Creating a level 30 evil casting npc - D&D 3.5 -

[willyryan]

in my game, i have a demigod of sorts want to get the party strong enough to help kill a god the only problem is I'm not the best at creating casters and my strongest player is a genius wen it comes to d&d. If anyone can help it would be awesome.

[DarkSoul]

How evil? What race? Allowed sources?

[willyryan]

He's CE he has been showing himself to the party as a divine celestial-like creature almost god-like but is disguising himself. (is actually fiendish) all 3.5 books available and as long as I can follow homebrew is fine. not sure wat a good race is human I guess unless someone can think of a better one.

[atemu1234]

Ok. So how powerful? For sheer power, it's hard to beat an epic-level Ultimate Magus Sorcerer/Wizard Incantatrix.

[willyryan]

I need all out to be a challenge to my party, my main player will have an ultimate amount of saves and AC

[DarkSoul]

If you balance the encounter around the strongest PC, and that PC is significantly stronger than the rest of the group, then you're going to obliterate the weaker party members.

That said, what kind of caster do you want? A blaster, for scaring the group with big damage numbers? A minionmancer with summons, undead, or constructs to fight for it? Someone who mind-controls people and turns the group against each other?

Casters can be many different types of villains. If you want some help with creating this NPC, you really need to give more information than "level 30 evil caster".

Also, what kind of characters are in the group? If the NPC took the time to study the PCs and choose them as his best shot at winning then he knows what the group is capable of, so you can tailor his abilities to suit your group. Most importantly, what kind of character is your "best player" creating?

[ExLibrisMortis]

Primordial half-giant paladin of slaughter 2/dread necromancer 3/incantatrix 5/dread necromancer +4/halruaan elder 5/dread necromancer +1/horned harbinger 10. Make sure DN levels 4 and 8 are used to get consumptive field and greater consumptive field. Houserule the HH animate limits to stack with the DN limits.

This gets you CL 40 (from Circle Magic, despite lost CL), then multiplied by 1.5 for persistent consumptive field and then 1.5 again for persistent greater consumptive field, and finally increased by 10 + CHA for animate dead, create undead and create greater undead. Since your charisma should be around 40, that translates to a final caster level of 115 for those three spells, including the SLA versions (no material components!) that the class lets you use. Incidentally, animate dead gets medium range from HH 7 onwards - that's animate dead on anything within 1250 feet. You can use a prayer bead of karma to increase this further (to 99 base), and so on.

Now, create your army. You get 115 * 25 HD worth of undead to play with, so drown the party in the most horrible things you can find. Make sure you use desecrate, Corpsecrafter and Nimble Bones to get +4 str, +4 dex, +10' speed, +4 inititative, and +6 hp/HD on all your undead. I understand awakened zombie great wyrm silver dragons are in vogue these days. Awaken undead is best done via your cleric cohort.

Oh, and remember that your legions can be expanded by the use of chained command undead, which, at your caster level, puts 20 undead targets under your control for a few months. Cast it just three times a day, and that's 90 days * 20 targets * 3 castings = 5400 undead under your control at all times, without HD limit (as long as they are mindless). The control is much more crude and easier to break, so use this only for your commoner-terrorizing troops, such as fire giant skeletons. The party should probably not be fighting these.

[Gildedragon]

It is hard to go wrong with a lich.
Or a spellweaver all those extra arms are handy.

[willyryan]

If you balance the encounter around the strongest PC, and that PC is significantly stronger than the rest of the group, then you're going to obliterate the weaker party members.

That said, what kind of caster do you want? A blaster, for scaring the group with big damage numbers? A minionmancer with summons, undead, or constructs to fight for it? Someone who mind-controls people and turns the group against each other?

Casters can be many different types of villains. If you want some help with creating this NPC, you really need to give more information than "level 30 evil caster".

Also, what kind of characters are in the group? If the NPC took the time to study the PCs and choose them as his best shot at winning then he knows what the group is capable of, so you can tailor his abilities to suit your group. Most importantly, what kind of character is your "best player" creating?

i have a necromancer, a rogue, an undead rouge of sorts, a master of many forms dude with barbarian and druid, full druid, and a paladin/favored soul/monk/??? <--this guy is my strongest player

he needs a good descuise and the party isnt supposed to win but i want it to be a challenge for all including me

[willyryan]

Primordial half-giant paladin of slaughter 2/dread necromancer 3/incantatrix 5/dread necromancer +4/halruaan elder 5/dread necromancer +1/horned harbinger 10. Make sure DN levels 4 and 8 are used to get consumptive field and greater consumptive field. Houserule the HH animate limits to stack with the DN limits.

This gets you CL 40 (from Circle Magic, despite lost CL), then multiplied by 1.5 for persistent consumptive field and then 1.5 again for persistent greater consumptive field, and finally increased by 10 + CHA for animate dead, create undead and create greater undead. Since your charisma should be around 40, that translates to a final caster level of 115 for those three spells, including the SLA versions (no material components!) that the class lets you use. Incidentally, animate dead gets medium range from HH 7 onwards - that's animate dead on anything within 1250 feet. You can use a prayer bead of karma to increase this further (to 99 base), and so on.

Now, create your army. You get 115 * 25 HD worth of undead to play with, so drown the party in the most horrible things you can find. Make sure you use desecrate, Corpsecrafter and Nimble Bones to get +4 str, +4 dex, +10' speed, +4 inititative, and +6 hp/HD on all your undead. I understand awakened zombie great wyrm silver dragons are in vogue these days. Awaken undead is best done via your cleric cohort.

Oh, and remember that your legions can be expanded by the use of chained command undead, which, at your caster level, puts 20 undead targets under your control for a few months. Cast it just three times a day, and that's 90 days * 20 targets * 3 castings = 5400 undead under your control at all times, without HD limit (as long as they are mindless). The control is much more crude and easier to break, so use this only for your commoner-terrorizing troops, such as fire giant skeletons. The party should probably not be fighting these.

love the idea but yeah not wat i had in mind