Jbr208
2014-05-17, 01:59 AM
I'm writing this on my phone, so my apologies if the formatting is a little odd. I must also apologize for the length of the post, it seems longer than I originally planned. Now, back to our regularly scheduled post.
Evil is fascinating. Evil is especially fascinating when only one character in a party is Evil and the others are not aware of it. My character has, through the whisperings of devils, gotten it into his head to take over the town/refugee camp he and the other PC's call home. As a warlock I have a few options available, so I thought I'd put out my idea and see if folks here had other ideas which might work better.
The build I am presently planning is Warlock 8/Binder 1/Hellfire Warlock 3/Warlock N, where N=However many levels the campaign continues past 12.
The invocations I've selected for down the road are pretty straight forward, ending with the first Greater Invocation at 12th level.
Least:
Entropic Warding
Eldritch Spear blast shape
Baleful Utterance
(9th level extra invocation) Beguiling Influence
Least:
Fell Flight
Hellrime Blast
The Dead Walk
(12th level extra invocation) Charm
Greater:
Chilling tentacles
The first half of the build is mundane in terms of goal advancement; I simply wouldn't have the power or resources to covertly start my empire beyond taking the Leadership feat at 6th level. At 11th level (invoker progression 10) I finally gain the Dead Walk, when combined with Entropic Warding I'll be able to start secretly building my army of the dead.
At 12th level, when charm comes online, the fun begins with the establishment of a cult. The plan is to use a combination of charm and beguiling influence to slowly convert people to my cause, and potentially lure "dangerous" individuals into ambushes for either simple elimination or ritual sacrifice if they seem worth sacrificing. Probably won't do that last part, because people going missing in a town of 100 is far too noticeable. Instead I'll just charm them and try to make them a non-threat.
The big question mark in the build comes at the level 15 feat and everything beyond that, Craft Wondrous Item is the chosen feat. The plan with CWI is to make command word items to essentially serve as magical guns for my cultists, the more loyal cultists getting the more powerful weaponry. Mind you, this will have to wait until level 16 for Imbue Item.
A dozen or so cultists armed with potent weaponry and between 40 and 60 HD of undead suddenly arrive in town, led by one of the four people who has been working so diligently to keep it safe. I think the shock alone would pretty quickly put the town firmly in my grasp.
Now to the point of actual discussion. Reading my idea for gaining control of a town, the first question is do you think it will work? The next question I can think of is do you think the fear of collateral damage (particularly when their families are directly involved in the town) will dissuade the real heroes in my party from actively resisting my power grab? The last question is what might you do differently if you were me?
There is an unstated assumption in the second question, but just so we're clear: I am working under the assumption that I won't be able to convert any of my party-mates given their Good alignment.
Evil is fascinating. Evil is especially fascinating when only one character in a party is Evil and the others are not aware of it. My character has, through the whisperings of devils, gotten it into his head to take over the town/refugee camp he and the other PC's call home. As a warlock I have a few options available, so I thought I'd put out my idea and see if folks here had other ideas which might work better.
The build I am presently planning is Warlock 8/Binder 1/Hellfire Warlock 3/Warlock N, where N=However many levels the campaign continues past 12.
The invocations I've selected for down the road are pretty straight forward, ending with the first Greater Invocation at 12th level.
Least:
Entropic Warding
Eldritch Spear blast shape
Baleful Utterance
(9th level extra invocation) Beguiling Influence
Least:
Fell Flight
Hellrime Blast
The Dead Walk
(12th level extra invocation) Charm
Greater:
Chilling tentacles
The first half of the build is mundane in terms of goal advancement; I simply wouldn't have the power or resources to covertly start my empire beyond taking the Leadership feat at 6th level. At 11th level (invoker progression 10) I finally gain the Dead Walk, when combined with Entropic Warding I'll be able to start secretly building my army of the dead.
At 12th level, when charm comes online, the fun begins with the establishment of a cult. The plan is to use a combination of charm and beguiling influence to slowly convert people to my cause, and potentially lure "dangerous" individuals into ambushes for either simple elimination or ritual sacrifice if they seem worth sacrificing. Probably won't do that last part, because people going missing in a town of 100 is far too noticeable. Instead I'll just charm them and try to make them a non-threat.
The big question mark in the build comes at the level 15 feat and everything beyond that, Craft Wondrous Item is the chosen feat. The plan with CWI is to make command word items to essentially serve as magical guns for my cultists, the more loyal cultists getting the more powerful weaponry. Mind you, this will have to wait until level 16 for Imbue Item.
A dozen or so cultists armed with potent weaponry and between 40 and 60 HD of undead suddenly arrive in town, led by one of the four people who has been working so diligently to keep it safe. I think the shock alone would pretty quickly put the town firmly in my grasp.
Now to the point of actual discussion. Reading my idea for gaining control of a town, the first question is do you think it will work? The next question I can think of is do you think the fear of collateral damage (particularly when their families are directly involved in the town) will dissuade the real heroes in my party from actively resisting my power grab? The last question is what might you do differently if you were me?
There is an unstated assumption in the second question, but just so we're clear: I am working under the assumption that I won't be able to convert any of my party-mates given their Good alignment.