ThisIsZen
2014-08-26, 01:41 AM
I'm planning a custom Elder Evils campaign which I intend to start in a few weeks, and am doing some prep-work for the later stages of the game at the moment. While I already know roughly the build paths/classes that these two NPCs will take, that's about as far as I've thought so far, so I'm just hoping to get some ideas outside of my own head.
Firstly, the party: I've only got three players, and no super-high-tier classes. The party consists of a Goliath Scout, an Aasimar Warmage, and an Air Mephling Warlock (I opened up any race with up to +1 LA to them, and naturally got a rather varied party). They're starting at level 2, but the campaign is probably going to take them all the way to 20, possibly a little ways past depending. Two of the players are new to 3.5 but both have played a few PF campaigns before, and one of the players probably has more history and knowledge of 3.5 than I do - I've known of and tinkered with 3.5 off and on for years but only recently actually put time into learning anything about optimization. Both myself and the experienced player (the Scout) are going to be guiding the new players away from particularly bad pitfalls, but outside of warnings and suggestions I'm not going to be actively attempting to increase the optimization of the PCs. My knowledge is therefore incomplete and patchwork, but I have more than enough time to do the reading to learn how to run anything in particular I want to run because this campaign isn't going to be on a consistent weekly schedule or anything.
The NPCs in question are a pair of Yuan-Ti Pureblood twins who I intend to take to a full 20 class levels each. I'm mostly just looking for level 20 versions for each - they'll be advancing roughly in lockstep with the party, just a couple CR above their party level, but I can work out their level-to-level abilities easily enough as long as I know roughly where they'll be ending up. The two class paths I've picked out are:
Shadowcaster 10/Child of Night 10, and
Archivist 5/Master of Radiance 5/Contemplative 10
I realize that Master of Radiance isn't exactly a particularly stellar PrC, but for fluff reasons it's basically perfect and injects the flavor into the class, while the Archivist casting lets me restructure to serve any role.
I'll be testing these characters against the party myself before I ever throw them into play whenever I use them, so feel free to suggest things at any op level - but if something's particularly powerful, especially in the case of Archivist casting, please warn me so I can handle it with some caution.
Yuan-ti in this setting are not the anathemic monstrosities that they are in most other settings. I liked the aesthetic and their stat blocks but didn't really like the cultural trappings that went along with them, so feel free to consider them Yuan-ti in crunch only if you'd like. Either way, Purebloods and Abominations are actually two distinct races - the Vrael Olo and Sseth, respectively, connected by a shared culture and religion with centuries of history. One group of Purebloods recently fought a civil war against the rest of the Purebloods and Abominations, based on divergent religious theories as well as a general dislike of the religious and civic power of the Abominations. They lost, however, and were driven out from the kingdom, forced to flee north in a refugee wave. This was about 25 years ago.
The twins were born after this, and would be about 22 years old now. They grew up in a refugee quarter that was little better than a slum, and which hasn't gotten better since - the Yuan-ti are mostly unwanted and the city has only made the smallest of concessions to try and help the impoverished refugees. They've grown up and for the past seven or so years been fighting in various arenas to try and make their peoples' lots better, but to very little success.
On the other hand, since they were very, very young they've been spoken to in dreams every night, brought up and led to their current paths by a benevolent presence they once thought was one of the nature spirits that make up their primary deity, but which they've realized in adulthood has nothing to do with their religion. Nonetheless, this guide and confidante has their loyalty - the Dreamer has never failed them or led them astray, and never pushes them to do anything for her in any capacity. However, as the adventure continues, the twins will eventually lose all hope of making any temporal improvements in the lives of their people, and will start wholeheartedly working to bring about the goals of their dreaming patron.
The Dreamer is, of course, the Elder Evil, though a bit less Horrible Evil than anything from that book, because this game also isn't using alignment rules at all. Nonetheless, the Dreamer is a spirit trapped in the Dreamscape for thousands of years, who has eventually both fused with and grown to become the plane itself, and who has become more and more solipsistic the longer she's spent aware of and experiencing the dreams of every entity in the universe. Her ultimate goal is similarly solipsistic - she wants to draw the entire universe into the singularity that is her existence, until everything is simply her dreaming of herself.
Naturally, this means that the twins will have some feats and such aimed towards dream environments, but they're by and large the Dreamer's primary agents in the material world, so that's still the main focus of their abilities.
Firstly, the party: I've only got three players, and no super-high-tier classes. The party consists of a Goliath Scout, an Aasimar Warmage, and an Air Mephling Warlock (I opened up any race with up to +1 LA to them, and naturally got a rather varied party). They're starting at level 2, but the campaign is probably going to take them all the way to 20, possibly a little ways past depending. Two of the players are new to 3.5 but both have played a few PF campaigns before, and one of the players probably has more history and knowledge of 3.5 than I do - I've known of and tinkered with 3.5 off and on for years but only recently actually put time into learning anything about optimization. Both myself and the experienced player (the Scout) are going to be guiding the new players away from particularly bad pitfalls, but outside of warnings and suggestions I'm not going to be actively attempting to increase the optimization of the PCs. My knowledge is therefore incomplete and patchwork, but I have more than enough time to do the reading to learn how to run anything in particular I want to run because this campaign isn't going to be on a consistent weekly schedule or anything.
The NPCs in question are a pair of Yuan-Ti Pureblood twins who I intend to take to a full 20 class levels each. I'm mostly just looking for level 20 versions for each - they'll be advancing roughly in lockstep with the party, just a couple CR above their party level, but I can work out their level-to-level abilities easily enough as long as I know roughly where they'll be ending up. The two class paths I've picked out are:
Shadowcaster 10/Child of Night 10, and
Archivist 5/Master of Radiance 5/Contemplative 10
I realize that Master of Radiance isn't exactly a particularly stellar PrC, but for fluff reasons it's basically perfect and injects the flavor into the class, while the Archivist casting lets me restructure to serve any role.
I'll be testing these characters against the party myself before I ever throw them into play whenever I use them, so feel free to suggest things at any op level - but if something's particularly powerful, especially in the case of Archivist casting, please warn me so I can handle it with some caution.
Yuan-ti in this setting are not the anathemic monstrosities that they are in most other settings. I liked the aesthetic and their stat blocks but didn't really like the cultural trappings that went along with them, so feel free to consider them Yuan-ti in crunch only if you'd like. Either way, Purebloods and Abominations are actually two distinct races - the Vrael Olo and Sseth, respectively, connected by a shared culture and religion with centuries of history. One group of Purebloods recently fought a civil war against the rest of the Purebloods and Abominations, based on divergent religious theories as well as a general dislike of the religious and civic power of the Abominations. They lost, however, and were driven out from the kingdom, forced to flee north in a refugee wave. This was about 25 years ago.
The twins were born after this, and would be about 22 years old now. They grew up in a refugee quarter that was little better than a slum, and which hasn't gotten better since - the Yuan-ti are mostly unwanted and the city has only made the smallest of concessions to try and help the impoverished refugees. They've grown up and for the past seven or so years been fighting in various arenas to try and make their peoples' lots better, but to very little success.
On the other hand, since they were very, very young they've been spoken to in dreams every night, brought up and led to their current paths by a benevolent presence they once thought was one of the nature spirits that make up their primary deity, but which they've realized in adulthood has nothing to do with their religion. Nonetheless, this guide and confidante has their loyalty - the Dreamer has never failed them or led them astray, and never pushes them to do anything for her in any capacity. However, as the adventure continues, the twins will eventually lose all hope of making any temporal improvements in the lives of their people, and will start wholeheartedly working to bring about the goals of their dreaming patron.
The Dreamer is, of course, the Elder Evil, though a bit less Horrible Evil than anything from that book, because this game also isn't using alignment rules at all. Nonetheless, the Dreamer is a spirit trapped in the Dreamscape for thousands of years, who has eventually both fused with and grown to become the plane itself, and who has become more and more solipsistic the longer she's spent aware of and experiencing the dreams of every entity in the universe. Her ultimate goal is similarly solipsistic - she wants to draw the entire universe into the singularity that is her existence, until everything is simply her dreaming of herself.
Naturally, this means that the twins will have some feats and such aimed towards dream environments, but they're by and large the Dreamer's primary agents in the material world, so that's still the main focus of their abilities.