Help building a minor villian

[DrMotives]

I've been introducing my kids to 3.x and rpgs in general, and have gotten a number of main villians including a BBEG setup for later, maybe levels 8-10. But right now, my characters party is all level 3. Two rogues, a druid, a cleric, and a dmpc psuedodragon, and none of them are experienced players so these aren't optimized characters.

To make them aware of a later secondary BBEG, a gnomish druid lich, I was thinking of having them meet & battle its animal companion, an awakened puma. Awakened puma (use leopard stats) doesn't seem that challenging by itself though, even if I slap on corpse creature and a few magic items. What's a good build, with either templates, advancement, or class levels to make it a decent challenge for my party?

[Know(Nothing)]

I dig the idea-- I actually think you could keep it as just the animal companion, but accompanied by treants, and other woodland allies. Some sort of posse. Maybe just a mundane wolf pack or something. A little stagecraft goes a long way. Have the puma have a high enough dex/disguise to walk around as a biped, and wear human robes. He will look like a druid, and you can do a fun switcharoo later when they figure out what's actually going on.

If you just want the vanilla puma on its own to pose a threat, you're going to have to be generous with the circumstances. If the puma knows there are adventurers onto his schemes, he may set up an ambush. Use hit and run tactics to lure them into a decent trap. The best villains at least SEEM smarter than the heroes, so something clever and deadly would be incredibly memorable. Have him lure them into a derelict building on the edge of town, and use the combat to weaken the building, potentially trapping/harming the party. Something like that. Something where he can either be convinced that the party is dead or will die, allowing him to leave early due to some plot-related "pressing matters."

Love the idea, all kinds of fun stuff you can do with that.

[Crake]

Well, I feel like i need to mention that lich requires *arcane* caster level, so a straight druid would not work. However, if you put the gnome into arcane heirophant, then you can combine the character's familiar and animal companion, giving it intelligence like an awakened creature (which by the way, awakened animals cant be used as animal companions) as well as some buffs that the villain could cast on it, such as imbue familiar with spell ability.

If the players are level 8-10, then a boss character (which i'm assuming this is) should be 3-4 levels higher. Theurging the character with arcane heirophant means that you wont have to worry about the villain having too much higher level spell access, but will have a wider array of tricks, and with his much more intelligent animal companion (that he can buff for when they meet him with various familiar combat spells) will be able to handle himself in the action economy without needing to resort too much to things like summons, or other minions.

Arcane heirophant is relatively easy to get into as well, 3 druid/3 wizard/8 arcane heirophant will be a CR14 enemy (including his companion). If he trades out the wizard familiar for something else like abrupt jaunt and instead gets obtain familiar (which scales with caster level, not wizard level), and practised caster, then also picks up natural bond to raise the level of his companion, he'll have a companion familiar (if you want to stick with leopard) with the following stats:

Leopard (Magical Beast [Augmented Animal])
9HD (9d10+27) 76hp
BAB: +9/+4
AC: 30 (6 dex, 14 natural) touch 16, flat footed 24
Abilities: 20 str, 22 dex, 16 con, 12 int, 12 wis, 6 cha (+1 to str and con from HD increase already included)
Feats: 4 of your choosing, Alertness (bonus), Multiattack (bonus)
Base Saves: +6 fort, +6 reflex, +3 will (use these or master's whichever is better for each one)
Special Attacks: deliver touch spells, Improved grab, pounce, rake
Special Qualities: SR 19 (5+master's CL), Improved evasion, speak with master, speak with animals of it's kind, share spells, empathic link, Darkvision 60ft (from being a magical best), low light vision, scent, Devotion

All in all, makes a rather formidable opponent on it's own, even more deadly with a few buffs (animal growth, combat familiar, imbue familiar with spell ability), plus the master can scry on it to observe the players fight it and learn their tactics.

Edit: I also just realised that that build gives you the minimum 11 arcane caster levels required to get into lich, so that works perfectly, I might actually steal this idea for my game :smalltongue:

Edit2: That might be a bit tough for a level 3 party to handle though, 30 AC and improved evasion makes most methods of damaging it quite unlikely to succeed. Perhaps rule that only the larger benefit to NA from animal companion and familiar applies, that would reduce it's AC by 6 to a more reasonable 24 (touch would remain the same and flat footed would likewise decrease by 6 to 18). It will still be a hard fight, but more beatable than needing to roll a natural 20 to hit (I doubt level 3s could manage more than +10 to hit short of a wizard with true strike and a crossbow)

[deuxhero]

How old are your kids? If they are older they may have issues killing a kid, even if they are a lich

While it will eat up some of the BBEG's feats (though they will apply to any replacement companion) Evolve Companion and Spirit's Gift add some really good abilities to animal companions (also Vampiric Animal Companion, the similiarlly named by not identical Vampiric Companion and Celestial Servant but those are racially restricted).

[Heikold]

If you want to make it more of a challenge I wouldn't worry about his stats so much as what he does to them.

Perhaps make him split the party up with a distraction so that he can pick on an individual or maybe have him set up an ambush complete with traps. Making them fight him after they've just had a massive net fall down on them from the ceiling should up the encounter level a bit!

Personally I really enjoy using poisons and diseases if I'm going for a clever ambush kind of character. You could have him sneak up on them and shoot them with diseased or poisoned arrows before running away and returning once they're sufficiently weakened.

I should warn you though that my players really hate me when I pull this stuff on them.