Help building a lich BBEG in gestalt E6

[GM1010011010]

Hi all, as this is my first post I hope everything is in order, if not let me know ASAP!

I'm currently running a 3.5 gestalt E6 campaign with characters I've ported from an old AD&D 2E game as lvl6 characters already. I've reintroduced a lich wizard as the main antagonist and would like to stat him to know how he's able to twart them and fool them if at all possible, considering that the power disparity between him and the players is way smaller than it used to be.

I know there should be no lich by default in E6 with the required CL11, but I'm willing to skip this point of the rules. Otherwise I play with pretty much any printed 3.5 book, I dont own or play with any dragon magazine sources, am open to homebrew but like to stick to official sources (reflavoring is ok with me though).

What I'm aiming for is a undead overlord schemer, a behind the curtain kind of guym way more than a blaster or an enemy to confront directly. I was planning on having wizard6 on one side of the gestalt and found out I was at a lost with regards to the other side, and wizard is not a must, only arcane casting is. And then while looking for ideas I thought of asking the playground for help with regards to the whole character.

Anyway, thanks in advance for any input!

[Ellowryn]

The simplest and most powerful choice would be cleric on the other side, giving you a rebuke undead pool and access to the Animate Death spell to actually make undead (its a 4th level wizard spell). Death Master also works (it's in Dragon Compendium), giving you Int synergy and both rebuke undead and animate dead but has a much smaller more specialized (and arguably weaker) spell list.

Is there any fluff for this particular BBEG to help point his build in any direction?

[ExLibrisMortis]

You could consider three levels cloistered cleric, with the Undeath and Planning domains and DMM:Persist. Instead of wizard 6, take wizard 3/mystic theurge 3, and using the last three levels (that don't need to advance cleric spellcasting, thanks to MT) on a level warlock (Beguiling Influence invocation), a level binder (Naberius) and a level Master of Masks. MoM requires Bluff, Disguise and Perform (act), and while warlocks have the first two in-class, Perform is a bit of an issue. PF has traits that let you get it in-class, but 3.5 does not, so it'd cost a feat (not sure how costly this is in E6).

The Master of Masks grants you the ability to craft masks (surprised :smalltongue:?), which amongst other things "conceal your alignment, replacing it (for the purpose of detection spells or abilities) with an alignment appropriate to the mask". You start with two masks. If you pick, say, the High Priest and Archmage masks, you get +2 caster level for divine and arcane spells, depending on what you're wearing, some SLAs, and your alignment will appear NG or CG respectively.

Edit: MoM plus the bead of karma mentioned below gets you CL 12, enough to craft a phylactery.

[ZamielVanWeber]

A divine caster 6 with a bead of karma and a +1 to caster level from anything else can access the lich template by RAW and it cleaves closer to E6.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Beguiler would be my go-to choice for a manipulator enemy. Combine Beguiler 6// Wizard 5/ Mindbender 1 and you've got the perfect Int-SAD build for what you're looking for. Give him Versatile Spellcaster and he can spend two Beguiler slots of the same level to cast a Wizard spell he knows of one level higher, which enables him to gain Ray of Stupidity from Advanced Learning, and give him Mindsight from Lords of Madness p126. Wizard should be specialized in Conjuration with Abrupt Jaunt, and Enchantment and Illusion prohibited, since he can still get all the best of those schools from Beguiler. Use this Wizard variant (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#wizard) to get Improved Initiative instead of Scribe Scroll, and trade his Wizard 5 feat for either Spontaneous Divination or a domain power (Inquisition or Planning or Travel).

[xyianth]

How broken powerful do you want this lich to be?

One of the strongest E6 arcane caster builds I've ever come up with could easily be one half of your gestalt lich:

race: gray elf
build: beguiler 1/elven generalist domain wizard 1/wu jen 1/warmage 1/spellthief 1/ultimate magus 1
feats: versatile spellcaster[1], fortify spell[flaw 1], practiced spellcaster(beguiler)[flaw 2], repeat spell[3], sanctum spell[wu jen 1], master spellthief[6]

The way this works is:

Versatile spellcaster lets you combine 2 slots to cast a spell you know one level higher
Beguilers know their whole list from level 1, so you know 9th level spells
Elven generalist wizard gets a bonus spell slot per day of the highest spell level they can cast
Domain wizards get a bonus spell slot of each level they can cast
Therefore, you get 2 bonus slots of your highest level, which you could use with versatile spellcaster to cast the next highest level, which then means you have 2 bonus slots of that new level, etc...
This results in you having spell slots equal to 5/3 as a beguiler and 3+1/1+1/0+1/0+1/0+1/0+1/0+1/0+1/0+1/1+1 as a wizard at 2nd level
At third level, you prepare sanctum repeat mordenkainen's lucubration in your bonus 9th level slot from elven generalist wizard. Every time you cast this spell, it restores itself and whatever spell you cast before it. (no higher than fifth level) These restored spells occupy the slot they were in. Every time after the first, each casting of this spell restores 2x 9th level slots. (restoring itself twice) Do this to acquire as many 9th level slots as you like.
Those extra 9th level slots contain an otherwise useless spell, but combine 2 of them via versatile spellcaster to cast any spell you know up to 10th level. You know the entire beguiler and warmage lists plus all of the spells in your spellbook as a wizard and wu jen. When you run low on slots, just use sanctum repeat mordenkainen's lucubration to get more.
At 6th level, you gain the master spellthief feat which sets your caster level for all arcane spells to 5(beguiler)+2(wizard)+1(wu jen)+1(warmage)+1(spellthief)+1(arcane power +1)=11.
As an elf, you never need to sleep, but you would need 8 hours of rest to refresh slots. Fortunately, you can just create slots as needed and spontaneously cast from those.

This therefore has incredible arcane casting capabilities and sufficient caster level to make a phylactery. (if you don't use flaws, get the required feats using the epic progression rules of E6)

You can further break this apart using a couple of additional tricks:

Use two 9th slots via versatile spellcaster to cast a sanctum fortify(+4) disintegrate then cast a sanctum repeat mordenkainen's lucubration to recover it in a 10th level slot. Repeat to get a 2nd 10th level slot, then increase the fortify level by one and repeat the process to get an 11th level slot. Do this until you acquire a 17th level slot.
Use the dark chaos shuffle on the racial elven proficiency feats to pick up silent spell, still spell, quicken spell, innate spell(wish), and supernatural spell(wish)

Now you have wish as an at-will supernatural ability.

And this is just one half of a gestalt build, though at this point your other half could be commoner for all it really matters. :smallbiggrin:


Obviously this is TO levels of optimization, but you are the DM. If you wanted, you could make a monster that has an ability that says: I Win(Ex): all PCs immediately die because I said so. (no save) This is just a rule-consistent(although extremely cheesy) method of creating a superpowered arcane caster within E6. You could easily just choose not to cast insanely powerful spells when facing your PCs, allowing you to play your lich however you want him to play. He would still have the hp, BAB, saves, etc... of a fairly normal E6 character.


In case anyone is curious, I originally put this build together for a joke campaign based on 8-bit theater. This was Sarda, the wizard who did it. I do not, under any circumstance, advocate playing it as a PC in any real game.

[Yogibear41]

If hes a smart lich, he would have made the transition to undeath within a desecrated area dedicated to a bad deity so he gains +2 bonus HP per level. As far as the lich template in e6, with enough feats and money a level 6 character can get the caster level he needs to get that CL 11 requirement.

I see alot of wizard/cleric or wizard/death master suggestions, those are both good ideas, but maybe you could consider wizard/psion for another option. Or maybe even wizard/duskblade, I am 90% sure a duskblade can channel any spell he knows into his weapon with his level 3 power, not just the ones on his duskblade list, so you could potentially channel cool wizard spells in melee combat.

Another cool, but not neccessarily super op choice would be to use an evil paladin and sorcerer, or maybe even have an incarnate and wizard and go for those neocarnum soulmelds, althought you would have to take a feat to make it run off of wisdom instead of con.

[Uncle Pine]

The bone creature template (BoVD) will let you create an E6 "lich" easily and completely by the book.

[GM1010011010]

Wow these are great suggestions I'd never thought of!

For the fluff, the campaign takes places in a valley human centric kingdom sundered by war. The valley is populated by 3 ancient tribes lead by their patron deity, but there used to be a 4th tribe that was crushed by the gods in a cataclysmic event. Now the lich is a powerful scion of the 4th tribe and one of the few survivors through undeath. He seeks revenge first against the tree other tribes subverting them to its will and then he wants revenge against the gods of the other tribes, probably using elder evils inspired stuff ala pandorym.

For the brokeness level I'd want him to be a really tough multiple encounter kind of guy, so he'd have the power to beat the party face to face in the open 50/50. In its lair or with a prepared environment though he should win most of the time. I thought of giving him at least 4 feats above the lvl6 as per the e6 rules, and WBL of at least a lvl13 character.

The desecrated area is a nice idea and I'll use it for sure.

I also like the beguiler side and the master of masks build as I want him to focus on manipulating leaders of the sundered kingdom. Wizard and cleric surely have the tools but I want him to seek revenge against the gods so ur-priest would fit better somewhere.

If you have any more ideas I'd be glad to hear them as since he's the endboss I'm not there yet and I want to make him as interesting as can be.

[TheTeaMustFlow]

Personally, I don't see why you couldn't give him the vanilla lich template. Sure, in the normal rules you need to be eleventh level, but... this is E6. You're not playing by the normal rules. The only part of the template that might be problematic in E6 is the DR 15/Bludgeoning and Magic, which I'd recommend reducing a little or changing to a different type (possibly DR15/Silver).

Also, my evil secret for making E6 BBEGs - break the rules. Put the party up against a character with a few levels beyond the limit. It's an unspeakably evil and powerful being, twisted by endless undeath - having terrible powers beyond the ken of mortal man is what it does.

[ShurikVch]

How about that one..?
Race: Shyft (Fiend Folio) - Planetouched, LA: +3
Template: Lichfiend
Class: Warlock 6
Invocations: The Dead Walk, Beguiling Influence, Entropic Warding or Summon Swarm, Spiderwalk or Baleful Utterance; Extra Invocation - Charm or Flee the Scene

CL 11: Shyft have CL 9 SLA from the very start; use Terran Brandy for +2 CL

[ExLibrisMortis]

Hmm, Ur-Priest... that's tricky, because you can't qualify until 6th level, and that doesn't even get you up to 2nd-level spells. Each bloodline level you add allows you to have higher-level Ur-Priest casting (as you're qualifying earlier and earlier), but that's somewhere between cheesy and broken. Four levels Ur-Priest, however, is really great flavour-wise, as you get divine spell resistance 15 and the ability to cast 0 4th-level spells per day, which is beyond the normal power level for E6.

@xyianth: How do you figure a repeat sanctum Mordenkainen's lucubration can create a spell slot? You recall a spell known, sure, but after all your spell slots are filled, there's nothing more to recall, because recalled spells are 'stored in your mind as if they were prepared in the normal fashion', which does not create spell slots.

Edit: You might need to throw Arcane Preparation in there, or something. That allows you to prepare spells in spontaneous slots, and if Versatile Spellcaster gets you a spontaneous nth slot, you can prepare a spell in there, and then lucubrate the n-2ths back to create more nths. However, Versatile Spellcaster doesn't give you an actual slot to prepare a spell in (and no slot you can recover with lucubration), so that fails.

[ZamielVanWeber]

How about that one..?
Race: Shyft (Fiend Folio) - Planetouched, LA: +3
Template: Lichfiend
Class: Warlock 6
Invocations: The Dead Walk, Beguiling Influence, Entropic Warding or Summon Swarm, Spiderwalk or Baleful Utterance; Extra Invocation - Charm or Flee the Scene

CL 11: Shyft have CL 9 SLA from the very start; use Terran Brandy for +2 CL

Making it a lesser planetouched strips away some of the things he could theoretically do as well as his level adjustment (so the players can call fewer shenanigans on them). Take Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd and you are good to go.

[ShurikVch]

Making it a lesser planetouched strips away some of the things he could theoretically do as well as his level adjustment (so the players can call fewer shenanigans on them). Take Craft Wondrous Item at 3rd and you are good to go.Lichfiend must be evil Outsider
Lesser planetouched will be "normal" Lich

[ZamielVanWeber]

Lichfiend must be evil Outsider
Lesser planetouched will be "normal" Lich

I missed the lichfiend line. In which I very highly recommend going lesser. The dr of a lich can be bypassed by a magic weapon spell and a quarterstaff, or wild cohort/animal companion with a bite and magic fang. At 4th level Vow of Poverty will confer it on the natural weapons and unarmed strikes of the feat holder and of course there is simply having a magic bludgeoning weapon. The dr of a lichfiend is difficult to bypass as it will require a lesser fiendslaying crystal (At the minimum) which in turns requires a magic weapon and knowing that you need the crystal (Since they are useless outside of a niche).