Help Building Big Bads!

[TheBrassDuke]

So I'm building two villains for our Sky Pirate-themed campaign, which spans the whole of my world. We've got dragons, dread pirates (some even bard liches!), wizards and witches!

And, of course, so much more!

But right now I'm focusing on two of the many bosses my party will face throughout their travels.

The first is "Saint" Eleisa ("Eel-Asia") Marche, a battle cleric.

Once known in her lands for being a devout champion for the Church of Creation, a righteous warrior for light and good, Eleisa was later wiped off the map during a plague.

In transit between this world and the next, Eleisa was met with a shadow, claiming to be a goddess in its own right, rivaling Creation Herself.

Long story short: our former Saint saw this being for the goddess She was, and, because it was the first Divine figure to reveal itself, all others must be false. Etc.

When the shadow promised to bring Eleisa back from the dead, she was directed to commit herself fully to the entity, and to enforce Her will in the world. Tear down all mocking temples, kill the false gods, etc.

Formerly Creation and Good, Eleisa's domains became Pestilence and Death. The Shadow gave her a bow with toxic arrows, and bestowed upon her the power of the very plague that killed her.

Tl;dr, Eleisa is known now as the Lady of the Plague, loyal to a fault, but now only to the Great Shadow, and is a warrior cleric of Pestilence. I imagine she's level 10-15 by the time our party faces her. At least for the first time.

Advice?

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Next is Clovis, a very Joffrey-like prince, irredeemably wicked and cruel. Born half-fey to the Emperor and his fairy queen mother, he has always been at odds with himself.

Some time in his life, both parents had a falling out, and the war began. In his time, his father taught him how to hunt the fey, all the while treating him like garbage for being a halfbreed. Clovis ended up hating himself, and when he finally grew into his wings, he had them torn off his back.

He tortures fey and men alike indiscriminately, and tends to display them in the main city at his principality, publicly and without remorse.

He is vile, he's cruel, and I doubt there's a trace of goodness in him, unlike the first villain.

(While I think Eleisa can be redeemed, Clovis must be destroyed if his reign of terror is to end...she doesn't necessarily have to be.)

Since he's half-fey, he boasts a decent Cha and Dex, so I'd thought about making him a Bard, while giving him a rapier with which he can perform various dances of death for his enemies.

I'd say level 13 to start.

Edit: Also, Clovis has two pets from the winterlands; a white tiger and a massive polar bear, that he uses for a mount.

Any and all ideas, from build to fluff, are welcome!

[Jormengand]

If you're going to be a battle cleric but still want pestilence/death, you're probably gonna want to go for Divine Disciple levels. Elesia looks like she'd make a good cleric 7/divine disciple 4 (we'll start her at 11th level, say). This means that she can take war domain and actually be proficient with her bow, as well as focused in it for good measure.

Clovis could easily be a paladin of slaughter/blackguard, accounting handily for his two mounts (though he'll have to take one that isn't actually on the blackguard list, which appears to be limiting, unlike the paladin one) and allowing him to double-up on divine grace. If you really want, you can read blackguard as granting all paladins, even paladins of slaughter, extra blackguard abilities. I suggest that paladin of slaughter 2/blackguard 2/bard 9 might be an idea. Of course, if you're feeling a little silly, you can take the From Smite to Song feat, giving you bardic music without needing bard levels, and then go paladin of slaughter 2/blackguard 2/sorcerer 6/sublime chord 3, giving him spellcasting that's only one level behind a real sorcerer's and martial ability that's somewhat useful (take Battle Sorcerer for better base attack bonus? It's only one point over the six levels, though...). Another possibility is to spend a point on speak language (Druidic) and start taking fochluchan lyrist levels, which would require you take the NE variant paladin (or just take blackguard). This would mean taking bard 8/blackguard 2/FL 3 and constantly wearing a ring of evasion or you lose all your FL features, or taking bard 4/rogue 4/blackguard 2/FL 3, or mucking about with rogue/assassin and From Smite to Song.

[BilltheCynic]

Fluff suggestion for your first villain:


In transit between this world and the next, Eleisa was met with a shadow, claiming to be a goddess in its own right, rivaling Creation Herself.

Long story short: our former Saint saw this being for the goddess She was, and, because it was the first Divine figure to reveal itself, all others must be false. Etc.

When the shadow promised to bring Eleisa back from the dead, she was directed to commit herself fully to the entity, and to enforce Her will in the world. Tear down all mocking temples, kill the false gods, etc.

Ok, I don't know about your world, but in most D&D settings this reason for converting would make no sense. Polytheism is the norm and an accepted fact by most of the religions. The few that insist otherwise (like the church of Pholtus in Greyhawk) are perceived as being crazy extremists. Finding out that other deities exist should come as no surprise to Eleisa, who has probably personally fought evil clerics and blackguards who draw power directly from evil gods.

I would suggest instead giving her a crises of faith in her god's goodness and wisdom. Perhaps a massive plague spread throughout the land, and Eleisa is trying to find its source. Her investigations suggest that there might be corruption inside the Church of Creation that's responsible. Greatly troubled by this, she brings her findings to the local archbishop, figuring that Creation would never let someone corrupt rise to such a high position. Unfortunately for her, the Archbishop is also a high priest of the god of Deception, Betrayal, Suffering, Despair, etc. He's responsible for the whole thing, and when he finds out that she's on his trail he slips a seditive in some food he offers her. When she awakes, she finds herself manacled in a basement in the cathedral, completely naked except for a ring of sustenance on her finger. She's inside an unhallowed area and she's been deliberately infected by the disease. There is a permanencied Minor Image of the Archbishop in the room who basically mocks her on loop until the disease kills her several days later.

Naturally, getting killed in a church of Creation by a supposed archbishop of Creation by the disease she was trying stop in such a humiliating fashion rather shakes Eleisa's conviction. She starts to question her devotion to Creation, about whether all of her service was to a being who was either too impotant to stop someone masquerading as one of it's own clergy or too apathetic or malicious to stop him. During her transit the Shadow comes to her. The Shadow recognizes her fragile state of mind and exploits it, saying all of her years of devotion were to a lie, completely meaningless. It then makes its offer: unlike Creation, it is upfront about what it is, Pestilence and Death. It would return her to life as it's servant, with the goal of spreading misery and showing everyone else just how little the gods care.

Now Eleisa's conversion from hero to villain is a tragic fall rather than her making a rather stupid conclusion in an openly polytheistic world. It also gives her a goal besides just spreading her new god's will: she wants to find and kill the 'Archbishop' for her humiliating death. Naturally, the Archbishop has moved on from that role, so she doesn't know where he is. This could lead to an interesting moment if the Archbishop shows up in game masquerading for a different religeon and becomes an 'ally' NPC for the party. He could begin spreading misery while feigning to help them, and Eleisa could recognize the MO and starting gunning for him, also bring Pestilence and Death where she goes. The Archbishop could then easily frame her for the initial plague and send the party after her. Should be quite interesting, especially when the party discover's their "ally's" true allegiance, and depending on how they play it could lead to Eleisa's redemption or tragic death. Maybe even both.

Just my 2 cp.

[Efrate]

Druidic is a secret language, you can't just drop a point in to get druidic IIRC, gotta take a level in druid. Speak language only works for the "normal" languages.

You could try to have some pychic reformation/mind rape by someone who knows it however though. Maybe a cruel fey druid/psion got ahold of not-joffrey after an unsuccessful hunt and burned the language into his mind as a way of tormenting him with some of nature's language or somesuch?

[Jormengand]

Druidic is a secret language, you can't just drop a point in to get druidic IIRC, gotta take a level in druid. Speak language only works for the "normal" languages.

Maybe he has a Blighter friend who taught him? I don't think there's actually anything stopping you from learning it with Speak Language, it's just that you can't have it as a racial bonus language.

[AnimeTheCat]

So, I really like the Stormlord class from Complete Divine (I think). Basically you specialize in Javelins (or any weapon really) and whenever you use a weapon of that kind it is treated as a Shocking weapon (+1d6 Lightning damage). It can be reflavored easily for whatever deity, weapon, or weapon property that you want. Its very cool and gets good spell progression (8/10 I believe) as well as some more "war cleric" style abilities.

As for Clovis... I have no ideas for him. He just seems very generic and lots of generic things can fit him. That's not a bad thing by any means, and the story sounds good and full, I'm just at a loss for a compelling character class suggestion.

[Kelvarius]

Fluff suggestion for your first villain:

[snip]

Just my 2 cp.

I love that idea. I second this.

Edit: Forgot to ask, how optimized/unoptimized do you want these villains to be? What's the party composition/optimization level at?

[BilltheCynic]

If I might also offer some fluff advice for Clovis. First though, some questions:


Some time in his life, both parents had a falling out, and the war began.

What war? Is the war still going on? If so, who's winning? If not, what was the outcome?

Also, is his father still alive? What about his mother? If so, what is their current status both in the world and with him? If not, how did they die?

Ok, now that that's out of the way, the suggestions. First, I am a firm believer that villains need a motivation besides just "I want to torture life because I'm evil!" Even if they are pretty much pure evil, they should have a goal to what they do, even if the goal is as simple as "I'm bored and this could be entertaining." For Clovis, it sounds like he has serious issues with both of his parents. He hates his fey heritage, but his father made him feel like he was worthless. His goal is to basically prove himself, to show that he can be a worthy successor to the human kingdom. Unfortunately, he got in his head that a good ruler should use Machiavelli's The Prince as a handbook, hence all of the cruelty.

I would also suggest that you make his fey heritage have a very tangible effect on him besides just having wings and looking prettier. Namely, he is physically incapable of saying something he knows to be untrue. He can mislead people, let them come to false conclusions, but he cannot outright lie. This could be a constant source of frustration for him, since he sees it as part of the weakness of his fey heritage, but he has learned to be very, very good at misleading without outright lying over the years.

Next, you need a reason for him to still be the ruler. Why haven't the people rebelled against someone who publicly tortures and displays fey and human alike? Why hasn't one of his underlings stages a coup against him, counting on the people welcoming being freed from the cruel tyrant? My suggestion is to take a page from the North Korea's Dear Leaders: he's fostered a massive cult of personality around himself, and the people have been brainwashed and pretty much worship him as a deity. Unfortunately, also like North Korea, his totalitarian regime is not very economically sound, and the once flourishing empire is now facing severe economic problems. He could use the fey as his societal scapegoat, blaming them for all of the empire's problems. This would also explain why he publicly tortures fey and humans: the fey are obviously an inferior race trying to sabotage his empire, and the humans he tortures are obviously fey collaborators. Of course, he does have the problem that he himself has fey blood, but he would imply and have underlings claim that is just a scandalous rumor spread by the fey. Anyone who openly speculate that is clearly in league with the fey, trying to spread doubt about his regime, and will be summarily and publicly tortured for a "confession" and executed.

This fluff would greatly complement bard levels that he would have. He would basically be an evil diplomancer with sky high social skills. Some Evangelist levels would work quite well with that concept.

My 2 cp.

[Flickerdart]

What sort of campaign is it? Do you expect the PCs to walk in and start trading full attacks with the bad guys until the bad guys fall down, or does the villain need to be proactive and TPK-ready to give a real challenge?

[TheBrassDuke]

I will have more details after work. I apologize for not responding to all these ideas so far! I will clarify soon! Thank you so much for the help so far!

[DrMotives]

For Clovis, instead of a straight paladin or blackguard, I like the idea of a mystic ranger entry into prestige paladin of slaughter. I know the alignment requirements don't match up, but I think allowing a the "fallen" mystic ranger to use spells through the paladin +to previous spell levels. It gives his a dark fey hunter vibe to match the evil warlord from the pally levels, which I think expresses the half-human half-fey better than straight slaughter pally or blackguard does.

[TheBrassDuke]

Fluff suggestion for your first villain:

[Snip]

Just my 2 cp.

I will be using this instead, thank you. For some reason it feels like you already know her. And that is awesome. A bit scary, because you thought about it. But pretty awesome! Thank you much!

I also wanted to say, on her side of the world, in the particular area, their faith believed Creation to be the One True God, and I apologize for not saying as much.


If I might also offer some fluff advice for Clovis. First though, some questions:

What war? Is the war still going on? If so, who's winning? If not, what was the outcome?

Also, is his father still alive? What about his mother? If so, what is their current status both in the world and with him? If not, how did they die?

Ok, now that that's out of the way, the suggestions. First, I am a firm believer that villains need a motivation besides just "I want to torture life because I'm evil!" Even if they are pretty much pure evil, they should have a goal to what they do, even if the goal is as simple as "I'm bored and this could be entertaining." For Clovis, it sounds like he has serious issues with both of his parents. He hates his fey heritage, but his father made him feel like he was worthless. His goal is to basically prove himself, to show that he can be a worthy successor to the human kingdom. Unfortunately, he got in his head that a good ruler should use Machiavelli's The Prince as a handbook, hence all of the cruelty.

[snip]

This fluff would greatly complement bard levels that he would have. He would basically be an evil diplomancer with sky high social skills. Some Evangelist levels would work quite well with that concept.

My 2 cp.

I must say, I'm loving the fluff for both so far, and you have been supremely helpful! I really appreciate it, and my players will thank you.

As for your questions:

1) the war began between Clovis's father and mother, when the latter refused to give him rights over her lands--she married the man out of love, but also to keep peace between the humans and and her elf and fey subjects beyond the wood. Clovis's father wished to push into her lands, as by marriage they were also his. But the Queen forbade it, saying that nothing good would come of it.

Bickering led to fighting, which led to murder attempts, and, finally a war. She was banished, and Clovis began his new lessons. (Mind, the common folk are unaware the second Queen was fey, as there may have been a revolt. The racism didn't begin with the king. Hence Clovis's keeping his heritage a secret.)

The war still rages, but the Queen has mysteriously disappeared. It is unknown where it'll go from there. The king is still alive and well, and is grooming his two human children--the older siblings--to usurp the thrones of two neighboring kingdoms. Clovis has been left to fight the fey.

I'll take a look at Evangelist, too.


What sort of campaign is it? Do you expect the PCs to walk in and start trading full attacks with the bad guys until the bad guys fall down, or does the villain need to be proactive and TPK-ready to give a real challenge?

I expect them to run at least once or twice, if that's any indication. I'd like them to fear for their PC's lives. Eleisa and Clovis aren't my pushovers, by a long shot. We're not super high-op, but I've promised a TPK for those who don't play carefully (which is why they pay attention to what they make now). I like villains that are challenging.




Chi-ga-si
I'm seeing a character that makes extensive use of reach. A possible combat style would be to make him a dex fighter with low strength and weapon finesse (basic fey), so he hits often but not very hard. To further enhance the idea of slipperiness, give him the ability to move 15ft whenever a melee attack misses him. This, along with a 60ft movespeed and 15ft reach makes him a perfect hit and run attacker.

When I read this, I immediately thought of Clovis's fighting style. As a bard, he could pull it off. Could a Paladin of Slaughter? I've been researching, and it does seem tempting.

[TheBrassDuke]

I'd also be interested in any ideas for equipment and magical items for these guys, while we're at it. And again, thank you all so far!

[BilltheCynic]

For Eleisa, she could have some nightsticks from Libris Mortis to boost DMM cheese. A Strand of Prayer Beads (SRD) could boost caster level, give more summons, and other evil perks. Adamantine fullplate combined with an animated shield would also be quite useful. Depending on how cruel you're feeling, a weapon with the Wounding Enhancement would fit thematically and make her quite scary. I would also suggest giving her a ring of sustenance that she keeps as a reminder of what she perceives as Creation's betrayal and to kill the Archbishop.

For Clovis, if you want to make him a diplomancer, Admiral's Bicorn from Stormwrack gives a +5 untyped bonus to charisma rolls. Mask of Lies from the MIC gives +5 competence bonus to bluff as well as constant undetectable alignment and disguise self 3/day. Masterwork tools of diplomacy and sense motive would also help.

Just remember: don't give either of them items that you wouldn't be ok with your players getting their grubby little hands on.

[TheBrassDuke]

A majority of my players will use their loot without abusing it, but you're right. We do have those two who are unpredictable. >_>

[TheBrassDuke]

I'm struggling with Alignments for these two villains. I thought about Lawful Evil for Eleisa, but wasn't too sure.

For Clovis, I figured Chaotic Evil, without the obvious ridiculousness of said Alignment. He's half-fey, so has the chaotic nature of his faerie mother, but is quite evil. So it fit. But I'm not so sure.