Building a Villain

[rs2excelsior]

NOTE: people on this board that are part of my gaming group IRL, don't read this, please! This is for my campaign starting up next school year.

To the rest of you:

I'm planning on getting back into DMing, and I want to run something mid- to high-level, which is something my group doesn't do often (our campaigns usually start at level 1, and don't run long enough to get much past 10-ish at best). I'm thinking about starting the party around level 12, and have the main villain at 17 or so. The problem with this is I don't know how to design for a high-level character. So I come humbly to the playground for advice.

The system is Pathfinder. I'm opening everything on the PRD to my players (with approval needed for the most off-the-wall stuff), so it's basically all open for the bad guys, too. The villain will be a tiefling cleric of one of the Four Horsemen (Fiendish Vessel cleric archetype, listed in the tiefling racial entry) bent on destroying everything his half-brother (the current king) has worked for or loves. Tactically, I'm thinking he'll let his minions do the fighting while he supports--unless he's enraged, at which point he should be a very fearsome opponent. I want him to be a cold, calculating mastermind, but subject to fits of rage and petty destruction.

So, I'm looking for suggestions for his build, for spells, feats, and the like, and for how he might use his spells both in battle and out.

Also, in an unrelated question for the same campaign, is there a daemonic sorcerer bloodline? There's Abyssal for demons and Infernal for devils, and even a Protean bloodline for the CN outsiders. But I can't find one for daemonic. I think Abyssal is probably good enough to work, but I'd like to know if I'm just missing something.

[Honest Tiefling]

You want the Daemon Bloodline from Blood of Fiends. I don't own it personally, but I do like what I have seen from stealing it from a friend. Then again, I won't be the most unbiased opinion of the book.

And before we can discuss tactics, where is he, and how is he going about destroying things? For instance, is it a highly populated kingdom in plains with river traffic? A remote mountain kingdom? Is he being ruthless and violently killing anything he loves? Or is he being sneaky, trying to more get into the king's mind as opposed to intimidating him? What sort of minions does he have a hold of, and how? How is their loyalty or obedience obtained? We need to know the battlefield before this can really happen.

[rs2excelsior]

HonestTiefling: thanks for that, I think I found it on the Pathfinder SRD. Definitely something worth looking into...

As for details about our villain... He's currently on the mostly unexplored southern continent, and his target is the dominant nation on the main continent. It's rather large with good farmland and river transport, a large population, and good natural resources. They have a good relationship with the dwarven mountain kingdom to the north and the halfling trading republic to the south, and a shaky peace with the expansionist multiethnic (but gnome-dominated) empire to the west, which is the second most powerful nation.

As far as direct or indirect, a bit of both. He wants to see the king's family (his wife, children, and grandchild) dead, preferably killed in front of the king but sending a body back will do. It doesn't much matter if it's by his hand or by his minions. He wants to tear down the king's reputation among the people and the kingdom's relationships with other nations, and to that end is manipulating frost giants and white dragons to attack both them and the dwarves from the north, pushing the gnomish empire to attack from the west, implicating the kingdom in aggression against other colonies on the southern continent, and finally staging an invasion of his own. In the end, he wants to see the kingdom ravaged by war, and lead the people to believe the king sold them out to the fiends in exchange for personal power. In the end he will take the king back with him, leaving his kingdom in ruins and his name in disgrace, and eventually kill him.

In terms of resources, he has probably a mid-level arcane caster (probably a wizard), a mercenary force of mid-level bugbears, and a small army of Dark Folk who he came to control through a combination of power and force of will.

But then, that's all strategic, and my concern is more on a tactical level, although any help is appreciated.

[atemu1234]

I'm assuming this is for pathfinder, because you mentioned sorcerer bloodlines...

Wizard is probably the best option.

[Honest Tiefling]

1) He worshops a Daemon. I'm a bit iffy on how they work, but I am going on the assumption that they'd quite like to destroy that farmland. You have dragons and daemonic powers. Wreck the harvest, people don't fight well when hungry. Plagues are also good here, especially if there are any that don't target humans but other races.
2) If he worships fiends, I'd say not to implicate the king in dealing with fiends. Again, dragons, so make people think that he's working with the dragons. This way, the idea of fiend doesn't enter into their minds, so they aren't brushing up on fiendish lore or prepping weapons to fight fiends which might come back to bite him in the rear.
3) Don't have the dragons attack the northern kingdom. Just the dwarves. This would be highly suspicious and foster more grudges between the humans and the dwarves.
4) He's a freaking king. If he hasn't managed to get some personal enemies within his own kingdom, then he's been murdering every noble and merchant. Find them, exploit them. In fact, if you can find a charsmatic man who can be manipulated or hired, have him take control of the kingdom as some sort of hero who fights against the tyrant making deals with who knows what. The mastermind villian might not want crapsville after he's ruined it and he already has a kingdom. This guy will make for a perfect distraction for any rag tag groups of people.
5) For some interest, what if there is a child or wifey that isn't going to be killed, but converted?

As for the other things, he's got Channel Evil, so body guards should be able to take advantage of that. I'd stat up some daemons or extra tieflings for this. Maybe even a fiendish dragon. The familiar gives divination abilities, which will be perfect for a mastermind. I think one problem is that the Daemons focus on disease, while a mastermind needs manipulation and divination magic to work. I'd suggest the Divination school of magic for theme and to make him truly dangerous, through Necromancy would be quite flavorful.

What are the PCs, anyway?

[I3igAl]

I'm thinking about starting the party around level 12, and have the main villain at 17 or so. The problem with this is I don't know how to design for a high-level character. So I come humbly to the playground for advice.

So, I'm looking for suggestions for his build, for spells, feats, and the like, and for how he might use his spells both in battle and out.

Daemons are all about capture souls and tradeing with Soul Stone in Pathfinder. You might want to incorporate this. The souls can be used for crafting and as Material compenents.
There is the Soul Eater Prestige Class for characters being servants of the 4 Horsemen. It has interesting powers.

About the villains it highly depends on your how powerful/rules lawyerish your players are. I normally tend to build my villains wih the final battle in mind and give them a tactic, they could use in such a situation. I also include their personality in their tactics.
If your Cleric is supposed to be some powerful general, you could have him buff uo and wade into combat. If he is a crazy old man, he would play like a full caster and rely on spells.
From your post it seems the group will be lvl 17, when facing the priest so an Epic encouncter would be CR 20.

Cleric lvl 19, 2 Crucidaemon as guardians for him or 1 Crucidaemon and 5 Piscodaemon meatshields
Feats: Combat Reflexes and Reach Weapon, Augmented Summons, Superior Summoning
Items: Lesser Rod of Quicken + diverse other mainly defensive stuff, some stuff for his Cacodaemon familiar
Spells: Summon Monster, Blasphemy other stuff

Round 1: Summon Monster IX(d4+1 reskinned Hezrous or a bunch of Daemons you add to his list), quickened Circle of protection against good to buff his small army, Familiar tosses Bag of Entanglement on character of your choice, have your Daemons make intimidate checks to reduce your characters attacks saves
Round 2: Quickened Gird Ally(+4Ac to Summons)keep Summoning and hide behind minions, Familiar keeps throwing bags, Piscodaemons and Summons block heroes and shield their master, Crucidaemons teleports behind isolated squishy target like wizard
Round 3: Blasphemy if many characters are close or Energy Drain(more Summons would be mean) Quickened Invisibilty Purge, Wind Wall if strong Archer is in group or some other low level spell, Daemonarmy tries to keep Fighters busy, Crucidaemon starts attacking(he has step up and Reach so espaping him isn't that easy), Familaiar keeps throwing
Round 3: toss in many mean but not fully disabling AoEs. You can sicken by Channeling, which would result in -4 on most heroes throws, since they are already shaken. Spamming Blasphemy is good. Even when the fighter save, they lose at least 1d6 Strength.

[rs2excelsior]

1) He worshops a Daemon. I'm a bit iffy on how they work, but I am going on the assumption that they'd quite like to destroy that farmland. You have dragons and daemonic powers. Wreck the harvest, people don't fight well when hungry. Plagues are also good here, especially if there are any that don't target humans but other races.
2) If he worships fiends, I'd say not to implicate the king in dealing with fiends. Again, dragons, so make people think that he's working with the dragons. This way, the idea of fiend doesn't enter into their minds, so they aren't brushing up on fiendish lore or prepping weapons to fight fiends which might come back to bite him in the rear.
3) Don't have the dragons attack the northern kingdom. Just the dwarves. This would be highly suspicious and foster more grudges between the humans and the dwarves.
4) He's a freaking king. If he hasn't managed to get some personal enemies within his own kingdom, then he's been murdering every noble and merchant. Find them, exploit them. In fact, if you can find a charsmatic man who can be manipulated or hired, have him take control of the kingdom as some sort of hero who fights against the tyrant making deals with who knows what. The mastermind villian might not want crapsville after he's ruined it and he already has a kingdom. This guy will make for a perfect distraction for any rag tag groups of people.
5) For some interest, what if there is a child or wifey that isn't going to be killed, but converted?

As for the other things, he's got Channel Evil, so body guards should be able to take advantage of that. I'd stat up some daemons or extra tieflings for this. Maybe even a fiendish dragon. The familiar gives divination abilities, which will be perfect for a mastermind. I think one problem is that the Daemons focus on disease, while a mastermind needs manipulation and divination magic to work. I'd suggest the Divination school of magic for theme and to make him truly dangerous, through Necromancy would be quite flavorful.

What are the PCs, anyway?

I think I'll incorporate some of this in, thanks! Especially 4 and 5, I'll definitely look into those. As for implicating that the king is working with fiends, he was going to start that after he was already there and fighting. "Oh, didn't you know? I'm here because your king sacrificed all of you to my master."

I have no idea what the PCs will be. This is still in the very early planning stages.


Daemons are all about capture souls and tradeing with Soul Stone in Pathfinder. You might want to incorporate this. The souls can be used for crafting and as Material compenents.
There is the Soul Eater Prestige Class for characters being servants of the 4 Horsemen. It has interesting powers.

About the villains it highly depends on your how powerful/rules lawyerish your players are. I normally tend to build my villains wih the final battle in mind and give them a tactic, they could use in such a situation. I also include their personality in their tactics.
If your Cleric is supposed to be some powerful general, you could have him buff uo and wade into combat. If he is a crazy old man, he would play like a full caster and rely on spells.
From your post it seems the group will be lvl 17, when facing the priest so an Epic encouncter would be CR 20.

Cleric lvl 19, 2 Crucidaemon as guardians for him or 1 Crucidaemon and 5 Piscodaemon meatshields
Feats: Combat Reflexes and Reach Weapon, Augmented Summons, Superior Summoning
Items: Lesser Rod of Quicken + diverse other mainly defensive stuff, some stuff for his Cacodaemon familiar
Spells: Summon Monster, Blasphemy other stuff

Round 1: Summon Monster IX(d4+1 reskinned Hezrous or a bunch of Daemons you add to his list), quickened Circle of protection against good to buff his small army, Familiar tosses Bag of Entanglement on character of your choice, have your Daemons make intimidate checks to reduce your characters attacks saves
Round 2: Quickened Gird Ally(+4Ac to Summons)keep Summoning and hide behind minions, Familiar keeps throwing bags, Piscodaemons and Summons block heroes and shield their master, Crucidaemons teleports behind isolated squishy target like wizard
Round 3: Blasphemy if many characters are close or Energy Drain(more Summons would be mean) Quickened Invisibilty Purge, Wind Wall if strong Archer is in group or some other low level spell, Daemonarmy tries to keep Fighters busy, Crucidaemon starts attacking(he has step up and Reach so espaping him isn't that easy), Familaiar keeps throwing
Round 3: toss in many mean but not fully disabling AoEs. You can sicken by Channeling, which would result in -4 on most heroes throws, since they are already shaken. Spamming Blasphemy is good. Even when the fighter save, they lose at least 1d6 Strength.

This... this is the kind of thing I'm looking for. I haven't played at high levels, so I don't know exactly how to have this guy go about fighting the PCs. I'll definitely take this into account, it sounds like it'd fit fairly well. Again, thanks!