively only gives him one extra life, and although he does not lose a level, he does not regain any expended spells, and he could pop back into the battle in as little as 3 rounds.

One for the bird to teleport to his body
Two to jump back into his body
three to teleport back to the battle.

A better use of the clerics would be to cast the buffing spells and protections on his body as it is reanimated from the magic jar. That way he does not have to waste extra rounds gearing up before returning to battle.

I get what you mean, but magic jar still doesn't really fit what I want. I'll try to better explain it:

1. This wizard is running mostly on power that he didn't earn, and probably doesn't know how to best use it. Right now I'm playing with the idea of him originally hitting about level 10 before stumbling on a way to seriously amp up his power (Open to suggestions for how he does that). This is not a Tippy wizard, and the power will almost certainly go to his head.

2. Clerics have WIS as a primary stat, so they will likely try to advise him to be less of a headstrong idiot. No wizard would ever listen to a cleric (their power doesn't even belong to them and INT isn't their casting stat. Why does he care what those idiots have to say?), but the clerics will still try to support him as well as they can despite that, because without him Asmodeus' plan won't work.

3. Those armies will be working together to protect an item which would make his spell far easier to cast. In my mind he won't even see them as a real threat, because he is a super-wizard, and they are all weak compared to him.

4. I don't want an enemy who just slinks into another body when they beat him, even if it is similar enough mechanically (and a far superior choice) it isn't really what I'm looking for and I've done that to death.



The big problem with this plan is disintegrate stops it cold (as does any form of corpse mutilation, even by mundane means). I also like having barghest's feast for particularly DM-loved stubborn DMPCs NPCs.

This means magic jar is likely your best bet, provided he starts out in another creature's body. Keep a supply of willing mooks around, and I believe he can attempt to commandeer a new host if the old one dies. He might even be able to possess a PC. How lovely.

If the party can manage to outdo a level 30 wizard who can almost completely ignore a fortitude save with the help of a bunch of minature pocket clerics with a disintegrate, then they deserve to disintegrate him. Mutilation can be fixed easily enough anyway, because clerics are useful (Make Whole would probably work).

Barghest's Feast has to target a corpse, so it will be mostly worthless here thanks to the readied action clerics. (After I find a good spell for resurrecting him. Worst case scenario, spell creation rules time.) EDIT: I'll just find a way to give the clerics Last Breath, that seems to fit.


I do not want him using magic jar. I find it to totally clash with how I want this character to be, and it is far to similar to a BBEG from a previous campaign I did. (Had a custom template that spread to anyone who killed him. The template basically turned them into him, with both their abilities and his previous forms abilities.)

[Deophaun]

If the party can manage to outdo a level 30 wizard who can almost completely ignore a fortitude save with the help of a bunch of minature pocket clerics with a disintegrate, then they deserve to disintegrate him. Mutilation can be fixed easily enough anyway, because clerics are useful (Make Whole would probably work).
Any kind of fire damage will negate make whole, as it does nothing for burned objects. I'd also assume that if the head is removed and thrown out of range of the spell, it would probably fail.

But this is actually good stuff. I'm pointing this out not to argue and say "you're wrong," I'm just saying prepare for your players to maybe out think you, and reward them if they figure out this little puzzle instead of going through a brute-force exercise.

Barghest's Feast has to target a corpse, so it will be mostly worthless here thanks to the readied action clerics.
Readied-action wizard. :smallbiggrin: I'm unsure what the rules are for multiple readied actions going on the same trigger. I go by initiative modifier.

[rmnimoc]

Any kind of fire damage will negate make whole, as it does nothing for burned objects. I'd also assume that if the head is removed and thrown out of range of the spell, it would probably fail.

But this is actually good stuff. I'm pointing this out not to argue and say "you're wrong," I'm just saying prepare for your players to maybe out think you, and reward them if they figure out this little puzzle instead of going through a brute-force exercise.

Readied-action wizard. :smallbiggrin: I'm unsure what the rules are for multiple readied actions going on the same trigger. I go by initiative modifier.

I always expect my players to outhink me. ALWAYS. The whole "no battle plan survives contact with the enemy" is something I take to heart when it comes to DMing. These are players who killed a terrasque as commoners to circumvent an entire quest line and open a "Terra-King" burger joint. Kinda why I'm here in the first place, the more you guys point out, the more I can safeguard against.

Fire immunity isn't hard to get though when you have an army of pocket clerics, especially when you are acting in the intrest of a type with fire immunity (I imagine he will be immune to most things really).

How are you going to chuck away the head if the clerics have a readied response to revive him on death?

As for readied action wizard with Barghests Feast, that is a touch spell (120ft range at best I believe) and once again I can cheat my way out by saying "Pocket Clerics" because at least one will have a readied action to revive him in response to one of them trying to revive him. Probably one with a readied action to revive him in response to someone trying to revive him in response to someone trying to revive him too.

[Omegas]

Perhaps he should instead be chaotic or at the least neutral evil rather then lawful. Despite his preferred MO he has a "at all costs" attitude. Lawful Evil characters are more methodical, attempting to never unnecessarily waste resources / men. Also they take great effort in not under estimating their rivals even when they are significantly below his power.

If your so keen on this tactic then I purpose you create a spell that meets your needs.

[Deophaun]

How are you going to chuck away the head if the clerics have a readied response to revive him on death?
Because if they have a readied response to revive him on death, they do not have a readied response to cast "mending" on dismemberment. But really, the way to do this is kill the guy in an AMF, or hit with an antimagic ray.

As for readied action wizard with Barghests Feast, that is a touch spell (120ft range at best I believe) and once again I can cheat my way out by saying "Pocket Clerics" because at least one will have a readied action to revive him in response to one of them trying to revive him
And the wizard has a readied action to cast barghest's feast on anyone attempting to revive the BBEG.

[rmnimoc]

Perhaps he should instead be chaotic or at the least neutral evil rather then lawful. Despite his preferred MO he has a "at all costs" attitude. Lawful Evil characters are more methodical, attempting to never unnecessarily waste resources / men. Also they take great effort in not under estimating their rivals even when they are significantly below his power.

If your so keen on this tactic then I purpose you create a spell that meets your needs.

I'd argue that he is still lawful (though that might be because I have a bit more info about his personality than you since he exists in my head atm). His plan is still methodical, and his pride is the reason he doesn't want to fall back/listen to beings that he is CLEARLY superior to (LE is perfectly capable of being driven to idiocy by pride). Also, what part of lawful evil means they never underestimate people? That is something anyone can do regardless of whether or not they rigidly follow a personal code. Plenty of devils have been dropped because they underestimated people. That's kind of a thing they tend to do. Rather often at that.

As for spells it still seems like Last Breath will work for these purposes, and I already mentioned I'm perfectly willing to create such a spell should the need occur.


Because if they have a readied response to revive him on death, they do not have a readied response to cast "mending" on dismemberment. But really, the way to do this is kill the guy in an AMF, or hit with an antimagic ray.

And the wizard has a readied action to cast barghest's feast on anyone attempting to revive the BBEG.

There is more than one cleric, they can have tons of readied responses.

The obvious solution to the obvious solution is to make some of the clerics former worshippers of mystra. I <3 Initiate of Mystra. How to make it so the wizard can get out of there though.... The tin foil hat always works.

Barghest's Feast only works on corpses, so casting on a living creature you don't have LoE or LoS to really wouldn't work.

Unless you mean cast it on him when anyone tries to revive him (in which case it would attempt to resolve alongside the second tier revival, but still be after the ones that act in response to that one.

I also <3 nested readied responses.

[Deophaun]

Unless you mean cast it on him when anyone tries to revive him (in which case it would attempt to resolve alongside the second tier revival, but still be after the ones that act in response to that one.
So we just have to get really specific and dig into the nuts and bolts of spell casting. Although by now we're getting far away from what I think is reasonable in a game, and not something you're going to be up against.

But the action is simple: I cast barghest's feast when someone finishes casting a spell on the corpse.

So this will go off only once your nested actions has gone through, but before any of their spells have actually taken effect. The only real protection for this is for your nested clerics to also cast in response to someone finishing their spell, which means that they are all burning their diamonds and spell slots to counter this.

[rmnimoc]

So we just have to get really specific and dig into the nuts and bolts of spell casting. Although by now we're getting far away from what I think is reasonable in a game, and not something you're going to be up against.

The nested actions thing was a joke (though rereading it I can see how you'd think otherwise, my bad). I wasn't really taking it seriously because will negates and SR applies.

[Ziegander]

Have them ready to cast Revivify, not Raise Dead or Resurrection. It's only a standard action, so it doesn't require any weird hoops to be jumped through. One readies Revivify another readies Heal. BBEG is back up and kicking with a fresh pool of hit points and no level loss.

What if, instead of pocket Clerics, the PCs encounter the BBEG somewhere and just don't know (due to some form of magical obfuscation, hopefully more cunning than mere invisibility) that there are a dozen or more Clerics nearby ready to revivify/heal the BBEG upon his death? These Clerics are constantly moving about the battlefield in secrecy, using magic to keep each other hidden from the party, and interfering with the fight only in the event of the BBEG's death. Makes the battle a form of deadly puzzle trap where the PCs have to figure out why the BBEG continues to return to life, and then once they have they must contend with lots of Clerics and the BBEG itself. Seems interesting to me.