ThisIsZen
2014-11-04, 02:38 PM
So I'm running into a bit of a snag here when it comes to building a certain NPC. The guy's not the end-game villain for the entire campaign but I AM intending him to be the big bad at about the level 14-15 mark, before the Real Bad Stuff starts happening. The problem is that, within the class constraints I put on my party (which I'm regretting, but until someone dies (if they even do) I'm playing by the same rules), I'm finding it hard to create a character to do exactly what I want.
Tome of Magic: Binder and Shadowcaster
Heroes of Horror: Archivist
Complete Arcane: All
Complete Adventurer: All
Complete Divine: All
Expanded Psionics Handbook: All
Tome of Battle: All
T.G. Oskar's Reworked Monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?226857-3-5-The-Retooled-Monk-Strikes-Back-now-with-150-more-complexity)
PRCs are wide open, I didn't touch any of them, so that's one angle.
I'm trying to avoid giving the character spellcasting, 'cause he's a high-up cultist of Vecna and has essentially his own take on the Hand available to him which will give him a decent amount of in-combat spellpower. I'm planning on giving him a handaxe just for the brutality of it, but I'm looking to try and avoid MADding him out on concept - he's running a huge cult and also playing heavily into the politics games, so his Cha and Int have to be fairly high. I kind of want sneak attack or something like it, but don't want to spread it too far. He started out as a minor NPC in my head, a Swordsage, but then I realized he was vastly more interesting than the other BBEG I was working on so gave him a huge promotion. He's also Vecna-blooded, as far as templates go.
<Name> is possibly the worst kind of evil - utterly impersonal. He's presently trying to set up the conditions for a genocide not because he has any feelings one way or another about the victims, but because it is both politically convenient and expedient, and it provides his organisation with easy victims for magical experimentation. His entire worldview is one of assets and liabilities, and he doesn't even really see anyone but himself as even a person. Everything else is just either a benefit to him to be leveraged or an obstacle to be overcome. Nothing is personal, everything is business, and the only thing that can even shake him out of this viewpoint is a direct threat to his own life. He has no moral compunctions about any action and arguably might lack even the barest semblance of a conscience. He's actually more vile by orders of magnitude than my end-game villain, he just doesn't have the ability to play on the sort of cosmic level said other villain does.
I realize this isn't much to go on, so if there are questions I'll clarify. I mostly just want to reconcile his need for high Int and Cha with a primarily melee combatant.
Tome of Magic: Binder and Shadowcaster
Heroes of Horror: Archivist
Complete Arcane: All
Complete Adventurer: All
Complete Divine: All
Expanded Psionics Handbook: All
Tome of Battle: All
T.G. Oskar's Reworked Monk (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?226857-3-5-The-Retooled-Monk-Strikes-Back-now-with-150-more-complexity)
PRCs are wide open, I didn't touch any of them, so that's one angle.
I'm trying to avoid giving the character spellcasting, 'cause he's a high-up cultist of Vecna and has essentially his own take on the Hand available to him which will give him a decent amount of in-combat spellpower. I'm planning on giving him a handaxe just for the brutality of it, but I'm looking to try and avoid MADding him out on concept - he's running a huge cult and also playing heavily into the politics games, so his Cha and Int have to be fairly high. I kind of want sneak attack or something like it, but don't want to spread it too far. He started out as a minor NPC in my head, a Swordsage, but then I realized he was vastly more interesting than the other BBEG I was working on so gave him a huge promotion. He's also Vecna-blooded, as far as templates go.
<Name> is possibly the worst kind of evil - utterly impersonal. He's presently trying to set up the conditions for a genocide not because he has any feelings one way or another about the victims, but because it is both politically convenient and expedient, and it provides his organisation with easy victims for magical experimentation. His entire worldview is one of assets and liabilities, and he doesn't even really see anyone but himself as even a person. Everything else is just either a benefit to him to be leveraged or an obstacle to be overcome. Nothing is personal, everything is business, and the only thing that can even shake him out of this viewpoint is a direct threat to his own life. He has no moral compunctions about any action and arguably might lack even the barest semblance of a conscience. He's actually more vile by orders of magnitude than my end-game villain, he just doesn't have the ability to play on the sort of cosmic level said other villain does.
I realize this isn't much to go on, so if there are questions I'll clarify. I mostly just want to reconcile his need for high Int and Cha with a primarily melee combatant.