Villainous Competition XX: Elder Evil [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

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Thurbane

2017-04-16, 07:07 PM

Welcome to Round 20 of the Villainous Competition!

Previous Competitions
Round One: Leader of Armies (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?395046)
Round Two: Nature's Revenger (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?400517)
Round Three: Double Agent (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?406015)
Round Four: Grave Keeper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?413480)
Round Five: Crime Lord (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?420704)
Round Six: Ultimate Predator (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?430650)
Round Seven: Wicked Witch (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?444478)
Round Eight: Master of the Tundra (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?461482)
Round Nine: The Power of Villainous Thinking (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?474230)
Round Ten: Henchman Are Villains Too (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?478068)
Round Eleven: The Higher They Rise The Harder They Fall (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?483052)
Round Twelve: Power Comes at a Price (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?488846)
Round Thirteen: The Gadgeteer - You Are Not Batman (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?491932)
Round Fourteen: The Thing That Should Not Be (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?496091)
Round Fifteen: The Horsemen Are Drawing Nearer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?500829)
Round Sixteen: Burn Baby Burn (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?503974)
Round Seventeen: It's Alive! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?507768)
Round Eighteen: This is Heresy (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?511933)
Round Nineteen: He Slimed Me! (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?516535)

We're a little different than most of the optimization threads. We run on CR instead of ECL.

Contestants:
You will need to present a write-up of your build with at least one of the following points: 5 CR, 10 CR 15 CR, 20 CR, and a "sweet spot" that you feel is the high point of the build, as well as presenting a fully-fleshed out 20 CR build in the table below. Feel free to present as many of these as you like, and please give a rundown of the build's abilities and playability at all of the levels you didn't show. The rules are as follows:

Secret Laboratory:
Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Web-exclusive 3.0 or 3.5 materials by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition. Leadership and all similar abilities are banned for sanity reasons.
Builds that are fully monstrous are allowed at no penalty. All class levels are to be added on as associated class levels.
Elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is the assumed ability score generation method.
Some monstrous characters can technically qualify for Epic feats as soon as their ECL is over 20. While regular Epic feats will be allowed, Epic Spellcasting and all other Epic feats that affect spells, psionic powers, or item creation are not permitted. Including these would give an unfair advantage over standard characters. For Incarnum characters, Epic Open Chakra feats are allowed; other Epic Incarnum feats are not. The Essentia Capacity increases for Epic capacity as described on p. 212. For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20.

Deadlines:
Contestants will have until 23:59 GMT Thursday May 25th to create their builds and PM them to the Supreme Chancellor. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges will have until 23:59 GMT Saturday June 10th* to judge the builds and submit their scores. If no judges have scored by that point, only the scores of the first judge to submit will be counted. *Judging deadline is subject to extension as/if required.

Judging:
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Build Elegance, Competence and Power, Memorable Villainy.
Keep these questions in mind when judging each category:
Originality - Is it unexpected?
Build Elegance - Is it mechanically pretty?
Competence and Power - Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Memorable Villainy - Is this a villain with style? Will it be the BBEG players long to finally kill and then talk about for weeks?
Unearthed Arcana can be penalized for elegance if the specific feature seems unnecessary or makes the playing field unfair (In this case, you can give a 1 if it makes the field unfair.)
Power level is up to you. Cheese is acceptable, but should be kept to a sane level unless you're showcasing a new TO build you've discovered. As the Iron Chef competition states, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.
You may not judge if you entered the contest, unless you withdraw your submission.

Presentation:
Builds will be posted anonymously, in order to avoid the potential of bias towards a particular competitor. For this reason, please don't put your name in the build, as I'm likely to miss it when reviewing the entries!

Note:
There is now a hard limit on two (2) entries per competitor.

Using the table below, the easiest way to use it is to go to the top left of the private message, and click the little a/A icon. It allows you to see what you're writing.
Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, I'd like everyone to try to use the following table for their entry.

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

1
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

2
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

3
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

4
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

5
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

6
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

7
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

8
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

9
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

10
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

11
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

12
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

13
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

14
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

15
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

16
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

17
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

18
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

19
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

20
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

Code immediately below (spoiler).

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

1
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

2
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

3
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

4
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

5
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

6
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

7
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

8
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

9
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

10
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

11
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

12
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

13
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

14
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

15t/td]
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

16
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

17
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

18
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

19
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

20
New Class Level
+x
+x
+x
+x
Skills
Feats
New Class Abilities

You can use the table below for Spells.

Spells per Day/Spells Known
Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th

1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Code Immediately Below,
Spells per Day/Spells Known
Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th

1st
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

[td]2nd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

3rd
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

4th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

5th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

6th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

7th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

8th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

9th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

10th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

11th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

12th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

13th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

14th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

15th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

16th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

17th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

18th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

19th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

20th
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

Speculation:
Please don’t post or speculate on possible builds until the reveal, in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Get ready to share those Evil thoughts. This edition’s villain is:

Elder Evils!

Limitations

Must be a cultist, worshipper, emissary or other servant of an Elder Evil (as per the book Elder Evils. I believe a handful of additional Elder Evils appeared in other official sources - these are also allowed)
Optional: you may create your own custom Elder Evil for the entry to be the servant of. If you do so, please use a format similar to the official Elder Evils, and present enough info for your new Elder Evil to be used in someone else's game. WARNING: this may entail a lot of work. This is the first time we are opening up what is essentially homebrew, so try to use a little common sense and don't use this as an opportunity to "break the game".
As always, must be Evil in alignment

We will award 1st through 3rd places, and a possible Honorable Mention.
So, start your evil plotting!

Submission:
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:

PM: Thurbane
Subject: Villainous Competition 20, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mail box.
More questions? PM me with Villainous Competition 20 Questions in the header.

Tips for submitting your entry, provided by Weaselguy:

- Use capitalization and punctuation, correctly.
- Make good use of Spoilers, for cleanliness.
- Don't forget your sources. If it's something that can be found in the contents section, then book title seems to be fine. Obscure stuff, may want to include page number too.
- DeviantArt has about 9 billion pictures that you can reference, I can almost guarantee you can find one there to fit your character.
- Make good use of tables. In addition to the Build table and the Spells table, I like doing on e for my Ability Scores, just to keep it neat.
- Do a build stub at the top of your Build Table, something like Wizard 2/Fighter 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 10

As always: let's keep it nice.

I'll mention that again - LET'S KEEP IT NICE! Bickering, name calling and nasty comments on the entries or other forum members are not tolerated.

New competition rule: if I feel an individual has been overly disruptive during the course of competition discussion, I will not be accepting and revealing any entries from that individual, and they will also not be allowed to judge. Any judging they enter will not be taken into account for the final tally.

It's sad that it had to come to this, but here's a list of permanently banned (from this comp) members:

Novolin (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/member.php?148361-Novolin)

Thurbane

2017-04-16, 07:08 PM

This rounds entries:

Miguel Two Stride (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032790&postcount=121)
Henry Bowyer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032797&postcount=122)
The Crimson Baroness (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032798&postcount=123)
The Warden of Reality (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032805&postcount=124)
Kelvin Sifuri (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032906&postcount=128)
Karen Greyspark, Servant of Elessis, the Forgotten Light (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032908&postcount=127)

On the subject of messaging the chair (me), a few guidelines:
- I am not here to give critiques on your build or guess how the judges might score it! I tend to get quite a few messages of this nature each round.
- For entries, please keep the entry to no more than 2 messages, if at all possible.
- For entries, don't expect me to search through your entry and edit in or out material. Entries should be sent to me complete - if there is a later revision, re-submit the full build. PLEASE DON'T INCLUDE TEXT IN YOUR SUBMISSION YOU WANT ME TO EDIT OUT FOR THE POST - SUBMIT IT TO ME EXACTLY HOW I WILL POST THE FINISHED PRODUCT.
- Please make sure the name of your entry is clearly present in the message.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/4e/Elder_Evils.jpg

Since some people might not have the book, here are some links to excerpts from it on the old D&D website, which should provide good examples on what an Elder Evil might look like:
The End Times (https://web.archive.org/web/20090602224033/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20071203a&page=1)
Signs of Apocalypse (https://web.archive.org/web/20090602224024/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20071203a&page=2)
Atropus, the World Born Dead (https://web.archive.org/web/20090602224021/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20071203a&page=4)
Kyuss, the Worm that Walks (https://web.archive.org/web/20090602224034/http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20071203a&page=5)

Technetium43

2017-04-16, 07:10 PM

Boy am I ready for this one! Going with a custom Elder Evil, already got the main villain and the concept completed, now I just need to... do creative writing... maybe I didn't think this through so much. Worst comes to worst I could always just finish up Ragnarök and submit that. :smalltongue:

Venger

2017-04-16, 07:33 PM

I'm so in to cook. Great call on making the custom elder evil optional, that way everyone can enjoy this round.

Telonius

2017-04-16, 07:39 PM

Absolutely in as a competitor. I have a great concept that I might just turn into a campaign of my own at some point. :belkar:

danielxcutter

2017-04-16, 07:45 PM

Hmmm... Just to clarify, would a villain abusing the effects of their master's signs be bad sport? I don't think it would be, if they aren't totally dependent on them...

LarwisTheElf

2017-04-16, 10:21 PM

Ooh this looks fun. Definitely count me in for this round. Going for a custom Elder Evil, because why not? All the normal world ending baddies just don't cut it for me. Why have vanilla when you can make your own awesome flavor after all?

Thurbane

2017-04-16, 11:36 PM

Hmmm... Just to clarify, would a villain abusing the effects of their master's signs be bad sport? I don't think it would be, if they aren't totally dependent on them...

I guess it's all the eye of the beholder/judge...

khadgar567

2017-04-16, 11:59 PM

Small question / info dumb
can we use gitp regulars as elder evils treat as material in competition?

Thurbane

2017-04-17, 12:17 AM

Small question / info dumb
can we use gitp regulars as elder evils treat as material in competition?

I'd recommend against it - it feels a little out of place here, and more at home in one of Snowbluff's threads.

khadgar567

2017-04-17, 12:22 AM

I'd recommend against it - it feels a little out of place here, and more at home in one of Snowbluff's threads.
Okay then lets forget it so have good competition good luck to every competitor may the most evil one wins

Tiri

2017-04-17, 03:44 AM

So, just to clarify, we can use elder evils not in the Elder Evils book but from other official sources, right?

Thurbane

2017-04-17, 07:38 AM

So, just to clarify, we can use elder evils not in the Elder Evils book but from other official sources, right?

That is correct.

GrayDeath

2017-04-17, 09:23 AM

Muhahahhaa......exactly my kind of comp. :smallbiggrin:

Gotte find my copy of Elder Evils and get to work, on both my own Elder Evil and my "Cultist".

:)

ben-zayb

2017-04-17, 09:58 AM

I bet there will not be a single Evil from Elder Evil in this comp.

And then, Vizzinie strikes, making each entry for an Elder Evil from that same book.

Buufreak

2017-04-17, 10:23 AM

And then, Vizzinie strikes, making each entry for an Elder Evil from that same book.

Not just that, but the same Elder Evil.

Sian

2017-04-17, 10:42 AM

Might actually have an idea or two ... Although to be frank I'm somewhat unsure if I'll ever get around finishing it :D

3SecondCultist

2017-04-17, 10:55 AM

Considering I've just spent the past few weeks finishing prep to run an Elder Evil game with my own custom villains... I think I'll be able to come up with something extra special for this round. :smallamused:

Tiri

2017-04-18, 02:12 AM

I think the Elder Evils picture would look better centred. Just a thought.

remetagross

2017-04-18, 03:30 AM

So Thurbane, if we create our own Elder Evils, we still have to stick with the available pool of published signs/malefic influences, right? Basically, we can home-brew fluff but not crunch?

Thurbane

2017-04-18, 07:07 AM

So Thurbane, if we create our own Elder Evils, we still have to stick with the available pool of published signs/malefic influences, right? Basically, we can home-brew fluff but not crunch?

I think that's probably the best way to handle it, yes.

But I could be convinced otherwise, if that's what people want.

ben-zayb

2017-04-18, 07:33 AM

Telonius

2017-04-18, 07:36 AM

khadgar567

2017-04-18, 07:56 AM

Some of them are good in combos (dead sun and blood moon)

Tiri

2017-04-18, 08:21 AM

The published signs aren't necessarily going to match with the fluff of what the homebrew Elder Evil is about. There are lots of ways to end a world; not all of them are going to involve weird weather or restless undead.

There do have to be some restrictions, though. This round barely has any as it is and personally I don't think that allowing homebrew any further than it already is is good for an optimisation competition.

Thurbane

2017-04-18, 08:47 AM

I'd probably prefer sticking to the published material. There's already more than enough freedom by way of having no mechanical restrictions for the build itself compared to the other rounds (and certainly compared to Round X), I believe.

There do have to be some restrictions, though. This round barely has any as it is and personally I don't think that allowing homebrew any further than it already is is good for an optimisation competition.

I tend to agree. We're treading a bit of new ground as-is in this round. Lets try to stick with officially published signs etc.

I hope I haven't crushed anyone's build ideas, but if we make the competition any more home-brewed than what we have already allowed this round, I feel it might get out of control...

Strigon

2017-04-18, 09:30 AM

I tend to agree. We're treading a bit of new ground as-is in this round. Lets try to stick with officially published signs etc.

I hope I haven't crushed anyone's build ideas, but if we make the competition any more home-brewed than what we have already allowed this round, I feel it might get out of control...

Hmph...
Well, you haven't necessarily crushed any of my ideas; technically, you've actually made one more viable, because the signs I was going to use for that one would be too close to an established Elder Evil.

I was looking forward to seeing the signs others came up with.
I get where you're coming from, though; we need some established rules, or else things absolutely will get taken advantage of.

Telonius

2017-04-18, 09:38 AM

Venger

2017-04-18, 04:24 PM

The Viscount

2017-04-18, 05:33 PM

I'm happy with that, I find a bit of guideline comforting to work along.

Telonius

2017-04-18, 07:17 PM

... and, I may have found a work-around for mine. We'll have to see, but I may put it together yet.

remetagross

2017-04-18, 07:48 PM

I'll try to go for it as well :)

GrayDeath

2017-04-22, 04:32 PM

And here goes my Idea of a Sign increasing everybodies muscle mass until they explode.

Phew....damn. ^^
Jokes aside,that did put a dampener on my plan, back to the drawing board it is then.

danielxcutter

2017-04-22, 05:09 PM

And here goes my Idea of a Sign increasing everybodies muscle mass until they explode.

Phew....damn. ^^
Jokes aside,that did put a dampener on my plan, back to the drawing board it is then.

My idea involved increasing the ego scores of symbionts as well as the odds of meeting one. Drat.

Technetium43

2017-04-22, 05:11 PM

So, I know we can't like, make up new signs, but are we allowed to refluff existing ones? I can't really think of an example that doesn't like, directly spoil my build, but as long as the mechanical effects are the same can we add our own sort of fluff to it? Just to match up better with a wider potential range of Elder Evils, as the ones in the book are, by and large, tailored to the existing Elder Evils which only cover a small number of themes.

Thurbane

2017-04-22, 05:52 PM

Telonius

2017-04-27, 09:38 AM

So how's the villainous plotting coming along? I think I've settled on just about everything.

remetagross

2017-04-27, 09:44 AM

I got a nice little thematics, not sure how effective a villain that will prove to be though...

Just to be sure: contestants must bring forward a character build a minima, right? Stuff like depicting the Elder Evil like it is done in the book is optional?

ben-zayb

2017-04-27, 10:37 AM

I've had this concept for an existing elder evil for a while now, but of course it's not a proper build competition for me without doing 80% of the character during the last three days before deadline.

That said, I've had this spark of inspiration for a new elder evil emissary based on one of the existing signs. Problem here is I still suck at writing, so I'm not sure how to approach the Elder Evil fluff, and by how much should I flesh it out.

3SecondCultist

2017-04-27, 11:42 AM

I have two builds, each using a different Elder Evil sign (I'm keeping one of the original signs with the Evil, and re fluffing another). That's okay, right?

Tiri

2017-04-27, 12:38 PM

So how's the villainous plotting coming along? I think I've settled on just about everything.

I have two sentences of backstory done.

The Viscount

2017-04-27, 07:55 PM

So how's the villainous plotting coming along? I think I've settled on just about everything.

I've definitely got my concept, I just have to finish putting some crunch to it.

GrayDeath

2017-04-29, 06:39 AM

Sadly no more than the name of the EE and a few Background Notes are finished.

Swamped with work until at least next week....again, sigh.

VisitingDaGulag

2017-04-29, 06:17 PM

Probably not participating incase someone else wants to do it, but I'll be watching. The last thread I read about elder evils (www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=16014) made D&D so much better.

Thurbane

2017-04-29, 06:52 PM

Just a reminder to everyone: creating a new elder evil is completely optional.

If you feel a bit daunted by the amount of work, it's completely fine to base your entry off one of the existing Elder Evils.

Tiri

2017-04-29, 10:22 PM

I'm sure they're aware. Everyone just wants to show off their creativity and make the most of homebrew actually being allowed.

GrayDeath

2017-04-30, 08:54 AM

I'm sure they're aware. Everyone just wants to show off their creativity and make the most of homebrew actually being allowed.

That.

Even if my first Idea was shot down.....^^

Buufreak

2017-05-05, 12:20 PM

I have found something:

Skills: A lycanthrope gains skill points equal to (2 + Int modifier, minimum 1) per Hit Die of its animal form, as if it had multiclassed into the animal type. (Animal is never its first Hit Die, though, and it does not gain quadruple skill points for any animal Hit Die.) Any skill given in the animal’s description is a class skill for the lycanthrope’s animal levels. In any form, a lycanthrope also has any racial skill bonuses of the base creature and of the base animal, although conditional skill bonuses only apply in the associated form.

If you can multiclass to Animal, Animal is a class. So all RHD are classes. So all the people in this competition who advanced the RHD should have done it as associated so all those builds are illegal!

In not so black and white, (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monstersAsRaces.htm)it isn't explicitly stating that they are not one and the same, however the amount of times it references the difference between hit dice and class levels, especially when talking about RHD that are kept, as well as when RHD are replaced entirely and solely by class levels, would beg to differ.

The Viscount

2017-05-05, 02:03 PM

If you can multiclass to Animal, Animal is a class. So all RHD are classes. So all the people in this competition who advanced the RHD should have done it as associated so all those builds are illegal!

The iffiness about animal HD counting as a class aside, you'll have a tough time proving that it applies to other types.

The more important issue is that regardless of the above statement, lycanthrope has a specific line about CR.

By class level or base creature, modified according to the HD of the base animal: 1 HD or 2 HD, +2; 3 HD to 5 HD, +3; 6 HD to 10 HD, +4; 11 HD to 20 HD, +5; 21 or more HD, +6.
So if you want to post about it move it to dysfunctional rules, but if the builds abide by this rule, they're legal.

Buufreak

2017-05-05, 02:15 PM

Actually, in the other thread I found that in I'm not so sure about now. It seems like there is arguing for both sides. But it is something to think about in the rules.

So you took shaky, half baked reasoning of a misreading, and the say so of a single person who was on your side, and based an entire argument of "every build that uses any HD that didn't explicitly come from a class is illegal" on it? This series has seen plenty of trolls, but I don't think any so blatant.

Technetium43

2017-05-05, 02:25 PM

Also, this competition doesn't even USE the 'associated/non-associated' class rules. So it doesn't matter either way.

Buufreak

2017-05-05, 02:27 PM

Also, this competition doesn't even USE the 'associated/non-associated' class rules. So it doesn't matter either way.

I'm not sure how that is applicable here. His argument simply was all HD, RHD included, were class levels, and thus any build using RHD that pushed their total above or below 20 were thus illegal. Nothing about the associated class level rules were ever mentioned.

Tiri

2017-05-05, 02:50 PM

The competition does use the associated/non-associated class rules, actually. It's just that all classes are treated as associated.

Thurbane

2017-05-06, 04:17 AM

FWIW, a certain someone posting in this thread was already well and truly on my watch list of being a clone account of a previously banned member, who also caused a lot of problems in the various VC competitions.

The timing of the when the account appeared was one thing, but there was also a relatively inflammatory post put into a previous VC thread by the account that was deleted moments after it first appeared - very reminiscent of the modus operandi of a certain banned account.

New competition rule: if I feel an individual has been overly disruptive during the course of competition discussion, I will not be accepting and revealing any entries from that individual, and they will also not be allowed to judge. Any judging they enter will not be taken into account for the final tally.

I got to the point of resigning as chair the last time a troll (or possibly a pair of trolls) were ruining all civilized discussion in the competition thread.

I'm not letting it happen again.

It seems to be there is one or two people out there that seem to have some sort of personal vendetta against the particular competition, so they do their best to be a disruptive influence to the process. It's kind of pathetic, actually.

Buufreak

2017-05-06, 11:18 AM

Tiri

2017-05-06, 01:39 PM

Inevitability

2017-05-06, 02:23 PM

The Viscount

2017-05-06, 02:34 PM

Well said, well done. I support you.

Finally getting down to work on the entry proper.

Telonius

2017-05-06, 03:12 PM

Two thumbs up from me. Can't wait to see the entries this time!

On a completely unrelated note, idea for the next competition: "Why won't you die?" - villains that keep coming back.

Venger

2017-05-06, 04:02 PM

Thurbane

2017-05-06, 06:21 PM

Is there going to be a blacklist or something akin to that now? Or will the ban apply only to individual rounds?

I think I'll play it by ear. At the moment probably on a round-by-round basis, but if I feel the disruptions are serious enough, a blacklist is definitely an option.

Hear hear! But on a side note, I don't think its anything against this series, just usual idiotic troll behavior. We just happen to be the unlucky receivers.

You might be right, but it seems posts from these two or three accounts appear exclusively (or almost exclusively) in VC threads, or threads very closely linked to VC discussion.

Who was that?

Hi Novolin.

You don't seem to have posted on these forums very much lately. Just curious, what brings you back at this exact moment?

D&DPrinceTandem

2017-05-06, 10:56 PM

Haven't already told you all i am everyone you have never met in person. Really no one seems to listen.

Aside from that..... Worms are fun to play with........ [get it.. cuz.... yea.... i know i will leave now *walk of shame*]

Buufreak

2017-05-07, 09:50 AM

You probably

Pot, meet kettle.

khadgar567

2017-05-07, 10:45 AM

okay guys and gals lets return the competition shall we ( in whispers quick put some advertisement so treat not derails)

Tiri

2017-05-07, 11:42 AM

okay guys and gals lets return the competition shall we ( in whispers quick put some advertisement so treat not derails)

Nobody is discussing anything unrelated to the competition, Khadgar.

khadgar567

2017-05-07, 12:09 PM

Nobody is discussing anything unrelated to the competition, Khadgar.
sorry about that tiri but i feel railroad slipping and not want to lose part of the treat to unnecessary discussion

Tiri

2017-05-07, 12:19 PM

sorry about that tiri but i feel railroad slipping and not want to lose part of the treat to unnecessary discussion

What is 'railroad slipping'?

The Viscount

2017-05-07, 01:11 PM

Nobody is discussing anything unrelated to the competition, Khadgar.

While that may be true, I don't see anything good coming from this line of conversation.

Buufreak

2017-05-07, 01:33 PM

Okay, then I'll distract! Competitors who made their own EE, did you find it easier to make the character first or second?

Technetium43

2017-05-07, 04:10 PM

I made the Elder Evil first, then the character, then decided to rework the Elder Evil into a DIFFERENT new Elder Evil so.... both? :smalltongue:

Tiri

2017-05-08, 04:34 AM

I'm curious; did anyone not make their own Elder Evil?

zergling.exe

2017-05-08, 04:37 AM

I think we're getting into territory that is better left alone till the competition ends now. Cause if only one person steps forward and only one build is vanilla...

Tiri

2017-05-08, 04:47 AM

I doubt it. Nothing is a guarantee unless we know the person submitted, which is something we can't at this point, and it's not as if every build is completely anonymous anyway.

Thurbane

2017-05-08, 01:03 PM

I agree that this strays a bit too close to speculation on builds.

I don't want to stifle conversation, but maybe we could hold off for now.

Thurbane

2017-05-15, 03:37 AM

...and as I was about to announce: there will be a 1 week extension due to forum downtime. I have updated the OP.

GrayDeath

2017-05-15, 12:59 PM

Since I gotta work till next sunday, but have free time after that, could you put the deadline to say.... the 25th?

I hate to be a bother, but the forum being off (and hence some ressources gone) and my workload made me .. less than productive, and I I REALLY want to partake here!

Venger

2017-05-15, 01:01 PM

your magnanimity knows no bounds, Thurbane. thanks a lot. I was kind of screwed since a lot of resources I tap for vc/ic are housed on the boards.

Thurbane

2017-05-15, 04:27 PM

In the sake of fairness and more entries generally making a better comp (to a point of course), I'll extend to the 25th.

remetagross

2017-05-16, 04:19 AM

That is awesome. I usually entirely work by PMing myself so I was completely blocked :smallbiggrin:

danielxcutter

2017-05-16, 04:23 AM

Not going to participate, but thank goodness for the extension - I was worried that people might have trouble getting their builds in due to the forum problem. Since my DM's just started an EE themed campaign, maybe I should point him to this thread... or maybe not, considering what you guys can come up with. :smalltongue:

GrayDeath

2017-05-17, 12:31 PM

THanks a lot!

I still have to do all the mechanical stuff except basic class choice and Elder Evil SIgn, so the three additional days will help tremendously!

Tiri

2017-05-20, 01:41 PM

I almost wish the deadline hadn't been extended, because it just means more time before I can read all those interesting entries, but I suppose it will be worth if if even one more submission makes it in.

Thurbane

2017-05-22, 09:29 PM

Doctor Awkward

2017-05-22, 10:26 PM

remetagross

2017-05-23, 01:48 AM

Mine is well under way :)

Tiri

2017-05-23, 07:08 AM

The problem I had is that I already submitted a servant of a custom Elder Evil, making use of the Appalling Fecundity sign, for the second villainous competition. I rather liked the end result and couldn't really motivate myself to start from scratch, especially considering how coldly it was received.

Resubmitting that same entry for the "official" Elder Evil round obviously wouldn't work because everyone would know it was mine.

Well, it may not be as big a problem as you think, if you personally don't mind exposing yourself. Some entries really scream out their creator's name anyway.

On the other hand, depending on the Chairman's opinion on the matter they might just decide not to accept the submission anyway.

Buufreak

2017-05-23, 08:32 AM

I'm hoping for a few to snipe it at the deadline, all "Kill the Animals" style.

GrayDeath

2017-05-23, 12:21 PM

Well, I am working on it atm, and will be.doijg so again tomorrow.

I.really really hope to be able to get it.in before.the.deadline....Btw, could you state.the exact time in GMT? Various.time.zones often confuse me :p

Venger

2017-05-23, 02:41 PM

A bit under three days to go if I'm counting correctly. How are we going?

I'm going to be brutally honest: the amount of entries so far is quite small. Maybe the ingredient was a bit ambitious.*

If you wanted a good chance at a podium finish, this is probably a good round to get an entry in.

*I know it probably goes without saying, and I've mentioned it already, but coming up with your own Elder Evil was entirely option, if you're feeling daunted. It's entirely within comp rules for this round to submit a servant or worshiper of an established Elder Evil.

It's going well. I ought to have mine in before the deadline. I like this theme for an ingredient, I've just had a busy schedule.

Well, I am working on it atm, and will be.doijg so again tomorrow.

I.really really hope to be able to get it.in before.the.deadline....Btw, could you state.the exact time in GMT? Various.time.zones often confuse me :p

as per the op, deadline is 23:59 GMT Thursday May 25th

D&DPrinceTandem

2017-05-23, 03:38 PM

Well, it may not be as big a problem as you think, if you personally don't mind exposing yourself. Some entries really scream out their creator's name anyway.
You mean like me :smalltongue:

As for how its going.... Its going great...ish, got really side tracked lately, though I will aim to be more on task so I can get one in.

daremetoidareyo

2017-05-23, 03:40 PM

RIP Thurbane's inbox

Thurbane

2017-05-23, 05:15 PM

On the other hand, depending on the Chairman's opinion on the matter they might just decide not to accept the submission anyway.

I wouldn't have any particular issue with someone "recycling" an entry.

RIP Thurbane's inbox

:smalltongue:

Venger

2017-05-24, 04:07 AM

sitting in an empty airport at 4am working on my entry. seems fitting.

GrayDeath

2017-05-24, 05:36 AM

Lucky you.
My PC just decided to need.... Something repaired. Dont know what yet, likely my data is ok, but I can't access it at the moment. :(
Almost none of my data is on my phone.

****,damn it!

Now that that's out of the way:

Seems you'll have to do it without my contribution, as it's not likely I'll get it repaired AND find the time to finish it up till the deadline.

Sorry.

ben-zayb

2017-05-24, 09:57 AM

RL got surprisingly busy, and TBH my customized EE cultist entry might be better off on a different round, as the greater power didn't really need to have the label of an Elder Evil anyway.

Looking forward reading everyone's entries, though. Best of luck to everyone!

remetagross

2017-05-25, 12:08 PM

Build submitted! No less that three hours before the deadline :D

Venger

2017-05-25, 01:20 PM

Build submitted. This is going to be a great round.

Thurbane

2017-05-25, 05:00 PM

Just on one hour to go before the official deadline.

Due to time zone differences and work commitments, the reveal is likely to be in 10 hours or so - I will accept entries up until the reveal.

If anyone desperately needs a day or so extension, I may be willing to consider it...

The Viscount

2017-05-25, 05:25 PM

Mine's finally in. Down to the wire seems to be how it always is, but I'm happy with what I made.

Technetium43

2017-05-25, 05:58 PM

Thurbane

2017-05-25, 07:16 PM

Ugh. I spent like the entire time working on something, only to realize it wasn't within the limits of the competition, and now I'm basically left with nothing but and idea and a statblock. I'm considering posting it after the reveal, but I might not even do that in case I want to use it for another competition. I might be able to finish in time if I just graft the character to an existing Elder Evil, but like, why even bother at that point? With health stuff and depression acting up, I just don't have the energy to write out the descriptions.

Totally up to you.

If you want to hold the concept for a future comp, all good.

If you want to enter it for consideration, that's good too.

If you want to PM me your concerns regarding the limits of the comp, I'll be happy to reply.

danielxcutter

2017-05-26, 02:27 AM

Is there still time to submit

No, the deadline's passed.

khadgar567

2017-05-26, 02:31 AM

Is there still time to submit

No, the deadline's passed.
i think chair man still collects until reveal so last 10 -x hours

Tiri

2017-05-26, 02:31 AM

No, the deadline's passed.

I was under the impression we could submit until the reveal.

Due to time zone differences and work commitments, the reveal is likely to be in 10 hours or so - I will accept entries up until the reveal.

D&DPrinceTandem

2017-05-26, 02:32 AM

Is there still time to submit

No, the deadline's passed.Yes but it has to be before the reveal wish is within about 30 min

danielxcutter

2017-05-26, 02:36 AM

Sorry for the mistake. I keep forgetting some of the rules.

remetagross

2017-05-26, 02:40 AM

That is good. Thanks.

Do you plan to submit something in such a short notice?

Inevitability

2017-05-26, 02:43 AM

Youll see.

Quoting for posterity.

remetagross

2017-05-26, 02:56 AM

Same as why I answered as a quote.

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 04:15 AM

OK, time for the reveal!

PLEASE REFRAIN FROM POSTING UNTIL I GIVE THE ALL CLEAR

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 04:16 AM

https://www.unbelievable-facts.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Iron_man_from_Indonesia.jpg
Miguel Two-Stride: Herald of Pandorym

LE human wizard 5/renegade master maker 5/ landforged walker 5

str 10
dex 12
con 14
int 15 (increases here)
wis 13
cha 8

Excerpt from the personal diary of Ansiern D’Arvo

The ink I use to deface my skin before summoning these demons is beginning to give me a rash. It’s better than actually carrying this evil brand upon my flesh when I have to go to the market, but I’ll ask father if he has any alternatives. The facade feels as though it’s slipping. Sometimes, they don’t come when called at all. Father never had this problem.

It’s been almost a year since he revealed the family secret to me. We’ve been in good standing with the Church of Vol for many generations. I thought we were true believers, and have always acted accordingly, though my heart was never in it.

Imagine my relief when he explained our status, a small splinter within the church. Working secretly to help confound some of their more admittedly sinister goals, relocating some of the targets of assassination assigned to us and such. We’re known somewhat fittingly as the clot. By our allies, we’re regarded as disrupting the flow. By our enemies, we’re viewed as a malign presence.

Eventually, like the strokes caused by our namesake, we hope to stop the flow of the blood of Vol entirely. My father says it may not be accomplished during my lifetime, but that’s why keeping our own bloodline going is so vital. Ironic, I suppose.

The time to induct my son is near. I think I’ll wait until his next birthday. I’m not sure of his trustworthiness keeping secrets, though I suppose the fact I know none of his may speak to that ability.

The presence of the clot is becoming known in the church. Always, we’re on the lookout for new tools to use against the church.

Through my nominal day trade as a spice merchant, I’ve come across someone practicing mystical arts the likes of which I’ve never seen. He goes by Miguel, and is pioneering some technique where the demons we hoodwink into our service no longer return to their native planes. Something about sending false signals back to their home plane to make it think it’s already recalled them.

In truth, it’s a bit over my head. Fortunately, in order to sustain this magic, he requires vast quantities of holy salt from some obscure retreat. As luck would have it, I am happily equipped to provide it to him in exchange for his mystical acumen.

I’d thought I might be able to justify the expense by selling a bit on the side, but its flavor is a bit bitter for the local palate. Presumably an acquired taste from the Mulan region, where our new friend claims to have resided once.

I confessed a certain curiosity as to how he processed such great quantities of it, since personally, too much salt gives me a touch of indigestion. While I had been too polite to comment on it at our first meetings, Miguel is in possession of a prosthetic jaw. Not so ostentatious that it draws the eye, in brass or gold, but a functional thing of iron. He explained there is more of the sort within him, and I considered the matter put to rest.

Excerpt from the journal of Plerian D’Arvo

The funeral was today.

We were along on a sightseeing tour with some of Orien’s people movers and we suffered a mishap. All of father didn’t arrive with us. They told us it had never happened before, but it was a small comfort.

Father was laid to rest with the best ceremony money could provide, courtesy of house Orien, of course. Later, the church had an appropriately dramatic sendoff of its own. When we gathered to partake of his blood, I could scarcely choke it down. Miguel was kind enough to provide some of that purple-tinged salt he always kept close, and sure enough it helped it go down more smoothly.

The hand with which he made the addition to my sorrowful cup wasn’t the one he was born with. It was a gleaming silvered thing. I hadn’t heard of him being in an accident and privately wondered whether he had flagellated himself cosmetically, like some of the youths who paint their faces silver or pierce their ears with screws to irritate their parents. I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to look like a warforged, and from what I know about him, Miguel certainly doesn’t seem like that flavor of iconoclast.

But, of course, it was hardly the time to ask such questions.

I should have seen it coming.

Miguel’s hand was a slippery slope. From that point, something in him had cracked, and I don’t speak of the porcelain fittings he had embedded in his chest. Every meeting between us, he seemed to have left more of himself behind. I had great difficulty meeting his gaze, and not just because of that shining bauble that now served as his left eye.

Without Orien’s transportation network, the world is in chaos. I’ve had to lay off many of my employees since the cost of business shipping spice the old fashioned way has risen so much. We’re hardly starving, but the family has had to make certain sacrifices. We’ve sold the summer home.

I’m out of practice calling demons, but it now no longer matters. No one who is not of this world is now welcome. We are truly alone.

Miguel refuses to answer to his given name, and insists upon being called Obligatum the Eighth. This was among the last thing he said to me before he leapt from my balcony and was pursued by the wardens from Deneith.

While in polite conversation outside of the clot, Miguel had always been appropriately sympathetic to the plight of the warforged, I had underestimated the amount of affinity he felt with them.

He regarded the treatment of their race to be proof that the rest of us were undeserving of the life we had been gifted with and sought a way to right what he saw as this injustice.

I know the mineral he had me carting off to his residence by the truckload was the prison for an ancient presence known as Pandorym. Miguel is off to make his way there as I pen these words and finish what he started. He may have to lie low for some time, but if such talk can’t be merely excused by his utter insanity, he claimed that with his most recent spate of deformities in place, he will outlive us all, even after the coming scourge by Pandorym.

There is nothing left for us but to wait. May the Host help us all.

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

1
Wizard 1
+0
+0
+0
+2
craft (armorsmithing) 4, k (arcana) 4, k (geography) 2, k (nature) 4, spellcraft 2, survival 4 (2)
least dragonmark: mark of making (repair light damage), mark of the dauntless, willing deformity (elder evil)
Abrupt jaunt, scribe scroll

2
Wizard 2
+1
+0
+0
+3
craft (armorsmithing) 1 (5), k (arcana) 1 (5), k (nature) 1 (5), survival 1 (2.5), spellcraft 1 (3)

3
Wizard 3
+1
+1
+1
+3
concentration 2, craft (armorsmithing) 1 (6), k (arcana) 1 (6), spellcraft 1 (4)
craft wondrous item

4
Wizard 4
+2
+1
+1
+4
concentration 2 (4), craft (armorsmithing) 1 (7), survival 1 (3.5), spellcraft 2 (6)

5
Wizard 5
+2
+1
+1
+4
concentration 2 (6), craft (armorsmithing) 1 (8), survival 1 (4), spellcraft 2 (8)
deformity (madness) (elder evil)
craft magic arms and armor

6
Renegade mastermaker 1
+2
+3
+1
+6
survival 1 (4.5), umd 7
southern magician
Battlefist, craft master

7
Renegade mastermaker 2
+3
+4
+1
+7
concentration 4 (10), survival 1 (5), umd 3 (10

Battlefist (+1), self-repair

8
Renegade mastermaker 3
+4
+4
+2
+7
concentration 1 (11), k (arcana) 3 (9), k (planes) 2, survival 1 (5.5), umd 1 (11)

Supporting construction

9
Renegade mastermaker 4
+5
+5
+2
+8
concentration 1 (12), k (arcana) 3 (12), k (planes) 1 (3), survival 1 (6), umd 1 (12)
extend spell
Damage reduction 1/adamantine

10
Renegade mastermaker 5
+5
+5
+2
+8
k (arcana) 1 (13), k (planes) 5 (8), survival 1 (6.5), umd 1 (13)
deformity (face) (elder evil)
Battlefist (+2)

11
Renegade mastermaker 6
+6/+1
+6
+3
+9
k (arcana) 1 (14), k (planes) 5 (13), survival 1 (7), umd 1 (14)

12
Renegade mastermaker 7
+7/+2
+6
+3
+9
k (arcana) 1 (15), k (planes) 2 (15), survival 1 (7.5), spellcraft 4 (12), umd 1 (15)
snowcasting
Embed component

13
Renegade mastermaker 8
+8/+3
+7
+3
+10
k (arcana) 1 (16), k (planes) 1 (16), survival 1 (8), spellcraft 4 (16), umd 1 (16)

Damage reduction 2/adamantine

14
Renegade mastermaker 9
+8/+3
+7
+4
+10
dd 5, k (arcana) 1 (17), k (planes) 1 (17), spellcraft 1 (17), umd 1 (17)

Battlefist (+3)

15
Renegade mastermaker 10
+9/+4
+8
+4
+11
dd 5 (10), k (arcana) 1 (18), k (planes) 1 (18), spellcraft 1 (18), umd 1 (18)
energy substitution (electric), abominable form (elder evil), ironwood body (bonus)
Construct exemplar

16
Landforged walker 1
+9/+4
+10
+4
+11
k (nature) 9 (14)

Body of nature (Hide +4, divine focus)

17
Landforged walker 2
+10/+5
+11
+4
+11
k (geography) 3 (5), k (nature) 6 (20)

Body of nature (resistance 5, natura l armor +1), green mind

18
Landforged walker 3
+11/+6/+1
+11
+5
+12
k (geography) 8 (13), k (nature) 1 (21)
born of three thunders
Body of nature (healing herbs), speak with plants

19
Landforged walker 4
+12/+7/+2
+12
+5
+12
k (geography) 8 (21), k (nature) 1 (22)

Body of nature (resistance 10, natural armor +2)

20
Landforged walker 5
+12/+7/+2
+12
+5
+12
climb 7, k (geography) 2 (23), k (nature) 1 (23)
vile natural attack (elder evil)
Body of nature (immune to polymorph, fortification 50%), plant shape, voice of nature

races of faerun: southern magician,
magic of eberron: renegade mastermaker
eberron campaign setting: ironwood body, least dragonmark
dragonmarked: mark of the dauntless
srd: craft wondrous item, craft magic arms and armor, extend spell
frostburn: snowcasting
complete arcane: energy substitution, born of three thunders
secrets of xen’drik: landforged walker
elder evils: willing deformity, deformity madness, deformity face, abominable form, vile natural attack

You play more or less like a conjurer (though not of cheap tricks) here, ban enchantment and evocation, and act like a normal wizard, abrupt jaunt away from attacks when you see fit, and enjoy making warforged friends with the use of your dragonmark.

Your deformity opens the door for a lot of goodies down the line, and while stunning and dazing aren’t especially common at low levels, there’s always color spray, which is a death sentence. Enjoy your own total immunity, and being able to share the wealth with a mere high-five to a teammate to cure their statuses as well.

You are much tougher than most normal low level characters, and Pandorym sings for his supper by providing deformity (madness) which gives utter immunity to mind-affecting effects.

You’ve got your crafting feats online too, so making cool stuff for people is another inroad to making friends and influencing people.

You’re in renegade mastermaker now, and have started to become the change you want to see in the world. Beat up your enemies and frighten the bejeezus out of them by forcing them to learn the rules surrounding your battlefist (which Pandorym later helpfully imbues with vile damage) and you can treat it as a manufactured or natural weapon for spells and such, so enjoy mighty wallop and its ilk. After 2, it’s even magic, so you can make use of your crafting feats to stack useful weapon enhancements on it like normal. Eat your heart out, warning armor spikes

Southern magician is up, laying groundwork for qualification into landforged walker. Extend spell makes your goodies last longer and starts your metamagic chain. Pandorym keeps giving you more free stuff, so now you have a deformed face as well. enjoy it.

Snowcasting’s up and running, allowing you to add the [cold] descriptor to any spell. Once that’s in play, it’s a valid target for energy substitution (electric), which lays later groundwork for born of three thunders, since the spell now qualifies. Thanks to mark of the dauntless, you are not dazed afterwards, so can dish this out as often as you feel like.

Renegade mastermaker gives its most secretly useful feature, embed component. Since any magic item can be made into a warforged component (and thus slotless) for increased cost (which you can dampen by making them yourself with your feats) you can have an arbitrary amount of hit points by this time, so have fun with that when the pcs try to stop your schemes.

You finally got what you wanted and lost what you had and are now a living construct with all the goodies that entails. Among other things, you can nab ironwood body despite it normally being both warforged only and 1st level only, which allows you to qualify for landforged walker. You can also use your crafting expertise to obviate the ASF through the normal methods (twilight, thistledown, feycraft, etc)

Befitting your status as the new Obligatum, you are now immortal, so regardless of how long your machinations to free your master take, it doesn’t matter. You’ve got nothing but time now.

You’ve now completed landforged walker, certainly the most interesting tidbit you can nab via being warforged for the purpose of qualifications.

The ultimate sin of the Obligata I-VII was their inability to adapt. They failed to evolve, so as a result, it was inevitable that they would die.

Obligatum VIII is definitely going to run into opposition, and like his predecessors, in his natural form he definitely sticks out. So why stay married to it?

Landforged walker gives a variety of treats which nicely fill in gaps in your living construct immunities, such as immunity to polymorphing, and its capstone grants a wild shape ability to turn into plants. The really cool part is that you use your character level, so you can turn into really horrifying stuff like the ironmaw or octopus tree, in addition to tried and true classics like treant and tendriculos.

Reistances make you hardier defensively, and since you’re using wild shape, you get to keep all the great living construct stuff you’ve unlocked even while in plant shape.

Since it’s keyed off wildshape, it doesn’t change your type, it allows you to keep all your living construct goodies. Any natural attacks you pick up via wild shape will also inflict vile damage, making hit and run skirmishing a viable long-term strategy, like a vassal of Bahamut’s dragonwreck ability, which suits you fine. You’ve got nothing but time.

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 04:19 AM

Henry Bowyer
https://usercontent1.hubstatic.com/12433912_f520.jpg

The run-of-the-mill 12-year-old Half-Elf Commoner. For a time, never did anything wronger than peeing in the ale's tankard, or bullying his classmates into letting him cheat during the Knowledge (History) exam.

Unknowing servant of a creature about which all credits go to Stephen King.

If you don't see where this is heading, well...read along.

First things first, I own none of the characters created by Stephen King that I reference here, or upon which my new characters introduced here are very closely based.

Then, this Villain and his Elder Evil fit best in an urban campaign, and a rather serious one at that: they are not really playable for laugh. Since the strenght of this villain relies on a number of moral considerations, he is best pitted against a party containing at least one Good character, lest that interesting side of the villain be more or less wasted.

Onto the meat of it!

The story begins in the small city of Eldorry, a gathering of wood exploitants and woodworkers with no claim to fame. Henry Bowyer, the only son of old weaponmaker Butch Bowyer, is the local school bully, and helps out his father with bowmaking. Centuries of treecutting have slowly turned the surroundings into a swamp of undrained water. The city has adapted to that, and has developed as a result a clever network of dykes and channels, some of them underground. However, if one were to investigate as to the exact origin of the maze-like primitive sewer system, one would discover that as far as historians have delved upon the past of this forgotten corner of the world, the underground complex has always existed.
That is because, far at the bottom of the labyrinth, lies It. It has arrived there untold aeons ago, from an untold dimension. It has buried itself deep below the earth, and It has begun to exert its influence on the surface-dwellers. The first settlers founded Eldorry because they were uncannily attracted to that particular patch of forest ground: It attracted livestock. It is usually dormant, but once every 27 years or so, it awakens to feed in a great killing spree. It is a unkown and amorphous entity: to lure and devour its victims, It waits for them to be alone, and then appears to them taking the guise of their most hideous and primal fear. Fear gives taste to human meat - let alone to child meat.
One might object that the fate of this city is unfortunate enough, but after all, this is only one small community. It has nothing of a wolrd-shattering monstrosity if it keeps itself as such a small scale. And that is true that It, even if by some horrible twist of fate, were able to extend its reach to prey on any corner of the world, does not kill that much. A horrible death toll at the scale of a small town, a droplet of blood when considering the Prime. True, one It would not even be noticeable at that level.
Just as It has subconsciously attracted humans to set up a city far above its lair, It can exert a unseen and terrible influence on them. It subtly drives some humans to be his unknown servants, pushing weak individuals within its horrid maws. It has long turned the Eldorry people oblivious to the obvious: a 27-year-long cycle at the end of which a great bout of mysterious disappearances, murders and killing sprees occur. The local sheriffs have longed stopped wanting to try and understand. There are no historians in Eldorry anymore since the last one malencontrously fell from her stool while a rope was fortuitously tied around her neck from the roof.

A peek at what that historian recollected might explain her chosen fate.

Background

Knowledge (History) DC 33:
The library of Eldorry, though small, holds a great deal of work disserting about wood and its exploitation, as well as a number of history books about the development of the wood industry. Surprisingly enough, there is no study about the city's past and how it came to be. Especially given that one can find a number of texts about the history of the neighboring areas and how they all came to be connected into one single urban setting, with only a few patches remaining of the original forest. The librarian seems as surprised as the next carpenter about that subject, as if he had never noticed that peculiarity before. Some of the elders of the village, however, have a different opinion - and won't say a word about it unless they face a particularly persuasive interviewer. They seem to be deadly afraid of merely voicing an explanation as to the mysterious blank in the city's past.

DC 38:
Managing to get one of them to talk would result in them admitting the whole city half-consciously knows something is amiss. By concentrating and cross-referencing old recounts in the sheriff's office, one could discover that for one, the city has always been much more prone to disappearances and violent deaths than its neighbors. But in particular, once every 27 or 28 years, the death toll enormoulsy spikes for a few months. The culprits are never found, or some particularly unconvincingly guilty individuals are arrested and put to death - still increasing the bloody count. And that is something no one will ever find written anywhere in any account, official or not. An untold something is at hand behind, and those who dare exposing their conclusions invariably suffer one of those gruesome deaths, or decide to kill themselves as they uncover the full horror of it.

DC 43:
What only the cleverest elders have worked out - among those already maddened enough to not stop at knowing too much for their own sake - is that the something at work must have been lying around since countless years, and has actually attracted settlers to his lair in the first place. But what half-clueless ancients have discovered through educated guesses, more knowledgeable entities have already mapped out. Among the endless fonts of knowledge of the vast libraries of Mechanus, automated scribes have duled noted that, millions of years ago, an unlabeled entity has crashed onto the Material. Unchecked, unnamed and without any explanation. But ever since, even though it has no business being on the Prime, It has had a relatively minor influence on the Plane, mostly hedging out the populations of lifeforms around it according to a predictable cycle.

DC 48:
The automated records add that the gods themselves have given a special dispense for this entity not to be tracked down as an unnatural and unauthorized creature. Because when It arrived and the gods could not help but take notice, they had been utterly unable to do it the slightest harm, or detect its presence after its arrival. Unsure of what their powers could do to such an unknown, outraged at this violation of their domain, but fearing the alien entity, they have decided that the best thing was to let it to its own devices. A few citizens' lives every smattering of years was a low enough price. Now that It has entrenched itself below the world-spanning city, the gods have started to worry again - as shown by the repeated consultations they make at Mechanus' records. Eldorry's horrid curse will spread out to the globe if left unchecked.

Goals:

Knowledge (History) DC 33:
It has no known name, no origin, no explanation. One day, out of nowhere, long before sentient lifeforms had started to chip down stone into tools, It arrived on the Material Plane. So far, It has been happy munching away at whatever dinosaurs surrounded it - then took an immediate liking to the first cavemen crawling out of their grottoes. It seems to prefer scared, sentient living beings: the taste of fear makes them more palatable.

DC 38:
It can subconsciously influence the wills of those near it. It has drawn the first humanoids to it, letting them create a city that would provide a decent amount of game. Its malign influence can explain most of the unexplainable: the odd behaviours of the murderers; the lack of witnesses each and every time; the authorities who turn a blind eye to any affair that presents itself with a very generic and troubleproof explanation; the diviners who always have a better thing to do than to enquire on that case. It has completely ensnared the city within its grip. It seems to have a preference for, horrifying at it seems, children. A number of the victims have last been seen wandering off alone by their siblings, claiming to have seen their favourite imaginary friend - or most terrifying nightmare - just at the corner of the street.

DC 43:
It is akin to a shapeshifter. It can freely switch around appearances, and no one has ever taken a glance at its original form - if one such ever exists. It's favourite hunting technique is to adopt the guise of a trusted created from the fertile imagination of its child prey to lure them away from safety. It then changes to their most horrible fear, before ripping them apart and devouring them. It has always kept its puppet city small enough that its regular atrocities would go unnoticed by more powerful and suspicious mages. Not that It fears them, but because It does not want its deadly playground to be constantly shuffled around by enquirers.
Now that Eldorry has fused with the world-spanning city, each neighbor has become as anonymous as the next one. And that means that, for the first time in its ageless existence, It will be able to gorge itself on enough flesh to lay eggs.

DC 48:
It's alien nature is an enigma even to the gods, though It itself cares little about them. They are devoid of any knowledge about it, and thus have proved unable to discover its one weakness. But some years ago, the Mechanus scribes have purportedly reported that It was nearly defeated by, of all things, a band of preteens. However, the memories of the kids have been clouded by It after it recovered; they have all but forgotten its existence, or even that they were part of a band of children in their young years. They have forgotten about each other and about how they managed to wound It, and even the gods themselves cannot undo what It done to their minds. They are the only beings that It fears; and its first objective as the next cycle awakens will be to kill them or, at least, separate them once and for all.

DM-only knowledge:
The only thing that can wound It is the absolute, crystal-clear conviction that one will wound it. It will remain impervious to the fall of a meteor conjured by a god planning to methodically analyse the damage dealt to It. It will remain unmoved by the titanic blow of a Hecatoncheires's sword wanting to see how It will be wounded by that. But It will be critically injured by a toddler decidedly spraying pepper at the tentacled worm of his nightmares before him; because in his nightmares the worm is always killed off by the pepper. That is, if the kid reaches It without dying first.
That also means that when It assumes a guise other than its original form, It becomes more vulnerable: the party facing It as a troll will try to calcinate It without any hesitation, thus wounding it. Such a pity than only a handful of kids have discovered, and now forgotten, that loophole.

And these kids are the PCs.

If necessary, shorten the 27-year-long cycle so that even the youngest PC was 9 or 10 (for a human - make it appropriately younger or older for another race) last time it happened - while preventing anyone from incurring aging penalties. That can be worked out seamlessy without even having to ask the PCs to say anything specific in their background. If the PCs prefer to declare that they all know each other before the campaign begins, let's decide that in fact, It only erased the memories about their fight and not about their relationships. The only needed thing is PCs who have roughly the same age, either by player decision, or player authorisation to let you decide that.

And the last cycle of carnage ended 26 years and 6 months ago.

Alignment: It is chaotic evil.

HDs: (for purposes of the range of its malefic property) It's HDs are not fixed.
During its slumber between cycles (when its sign is faint), when It holds onto his reserves of fear and flesh, its HDs are 15. According to p.15 of Elder Evils, its malefic property only has a range of 10 miles during that time - just enough to encapsulate Eldorry and the few remnants of forest around it.
When it starts to awaken and to increase its feeding rate, however, its HDs grow accordingly. For the first few days of its awakening, as its sign grows to moderate, its HDs swell to 30: that extends its malefic property up to a range of 100 miles. That more or less coincides with where Eldorry connects to the world-spanning metropolis. 100 miles make up for an area of as big as a region, enough to hold an urban zone large as a small country. Thus, as was foretold, It's power now spreads far beyond its original city.
Just before the apex of the cycle, It's furious feeding brings it to 50 HDs, when its sign is strong: 1000 miles of area are now covered. Not only does that dilutes its track, but it also gives the PCs the opportunity to travel far and wide, and play through various environments in order to diversify the game, while still chasing after It.
As Its sign grows to overwhelming, its HDs exceed 50, its influence becomes worldwide, and the PCs must rush to prevent it from attaining that stage of existence...before the Plane is devoured by its progeny.

Sign: Nightmares made flesh

As It stirs away from its periodic slumber, strange horrors can be sighted. At first, only a few errants and beggars are targeted by creatures adopting the guise of their worst fears and carried underground by It at night. As the killing spree runs its course, more and more of the dread creatures spring from every shadow, from every corner. It is everywhere: swimming as a great shark in the river, skulking as a Drow assassin amongst the Elven area, thrashing around as a mad version of themselves to the mages afraid of no more than losing their mind. When It fully awakes, not even the middle of the street in broad daylight is safe from its terror. The PCs face, and rush to help others facing, all kinds of nightmarish creatures. As It targets the dreads of the most powerful individuals of the city, It appears as ever more potent monsters. A Halfling kid will see his hideous aunt, while the Duke will face the complete set of assassins that he knows are on his heels. All are real, but all flea before too heated a fight: It knows It is somewhat more vulnerable when It takes the forms of others.

Mechanically similar to the sign of Sertrous: Infestation, p.114 of Elder Evils. The occurence of random encounters increases as the sign grows stronger. These random encounters imply at first animals, dinosaurs with tentacles from the pseudonatural template, or other childish nightmares. If the campaign's tone is serious enough, abusive parents. The PCs then have to deal with in-world assassin squads. Blackguards hidden deep within the fears of fearless Paladins. Usurers that threaten to crush endebted families. When It targets the powerful and the wise, nightmares are made of Dragons of legend that wiped out entire countries. Powerful Liches out of the minds of Archmages afraid of their own temptation. PCs themselves that have forsaken their cause. You can alternate between a serious but light-hearted fight and an weak but truly dark phantasm. That last one is both powerful and grim.

Faint sign: There is one additional random encounter per week with a CR 2 lower than the average party level.
Moderate sign: The additional random encounter is now once per day.
Strong sign: Once every 1d4 hours, with a CR equal to the average party level.
Overwhelming: Once every hour, with a CR equal to the average party level +2. The probability of encountering wandering monsters increases from 10 to 20%.

Malefic property: Hazy murderous intent

It favors influencing the weak-minded to purport butchering in its stead, either to effortlessly bring it prey, or to root out those who have discovered too much. A normal-looking Orc bartender brings his ale to a Human Watch Detective sleuthing out he has found the trail of something big. Suddenly feeling his mind foggy, the Orc puts the tankard on the table and, without even realizing, also stabs the unsuspecting Human right in the gut with his cooking knife. As it happens, none of the other customers were looking in that direction that precise moment, having an uncanny feeling that they should not delve on what just happened. When the Orc suddenly feels an irresistible urge to carry on his killing spree and turns to the other clients, they promptly flee the inn, terrified by that frenzy. And the crazed Orc's heart quickly breaks under the unnatural stress experienced. But there is no need for a proper inquiry: it was well-known that this bartender was violent when drunk and that that Human owed him money anyway.

Mechanically similar to the malefic property of Father Llymic: Discord and Woe, p.15 of Elder Evils. Additionally, there never happens to be any witnesse of what just happened, or a perfectly reasonable and convenient explanation is found right away.

Henry Bower is just one of those unknowing servants that It has not definitively pushed past the brink of madness.

See, Henry Bowyer as a young boy was a charismatic but brutal child. He was also intelligent, but his rough education at the hands of his gruff father had done nothing to develop his will to work out his mind. He never bothered to use all of his starting skill points. Bowyering is not an easy business, and Henry spent most of his free time roaming the forests to look out for the best saplings to use. Or downing and preparing those saplings. Or polishing the almost-finished weapons his father made. Or preparing arrows. And he had better do all this fast and well, because Buck Bowyer did not take slack well at all. All in all, not much time to focus at school - but bad marks were equally appreciated as bad woodwork.
That seems an easy recipe for creating the perfect school bully, ganging up with others of his age impressed by his physical strength, his aura, and his deliciously evil prank ideas. Playing the school kingpin, that Heny enjoyed much more than carving arrows. Besides, strong-arming his weaker comrades (say, four PCs in their childhood) into helping him pass the Speak Language (Common) exam was a most useful side effect of this situation.

If things had stopped here, though, Henry would have retained his original True Neutral alignment, and probably taken over his father's bowyersmithing after his retirement. But that story happens in Eldorry. And Henry happened to be the kind of minion that It particularly enjoys to manipulate. This means that, during the childhood of the party, when they stumbled upon evidence of the reality of It and started, against all odds, to track it down, It felt the need for an agent. Brash and vain Henry, often frustrated in his attempts to torment the party of braver-than-usual kids that the PCs were, was the perfect guinea pig. The whole of Eldorry is largely within the range of It's malefic property - by design, actually. And that means that Henry, with his ridiculously low Will save and his high enough Charisma to lead a small team of minions, was the perfect target of Hazy Murderous Intent. A characteristic of this malefic property is that anyone failing its saving throw against it not only enters a barbarian-like frenzy, but also undergoes a temporary alignment change. Neutral Henry Bowyer turns into a Chaotic Evil troubled killer. Usually, It's pawns do not survive long enough after their mysterious frenzy to be affected by what horrors they perpetrated during their possession. But It enjoys manipulating Henry. It takes care to trigger the poor boy's frenzy only when someone near him is able to calm him down early enough - though not so early that Henry has not had the time to finish his grisly work. The abbot of Eldorry, a Cleric with the Community domain (SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/divine/domains.htm)) and as such, the granted power to use Calm Emotions once per day, has saved poor Henry more than once.

If the theme of the campaign leans sufficiently towards horror, and realism, then your players might stomach some more detailed description of the deeds Henry committed. It's global imprint on his consciousness after repeated possessions led him to atrocities not normally found in the vicinity of a 12-year-old preteen. Snapping in two the arm of a younger child. Knifecarving his name in the belly of another.

The one thing that kept Henry's spiraling in check was his fear and obedience to his father, Buck. Until one day, a dagger of unknown provenance arrived at the Bowyer's and was specifically addressed to Henry. His father sleeping, Henry brought the package home and opened it. He then felt an inexplicable and irresistible fury cloud his mind, and did not hesitate before plainly killing his father. Without any inconvenient authority figure left to restrain the actions of poor Henry Bowyer, It was subsequently able to make Henry do whatever it needed to against the troublesome kids.

Of course, Henry can have all the excuses of the world for what evil he did. Yet he did it, and one too many times for his alignment to remain unchanged, even taking into account these circumstances. Hence his shift from True Neutral to Neutral Evil: not even remembering the misdeeds he commited, he could never properly ask for atonement magic.

What became of Henry after the child PCs near defeated It and forced it to slumber earlier than expected? The tormented lad, his mental sanity severly quaking, was found by the sheriff at the entrance of Eldorry's sewer system. Two dismembered corpses belonging to Henry's former sidekicks were found near him, completely by chance, and the bite marks on the bodies conveniently overlooked. Young Henry Bowyer had thus be framed for murder, too maddened to deny anything. No Zone of Truth was really needed to verify his claims. In regard to his state close to insanity, Henry was not executed or imprisonned, but sent to lifelong conviction to the salt mines. Over the years, his rigorous and ordered day-to-day life has slowly restored his mental health. He too has forgotten the horrors of his youth in a hazy amnesia. But, 26 and a half years later, as It awakens and discovers his nemesises are on its track again, It recalls its most loyal servant.

Henry Bower is a Neutral Evil Half-Elf Commoner 20.
Ability scores:
Level 1 Str 12 Dex 10 Con 14 Int 13 Wis 8 Cha 15
Level 4 and 8 Int +1
Levels 12, 16 and 20 Cha +1

Known languages: Common, Elven, Gutterspeak (RoD p.26)

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Racial /Class Features

1
Half-elf Commoner 1
+0
+0
+0
+0
Craft (bow making) 4, Intimidate (cross-class) 2
Focus skill: Intimidate,
(HoH p.125)

Never Outnumbered skill trick (CSco p.87)
Immunity to sleep, +2 to saves against enchantments, +2 to Diplomacy/Gather Information, +1 to Listen/Spot, Low-light vision

One simple weapon proficiency: dagger

2
Commoner 2
+1
+0
+0
+0
Craft (bow making) 4, Intimidate 2, Profession (miner) 5

3
Commoner 3
+1
+1
+1
+1
Craft (bow making) 4, Intimidate 2, Profession (miner) 6
Focus skill: Profession (miner), Willing Deformity (bonus)
Bonus vile feat

4
Commoner 4
+2
+1
+1
+1
No change past this level.

Int +1

5
Commoner 5
+2
+1
+1
+1

Deformity: Madness (bonus)(EE p.12)
Bonus vile feat

6
Commoner 6
+3
+2
+2
+2

Omniscient Whispers (SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm))

7
Commoner 7
+3
+2
+2
+2

8
Commoner 8
+4
+2
+2
+2

Int +1

9
Commoner 9
+4
+3
+3
+3

Eyes to the sky(SRD (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/buildingCharacters/spelltouchedFeats.htm))

10
Commoner 10
+5
+3
+3
+3

Chosen of Evil (bonus)(EE p.12)
Bonus vile feat

11
Commoner 11
+5
+3
+3
+3

12
Commoner 12
+6/+1
+4
+4
+4

Trickery Devotion (CC p.63)
Cha +1

13
Commoner 13
+6/+1
+4
+4
+4

14
Commoner 14
+7/+2
+4
+4
+4

15
Commoner 15
+7/+2
+5
+5
+5

Dark Speech(EE p.12), Dark Whispers (bonus)(EE p.12)
Bonus vile feat

16
Commoner 16
+8/+3
+5
+5
+5

Cha +1

17
Commoner 17
+8/+3
+5
+5
+5

18
Commoner 18
+9/+4
+6
+6
+6

Ability focus (Dark Whispers)

19
Commoner 19
+9/+4
+6
+6
+6

20
Commoner 20
+10/+5
+6
+6
+6

Evil's Blessing (bonus)(EE p.12)
Bonus vile feat, Cha +1

The idea behind Henry is to take one of the least optimal combinations of class and race, Half-Elf Commoner 20, and create a villain out of it. This is to enforce the theme that, in the end, Henry is just a poor soul: he did not dedicate his life to the Elder Evil, he had his life choices forced upon him by It. He is a saddening waste of a man. Since the PCs will invariably beat him in a face-to-face confrontation, the difficulty in dealing with Henry is not to mechanically defeat him, but to decide whether he deserves to be slayed here and there.

Henry as a kid is a Commoner 1. After the events of his youth, he is sent to the salt mines, where he reaches Commoner 3 over the decades. This is at this stage of his life that It decides to call him back to it and to definitely overtake his mind. When that happens, Henry, faced with the concrete reality of It's empire over him, loses his sanity, and surmises his free will to It. At that moment only does he become, in a way, a willing servant of the Elder Evil. He thus starts gaining his due Vile feats starting no earlier than level 3.
It then bolsters Henry's lifeforce, and this is by that way that Henry grows within a few months from Commoner 3 to Commoner 20. All that matters to It is to make his servant more powerful and more effective at killing for it. It doesn't care about improving Henry's abilities as a miner or a bowmaker. Hence, Henry never spends any skill points past level 3, they are simply wasted.

I did not find any RAW about voluntarily giving up skill points, so here is a RAW way to do it. Henry spends all his skill points in an arbitrarily high number of cross-class skills, one at a time. As a result, he has one-half skill rank in that many skills, none of them eventually converting into a real skill rank. Perform being a cross-class skill for Commoners, Henry buys one-half rank into Perform (piano), then Perform (fiddle), then Perform (comedy), then...
Henry has a total of 76 skill points to waste in this fashion. This also accounts for the unspent skill points Henry has at level 1, standing for his laziness to work out his intelligence. And there exists far more than 68 different musical intruments or forms of art to waste skill points on.

An archivist NPC living in Eldorry, one of those that know something but will not tell, worries to see the cycle starting again. In order to gather information, he asks the gods about the whereabouts of Henry Bowyer, since he was heavily connected to the events of the last cycle. He then adds a Scrying spell and makes sure Henry is still confined to his salt mine. All good. He must hurry to gather the PCs and talk them through what is happening. Each day, dozens of mysterious outbreaks of killing frenesy are reported throughout the neighborhood - with probably dozens more undiscovered or unreported by shameful families.
Henry is sleeping in his barracks, when he suddenly hears the moon whispering to him. The moon? Bewildered, Henry pays attention to what it says. Do note that the wording of the Omniscient Whispers feat suggests the voices proactively appear in one's mind as soon as one gains the feat. Henry looks through the window and as his mind breaks, sees a face on the moon, that tells him to come back at Eldorry. To make things easier, one of the guards of the mines has gone on a sudden killing frenzy just as he was going to lock Henry's dormitory for the night, and has started to attack his fellow surveillants. Henry thus has an easy escape, and, by night, starts the way back home.
In Eldorry, the PCs have gathered after the call for help of a local NPC that claims to have very important intelligence to deliver about the mysterious ongoing streak of disappearances. They arrive at dusk, and, by the next morning, discover that the NPC has been coup de grâce'd in his sleep, a miner's pick blow right to the forehead. A rather simple Spot or Listen check, given Henry's lack of ranks in Hide or Move Silently, would then reveal It's pawn noisily fleeing in the street, It assessing that Henry is outnumbered. Only when they see him do the PCs remember. They remember Henry, and they remember part of their shared childhood. Now is the time for a Knowledge (History) check to see what they recall about It. Ideally, the PCs will only succeed on the DC 33 information, so that they don't discover everything at once. A 6th level Wizard with 20 Int, 9 ranks in Knowledge (History), Aid another from his Familiar and a masterwork item achieves +18, so the DC 38 data is reasonably out of reach.

This is the time to play a childhood flashback sequence. The PCs, all children, are pursued by Henry and his two henchmen at the entrance of the sewers. Henry is armed with his favourite knife and intents to use it, but his two comrades only pretend to bare-handedly humiliate the children without really hurting them. The PCs must either escape or damage Henry enough to disable him - hurting him will only deepen his anger. Once they have succeeded, the flashback ends.

The trick is that Commoners do not have a stated starting age. As such, it is RAW to make 12-year-old Henry and his two sidekicks 1st level Commoners. Since the PCs are below the starting age for any PC class, they are given one level of Commoner as well, that they can by RAW retrain in their normal build later. Henry, boasting a +4 in Diplomacy even with no ranks invested, has managed over the school months to hit the DC 15 to turn his comrades from Indifferent to Friendly, and then the DC 20 from Friendly to Helpful. Henry's 1d4+1 dagger damage can down in one or two blows even a 1st level Commoner PC with Constitution 18, and if the occasion to do it with a quick means to end it presents itself, It can trigger a rage that will increase that damage to 1d4+3 with a +3 to-hit. Besides, Henry's +7 in Intimidate couple with Never Outnumbered has a good probability to render all of the PCs shaken. His two goons restrain themselves to unarmed strikes, but even 1d3 of nonlethal damage adds up when PCs have in the vicinity of 5 HPs. For this one and only time, Henry puts up all by himself a difficult challenge, this is his sweet spot.

As It's feeding increases, his Hazy Murderous Intent goe farther and farther away. Any 1st level NPC will succeed on its will save on a 20 only. Using one standard action per round for 24 hours to exert its malefic property onto an unsuspecting citizen, It gleefully turns 13630 people per day into frenzied murderers, each of those with an increased strength and the burning desire to slay the closest living being. This routine has been going on for months since It awakened. The direct death toll is measured in millions of individuals. And then one adds the progressive unrest, the riots against a government that cannot seem to prevent or slow down the horrific outbreak. Gods that remain silent on the subject. Some regions are bordering the civil war.
The party must find back one of Eldorry's elders who has moved out since the end of the last cycle. Thinking she would be safe from It's clutches, Eldorry's former librarian has settled in a faraway city to escape the dread atmosphere of her hometown. She knows, however, that doing so is something of a cowardice, since that amounts to her withholding the crucial information she has garnered about the lurking monster. This will offer a decent challenge for the party face, who will have to bring her to say what she knows. Unfortunately, as It awakens more and more, the range of its malefic property increases. As the PCs make their way to the librarian's secluded place, fighting their way through the Nightmares Made Flesh, more and more NPCs go berserk around them and try to kill them, despite the distance from Eldorry. Even though a party of level 12 characters is barely threatened by an innkeeper noisily trying to murder them in their sleep, this adds up to the atmosphere of dread and fury around them. What's more, they cannot find out where Henry lurks. Each time they try to Scry on him, it appears that Henry uncannily detects the scrying sensor, and has readied an action to pull a sheet of lead out of his pocket and to hold it in front of the sensor as soon as he detects it. He then waits for the scrying spell to expire, knowing thanks to his Eyes to the Sky feat when the sensor disappears.

They would find that Henry is rushing to the librarian as fast as he can, given that, for the time being, It's malefic property cannot reach her to bring her to selfdestructing frenzy. The goal here is to let the PCs gather the intel they need, but there are different means to achieve this. Either the party is too late, and Henry has arrived first. Using his Trickery Devotion feat, he creates a double that knocks at her door. When she opens cautiously, seeing a disheveled but unarmed man at her entrance, the real Henry that remained out of sight picks up his mining pick and assails her. The librarian does not wish to be raised, unless persuaded otherwise by the PCs; or a Speak with Dead can suffice but gives partial information. Or the party manages to find her first. In that case, It reaches the next HD threshold just as they speak, and instantly submit the librarian to its Hazy Murderous Intent ability. The danger here is that if the party cannot stop the rage but simply Holds the librarian, for example, her four HPs of Commoner 1 are taken out by vile damage in four turns.

Whatever is chosen, CR 12 comes from the fact that either in the middle of the negociations with the librarian's soul, or with the librarian still alive, a manifestation of It breaks in as per the Nightmares Made Flesh sign. The sign is strong at that point, so the CR of the encounter is equal to the average level of the party. Amidst the chaos, Henry sends his double to see through its eyes and assess the situation, but he does not reveal himself unless he can kill off a weakened PC with a coup de grâce.

Either this time or the next, however, such high level PCs will manage to capture Henry. But what will they do? They can see that Henry is utterly mad. They see a ruin of a man that hears voices, and obeys them. Is he really responsible? Is executing him the sensible thing to do? If it comes to justice, poor Henry has already spent more than twenty years in forced labour, since the age of twelve. He has no family anymore since he killed his father under mind control. Wasn't he punished enough already? It's not as if the party had defeated an evil and supremely powerful Wizard lord. No, the party has defeated a Commoner, and an utterly powerless Commoner if not from the Elder Evil guiding him. The PCs know and remember enough about It to know that Henry is little more than a remote controlled puppet. Is death deserved? Moreover, what would prevent It from simply choosing a new pawn to distort and take over? That means condemning an innocent to this fate. And at least, they are aware of what Henry looks like, can and cannot do.
On the other hand, the party is well aware that no prison will prevent It from freeing Henry at a moment's notice. What to do?

Either Henry has been spared, and then he will be set free by It soon enough. Or he has been killed off or sent to another plane where It's influence is inexistent, in which case the Elder Evil will happily turn another innocent Commoner into a monstrous servant. All in all, once the PCs have finally come back to Eldorry and set foot into the sewer system, Henry will be there one last time to chase us.

The PC's memories are progressively unlocked. But note that the exact description of the true weakness of It is above any Knowledge check. It cannot be beaten by raw power, but that the PCs don't remember yet. They will know only when they face It in its true form once again, 27 years after. A few hours before, alarming reports of the sign of it seen on the other side of the world have arrived. Whole countries have descended into street butchering by huge swaths of frenzied citizens. The sign is now overwhelming, It is going to reproduce. As they rush through the maze of tunnels, It manifests under an adopted guise again, an encounter with a CR 2 more than the average party level, once per hour. The party wades through the labyrinth for one hour and, before they reach the lair of the creature, face themselves. A mirror of the party debased into a servant of It itself, gorged with bonus vile feats and deformities. Give two negative levels to each of those PCs, so that four of them make up for a (average party level + 2) challenge rating. In the middle of the fight, Henry sneaks from behind, and unleashes his Dark Whispers, the one relevant thing he can still hope to do. The defiled version of the party is protected from the effect thanks to Deformity (Madness), but each turn, the PCs face a Will save DC 20 against confusion. A barrage of dispelling provided by the twisted versions of the party's spellcasters can help break through Mind Blanks and save enhancements. It knows that Henry and his quasi-real double are one standard action away to be instantly slayed by any of the PCs, but at that level, one standard action means much more than the life of what is, at the end of the day, a 12-year-old Half-Elf who grew up in the wrong hometown. Once the PCS defeat themselves, they should pay heed to that fact.

And once they finally enter It's lair, their final memories come back...It descends upon them in its original form, and all that they have left is their conviction. But this is all that is needed. No attack rolls, no Intelligence checks. An Elder Evil should not be defeatable through sheer numbers - if the gods themselves could not crush It, it is not because their build was poorly optimised. What happens here is exclusively in the domain of the roleplaying. With maybe a Spot check to ensure that not one of the hundreds of eggs has been left unsquashed.

It slayed once and for all, its malign influence disappears. Enraged fanatics worldwide return to stunned Commoners. But its aura was the only thing that sustained the rotten city of Eldorry, that fetid trap of a town. Which has been since connected to the world-spanning city. It gone, the PCs rush to leave the place as a great ripple courses through the earth. As they exit, a titanic cave-in appears. Eldorry is slowly swallowed by the Earth, and disappears with its master. The world still need to recover from the bloodshed, however.

If the PCs really are good, they intervene in favor of Henry's soul before it is turned into a Mane and expelled to Hell.

CC: Complete Champion
CSco: Complete Scoundrel
EE: Elder Evils
HoH: Heroes of Horror
RoD: Races of Destiny

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 04:20 AM

http://pre09.deviantart.net/a2be/th/pre/i/2017/144/f/f/vampiress_royalty_by_azjo-dba3mv9.jpg
The Crimson Baroness, Harbinger of Night
NE Vampire Grey Elf Wu Jen 7/Mindbender 1/Blood Magus 10

Stats (with adjustments)
Str 12 (16)
Dex 13 (19, 21 with gaunt)
Con 8 (-)
Int 15 (19)
Wis 10 (12)
Cha 14 (18)
Build

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

3
Wu Jen 1
+0
+0
+0
+2
Bluff 2(4), Concentration 4, Diplomacy 2(4), Intimidate 2(4), Sense Motive 2(4)
Toughness, (B) Umbral Spell, (E)Evil’s Blessing (V)Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes
Watchful Spirit, Bonus Metamagic Feat, Vampire Abilities

4
Wu Jen 2
+1
+0
+0
+3
Bluff 2.5(1), Concentration 5, Diplomacy 2.5(1), Intimidate 2.5(1), Knowledge (The Planes) 1, Sense Motive 2.5(1)

Intuitive Spirit (Knowledge Planes)

5
Wu Jen 3
+1
+1
+1
+3
Bluff 3(1), Concentration 6, Diplomacy 3(1), Intimidate 3(1), Knowledge (The Planes) 2, Sense Motive 3(1)
Endure Sunlight
Spell Secret (Extend Charm Person)

6
Wu Jen 4
+2
+1
+1
+4
Bluff 3.5(1), Concentration 7, Diplomacy 3.5(1), Intimidate 3.5(1), Knowledge (The Planes) 3, Sense Motive 3.5(1)

Intuitive Spirit (Spellcraft)

7
Wu Jen 5
+2
+1
+1
+4
Bluff 4(1), Concentration 8, Diplomacy 4(1), Intimidate 4(1), Knowledge (The Planes) 4, Sense Motive 4(1)
(E)Willing Deformity
Intuitive Spirit (Concentration)

8
Wu Jen 6
+3
+2
+2
+5
Concentration 9, Knowledge (The Planes) 9
Great Fortitude
Elemental Mastery (Water)

9
Wu Jen 7
+3
+2
+2
+5
Concentration 10, Knowledge (The Planes) 10, Spellcraft 4

Elemental Bond +1

10
Mindbender 1
+3
+4
+2
+7
Concentration 11, Knowledge (The Planes) 11, Spellcraft 8

Telepathy

11
Blood Magus 1
+3
+6
+2
+7
Bluff 5, Concentration 12, Spellcraft 12
Mindsight
Blood Component, Durable Casting, Stanch

12
Blood Magus 2
+4
+7
+2
+7
Concentration 13, Knowledge (The Planes) 13(4), Spellcraft 13
(E)Deformity (Gaunt)
Scarification

13
Blood Magus 3
+4
+7
+3
+8
Bluff 7, Concentration 14, Knowledge (The Planes) 14(2), Spellcraft 14

Death Knell

14
Blood Magus 4
+5
+8
+3
+8
Bluff 11, Concentration 15, Spellcraft 15
Improved Energy Drain
Blood Draught

15t/td]
Blood Magus 5
+5
+8
+3
+8
Bluff 15, Concentration 16, Spellcraft 16

Homunculus

16
Blood Magus 6
+6/+1
+9
+4
+9
Bluff 17, Concentration 17, Heal 2, Spellcraft 17

Bloodseeking Spell

17
Blood Magus 7
+6/+1
+9
+4
+9
Bluff 18, Concentration 18, Heal 5, Spellcraft 18
Spell Drain, (E) Abominable Form
Thicker Than Water

18
Blood Magus 8
+7/+2
+10
+4
+9
Bluff 19, Concentration 19, Heal 8, Spellcraft 19

Awaken Blood

19
Blood Magus 9
+7/+2
+10
+5
+10
Bluff 20, Concentration 20, Heal 11, Spellcraft 20

Infusion

20
Blood Magus 10
+8/+3
+11
+5
+10
Bluff 21, Concentration 21, Knowledge (Religion) 2(4)
Mother Cyst
Bloodwalk

Spells
Spells per Day

Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th

1st
3
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

[td]2nd
3
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

3rd
3
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

4th
4
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

5th
4
2
1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

6th
4
3
2
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

7th
4
3
2
1
-
-
-
-
-
-

8th
4
3
3
2
-
-
-
-
-
-

9th
4
4
3
2
1
-
-
-
-
-

10th
4
4
3
3
2
-
-
-
-
-

11th
4
4
4
3
2
1
-
-
-
-

12th
4
4
4
3
3
2
-
-
-
-

13th
4
4
4
4
3
2
1
-
-
-

14th
4
4
4
4
3
3
2
-
-
-

15th
4
4
4
4
3
3
2
-
-
-

16th
4
4
4
4
4
3
2
1
-
-

17th
4
4
4
4
4
3
3
2
-
-

18th
4
4
4
4
4
4
3
2
1
-

19th
4
4
4
4
4
4
3
3
2
-

20th
4
4
4
4
4
4
3
3
2
-

Spells Known
0: Dancing Lights, Flare, Ray of Frost(W), Arcane Mark, Daze, Detect Magic, Detect Poison, Disrupt Undead, Ghost Sound, Light, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Open/Close, Prestidigitation, Read Magic, Resistance
1st: Charm Person(Extended), Cobra’s Breath(W), Jet of Steam(W), Magic Missile, Obscuring Mist(W), Silent Image, True Strike, Unseen Servant, Necrotic Awareness*
2nd: Alter Self, Blur, Ice Knife(W), Kiss of the Toad, Necrotic Cyst*, Necrotic Scrying*
3rd: Dispel Magic, Displacement, Stinking Cloud(W), Steam Breath(W), Necrotic Bloat*
4th: Animate Dead, Polymorph, Poison Needles, Snake Darts, Necrotic Domination*
5th: Arc of Lightning, Summon Monster V, Teleport, Vitriolic Sphere, Necrotic Burst*
6th: Greater Dispel Magic, Haze of Smoldering Stone, Storm of Fire and Ice(W), True Seeing, Necrotic Eruption*
7th: Arcane Spellsurge(W), Body Outside Body, Disintegrate, Limited Wish, Necrotic Tumor*
8th: Deadly Lahar, Horrid Wilting(W), Polymorph Any Object, Summon Monster VIII, Necrotic Empowerment*
Backstory
In the ages long ago when even elven society was young, the noble families sent their most promising scions to study at the college of magic. Aspiring young students learned to hone the craft of magic of the mind, alteration of form, and mastery of the elements. But there was one field in which the college dedicated the greatest time and the most slavish devotion: the research of the planes. The great minds of the college were convinced from their experiments that minds greater than their own existed in the planes beyond, and that communication with them could be used to further the advancement of their race.
In the years that followed their forays into the other realms became more lengthy and frequent. They found planes without life and planes with creatures incapable of communicating with them. After years of failed attempts they finally made contact with creatures from the farthest reachable planes. Then it went wrong.

From the insane depths of the far realms a creature of darkness and ice tore its way through their portals and began corrupting all who it could reach. With his approach came darkness and soul-chilling cold. Through the efforts of the strongest students and teachers, the mad creature now known as Father Llymic was locked away in his prison of ice on the highest peak of a distant mountain. As the school set about recovering from the chaos, one voice spoke against their actions. She was a young student of the elements from a noble family she found herself born in the low reaches of. She had a strong drive to rise among the ranks of her distant relatives. Her family’s generations of consanguineous marriage had given her a fragile constitution, but she had a sharp mind and a strength of conviction. She understood what a dangerous creature Llymic was, but she believed there was still much that could be learned from the being. The elders agreed it was far too dangerous to risk the corruption the creature spread with its very presence. Her persistence was distressing to the leadership, and they eventually expelled her, worried that with greater education she might be able to learn from the terrible entity herself.

An exiled noble and failed student, she could not return to her family without admitting what had happened, and so set out to find another who would continue her magical education. Her desperate search led her to a coterie of potent spellcasters who had managed to extend their lifespans beyond even that of the elves. She eagerly studied under them to continue learning the magical arts, and eventually they revealed the secret of their immortality to be derived from their vile blood, which they supplemented regularly by drinking from the living. She considered herself deserving of the right to partake of their immortality, and one of them obliged.

Time passed without her notice, and eventually the cadre of vampires came under attack from a veritable army of vampire slayers determined to free the village from their depredations. The battle was long-fought, and for her ended with a stake driven into her chest. Fortunately for her and unfortunately for the world, the exhausted and poorly informed vampire slayer believed that a stake was sufficient to remove her from this world. And in truth it was, but only so long as it remained in place. In the many years that came after, her body lay where it was slain, stake firmly lodged, but eroding ever so slowly with time and rot. Eventually one last bit of rot or inquisitive termite removed the last crucial splinter and she returned to whatever semblance of life she existed under.

Decades had passed, and she now found herself alone and without support. In her time of need, she was reminded of the power of Llymic all those years ago. Her life was endless, but she knew that it was only a matter of time before she attracted enough attention to be dragged out into the sun to burn. But Father Llymic, in his hideously ineffable power, brought darkness strong enough to dim even the mighty sun. If he were brought back in full power, the world would be thrown into eternal night. Safe night where the Crimson Baroness could hone her craft and spread the vile blood curse. Without the sun, life would end, but undeath could persist forever.
CR 5
For the purposes of the build I applied the vampire template after setting up as a first level character. It changes a lot, so will be at play for the whole build. All of your HD are d12s, a large improvement over your squishy caster dice. Climb walls and ceilings to get the drop on the party. Any time you don’t like how a combat is going you can change to a dire bat or gaseous form and fly away. Sample spells here are for a mostly combat focus, you can supplement as you wish by getting from scrolls or other spellbooks. At low CR you can potentially finish a target off with only 3 slams, so keep that as an option. A vampire is capable of creating and controlling a large number of subservient spawn and vampires, how much you want to use them, like with animate dead, is up to how much the party can deal with it. Charm person is a necessity for mindbender but is also a good supplement to dominate. Alter self is helpful for disguise and for swim speed (and thus protection from water) via lacedon.

Wu Jen gives a spell secret we’re using to free extend charm person, and a free metamagic we’re going to use for umbral spell, which will become useful later. With increasing amounts of influence from Father Llymic, darkness spells become extended and then also quickened. Umbral spell gives the darkness descriptor, so you can apply these to any spell of yours you want. You’ll want to leave some of your spells normal because of the limit on quickened spells. Elemental focus into water gives +2 cl on spells marked with a W, enjoy that. Watchful spirit plus improved initiative and high dex make for very nice chances you’ll go first in combat, so remember that reroll. You can soften up enemies with breath of the cobra and kiss of the toad before finishing anyone off with blood drain.

Since you’re serving and Elder Evil, it makes sense to get the bonus feats for doing so. Evil’s Blessing buffs up your saves with your hearty Cha. Endure Sunlight will give you a few rounds of normal action to get to safety.
CR 10
After some more wu jen we’re going in for that mindbender dip. Telepathy out to 100 feet gives you a lot of room to play as a DM, messing with the party as a hidden presence, planting seeds of doubt in their mind, all that good stuff. It could also give you a means of controlling people you’ve previously charmed or dominated without visibly talking to them to conceal your influence better.

You can fill the encounter with stinking cloud since it doesn’t affect you, and snake darts and poison needles can also soften up the party. You can dispel something that’s really messing with you, and polymorph if you feel like making things extra tough for the party.
CR 15
We’re going to transition over into Blood Magus, more for fun than anything else. If you don’t think coming back as a vampire after being turned or a vampire returning after being staked counts, then you can say that she’s been resurrected at some point in her living days. What could be more appropriate for a vampire spellcaster than blood-based magic? The homunculus will mostly be used for ancillary scouting, but it is nice to have the service of a creature that isn’t clearly tied to you. Durable casting combined with your DR may allow you to ignore some of the weaker hits. Scarification allows you to beef up your spells per day without fussing with scrolls, and Blood Draught lets you save on slots for buffs (true strike, alter self, and displacement are good choices). Blood component can be used as much as you like to increase your caster level, since you’ll fast heal away the damage anyway.

Mindsight gives you a means of detecting enemies that isn’t thwarted like other means; even darkstalker doesn’t stop it. This plus the range means you’ll likely be aware of the party before they find you. Improved energy drain is a prerequisite, but it’s also a nice bonus on its own. It’s untyped, so theoretically might stack with itself. Either way, the duration means you can buff up with it before a combat by smacking monsters you find (spawn of Llymic are still vulnerable) or your own thralls or summons in a pinch. Deformity (Gaunt) is essentially free dexterity boost, since you don’t have a con to reduce. If you feel guilty about it, just consider the later Infusion class feature to cancel this out.

True Seeing can be used in concert with Mindsight to beat anything that would beat one alone. Summon Monster provides some variety and also provides a means of quickly gaining some health by draining their blood, beyond your children of the night. There’s not a cap on this or a duration listed, but the 1 hour general from ability drain and energy drain seems a sane one. Remember to use both blood and energy drain to maximize hp from your summons. Greater Dispel Magic helps you stay relevant against party magic.
CR 20
Finishing up Blood Magus gives us bloodseeking spell to tack on extra damage, again you’ll heal away the cost in a round so don’t worry about using it. Awaken blood is a stylish way to deal a bunch of damage in a round, so pop on true strike and lay someone low. Bloodwalk is a good way to go far away from the party, since there is literally no limit on how far you can teleport. If you’ve already met the party this can also provide a particularly cruel way to begin combat. You don’t have to worry about the associated save, but they do.

Arcane Spellsurge can be used to speed up casting time, and because it changes standard to swift and full round to standard, this means you can cast 3 spells in a round: 1 auto-quickened umbral spell, 1 swift spell, and 1 previously fullround now standard, like summon monster. Body Outside Body is mum on what to do with vampire abilities in the duplicates, so potentially you can be throwing around a lot of dominates and negative levels. If not, they’re still a group of bodies you can hit with polymorph. PAO and Limited Wish can plug missing holes in your defense.

It’s likely that at this point Llymic’s sign is overwhelming, which means no sun, so you can be active round the clock. You can bring victims to him to become brood and hasten his return at any level you wish, since you have several means of compulsion. As a vampire you are resistant to cold and immune to the negative levels you might get from soul chill, so the brood spawn aren’t a danger to you.

Abominable Form debuffs the party right when you enter, and this feat doesn’t count as mind affecting or fear. Spell Drain means that the spells that your targets lose are now yours to cast. Because energy drain skims from the highest level available, you’ll be taking 9ths from the casters, which nicely supplements your list. Mother Cyst adds more spells to your list (marked with the asterisk). An important feature of them is the fact that cysts can only be removed by a DC 20 Heal check, and failure causes the target to die. It’s not super common to have that much invested in Heal, so it might be a while before the party can deal with it. Necrotic Scrying can be used to spy on the party directly if you’ve gotten them or it can be used on townsfolk you’ve previously gotten. Message can be sent through it to mess with the party for a very creepy effect. You can more easily cause severe damage, kill, or control creatures with a necrotic cyst, or buff yourself pretty heavily with necrotic empowerment. The skulking cysts some of the spells make can cast necrotic cyst themselves, and necrotic eruption potentially spreads it. Vile damage can cause major problems for an unprepared party.
Sources
Wu Jen, Mindbender, Blood Magus, spells: Complete Arcane
Other spells: Dragon Magic, Complete Mage
Mother Cyst, Endure Sunlight, Improved Energy Drain, Spell Drain: Libris Mortis
Umbral Spell: Drow of the Underdark
Mindsight: Lords of Madness
Evil’s Blessing, Willing Deformity, Deformity (Gaunt), Abominable Form, Father Llymic: Elder Evils
Vampire template, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, Lightning Reflexes, Alertness, Toughness, Great Fortitude: srd
Image: http://azjo.deviantart.com/art/Vampiress-Royalty-682093701

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 04:24 AM

http://i.imgur.com/XMXPThC.jpg?1 (http://imgur.com/XMXPThC)
The Warden of Reality

Race
Doppelganger

Classes (including RHD)
RHD 7/Warshaper 3/Uncanny Trickster 3/Chameleon 10

Alignment
Neutral Evil

Languages
Common, Dwarven, Elven, Giant

Abilities

Ability
Starting Score
Score including HD increases

Strength
10
10

Dexterity
14
14

Constitution
13 (increase at 8 HD)
14

Intelligence
16
16

Wisdom
21 (increase at 12, 16 and 20 HD)
24

Charisma
18
18

CR
Class
HD
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Special Features

4
Racial HD
7
7
2
5
5
Bluff 10, Disguise 10, Hide 10, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 5, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 5, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 5, Sleight of Hand 2, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick)
Able Learner, Darkstalker, Martial Study (Clinging Shadow Strike), Dark Speech, Evil's Blessing
Change Shape

5
Warshaper
8
7
4
5
5
Bluff 10, Disguise 10, Hide 10, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 5, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 5, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 7, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick)
-
Morphic immunities, morphic weapons

6
Uncanny Trickster
9
7
4
7
5
Bluff 10, Disguise 10, Hide 10, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 7, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 5, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 12, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Telepathic Affinity
Bonus Trick, Favorite Trick

7
Chameleon
10
7
4
7
5
Bluff 10, Disguise 10, Hide 10, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 13, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 5, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 13, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Vile Natural Attack
Aptitude focus 1/day (+2)

8
Chameleon
11
8
4
7
5
Bluff 11, Disguise 10, Hide 14, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 14, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 5, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 14, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Bonus feat

9
Chameleon
12
9
5
8
6
Bluff 15, Disguise 10, Hide 15, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 15, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 5, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 15, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Martial Stance (Assassin's Stance)
Mimic class feature 1/day

10
Chameleon
13
10
5
8
6
Bluff 16, Disguise 10, Hide 16, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 16, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 8, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Ability boon +2

11
Chameleon
14
10
5
8
6
Bluff 17, Disguise 10, Hide 17, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 17, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 12, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Aptitude focus 2/day (+4)

12
Chameleon
15
11
6
9
7
Bluff 18, Disguise 10, Hide 18, Intimidate 10, Move Silently 18, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 16, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Craven, Dark Whispers
Mimic class feature 2/day

13
Chameleon
16
12
6
9
7
Bluff 19, Disguise 10, Hide 19, Intimidate 11, Move Silently 19, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 19, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Ability boon +4, double aptitude

14
Chameleon
17
13
6
9
7
Bluff 20, Disguise 12, Hide 20, Intimidate 12, Move Silently 20, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 20, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Rapid refocus

15
Chameleon
18
13
7
10
8
Bluff 21, Disguise 14, Hide 21, Intimidate 13, Move Silently 21, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 21, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Metamorphic Transfer
Mimic class feature 3/day

16
Chameleon
19
14
7
10
8
Bluff 22, Disguise 15, Hide 22, Intimidate 15, Move Silently 22, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 22, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Ability boon +6, aptitude focus 3/day (+4)

17
Warshaper
20
15
8
11
9
Bluff 23, Disguise 16, Hide 23, Intimidate 15, Move Silently 23, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 23, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Harvester of Souls
Morphic body

18
Warshaper
21
16
8
11
9
Bluff 24, Disguise 17, Hide 23, Intimidate 16, Move Silently 24, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 24, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
Epic Destiny (Eterna Hero)
Morphic reach, Continual resurrection, death denied

19
Uncanny Trickster
22
17
8
12
9
Bluff 25, Disguise 25, Hide 23, Intimidate 17, Move Silently 24, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 25, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Bonus Trick, Favorite Trick, Morphic healing

20
Uncanny Trickster
23
18
9
12
10
Bluff 26, Disguise 26, Hide 23, Intimidate 25, Move Silently 24, Listen 4, Spot 4, Sense Motive 10, Use Magic Device 26, Climb 5, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 16, Sleight of Hand 5, Never Outnumbered (skill trick), Assume Quirk (skill trick), Speedy Ascent (skill trick), Swift Concentration (skill trick), False Theurgy (skill trick), Second Impression (skill trick)
-
Bonus Trick, Favorite Trick, Tricky Defense, Flashmorph/multimorph

Spells per Day from aptitude foci (not including bonus spells)

CR
0
1
2
3
4
5
6

7
4
2
0
-
-
-
-

8
4
3
1
-
-
-
-

9
4
3
2
0
-
-
-

10
4
4
3
1
-
-
-

11
4
4
3
2
0
-
-

12
4
4
4
3
1
-
-

13
4
4
4
4
2
0
-

14
4
4
4
4
3
1
-

15
4
4
4
4
4
2
0

16
4
4
4
4
4
3
1

This is a story about a creature who could transform into the shape of almost any person he wished. His life was a long one, and what follows is only a small portion of all he may have gotten up to in that time.

---

Sneaking up on that pathetically pale slip of flesh, some young fop who had lately come into a substantial fortune, was no huge feat. How easy it would be to supplant him and live out the next few decades in decadence, our shape-changing protagonist had thought.

However, even the best-laid plans are at the mercy of circumstance, and the shape-changer's whimsical little assassinate-and-replace operation was far from being well-thought-out. His innate powers, physical vigour and long lifespan were rather conducive to a degree of complacency.

Now, what the creature had failed to consider was that money can buy all kinds of protection. Most sorts he could evade with little trouble, but as it so happened, this gaunt, intellectual young man had used his fortune to buy entry into a rather obscure academy of wizardry and had proved rather adept at magic.

As the shape-changer started forward, he trod on the edge of a circular magical ward drawn around his target's desk. The figure in the high-backed chair did not even have time to turn around before his trap erupted in a focused blast of flame, propelling the would-be assassin headfirst into the ceiling.

---

'Open the gate, you! I have an interesting sample here!'

Awakening to the barked command, the shape-changer found that he had been, at some point following unconsciousness due to head trauma, stuffed rather unceremoniously into a wooden trunk. The entire thing was shuddering rather jarringly, bouncing him around the hard interior in a manner that suggested he was being transported.

So, that fellow was a wizard, thought the shape-changer. That’s his voice I can hear. I am presumably what he is referring to as a sample, which probably means he was able to see through my disguise. It sounds as if he has arrived at some institution of wizards or similar folk.

The shape-changer was naturally afraid of wizards, particularly because, as seemed to be the case here, with the right spells they were capable of almost effortlessly peeling back any assumed shape. More than once had a wizard been his downfall.

He could feel the box being unloaded and heard a muffled conversation between the wizard and whoever had opened the gate. Something about an important event.

‘Right. Well, I think this little oddity in the trunk can wait, if that’s the case. Put it with the other creatures. I’m going to ask the masters if I can take part. Everyone now at the school is participating, you say?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The footsteps of the first wizard echoed away into the distance.

Crashing rather unceremoniously to the ground, still in the trunk, the shape-changer could feel it being pulled away by the gatekeeper, who was muttering under his breath about having to drag the heavy thing all on his own.

So, he’s alone. If he has to do things like open the gate for people, he can’t be a very powerful wizard. And I don’t think there are any magical wards on this box.

The shapechanger was still wearing his previous disguise of a human servant. Concentrating for a moment, he felt his features warp into a much larger, hulking form, all teeth and claws and tough, scaly skin.

A long, curved claw punched through the trunk’s lid, causing the apprentice wizard scraping it along the floor to relinquish his grip and jump back with a yelp. Then the whole box exploded in a flurry of splintered wood and little metal screws flying in all directions. The apprentice, knocked to the floor, scrabbled frantically backwards as the towering figure advanced on him. In a flash, a powerful set of jaws had clamped over his head and with a satisfying crunching noise his skull fractured and caved inward, blood oozing from wounds and orifices.

---

After leaving the scene of the slaughter, the shape-changer found himself swept up in a flood of wizards who all seemed to be going to the same place. Whatever event they were mumbling about earlier must be taking place, he thought. Also, the bloodstains on this robe look a bit conspicuous, but I suppose these wizards probably do get up to quite a bit in this place anyway. No one seems to have noticed it yet.

Now they were all, a hundred or more of them, gathered in a circle in a large, windowless room, suffused by a dim glow that did not seem to come from anywhere in particular. Everyone was chanting something incomprehensible and the sparking and warping of the air in the centre of the room looked rather threatening to the shape-changer. On one hand, he really didn’t want to be involved in whatever crackpot and probably life-endangering scheme these learned fools had dreamed up, but if he tried to leave now, everyone would see him and he doubted that would end well.

As the shape-changer pondered this decision, oblivious as he was to what was happening in a magical sense, the ritual reached its peak. Existence seemed to rip and then there was nothing in the dusty airless chamber.

---

Where were they? Something strange was happening. The shapechanger had felt an inexplicable pull on his body, and now, he assumed, the entire assembly had been transported someplace. He could hear screams. He tried to look around, but he couldn’t see anything. Or, rather, he felt as if he could see things, but he didn’t understand them. The things didn’t make sense, and no language would be able to describe them.

Then, something seemed to be pulling at him again, but in a different way. He was being stretched, warped out of form, feeling his bones liquefy and ooze and his skin blister, transforming into a slimy, fungal substance. If this was what was happening to the others, he could understand the screams.

What had once been a wizard wandered into his line of sight. A horrendous mass of fluid and misplaced organs, the yowling thing grabbed and splattered ooze. There was something about it that seemed wrong. The shape-changer couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there was something beyond the general disgustingness that made him want to vomit and get very, very far away. He stumbled away, behind some other object he could not see, groping his way around. Trying to look too hard and anything in this place gave him the same feeling. Dizziness wrapped around his mind and he seemed to fall. No ground had met him yet, just the feeling of rushing through what was not quite air. Where was the exit to this place? If they had gotten in, surely there was a way to get out.

The shape-changer, however, felt nothing wrong with himself in a physical sense. After all, changing form was his own speciality, and all it took was a few moments to focus his will hand he was back in his natural form. A rather nondescript pile of gray flesh the shape he had been born into was, but under such a constant assault of warping and transmuting it was the easiest to hold.

‘Most considerate of you.’ A voice sounded from the strangeness.

‘What? Who’s there? Are you one of the wizards?’

‘No, your wizards are the one fouling up my home with your taint.’ The voice spoke the word ‘wizard’ with distinct contempt.

‘Fouling? Who are you? Look, I don’t care, let me out of here! I can’t be here! It doesn’t feel right!’ begged the shape-changer, following up the words with a stream of vomit and stomach acid. It swept past him as he tumbled through the sea of incomprehensibility.

‘You have stumbled into a reality different from yours. Substances from different realities contaminate and warp each other, but you seem to be doing a good job of sealing yourself off from that effect. Since I try to protect my reality from such things, I am grateful to you for doing this.’

‘What? Just tell me, can you get me home? Who are you?’

‘Bolothamogg. That is my name. Yes, I am trying. I must send your wizards back with you. They are spreading more of their taint into this reality as I speak, and when with them they will not be the same, I must warn you. Even you… look at yourself, you cannot hold it off forever.’

It was true. Even with his best efforts, the shape-changer could feel stand of flesh being pulled into tentacles, bone punching through his skin and bubbling into hornlike growths, and his limbs bloating and oozing what felt like pus. This Bolothamogg person has the right idea, thought the shape-changer.

‘Really,’ replied the shape-changer, ‘Thank you, but couldn’t you have just stopped us arriving in the first place? It probably would have gone better for all of-’ Something flew past and smacked him in the face, cutting him off.

‘I can’t do that,’ replied Bolothamogg. ‘I can send you back from my end, but on your side only something from there can stop it. Different realities. Get ready.’

‘What? For what?’

‘For th-’

---

In an instant, the shape-changer was back in the room. Almost it seemed as if he was still in the other reality, but no. Those patches of… wrongness… around him, writhing and squealing in tones he knew he could not fully hear, they were the wizards. He had to get out. If they couldn’t taint him with unreality, they could still kill him. Hopefully they were disoriented enough by their transformation. He bolted for the door, his new unfamiliar appendages flapping about him.

He would worry about those later. Probably, he could shift them back. For now, he was running, running through the cold stone corridors of the wizarding’ school, running down the gravel driveway, running down the gloomy forest road that led back to all that was sane and good, feeling the biting wind on his naked gray flesh.

Whatever was back in that school there, whatever he might have glimpsed in that brief moment… it needed to be contained. Whatever the wizards thought they had been doing, they had opened up existence to a new, dangerous place outside of reality.

It wouldn’t stop there, the shape-changer knew. If one group of foolish magicians and explorers could rip open reality, what was to say another could not. If the corruption was allowed to spread, well, the shape-changer knew that reality would become much more like the other one and that really couldn’t happen. The shape-changer knew he couldn’t survive that happening. Whatever he had been before, he had something important to do now.

That Bolothamogg person I met felt the same way, but he also said he couldn’t do anything about things from this reality, thought the shape-changer. He needs help. I need to help him. I need to guard my reality. Or else.

In General
The Warden's primary goal is to keep people from leaving 'reality' for places like the Far Realm. He sees himself and Bolothamogg as two sides of the same coin, each guarding his own reality, although he acknowledges Bolothamogg as his superior.

These are his basic methods:

Kill those who know of the Far Realm or are capable of traveling there. Wiping their memory of such knowledge is also acceptable.
Regular planar travel might also segue into similar activities. Same procedure as above.
By further extension, anyone who is too curious about such things as magic or exploration also needs to be dealt with.
Spread anti-intellectual sentiments. This is an indirect way of preventing people from learning too much about subjects the Warden deems dangerous.
Destroy any records of dangerous information that might encourage travel out of reality. This might range from stealing a few books and scrolls to torching a library.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a way for him to come into conflict with the PCs. Clearly, though, this villain works better in a setting where people have more potential access to the information and practices he considers dangerous, like a large, prosperous city with centres of learning; some backwater village populated with illiterates in unlikely to be a primary target of his.

CR 5
Even now, the Warden is already a Warshaper. He has a high Base Attack and can grow an unlimited number of natural weapons, so in melee he should be able to put up a fair fight. It is probably a good idea to keep it sane with the natural attacks, though. Start off combat by intimidating everyone, if possible.

His SLAs also make things interesting, with Charm Person at will and Hypnotism. Make one person a day Fanatic about anything. Effects like Hideous Laughter and Confusion are also potent, and for tracking down those who are curious about the wrong things we have Detect Thoughts, along with a good ability to sneak about.

CR 10
Chameleon levels are now in play. Probably the most useful focus is the Divine one, especially since it doesn't need a spellbook and can choose from any list. The possibilities are endless. The Warden could blind people so they can't read, or Scry on important targets from afar, just to give some examples.

The shifting bonus feat also helps a lot. If the Warden needs the edge in combat, he could have Weapon Finesse or Multiattack, for example, or perhaps bind the Naberius vestige to utilise Dark Speech more effectively (also fits with the 'reality and things outside it' theme). Combat abilities on their own have also improved with Vile Natural attack and some Sneak Attack.

Don't forget that the Warden can Dominate people now, which allows him to use others as agents even if they are unwilling.

CR 15
The jump to CR 15 has provided quite a boost in power. The Warden can now modify memories and gains access to the famously powerful Polymorph, with Metamorphic Transfer to boot. Some good forms might be a Chronotyryn, for two rounds worth of actions a round, or if the Warden needs to fight his way out of somewhere there is the classic hydra, with Pounce and tons of attacks inbuilt. Sneak Attack is up, with Craven and Dark Whispers augments Dark Speech. Ability Boon is useful in any situation.

The Warden's SLAs are also looking good, including such gems as Geas. Mental control without a saving throw, for all those high-Will-save people he might need to suborn.

CR 18 (Sweet Spot)
At this point, there is really not much more power this build has to go until its peak. The Warden has all of his Chameleon abilities, all his Half-Fey SLAs and few more boosts from Warshaper, but most significant is the automatic True Resurrection every day. This makes him more implacable in his goals, which he would like to think makes him seem more like the primal Elder Evil he emulates.

Harvester of Souls lets the Warden put his most troublesome targets away more permanently.

CR 20
Compared to the sweet spot, there are a couple more tricks and some fast healing, which are largely inconsequential. Nothing much to add here.

The Elder Evil the Warden serves is Bolothamogg. According to the rules of the competition he is fair game to base a villain off of, as he is from Lords of Madness, an official source.

However, Bolothamogg has neither a sign nor statistics. As a result, he is clearly not intended to affect the campaign world in the way of the Elder Evils book's Elder Evils, especially since even personally entering what the PCs see as 'reality' would seem to run contrary to his ideals in the first place. His goals are also not necessarily evil.

Therefore, although the Warden serves Bolothamogg and his purpose, the PCs will probably not come into direct contact with Bolothamogg, unlike the more traditional Elder Evils. In this way, Bolothamogg functions more like a god, as the Warden is more like an extremist devotee with Bolothamogg's goals serving as a motivating force, rather than actively trying to bring Bolothamogg into contact with the campaign world.

Sources
Core Rulebooks (Rules)
Expanded Psionics Handbook (Metamorphic Transfer)
Lords of Madness (Bolothamogg, Darkstalker)
Elder Evils (Vile Feats)
Tome of Battle (Martial Study, Martial Stance, Maneuvers)
Champions of Ruin (Craven)
Complete Warrior (Warshaper)
Complete Scoundrel (Uncanny Trickster, Skill Tricks)
Fiend Folio (Half- Fey Template)
Complete Psionic (Telepathic Affinity)
Races of Destiny (Chameleon, Able Learner)
WoTC Web Content (Epic Destiny)

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 05:31 AM

Elder Evil: Killing frost of Ghulurak DMG2 p.115
Servant: Captain Kelvin Sifuri
CE Half-Fey (Fiend Folio, p. 90) Draconic (Draconomicon, p. 150) Unseelie Fey (Dragon Compendium, p. 224) Human Prodigy (DMG2 p.160) Bard 3, Human paragon 3 (UA p.43), Marshal 1 (Miniatures Handbook, p. 11), Truenamer 3 (Tome of Magic p.198), exemplar 8 (Complete Adventurer, p. 44)
Type: Fey
Subtypes: (human) (dragonblood RotD p.79)

STR: 8 +2 draconic -2 unseelie= 8
DEX: 12 +2 half fey +2 unseelie fey=16
CON: 15 +2 prodigy -2 unseelie -2 half fey=13
INT: 13
WIS: 10+2half fey =12
CHA: 14 +2 unseelie +2 draconic +4 half fey = 24
All bonuses go to charisma

Abilities: +4 racial bonus to intimidate, +1 skill/level, Winter Chill debuff saves of those within 5’ by cha bonus, 1-3 None 4-7 5/cold iron 8-11 10/cold iron 12+ 15/cold iron, iron vulnerability, Nat AC improves by 1: 1d3 claw attacks, +4 racial bonus to saves against sleep and paralysis, fly 60’, immune to enchantment spells and effects. Lowlight vision, SLA’s:

HD
Abilities

1–2
Charm person at will, hypnotism 1/day, faerie fire or glitterdust 1/day

3–4
Detect law 3/day, sleep or enthrall 1/day

5–6
Protection from law 3/day, Tasha’a hideous laughter or suggestion 1/day

7–8
Confusion or emotion 1/day

9–10
Eyebite or lesser geas 1/day

11–12
Dominate person or hold monster 1/day

13–14
Mass invisibility 1/day

15–16
Geas/quest or mass suggestion 1/day

17–18
Insanity or mass charm 1/day

http://i.imgur.com/KEVr3.jpg

Level
CR
Class
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Skill
Feat
Class Features

1
3
bard 1
0
0
2
2
32: k. arcana 4, Perform 4, k. history 4, k. Geog 4, k. Nobility 1, Profession (sailor) 3, profession (merchant) 2, UMD 4, spellcraft 3, diplomacy 3,
shape soulmeld (MOI p.40) Soulspark Familiar, skill focus diplomacy
Bardic Knowledge, Bardic Music, inspire courage, countersong, fascinate, 4 zero level spells known: Message, Detect Magic, Read Magic, Easy Math

2
4
human paragon 1
0
0
2
4
6: Diplomacy 5, truespeak 2, k. History 5, p. Sailor 4
Unseelie Court Noble Kelir http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815 (http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/fey/20030815a)a
adaptive learning (truespeak), 10skills: K. history, profession, truespeak, UMD, knowledge geography, forgery, knowledge nobility and royalty, disable device, UPD

3
5
Bard 2
1
0
3
5
8: K. history 6, umd 6, k geo 6, truespeak 4
Draconic Aura (Dragon Magic, p. 16) Insight p.86
1 zero level spell: Songbird, 2 first level spells: combined Talents (CM), Ray of hope (BOED

4
6
Bard 3
2
1
3
5
8: K. history 7, UMD 7, Truspeak 7, perform 6, k.geo 7

Inspire competence, 1 zero level spell: Ghost Sound, 1 first level spell: Ambient Song (SaS

5
7
Marshal 1
2
3
3
7
6: K history 8, truespeak 8, diplomacy 7, bluff 2
song of the heart
Motivate intelligence

6
8
human paragon 2
3
3
3
8
6: K. history 9, truespeak 9, UMD 8, p. Sailor 7
obtain familiar, leadership: Cohort is a cleric with access to the commerce domain that is immune to cold damage.
Bonus feat, 2 second level spells: Master’s touch (PHB2), Eagle’s Splendor

7
9
truenamer 1
3
3
3
10
6: K. history 10, umd 10, truespeak 10, spellcraft 5

known personal true name, 1 level one lexicon of evolving minde utterance: Universal aptitude

8
10
truenamer 2
4
3
3
11
6: K. history 11, umd 11, truespeak 11, k. Nobility 3

knowledge focus history, 1 level one lexicon of evolving mind utterance: Inertia surge

9
11
truenamer 3
5
4
4
11
6: K. history 12, umd 12, truespeak 12, diplomacy 8, concentration 2
Great Captain
knowledge focus history, 1 level two lexicon of evolving mind utterance: Hidden truth

10
12
Human paragon 3
6
5
5
11
6: K. history 13, umd 13, truespeak 13, disable device 1, forgery 1, UPD 1

+2 charisma, 1 first level spell: swift invisibility (SpC), 1 2nd level spell tongue

11
13
Exemplar 1
6
5
5
13
10: K. history 14, umd 14, truespeak 14, p. Merchant 4, bluff 5, diplomacy 10

skill artistry: knowledge history, skill mastery: k. histor

12
14
Exemplar 2
7
5
5
14
10: K. history 15, umd 15, truespeak 15, p. Merchant 5, bluff 7, diplomacy 14
Insane Defiance (EE p.13)
Lend talent

13
15
Exemplar 3
8
6
6
14
10: K. history 16, umd 16, truespeak 16, p. Merchant 6, bluff 11, diplomacy 16
Skill focus truespeak
bonus feat

14
16
Exemplar 4
9
6
6
15
10: K. history 17, umd 17, truespeak 17, diplomacy 17, p. Merchant 9, bluff 14,
retrain song of the heart into practiced spellcaster or share soul meld
skill artistry: truespeak, sustaining presence

15
17
Exemplar 5
9
6
6
15
10: K. history 18, umd 18, truespeak 18, diplomacy 18, bluff 18, forgery 3
Quicken utterance
Persuasive performance

16
18
Exemplar 6
10
7
7
16
10: K. history 19, umd 19, truespeak 19, diplomacy 19, bluff 19, forgery 5, spellcraft 7
Bonus feat: combat casting
Bonus feat

17
19
Exemplar 7
11
7
7
16
10: K. history 20, umd 20, truespeak 20, diplomacy 20, bluff 20, spellcraft 8, Disable device 3, false theurgy skill trick

Skill artistry

18
20
Exemplar 8
12
7
7
17
10: K. history 21, umd 21, truespeak 21, diplomacy 21, bluff 21, Disable device 8
Practiced spellcaster
intellectual agility, lend talent

The killing frost is an anomaly in that it punishes characters that do well on knowledge history checks.
A few forgotten fragments of lore hold descriptions of the Killing Frost of Ghulurak and its effects. Learning the details of the Killing Frost requires a DC 40 Knowledge (history) check. Some lore is so precise, though, that it causes the image of Ghulurak to fester in the reader’s mind, and drives her to madness. Any creature that rolls a 50 or higher on an attempt to learn of the Killing Frost is exposed to a description so precise that she must succeed on a DC 25 Will save or fall under the effect of a geas spell that directs the reader to create the statue and complete the ritual that brings the Killing Frost into existence.

How do we weaponize that? We make people trained in knowledge: history and buff their knowledge check sky high. Maybe combine it with a save debuffer??? And hence an winter dragonblood unseelie fey marshal with sky high charisma, inspire competence, the bardic spell combine talents, draconic insight aura with a least soulspark and raven familiar aiding another with their ranks in knowledge history is born. By level 10, without items, Kelvin is capable of making any sentient creature with an int of 3 or higher serve ghulurak. Half fey offers protection from the geas effect by making Kelvin immune to mind affecting spells and effects and also grants a number of SLA’s and a +4 charisma boost. Winter auspice unseelie fey grants another +2 charisma and a debuff for saves equal to Kelvin’s charisma modifier if they are within 5’ of him, which helps boost that static 25 will save DC for Gulurak’s geas effect. Draconic template grants another +2 charisma and the dragonblood subtype which makes the draconic aura gain in strength with character level.

Great Captain offers the ability to aid another for everyone aboard a vessel under his command. When paired with the expert help aid another rules from the rule compendium (the +2 aid another bonus is boosted by +1 bonus for every 10 by which the aid another DC is beaten) and auras, Kelvin should be able to send entire fleets off to build Ghulurak shrines. All he needs to do is a have a writ of authority allowing him to commandeer and command a ship, which is conveniently provided by his paltry number of forgery ranks, his marshal bonus to int, taking 20 and his familiar aiding in the process. Leadership is a necessary pre-req for great captain, and little thought has been put into fleshing that out, but the Cohort should be cold immune and be a spellcaster with access to brew potion and maybe some business savvy/favored in mercantile guild.

Human paragon keys off Kelvins human subtype and grants truespeak as a forever class skill without blowing a feat on it, while granting a necessary bonus feat at level 2. Truenamer offers two utterances, hidden talent and universal aptitude that buff a skill check by a stackable untyped +15. When first statted out, I had a non-human race in mind for this, but I had to change it because of a Rule oversight, thus leaving me with a constitution of 11, which I boost with the zero CR increasing NPC ability from DMG2 prodigy, which offers +2 to an ability score and +4 to skill checks based on that score. I would have loved to have this on charisma or intelligence, but the build should at least be legal considering the amount of leeway necessary to turn a magical event into an elder evil.

Insane defiance allows Kelvin to make his own knowledge checks (free action) and interrupt the action with an immediate action to cast it on someone else who has a -4 will save penalty at the cost of 1 damage to wisdom ability. A wand of fox’s cunning and a potion of speak to animals allows Kelvin to turn animals into Ghulurakian Zealots.

Considering that it’s free with a fluff justification, unseelie noble kelir grants some utility to that massive charisma score and the diplomacy bonus.

Exemplar grants a huge skill boost and the ability to lend talents to people around you. This doesn’t supplant the bardic song of the heart boosted inspire competence +3 bonus until the final two levels; when it offers the greater competence bonus to knowledge history at level 17 (+4) and 18 (+8).

Here is a breakdown of Kelvins ability to boost knowledge checks by level. Along with gear that is wealth by level calculated to help in that regard.

CR
Bonus to other’s Knowledge history check
Equipment
Knowledge check

3
Aid another with soulspark +4

Int +1, Ranks 4, soulspark aid +2 = 7

4
Aid another with soulspark +4

Int +1 Ranks 5, soulspark aid +2 = 6

5
ray of hope +2 morale bonus, combined talents +2 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark +4, dragon aura +1 =+9

Int +1, combined talents +2, Ray of hope +2, dragon aura +1, soulspark aid +2 ranks 6 = +14

6
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +3 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark +4, dragon aura +1, inspire competence +2 competence=+12

Int +1, combined talents +3, aid other with soulspark +2, ray of hope +2 dragon aura +1, inspire competence +2, ranks 7: +18

7
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +3 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark +4, dragon aura +1, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+7 =+20
9,000 gp, cloak of charisma +2 (4,000), amulet of silver tongue (+5)
Int +1, motivate int +7, Ranks 8, soulspark +2, heartinspired +3, combined talents +3, dragon aura +1: +25

8
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +4 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +9 expert help, dragon aura +1, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+9, master’s touch +4 insight = +32

Int +1, eagles splendor motivate int +9, Ranks 9, soulspark +2, familiar +4, heartinspired +3, combined talents +4, dragon aura +1: +33

9
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +4 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +9 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+9, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5 = +38

Int +1, eagles splendor motivate int +9, Ranks 10, soulspark +2, familiar +4, heartinspired +3, combined talents +4, dragon aura +2, master’s touch +4 universal aptitude +5: +44

10
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +4 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +9 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+10, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5 = +38
27,000 gp, cloak of charisma +4 (16,000), amulet of silver tongue +10 (10,000)
Int +1, eagles splendor motivate int +10, Ranks 11, soulspark +2, familiar +4, heartinspired +3, combined talents +4, dragon aura +2, master’s touch +4 universal aptitude +5: +46

11
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +4 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +9 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+10, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +48

Int +1, eagles splendor motivate int +10, Ranks 12, soulspark +2, familiar +4, heartinspired +3, combined talents +4, dragon aura +2, master’s touch +4 universal aptitude +5, hidden truth 10: +57

12
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +9 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+10, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +50
88,000 gp, horse shoes of flame +6 UMD it. (30,250), Cloak of charisma +6 36,000, amulet of silver tongue +10 (10,000), masterwork truespeak item

13
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+10, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +53

14
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +54

15
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +2, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +54

16
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +3, heart singed inspire competence +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +55

17
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +3, Lend Talents +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +55

18
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +3, Lend Talents +3 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +55

19
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +5 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +3, Lend Talents +4 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +56

20
ray of hope +2 morale, combined talents +9 and considered trained, aid other with soulspark and familiar +12 expert help, dragon aura +3, Lend Talents +8 competence, eagle’s splendored motivate intelligence + cha bonus as circumstance bonus+11, master’s touch +4 insight, universal aptitude +5, Hidden truth +10 = +64

Pretty awesome eh? Weaponized knowledge checks. At level 10, after 4 rounds of casting spells and uttering, Kelvin can simply say, “have you ever heard of the killing frost of ghulurak?” and boom, DC 25 will save at -8 penalty. At level 6, anyone with a +12 or more to k. History has DC 25 will save.

At level 12, Kelvin can insane defiance away the geas effect as free actions. He asks himself, “what do I know about ghulurak?” and immediately disperses ghuluraks tendrils to someone else even before his immunity reacts at the cost of 1 wisdom damage. He only has a 12 wisdom, so there is a hard limit of how many times this can be done in a day/week. At this level, great captain can be used to help turn entire vessel crews into cultists when combined with the expert help aid another rules from rules compendium. Although the rules are found in stormwrack, and thus imply a nautical element to captaindom feel free to have Kelvin bamboozle dwarven tunneler teams, halfling caravans, or ships with planar sails. Really get those cultists into hard to reach nooks and crannies of the world. All of kelvins knowledge skill check boosting shenanigans can work on any skill keyed off of intelligence, allowing him to use 1 rank in forgery, or hiring a forger to combine talents with, to make forgeries of writs of boarding in lawful countries that extend this latitude. Bluff checks can lend him a diplomacy bonus of up to +5 by impersonating a military officer (heroes of battle), and with all of that combined, most lay crews should be dominable. Anyone who makes their saves can be cut directed from the noble kelir feat to make the other new cultists hostile to them.

So now all we have to do is develop the fluff. We need an unseelie fey noble that wants to freeze the entire world or universe. We want them to be so driven as to constantly develop his elder evil expanding modality. Great captain requires some profession sailor and knowledge in geography while truenamer/truespeach needs to be addressed. Leadership will be used to help develop a worldwide shipping empire, thus necessitating profession merchant. A merchant in the shipping empire could very well find themselves to be a great captain. All we need is to develop a backstory trauma so potent that Kelvin is motivated to freeze everything in the world. Motivated enough to act not crazy for extended periods of time wherein he maximizes his efficiency at weaponizing the Ghularakian knowledge. Imprisonment and devastating loss due to injustice seems like a way to break a sentient mind towards worshipping Ghulurak. So we'll pair that with the unseelie noble kelir background and the mercantile stuff and political machinations the fairy court.

Level 3 CR 5: Rumors amongst fey speak of a jailbreak of one of the second siblings nobles. A Big gather information check or knowledge nobility check will yield info about Kelvin being an upstart unseelie noble being sentenced to some terribly harsh punishment that involves a fey ice fortress of torture PCs are given bounty for treasure that boosts intelligence/charisma, with players in the black market capable of paying 125%-150% market price for the goods.

Level 6, CR 8: The world’s top scholars are going missing. The war library of the City of Relevant Location has lost all staff and most city academics. Stewards speak of a butterfly man who came to speak with scholars who brought expensive gifts. (Crystal mask of knowledge, maybe a brainmate, potions of fox’s cunning) and who made appointments with local scholars and sages. Pushing the stewards will reveal that during these appointments, the “butterfly man” would make a ruckus after which the sages would promptly begin researching various subjects like gods of madness, ancient sculptures, etc. At this level, Kelvin can boost history checks by +32, so finding scholars who have 6-10 ranks and a circumstance modifier from their library should guarantee a few new Cultists every day. Libraries near port cities are specifically targetted. This is the pattern for level 7 and 8, where weaker libraries with dumber sages further from port cities are visited with Kelvins +38 modifier to knowledge history checks.

Level 10, CR 12: At 9HD, Kelvin gets great captain and has a +48 modifier to other people’s knowledge history checks. Here, his pattern of recruitment changes. He begins converting peasants, particularly skilled craftsmen one at a time, settling for whomever is closest at the end of the day before he goes to bed. During this modality switch, Kelvin takes his cohort and some loyal acting troupe folks and begins looking for a way to a relatively rich country with strict magistrate/vessel inspection regulations. This is where Kelvin polices halfling caravans, dwarven tunneling teams, undersea kingdoms, etc. Commandeering the vessel allows for a specific reading of the great captain feat that allows him to use expert aid another rules to add +6 to everyone on the ship’s knowledge history check. Some wands of ray of hope and/or combined talent should let Kelvin send teams to the arctic to carve up some statues. This point is where some teams have finished multiple statues and have triggered Eerie weather. Whatever followers from leadership that aren't devoted to the shipping empire are CN Elan Berzerker strength barbarians with the frozen berzerker feat. At the end of the world, these folks will always stay at half HP due to the terrible damaging weather before becoming immune. Clues can include marooned crew members who failed their knowledge history checks,

Level 18, CR 20: Exemplar offers the lend talents ability for a +8 competence bonus, bringing the total for Kelvin to like +64 or something. More if you invest in tomes, that belt of magnificence from heroes of battle, horseshoes of flame for a +6, a cloak of charisma +6 and probably some other gear that I've run out of steam enough to look up. Somewhere after level 10, Kelvin needs to begin targetting people with access to symbol of insanity. This might be a good time to have someone from the cult of Tharizden (Return to temple of elemental evil) come to the PCs for help dealing with the loss of their entire leadership. Any cult devoted to madness will be targeted by Kelvin, using combine talents to use some local rogues/priests knowledge local/religion checks to identify the nitty gritty on local madness based cults on various continents. At this level, non gear based cash is being used to create a fleet with planar sails,
with hand selected madness priests, expert sculptors and sailors to spread this revenge fantasy on ice to other prime material worlds.

Ghulurak
https://peripateticbone.files.wordpress.com/2016/03/snow-sculpture-city-destroying-monster.jpg?w=400&h=475

This “being of vast and ancient evil” doesn’t have stats. So other than the sign with suggested adaptations below, stats will be up to whomever wants to steal this/these hook/s, if they even want to stat out this thing at all. It’s a godlike being of cold and madness. It’s easier to stop than it is to fight is all that I’m saying.

SIGN: EERIE WEATHER
The preponderance of ritualistically built Ghularak monuments affects the worldwide weather as more and more cold pours into the planet.
Faint: Eerie weather occurs once every 2 weeks and affects an area of 2d20 square miles in a place of your choosing. The effects last for 1d4+1 hours.
Moderate: Eerie weather occurs once a week and affects an area of 2d% square miles. The effects last for 1d8+2 hours.
Strong: Eerie weather occurs once a day and affects an entire continent or large surface of the planet. The effects last for 1d12+4 hours.
Overwhelming: Eerie weather occurs once an hour and affects the entire world. The effects last for 1d3 hours (because the duration can be longer than the frequency, the effects often overlap).
Each time eerie weather occurs, consult the following table and roll d% twice to determine the exact effect. See Weather, DMG 93–95, for details. Use Zargon’s weather table (Elder Evils p.145), but remove heat wave and replace it with a weaker cold snap. Replace Rain of Slime with Cacklestorm (Fiendish codex 1 p.112) representative of Ghularak’s madness, and all other choices defer to the coldest options (eg. rain/snow = choose snow, Thundestorm/sleetstorm = choose sleet)

“Any true replica of its frozen and twisted form allows the creature Ghulurak to send a slender icicle of its power into the worlds of men. Once such a replica exists, Ghulurak powers the killing frost that bears its name. The “Form of Ghulurak” statue requires a cube of ice at least 20 feet by 20 feet by 20 feet. Creating the statue requires 80 hours of labor, and it must be carved by hand with a craft:sculpting check at DC 25. Interrupting the work on the statue does not disrupt the creation process, but all 80 hours of work must be finished before the rest of the ritual can be completed. As soon as a statue of sufficient quality is complete, three separate symbols of insanity must be graven into the base of the statue within an hour of its completion. The magic of its creation makes the statue much more resistant to damage than normal ice. The Form of Ghulurak has hardness 5 and 10 hit points per inch of thickness. A typical statue, carved from a 20-foot block, is about 15 feet thick, giving it 1,800 hit points. The Killing Frost of Ghulurak can be stopped only by destroying the Form of Ghulurak. Should the killing frost ever remain manifested for a century, the heart begins to expand, pushing outward from its icy center, its radius increasing by 1 mile every month. Ancient lore tells of worlds lost to the frozen insanity of Ghulurak, for should the heart ever spread to cover an entire world, Ghulurak itself is made manifest on the world and forever holds dominion over it.

Multiply this by the tens and hundreds of Ice-crafting teams that Kelvin sends off to build, and you get an extinction level event. The book DMG2 is silent on what happens when dozens of Forms of Ghulurak get built in the same time frame, but it seems fair to expedite that 100 year timeline of killing frost manifestation to fit within a 1-20 level elder evil campaign. Maybe choose a number of statues in existence, place them on your game world, and as they come online, increase the severity of the signs. For example, 5-14 Statues yield the killing frost in those different locales, + Faint eerie weather. 15-34 Statues = moderate weather, 35-75 statues =Strong, 76 statues or more = Overwhelming. Ramp the 100 years to manifest a world death be cut down depending on which signs are there.
5-14 statues = 25 years til icehearts expand,
15-34 statues = 10 years til ice hearts exand
35-75 Statues = All ice hearts start expanding immediately
76 statues or more= All ice hearts expand by two additional miles per month, per 5 statues over 75: eg. if 95 statues are out there, all the ice hearts expand by an additional 8 miles per month.

If the entire planet becomes covered by the ice hearts, Ghulurak or an avatar of Ghulurak descends onto the planet. All life without immunity to cold dies within a week. The molten core of round rocky planets cools, extending the effects of the cold miles underground to include all of the underdark. Magic with the [Ice] descriptor is maximized and empowered on the planet. Natural fires won’t start. The ethereal plane attached to this part of the prime material manifests the effects of the cold weather.

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 05:32 AM

Karen Greyspark, Servant of Elessis, the Forgotten Light

Karen:
http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x305/mizukey935/Anime/SunGoddess.jpg

Elessis:
http://stackeddmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/sungodess-48x48in.jpg

Darkness rests even in the heart of light, death in the seat of life. Guard against evil always, and keep it in check; for without her prison of light to confine her, Elessis will break free and bring ruin to all. – the Rule of the Shadow Servants of Pelor.

Beware the light, O servants of Orcus; for one day it will be the undoing of all. Beware the Lady of Sigils, the Lady in Pain, for doom is written on her brow. She will open the last portal, and the cage will be rent asunder. The light will come, life and undeath will die side by side, and woe will be to all the people. They will beg for mercy, but there will be none. On that day they will say that the Forgotten Light is returned at last. – a fragment from the Scrolls of the Dead.

Most of those who study interplanar matters give little thought to the Positive Energy plane. Its inhospitable nature, relatively sparse population, and lack of obvious threats to the Material Plane make the few writings on it very dry reading indeed. Clerics are happy to conjure its energy to heal the injured and fight the undead; most give little thought to where this energy comes from. Those who actually travel to the plane get a quick taste of how dangerous it can be. But the most interesting clues to the secrets of the plane can be found in sources least likely to be believed: in the ancient writings of the cults of Orcus and other gods related to death and undeath.

While these ancient writings are incomplete and scattered, the stories all point to a surprising theory: a being extraordinarily strong in positive energy, imprisoned somewhere in the infinite expanse of the Positive Energy Plane. The writings usually center on the potential catastrophe for any Undead on the Material Plane if this being, referred to as “The Forgotten Light,” should ever escape (Knowledge: Planes DC 35).

Some of the most ancient (and most coherent) texts relate the story of how the Forgotten Light came to be. Millennia ago, when the material plane was in its infancy, the energy planes did not yet exist. The gods had made all of the material plane from the elements, but nothing moved or changed. It needed a spark to create life. This spark came from a great deity, whose name has been struck from existence. This deity agreed to be split in two, and to forget it had ever been whole. Half of its essence was taken to the Negative Energy Plane; it was focused on death, destruction, and pain. The other half became the Positive Energy Plane, focused on life, creation, and healing. With life and death thus separated, the stage was set for the material plane to fully come into being. (Knowledge: Planes DC 38)

The Forgotten Light, like her counterpart in the Negative Energy Plane, has had no cause to leave her plane. Despite that, the gods placed the strongest of protective magics around her to bind her to the plane in a great cage of light. But even the gods’ magic has its limits. The few followers of Orcus sane enough to be called scholars theorize that if the Light ever remembered who she is, she might find a way to bypass the powerful glyphs and sigils that line her cage. This would be an event to be stopped at all costs. Some vague prophecies hint at a chosen one of the Light that will set her free, and the signs that will precede her coming. (Knowledge: Planes DC 43)

While the ravings of Orcus’ followers might be dismissed, other ancient records of the time speak of an even more obscure Pelorite sect called the Shadow Servants. Their purpose was to keep knowledge of the Forgotten Light secret. If she ever escaped her prison, they believed she would rush to become reunited with her counterpart in the Negative Energy Plane. But just as positive and negative energons rush towards each other, destroying each other in the process, this would put the entire balance of existence in peril. The greatest secret of the sect is the Forgotten Light’s name: Elessis. The Shadow Servants noted the signs of her coming: an increase in the power of Positive Energy spells at first, heralded by a new night star, glowing brighter than any in the sky. But prolonged exposure to too much Positive Energy can have some very unusual consequences… (Knowledge: Planes or Religion DC 48)

Scattered groups of light-worshiping cults have begun to appear across the Planes, as the Positive Energy has begun to grow stronger. Most of the Good deities have tolerated or even encouraged these cults, believing that any servant of the light is a friend of theirs. The cults’ focus on positive energy and fighting the undead have given them hope that the powers of Good are on the rise. Some of the most fervent have even voiced the hope that the undead might be driven back to the Negative Energy Plane entirely. One of the leaders of these cults appears to be a human Wizard named Karen Greyspark. (Knowledge: Religion or Local DC 25)

The Illumians of the Shadow Plane, in particular, have felt a strong calling to Elessis. Focused as they are on finding words, and remembering with pain the destruction of their Great Library, unusual Ascension cabals have cropped up, focused on the deification of light. (Knowledge: Planes or Local DC 30)

As she is now, Elessis has no goals. But as the time of her arrival draws near, she seeks to call out to any who have great pain or loss in their lives. If Elessis is released, she would make her way as quickly as possible to the Material Plane, remaining there until her Negative Energy counterpart approached. (Being made of positive energy, she could not travel to the Negative Energy plane herself). This would have dire consequences for the Material Plane, with many of the traits of the Positive Energy Plane leaching off of Elessis wherever she goes. (Knowledge: Planes DC 48)

Elessis uses the same mechanics as the Elder Evil Ragnorra (including signs and personal stats) as a default. The description should be altered to better suit a being of positive energy. The mutations might be due to “radiation” from the positive energy plane rather than from the Mother of Montsers, and the omen of a comet might be changed to a larger or more powerful sun. (If you would like to move to a more solidly Positive Energy-related set of signs, a group of alternates is listed below. These alternate signs are completely optional and beyond the scope of the competition, but included for anyone who wants to use them as flavor).

Karen Greyspark was born as Keren Darkfire. She was a member of a Quill cabal on the material plane. Her early life was relatively uneventful, though she sometimes accompanied her teachers on extraplanar travels seeking lost bits of information. She seemed to be set for an ordinary Illumian life until the day her fiancée Daryn left the cabal to join a Gravewhisper cabal. Not long thereafter, he was turned into a Vampire as part of the cabal’s necromantic experimentation. Safely ensconced in the Gravewhisper cabal’s walls, he would be forever separated from her. When the leaders of the Black Table gave her the news, she demanded that they mount an operation to rescue him. One of the Table leaders, trying to impress upon her the impossibility of the task, told her that she might expect to see him again if all the undead were wiped from the world. Her eyes narrowed, and she gave a short reply: “We shall see.”

Karen is bent on recovering Daryn, and doesn’t care who is hurt in the process. Anyone who stands in her way will get whatever is coming to them.

Physical description: Karen is one of the minority of Illumians who do have hair; hers is red. When her sigils are suppressed, there is nothing setting her apart from a typical human.

Karen Greyspark
NE Illumian Wizard (Conjuration Specialist)
Banned Schools: Evocation, Necromancy
Wizard6/Geometer4/Planeshifter10
Illumian Sigils: Krau, Naen

Starting abilities:
Str 8
Dex 14
Con 13
Int 15
Wis 10
Cha 12

All level increases go to Intelligence

CR
Class
Base Attack Bonus
Fort Save
Ref Save
Will Save
Skills
Feats
Class Features

1
Wizard 1
+0
+0
+0
+2
Decipher Script 4, Disable Device 2, Know Arcana 4, Search 2
Subtle Sigil, Scribe Scroll (Wizard), Evil Brand (Elder Evil)
Bonus Wizard feat, Immediate Magic (Abrupt Jaunt)

2
Wizard 2
+1
+0
+0
+3
Decipher 5, Disable 2.5, Know Arcana 5, Search 2.5
-
-

3
Wizard 3
+1
+1
+1
+3
Decipher 6, Disable 3, Know Arcana 6, Search 3
Craft Wondrous Item
New Class Abilities

4
Wizard 4
+2
+1
+1
+4
Decipher 7, Disable 3.5, Know Arcana 7, Search 3.5, Spellcraft 1
-
Int +1

5
Wizard 5
+2
+1
+1
+4
Decipher 8, Disable 4, Know Arcana 8, Search 4, Spellcraft 2
Extend Spell (Wizard), Chosen of Evil (EE)
Bonus Feat

6
Wizard 6
+3
+2
+2
+5
Decipher 9, Know Arcana 9, Spellcraft 4, Concentration 1
Sculpt Spell
-

7
Geometer 1
+3
+2
+2
+7
Spellcraft 6, Concentration 3, Know Planes 1
-
Glyph of Warding, Draw Spellglyph

8
Geometer 2
+4
+2
+2
+8
Spellcraft 8, Concentration 5, Know Planes 2
-
Book of Geometry, Int +1

9
Geometer 3
+4
+3
+3
+8
Spellcraft 10, Concentration 7, Know Planes 3
Metamagic School Focus
Sigilsight

10
Geometer 4
+5
+3
+3
+9
Spellcraft 11, Concentration 10, Know Planes 4
Enemy of Good (EE)
Pass Sigil

11
Planeshifter 1
+5
+5
+3
+9
Spellcraft 14, Concentration 11, Know Planes 7
-
Plane Shift 1/day

12
Planeshifter 2
+6
+6
+3
+9
Spellcraft 15, Concentration 14, Know Planes 12
Rapid Spell
Analyze Portal, Int +1

13
Planeshifter 3
+6
+6
+4
+10
Spellcraft 16, Concentration 16, Know Planes 16, Balance 0.5
-
Planar Survival

14
Planeshifter 4
+7
+7
+4
+10
Spellcraft 17, Concentration 17, Know Planes 17, Balance 3
-
Morphic Stability

15
Planeshifter 5
+7
+7
+4
+10
Spellcraft 18, Concentration 18, Know Planes 18, Balance 5, Search 5
Quicken Spell, Slave to Evil (EE)
Grant Planar Survival

16
Planeshifter 6
+8
+8
+5
+11
Spellcraft 19, Concentration 19, Know Planes 19, Swim 1, Use Magic Device 1, Speak: Celestial, Speak: Infernal
-
Control Planar Flux, Int +1

17
Planeshifter 7
+8
+8
+5
+11
Spellcraft 20, Concentration 20, Know Planes 20, UMD 3.5
-
Telepathy

18
Planeshifter 8
+9
+9
+5
+11
Spellcraft 21, Concentration 21, Know Planes 21, UMD 6
Mindsight
Plane Shift At Will

19
Planeshifter 9
+9
+9
+6
+12
Spellcraft 22, Concentration 22, Know Planes 22, UMD 8.5
-
Planar Area Swap

20
Planeshifter 10
+10
+10
+6
+12
Spellcraft 23, Concentration 23, Know Planes 23, UMD 11.5
Insane Defiance (EE)
Demiplane Seed, Int +1

Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level
0lvl
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th
7th
8th
9th

1st
3+1
1+1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

2nd
4+1
2+1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

3rd
4+1
2+1
1+1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

4th
4+1
3+1
2+1
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

5th
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-
-
-
-
-
-

6th
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-
-
-
-
-
-

7th
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-
-
-
-
-

8th
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-
-
-
-
-

9th
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-
-
-
-

10th
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-
-
-
-

11th
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-
-
-
-

12th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-
-
-

13th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-
-
-

14th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-
-

15th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-
-

16th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-
-

17th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1
-

18th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-

19th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
3+1
2+1
-

20th
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
4+1
3+1
2+1
1+1

Rules Note: The table for Geometer lists Pass Sigil as the ability gained at Geometer 4, but the text lists it as an ability gained at 3rd level. Text usually trumps table, but I believe this was a typo that was never errata’d.

Karen’s backstory happens up to here. At CR 1, she’s abandoned her previous name, as well as the cabal that sheltered her. Thanks to the Subtle Sigil feat, she can pass as an ordinary human for most purposes. Her studies have helped her to focus on Conjuration spells, becoming a specialist. Instead of summoning a familiar, she’s taken the Immediate Magic variant, gaining the ability to Abrupt Jaunt. Her Naen sigil gives her a minor boost to Intelligence-related skills. She’s otherwise not more notable than a typical first-level Wizard. If she encounters the party at all at this level, it will not be obvious that she is a villain. She is likely trying to recruit willing adventurers to search for any lore concerning the destruction of undead.

Karen is less focused on Metamagic than the typical Wizard at this level, though she has just learned to Extend spells. Her second Sigil, Krau, arrived at second level, giving her the power word Naenkrau, which allows her to gain +1 to spell DCs as long as one spell slot is left open. Still, not too different in power from most other Wizards. By this level, she’s rousted several Necromantic cults, torturing enough information out of the cultists that her plan is beginning to form. She’s finally learned the name of Elessis, and pledged herself to that evil, granting her the Elder Evil bonus feats. At this level, the players might be sent to investigate the aftermath of one of her necromantic raids. There may be conflict in the game world in general, as the enemies of the undead are heartened by the beneficial effects of the sign, but some planar scholars and Druids concerned about this unexpected shift in the balance of cosmic forces.

With four levels of Geometer, Karen has a few options not available to the standard Wizard. She can keep a set of Spellglyphs handy in case she’s targeted with a Silence effect. You have access to Glyph of Warding, a spell usually reserved for Clerics. With Pass Sigil and Sigilsight, you have some other defenses not usually found in Wizards. Sculpt Spell and Metamagic School Focus can increase the power of some of her Conjuration spells.

By level 10, Karen has started her own Ascension Cabal. With the increasing signs of Positive Energy dominance, people are looking to appease the light or blunt its effects. She has gained a major milestone in her larger plan to release Elessis: Pass Sigil. At your option, you can use the Planar Handbook summoning rules (p.134) to summon Energons instead of Elementals with Summon Monster V; positive Energons (Zag-Ya) (Manual of the Planes p.134) would be very thematic. The party might encounter Karen as the head of a cult. Or, at your option, Karen could still be putting up the front of a person trying to end the undead menace once and for all. At around this time, the party should become aware of the prophecy of the “Lady of Sigils, the Lady in Pain.” With any luck they’ll misunderstand and assume it’s talking about a very different Lady.

At this level Karen is a bit less powerful and flexible than most other Wizards. Her caster progression is off by two. The +2 CL from the Krau sigil offsets the caster level loss, but she only has access to 7th-level spells, not 8th. 1/day Plane Shift offers her an excellent method of retreat and escape. Her Abrupt Jaunt ability should be used if she is ever targeted with a Dimensional Anchor, Dimension Lock, or other similar spell. Her tactics are to stay only long enough to cause trouble, then retreat as her Planar-Bound or summoned allies and minions fight as a rearguard. A strongly-suggested magic item in this regard would be “Bracers of Exit,” from the Arms and Equipment Guide; they allow the wearer to ignore Dimensional Anchor 1/day. They aren’t crucial to the build or concept, but can help as an emergency escape. Rapid Spell and Quicken Spell allow her to Summon Monster and cast another spell in a single round, potentially setting up some interesting combinations if she has to go nova.

At this level, Karen is in the home stretch to find the precise location of Elessis’s prison on the Positive Energy Plane. The players might encounter her racing to ancient ruins, buying information in Sigil, or hurtling through the planes to gather the last clues she needs.

Karen is now three levels behind in spells known, and 1 behind in caster level. (This could be made up by magic items such as Ioun Stones). She can access 9th-level spells, but must be very careful in her choices of what to prepare. However, what she lacks in power she makes up for in mobility. It’s hard to overstate the importance of her ability to Plane Shift at will. Telepathy combined with Mindsight means any character that doesn’t have Darkstalker is not going to get the drop on her. She has access to her own Demiplane (thanks to Demiplane Seed) and has the last piece of her plan to free Elessis: Planar Area Swap. The Demiplane Seed, plus access to 9th level spells, makes level 20 the sweet spot of the build. Karen is now at the height of her power, with all of her important features turned on.

Karen is about to enact the last part of her plan. When she finally locates Elessis, she will Planar Swap the entire area into the Material Plane close to Daryn’s last known location. Then, use Pass Sigil to walk in, remind her who she is, destroy the vampire, use a Wish spell to resurrect Daryn, then Plane Shift with him back to her demiplane where she hopes to ride out the fallout. The rest of the world might burn down, but that doesn’t matter as long as she has her love. (Of course, it’s an open question whether Daryn’s soul would be willing to return).

At this level, the party would be in a desperate race against Karen to find the prison of Elessis, to prevent her from getting close enough to Plane Swap the cage, or otherwise disrupt the plan. If they fail, they will have to face Elessis herself. There is a very small window of time for the players to defeat Elessis before her mere presence wreaks havoc on the Material plane. If she’s not defeated quickly, there is an increasing chance that she could meet her counterpart in the Negative Energy Plane, potentially destroying all of existence.

Complete Arcane: Geometer (p. 39), Sculpt Spell
Complete Mage: Metamagic School Focus
Complete Divine: Rapid Spell
Manual of the Planes: Planeshifter (p. 30), Zag-Ya Energon (p.168-169)
Planar Handbook: Summoning Spells rules (p. 130)
Races of Destiny: Illumian race, Subtle Sigil
Elder Evils: Ragnorra, Evil Brand, Chosen of Evil, Enemy of Good, Slave to Evil, Insane Defiance
PHB2: Immediate Magic Alternate Class Feature (p. 70)
Lords of Madness: Mindsight
Arms and Equipment Guide: Bracers of Exit (p. 130)

For much more dramatic and high-powered signs, use the variants below instead of Ragnorra’s.

Faint: Spells that conjure positive energy are slightly more powerful. All Conjuration (Healing) spells are cast at +2 Caster Level. (The corresponding Inflict spells are cast at -2 Caster Level, with a minimum caster level of 1. This does not cause someone normally able to cast an inflict spell to be unable to cast, but it may decrease the spell’s effectiveness).

Moderate: As Faint, but spells are cast at +3 (or -3) Caster Level. All creatures in the campaign setting gain +4 on all saves vs Death effects. All creatures that are Dying automatically stabilize. Undead become harder to create and easier to turn. Create Undead and other similar spells are impeded. Turn Undead checks and Turning Damage checks are made at +2; Bolster Undead checks are made at -2.

Strong: As Moderate, but spells are cast at +4 (or -4). Cure spells (including those spontaneously converted) have a 20% chance of being Maximized as per the Metamagic feat, with no increase in spell level or casting time. If a spell is prepared as maximized, this has no additional effect. All creatures in the campaign setting are rejuvenated; creatures middle-aged or older ignore the most recent set of aging penalties; bonuses still apply. This has no effect on creatures that advance in HD with age categories (such as True Dragons)

Overwhelming: As Strong, but spells are cast at +5 (or -5) and creature ignore the two most recent sets of aging penalties. Conjuration (Healing) spells are no longer capped at the creature’s usual hit point total. Healing in excess of the usual total is instead added to the creature as temporary hit points. (Fast Healing or Regeneration gained naturally is unaffected). If the temporary hit points exceed twice the creature’s normal hit point total, the creature dies in a violent explosion (as though it were on the Positive Energy Plane). Creatures who die in this fashion cannot be resurrected except by a Wish or Miracle, and are not subject to spontaneous resurrection (see below). Otherwise, death’s hold on the world seems to be slipping. Clerics can no longer prepare spells from the Death domain in their domain slots. Death spells and effects no longer function. All Necromancy spells and effects are impeded. Any efforts to create, summon, or become undead (such as becoming a lich, creating vampire spawn, or undergoing the ritual of crucimigration) fail.

Each day, there is a cumulative 5% chance for an undead creature to be spontaneously resurrected, at no loss of level (as though affected by a True Resurrection spell). There is a similar cumulative chance for dead creatures to be returned to the material plane (whether or not their spirits are willing), as the fabric of reality begins to fray. The chance is 4% per day for recently dead (within 20 days), 1/10 % per day for longer-term dead (21 days through 200 years), and 1/100 % per day for extremely-long dead (over 200 years). If a magical effect that might prevent resurrection, such as Trap the Soul, is present, make an opposed caster level check (Elessis vs the caster of the spell) to see if the effect is ignored.

Creatures are no longer subject to death from old age, disease, thirst, starvation, drowning, suffocation, hit point loss, massive damage, or ability damage or drain. Creatures that require air, food, and water still require them. If the creature obtains a condition that would normally cause death, they are instead disabled, conscious, stable, and in obvious pain and distress. This is not limited to sapient creatures; livestock and other animals are affected as well. As long as the creature is alive, it cannot die. Only if there is no part of the body left (due to a Disintegrate spell, being completely pulverized or burned to ashes, or other similar effect) is the creature truly dead; though even then it is subject to spontaneous resurrection.

Tiri

2017-05-26, 05:43 AM

I was actually expecting the majority of the builds to use custom Elder Evils.

Just goes to show how bad my predictive skills are, I suppose.

danielxcutter

2017-05-26, 05:46 AM

Not really about the dishes themselves, but does anyone know where the "prettyboy marshal" image is from?

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 06:18 AM

...and there we go.

Part of me is a little sad we only got 5 entries for a milestone comp, but they are all really good quality entries. :smallsmile:

The plus side is that 5 entries is less daunting for potential judges.

I think it's worth mentioning again, just in case:

New competition rule: if I feel an individual has been overly disruptive during the course of competition discussion, I will not be accepting and revealing any entries from that individual, and they will also not be allowed to judge. Any judging they enter will not be taken into account for the final tally.

This extends to disqualifying already posted entries, or banning judges as I see fit. My comp (as chair), my rules.

Congrats to all the entrants, and I eagerly look forward to judges stepping up. :smallwink:

Boy is my face red. :smallredface:

I missed an entry at the reveal...it was received significantly earlier than the others, and I missed it in my inbox! :smallfrown:

We now have 6 entries for consideration.

OK, I've gone from red-faced to feeling like a complete fool.

I missed another entry! :smallfrown:

Note to self: don't do the reveal on Friday night after a few beers! :smalltongue:

Miguel Two Stride (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032790&postcount=121)
Henry Bowyer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032797&postcount=122)
The Crimson Baroness (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032798&postcount=123)
The Warden of Reality (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032805&postcount=124)
Kelvin Sifuri (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032906&postcount=128)
Karen Greyspark, Servant of Elessis, the Forgotten Light (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22032908&postcount=127)

Tiri

2017-05-26, 06:23 AM

OK, I've gone from red-faced to feeling like a complete fool.

I missed another entry! :smallfrown:

Don't worry about it. At least we ended up with a normal entry arrangement.

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 06:26 AM

Don't worry about it. At least we ended up with a normal entry arrangement.

Thanks. :smallsmile:

...OK, I've gone back and double checked, no other early entries missed.

danielxcutter

2017-05-26, 06:29 AM

Thanks. :smallsmile:

...OK, I've gone back and double checked, no other early entries missed.

Hey, don't beat yourself up about it. The more entries the better, after all!

Val666

2017-05-26, 10:59 AM

I was working on my Elder Evil and had the Cultist already done, but exams took all my time :-( Wel..I guess it will be for the next time :v

GrayDeath

2017-05-26, 11:06 AM

Well, I`m glad to see Ragnarök finished this time (somehow hoped for it actually ^^), and 2 of the others already got a place in my he.....refore upcoming campaigns. ;)

Sadly my COmp is still offline (typing at work), but I`ll post my FLuff and general Built later on.

Also, I`d like to judge if you`ll have me. :)

Buufreak

2017-05-26, 11:21 AM

As always, I work weekends. If someone would set up a spring loaded hammer trap above my head so I remember to judge when I get home Monday, I would be so very grateful!

Tiri

2017-05-26, 11:56 AM

Well, I`m glad to see Ragnarök finished this time (somehow hoped for it actually ^^), and 2 of the others already got a place in my he.....refore upcoming campaigns. ;)

Which two?

Technetium43

2017-05-26, 12:30 PM

Buufreak

2017-05-26, 12:53 PM

Technetium43

2017-05-26, 12:58 PM

If you are saying that you had started said build and someone else nabbed it, I think we need Sn. Chairman to step in, because I have no idea how to handle such a thing.

I posted it three rounds ago after submissions were done, as I hadn't finished the fluff or the level writeups. I then made a little section describing how I WOULD'VE done the build if I had the time. See, if someone had taken that and like, actually written something up, that would've been a **** move, but I at least would've understood, but no it's just a straight copypaste. Didn't even bother to include the quotes I had in the original description to help explain things. So yeah I'm a little pissed. Like I said, if people want to judge it I guess that's fine, but I'm not letting anyone else take the credit for my work, regardless of how finished that work is.

Buufreak

2017-05-26, 01:07 PM

Tiri

2017-05-26, 01:09 PM

Well, it's nothing to worry about, in any case. Once the Chairman comes back and sees this, he'll take it down.

daremetoidareyo

2017-05-26, 01:09 PM

My condolences technetium. Look on the bright side: we are assuming that another human being did this, but there is a non zero chance that your build was so arriculately assembled and imbued with love that it spontaneously sprang it's own sentience. A sentience that compelled it to serve his master in the biggest most elderly super eeeeevil contest there was.

Some of you may call me a fool, but this is the basket in which I will put my fragile eggs. It's inspiring. All hail ragnorak!

GrayDeath

2017-05-26, 02:06 PM

Um. Excuse me? I did NOT in fact, submit Ragnarök. And, while I would have been glad to submit it if I could've finished up the writeup, rather than leaving it in the shortened form it was in, I did not do that. I don't know if someone stole it or if someone decided to submit it for me for some reason, but I'm kinda, uh, not okay either way???? Like if you want to judge it that's fine, but I had nothing to do with this. I was going to post my build stub, but if this is what happens when I do, I don't think I want to. :/

If you are saying that you had started said build and someone else nabbed it, I think we need Sn. Chairman to step in, because I have no idea how to handle such a thing.

I .... merely skimmed it, actually.

I`m really sorry, I loved the concept back then and obviously thought you had returned (had I read it in depth I would not have made that error).

Thats simply really really bad form, whoever did that! :smallannoyed:

It should be removed immediately.

Edit: @ Tiri: I wont tell until I do my judging, dont want to influence anybody.

remetagross

2017-05-26, 02:50 PM

Um so that was a particularly uninspiring move...but nothing our Thurbane cannot fix in a little post deletes :)

The Viscount

2017-05-26, 04:46 PM

Technetium, I'm sorry this happened. Would you prefer that the judges evaluate your entry, or would you rather the Chairman remove it?

Technetium43

2017-05-26, 05:08 PM

Technetium, I'm sorry this happened. Would you prefer that the judges evaluate your entry, or would you rather the Chairman remove it?

I would rather it be removed. Now, that's not to say I don't like the build, or don't think it would do well or whatever, but I don't want any of the circumstances surrounding its nomination to influence the potential scores. I wouldn't want to detract from the builds that were like, actually built for the competition. :smalltongue:

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 06:30 PM

I posted it three rounds ago after submissions were done, as I hadn't finished the fluff or the level writeups. I then made a little section describing how I WOULD'VE done the build if I had the time. See, if someone had taken that and like, actually written something up, that would've been a **** move, but I at least would've understood, but no it's just a straight copypaste. Didn't even bother to include the quotes I had in the original description to help explain things. So yeah I'm a little pissed. Like I said, if people want to judge it I guess that's fine, but I'm not letting anyone else take the credit for my work, regardless of how finished that work is.

I was completely unaware of this! :smallfurious: If true, completely unacceptable.

If you can provide the link to the stub, and this is a direct rip, the build will be declared illegal and deleted.

It won't surprise you to know it was one of the regularly problematic posters who submitted this.

I'm also considering a permaban for this user from this - I'm pretty confident they will just pop up another puppet account, but I I'll deal with them as the pop up. In fact, earlier in this thread, it kind of felt like two puppet accounts were arguing with each other. Either that or two trolls are active.

One or two individuals seems to have an axe to grind against this particular comp. I'm not sure if it's jealousy at not being able to compete at the same level as other forum members, or just sheer childish pettiness. Either way it's quite pathetic.

Also, I`d like to judge if you`ll have me. :)

We'd be glad to have you! :smallsmile:

As always, I work weekends. If someone would set up a spring loaded hammer trap above my head so I remember to judge when I get home Monday, I would be so very grateful!

http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2005/04/6a0120a85dcdae970b0128776fae11970c-pi.png

Technetium43

2017-05-26, 06:45 PM

I was completely unaware of this! :smallfurious: If true, completely unacceptable.

If you can provide the link to the stub, and this is a direct rip, the build will be declared illegal and deleted.

It won't surprise you to know it was one of the regularly problematic posters who submitted this.

I'm also considering a permaban for this user from this - I'm pretty confident they will just pop up another puppet account, but I I'll deal with them as the pop up. In fact, earlier in this thread, it kind of felt like two puppet accounts were arguing with each other. Either that or two trolls are active.

One or two individuals seems to have an axe to grind against this particular comp. I'm not sure if it's jealousy at not being able to compete at the same level as other forum members, or just sheer childish pettiness. Either way it's quite pathetic.

Here you go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21507158&postcount=193). And with that is the last shred of hope I had that they WEREN'T a troll. Perhaps I'm too soft.

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 07:12 PM

Here you go (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21507158&postcount=193). And with that is the last shred of hope I had that they WEREN'T a troll. Perhaps I'm too soft.

Thanks for the link.

Me too - I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Generally it works out for the best, but sometimes not.

Build deleted, and member banned from this comp. Though it isn't specifically spelled out in the rules, copying a build (stub) from another forum member without their permission is unacceptable, as should be obvious to anyone. The permaban is a culmination of previous behaviour.

I've created a banned list in the OP.

FWIW, I've submitted a request to mods for an IP check on 3 or 4 accounts for possible duplicates.

Gellhorn

2017-05-26, 07:34 PM

Now is probably as good a time as any to say thanks to everyone involved with the competition, whether that be running, judging or making builds. Always fun to read through, there's always a lot of good stuff and you can tell how much hard work goes into it all. So, uh, yeah. Thanks and I hope it continues for a long time!

Venger

2017-05-26, 08:26 PM

Thanks for the link.

Me too - I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Generally it works out for the best, but sometimes not.

Build deleted, and member banned from this comp. Though it isn't specifically spelled out in the rules, copying a build (stub) from another forum member without their permission is unacceptable, as should be obvious to anyone. The permaban is a culmination of previous behaviour.

I've created a banned list in the OP.

FWIW, I've submitted a request to mods for an IP check on 3 or 4 accounts for possible duplicates.
Good call. Thanks a lot.

Now is probably as good a time as any to say thanks to everyone involved with the competition, whether that be running, judging or making builds. Always fun to read through, there's always a lot of good stuff and you can tell how much hard work goes into it all. So, uh, yeah. Thanks and I hope it continues for a long time!
Wonderful sentiment, I agree wholeheartedly

Thurbane

2017-05-26, 11:20 PM

Im sorry. I thought we could recylce the builds like Chairman said. I didnt understand properly please dont ban me.

Ban is done and remaining. Don't try to twist my words or pretend you didn't fully understand what you were doing.

Your habit of posting inflammatory comments and deleting them afterwords confirms that you are indeed some kind of troll.

Sorry also to Techneitum I did not know this is not allowed.

I don't believe this for a second. You have been detrimental to this competition from your first appearance.

Please don't waste any more of my time or yours. I will not be further responding to you. In fact, I'm putting you in my blocked users list so I don't see your posts any more.

I cannot tell others what do do, but I would recommend other members refrain from engaging this user in this thread.

Tiri

2017-05-26, 11:46 PM

In fact, I'm putting you in my blocked users list so I don't see your posts any more.

Not that you really need to.

Inevitability

2017-05-26, 11:54 PM

Not that you really need to.

I like the cut of your jib, Tiri.

remetagross

2017-05-27, 01:50 AM

So do I ^^

Thansks for those efforts, Thurbane! The comp will be better off from now on I'm sure :)

khadgar567

2017-05-27, 03:12 AM

you know ragnarok post looks iffy from the start so I am shocked that until technetium said no one get the perception check succeed on treat normally when thurbane post each ingredient they have same template going with them but if you check ragnarok post it smells like half baked idea with no template to serve as finished product

Buufreak

2017-05-27, 08:49 AM

It won't surprise you to know it was one of the regularly problematic posters who submitted this.

*Overly dramatic sarcastic gasp*

http://blog.codinghorror.com/content/images/uploads/2005/04/6a0120a85dcdae970b0128776fae11970c-pi.png

... I love this so much. I need these sorts of things in my actual life.

danielxcutter

2017-05-27, 08:52 AM

I think there were names for those kinds of overtly complex machines...

Venger

2017-05-27, 09:04 AM

I think there were names for those kinds of overtly complex machines...

they're called rube goldberg machines

Telonius

2017-05-27, 10:07 AM

Thurbane

2017-05-27, 05:18 PM

Ugh, I had to go mostly AFK for a day or so there - very sorry to see all of the extra drama in the meantime.

I will say that this is by far my favorite competition to read, judge, and compete in. It's really helped me step up my game for mechanics and DMing in general - I see it as a resource to help the DMs of the playground give their players a better experience fighting the big bad.

Cheers - that's the same things that attracted me to this comp in the first place (first as a competitor, then later as chair). :smallsmile:

On a completely OT side note - a while back, I did an image search on your avatar, because it looked vaguely familiar.

This ended up with me watching The Last Unicorn; my wife and I still aren't sure if we really liked it, or were just confused by it! It was quite the weird film. :smallbiggrin:

Telonius

2017-05-27, 11:38 PM

Cheers - that's the same things that attracted me to this comp in the first place (first as a competitor, then later as chair). :smallsmile:

On a completely OT side note - a while back, I did an image search on your avatar, because it looked vaguely familiar.

This ended up with me watching The Last Unicorn; my wife and I still aren't sure if we really liked it, or were just confused by it! It was quite the weird film. :smallbiggrin:

:smallbiggrin: It's always been one of my favorites. I saw it when I was a kid, and it never really lost its hold on me. It only got better as I got older and realized just how much talent went into it. The book was amazing too, and apparently Peter Beagle had a huge amount of input to the film writing the screenplay.

danielxcutter

2017-05-27, 11:45 PM

:smallbiggrin: It's always been one of my favorites. I saw it when I was a kid, and it never really lost its hold on me. It only got better as I got older and realized just how much talent went into it. The book was amazing too, and apparently Peter Beagle had a huge amount of input to the film writing the screenplay.

If I remember correctly, Mr. Beagle got shafted by the publishing company a lot.

remetagross

2017-05-28, 02:49 PM

So! Thanks to the rube golberg machine, we have Buufreak as a judge :smallsmile: do we got anyone else ?

Thurbane

2017-05-28, 05:00 PM

We have a "pre-judging dispute" from one of the competitors:

I know judging has not yet happened, but this something I'm sure will come up so I will address it before any judgement happens to make it a bit clearer for the judges.

The Warden is a Half-Fey Doppelganger. I forgot to include that in the 'Race' section of the entry, but the rest of the entry is written taking that into account.

Inevitability

2017-05-29, 12:04 AM

I'll see if I have the time to judge.

Also, did we have a pirate-themed round already? Might be an idea for the next one.

GrayDeath

2017-05-29, 09:03 AM

I already said I`d judge a few posts ago?

Seeing nobody saw/acknowledged it, maybe I shouldn`t......:/

Should find the time around the weekendish.

Seto

2017-05-29, 09:39 AM

Three judges, yay! :smallbiggrin:

And congrats to the competitors for novel ideas. Some of them made me want to play in campaigns featuring those villains.

VisitingDaGulag

2017-05-30, 05:50 PM

I enjoyed reading these. The lack of statblocks often makes it difficult to tell how much damage an elder evil will do if it gets free. :(

Also Planar Area Swap seems like it only moves native terrain for a plane, rather than a constructed, floating cage if made from extraplanar material. Just something I noticed.

remetagross

2017-05-30, 06:06 PM

I enjoyed reading these. The lack of statblocks often makes it difficult to tell how much damage an elder evil will do if it gets free. :(

The whole point is to allude at it by statting their avatars, which supposedly hold only a fraction of their powers :smallwink:. Like that scary as well CR 25 shard of Pandorym's mind...

Thurbane

2017-05-30, 07:15 PM

Also, did we have a pirate-themed round already? Might be an idea for the next one.

I'd love to run that at some point! http://fun.resplace.net/Emoticons/Pirate/SmilingPirate.gif

I'm also quite fond of the "Two Heads Are Better Than One" and "Poki-master" (i.e. minionmancy - Summoning etc. without the Leadership feat).

I'm open to all suggestions, and I'm potentially willing to give judges a deciding vote...

danielxcutter

2017-05-30, 07:23 PM

The whole point is to allude at it by statting their avatars, which supposedly hold only a fraction of their powers :smallwink:. Like that scary as well CR 25 shard of Pandorym's mind...

Yeah, at least most of the Elder Evils you fight are aspects or a small fraction of the EE's true power(except the Hulks and the ice dude). In a Pandorym campaign, the final boss is a mind shard. The thing's so freaking powerful it's thoughts are epic level psions. :smalleek:

zergling.exe

2017-05-30, 08:22 PM

I'm also quite fond of the "Two Heads Are Better Than One" and "Poki-master" (i.e. minionmancy - Summoning etc. without the Leadership feat).

I think the word you're looking for is "Poke-master". :smalltongue:
I'd do the special symbol, but that's hard to do on a phone.

Thurbane

2017-05-30, 09:23 PM

Venger

2017-05-30, 09:38 PM

I'd love to run that at some point! http://fun.resplace.net/Emoticons/Pirate/SmilingPirate.gif

I'm also quite fond of the "Two Heads Are Better Than One" and "Poki-master" (i.e. minionmancy - Summoning etc. without the Leadership feat).

I'm open to all suggestions, and I'm potentially willing to give judges a deciding vote...

I don't really think minionmancy lends itself that well to this competition, since the best way to do it is to play a normal caster, so it's hard to leave much of a thumbprint.

two heads are better than one is very exciting, so if it's between those two, I'd like that.

certainly wouldn't be avast averse to a pirate-themed round either

The Viscount

2017-05-30, 10:00 PM

Pirate and Two-Headed both sound great.

Inevitability

2017-05-31, 12:24 AM

The only sensible solution to this is to build a bunch of ettin buccaneers. :smalltongue:

ben-zayb

2017-05-31, 12:25 AM

Aye, pirate round sounds great, although I'm afraid more people wouldn't want such a restricting theme (as opposed to, say, Scoundrels)

D&DPrinceTandem

2017-05-31, 01:04 AM

I think the word you're looking for is "Poke-master". :smalltongue:
I'd do the special symbol, but that's hard to do on a phone.

You know, I initially type Poke, thought it looked wrong, and then changed it to Poki. :smallredface: https://www.serebii.net/itemdex/sprites/pokeball.png Really because I was goinf to make a Villian that was based off of touch attacks in a RL game I am making so I guess you could say he is a Poki-master [as in poke]. Then again, It seems a poke-master build would be really reliant on either Necromancy or Conjuring and narrowing on submissions....

Nodsiu

2017-06-03, 12:15 AM

Can I ask, why is the builds in this competition all so many not levl 20?

Thurbane

2017-06-03, 01:16 AM

Can I ask, why is the builds in this competition all so many not levl 20?

As per the OP, the entries run off CR, not ECL.

GrayDeath

2017-06-03, 01:36 AM

An Update: I have started Judging, but it will take time (massively cool builds guys!).

As for the next round: 2 heads or Pirates are fine.

Still would like my "Unlikely Villain/Non-Evil yet really evil villain" ah well.....

Tiri

2017-06-03, 04:08 AM

As for the next round: 2 heads or Pirates are fine.

Are the judges the only ones who get to vote this time round?

Buufreak

2017-06-03, 09:21 AM

Been working slowly on my judging, I really enjoy alot of these so far. I am 100% down for pirates because I feel that is as close to outright aquatic round as we are going to get.

daremetoidareyo

2017-06-03, 09:24 AM

Been working slowly on my judging, I really enjoy alot of these so far. I am 100% down for pirates because I feel that is as close to outright aquatic round as we are going to get.

Now that you mention it, "Controlling the land from under the waves" is a good villainous round too.

Inevitability

2017-06-03, 10:02 AM

My judging criteria: verdicts will be up soon.

All categories start with a 1, with points being added or subtracted based on a number of questions. The maximum change is given after a question.

-Up to 1 point can be added depending on whether the race was expected.
-Up to 1.5 points can be added depending on whether the chosen classes were expected.
-If the combination of race and class is surprising (even if the individual items were not) another 0.5 point can be added.
-Up to 1 point can be added depending on whether the build has unique and surprising fluff.

A build illegal in a way that is explicitly forbidden in the first post (gestalt, LA buyoff, non-evil alignment) will receive an automatic 1 here. I'm not willing to argue with anyone there: those who break the competition's rules should be glad their builds get judged at all.

Also, a score here can't go below 1, even if the penalties would exceed the bonuses given.

-Depending on the amount of questionable interpretations, alternate rule systems, or cross-setting material, up to 1 point may be added. Examples include using the Magic Mantle to apply metamagic feats to psionics, or having a Chosen of Bane walking around in Eberron.
-Depending on the elegance fluff-wise (does the character make narrative sense?), up to 1 point may be added.
-Each 'dip' (defined as taking 1 or 2 levels in a class with more than 5 levels) incurs a 0.5 point penalty. Keeping a build free of dips will result in a 0.5 point bonus.
-A build that fails to qualify for any feats, prestige classes, ACF's, or other material takes a 0.5 point penalty per bit of illegal material. If you qualify for everything you take, you get a 0.5 point bonus.
-Using more than one template, or not finishing a template progression, will incur a 0.5 point penalty per extra template or unfinished progression. Not having them nets a 0.5 point bonus.
-Each flaw warrants a 0.25-point penalty. A flaw-less build will get a 0.5 point bonus.

-Up to a 1.5 point bonus or penalty can be awarded based on whether the build is good at what it chooses to do.
-If you need items, grafts, or other material to fulfill a prerequisite or perform a certain trick, 0.5 points per item needed will be subtracted. If you keep your build free of mandatory items, you gain a bonus of 0.5 points. Material won't be penalized if the character can personally create or craft it.
-Depending on the number of obvious weaknesses (such as a melee character that can't attack at range or otherwise harm flying foes) possessed by the build, it may gain up to 1 point.
-Depending on the build's versatility, up to 1 point can be added.

-Up to 1 point can be added based on how memorable the villain is mechanically. Examples include having a noticeable trick to perform during battle (remember that villain that had a breath weapon of living snakes?) to being unusually created (remember that time we fought a primordial giant ogre wizard?).
-Up to 1.5 point may be added depending on the character's memorability fluff-wise. The generic nobleman who decides to conquer the world for the hell of it will score low here, while a soul-sucking warlock preserving his immortality no matter the cost out of fear of his eldritch bargain's consequences can expect more points here. The score in this category is based on both the elder evil's and the villain's fluff.
-Up to 0.5 point can be added based on how easy it will be for a DM to use this villain. Things such as various adaption ideas and easily mutable fluff will help here, but the need for a very specific setting or certain other assumptions about a campaign's world will cause point loss.
-Up to 1 point can be added depending on the number of options players have to deal with this villain: is there no solution to encountering them than 'rush and smash', or can they be redeemed, redirected, or outwitted? Are they Bowser or the Master here?

daremetoidareyo

2017-06-03, 10:10 AM

Why penalize dips?

Inevitability

2017-06-03, 10:45 AM

Why penalize dips?

Mostly because certain dips are used all the time (looking at you, Barbarian, Marshall and Mindbender), and I want to encourage diversity in the builds, but also because builds with a low number of different classes tend to have more unified themes, which I feel is a positive quality.

Buufreak

2017-06-03, 10:54 AM

Why penalize dips?

Because dipping is generally the opposite of elegance, and cliche dips are about as far away from originality as possible.

Thurbane

2017-06-03, 06:05 PM

Are the judges the only ones who get to vote this time round?

I'll take all votes into account, but judges votes will be looked on favourably. :smallsmile:

I also reserve final decision rights. :smallwink:

GrayDeath

2017-06-03, 11:59 PM

Since we`re doing it, my Judging criteria:

All Areas start at a 3.00, with bonuses and maluses applied according to the following:

The hardest to judge fairly, as "expoected" depends a lot on personal experience/expectation, which is why I will go most favourably in this area. Usually.. A 3 here is "not expected or unexpected in any way, not wow, not yawn".

Up to +.5 for a totally unexpected race, another .5 if the race actively or passively goes against the theme but is put in in a working way.
Up to +1.0 for a (combination of) unexpected Class(es)
Up to +.75 for totally unexpected fluff
Up to +.25 for "I simply really like the way it fits fluff and mechanics together"

Up tom-1.0 for absolute cliche stuff (CLass/race Comboes everyybody and their uncle would expect in the theme, not an issue this time^^)
Up to -0,5 for bad/too clichee fluff
Up to -0.5 for "just doesnt get a full picture/makes me yawn"

The simplest one. A 3 here is No major problems, but not really elegant either".

Up to +2.0 for "Single Class+Prestige Class Build, fully legal, no cheese
Up to +1.0 for "not overtly complicated, fully legal, no cheese)

Up to -1 for excessive Dipping (more than 2, and for obvious, always done things)
Up to -1.5 for Illegalities of any color that are notexplicitely forbidden in the rules if it was theoretically possible for the build to work without them.

Auto 1.0 if there is an Illegality that is explicitely forbidden in the rules and the Built does not work without it.

Also relativley clear terms, if hard to judge because my mechanical D&D-Fu is rather weak.

A 3 here is "does what it is supposed to do reasonably well, with some minor strengths and weaknesses" or "Is excellent in its area but has one or more glaring weaknesses".

Up to +0,5 for not having the expected weaknesses of the concept (another +0.5 if there are no weaknesses at all not inherent in the concept, say a melee built that has perfect saves and mobility, can see invisible stuff and heal itself)
Up to +1.0 for "Fills its intended role REALLY well
Up to +0,5 for "Does things outside its role well to very well too (ergo versatility)

Up to -1,5 for major weaknesses
Up to -1,0 for "Does not actually work the way it is advertized (this overlaps at times with elegance, as it includes "Cannot actually do X because of Rule Y" as well as "is supposed to be a great CC fighter but deals no real damage")
Up to -0,5 for "Does not fit its roll at all" (A built advertized as main caster with Spells ending at Level 5, or somesuch)

Simple, do I think it is cool?

The least clearly clarifyable area, but I`ll try.

Up to +2,0 if it is really cool in a way that sticks.

Up to -2,0 if I cant even remember it while judging, becuse its so boring.

This, in my judging, mainly goes towards the fluff, although another +/-.5 may be applied for really unexpectedly cool or really lame class/race/FLuff Combos.

Inevitability

2017-06-04, 01:33 AM

As promised: the scores!

Human is the most expected thing, always, at all times (+0), and wizard isn't much better. Renegade Mastermaker and Landforged Walker are reasonably rare in optimization contests, though. (+1)

Having a race-specific PrC as a race that normally wouldn't be able to take it qualifies you for a half a point extra in originality in my opinion. (+0.5)

'Reincarnated inevitable who wants to destroy humanity' is quite unique as far as villainous backstories go. (+0.75)

You've got a strong Eberron thing going here, which unfortunately makes Southern Magician a bit of an odd one out. Unfortunately, it's a reasonably big part of the build. (+0.5)

Narratively, I'm having trouble with the leap from 'Obligatum reborn' to 'Let's be a plant'. I'm not questioning its mechanical benefits, but from a flavor perspective it's tacked on without good reason. For something that important to your overall efficiency, that's a big deal. The remaining fluff is acceptable, though. (+0.5)

No flaws (+0.5), dips (+0.5) or unfinished templates (+0.5) are used. You also qualify for everything you take (+0.5)

The build is made for blasting people with enhanced spells and turning into horrible plant-monsters, and 17th-level casting combined with 20 HD-wild shape makes it very good at that. (+1.25)

Armor is a problem, though. Twillight you should be able to add to your armor, but I don't see how you meet the requirement of feycraft armor. Unless you can show me another way to reduce the ironwood plating's ACF to 0, I'm going to have to penalize you here. (-0.5)

While being a construct does bring a number of weaknesses to the table, I feel like it's sufficiently compensated for by magic and disguise (who's going to try to cast Ray of Deanimation at a tree?) to not warrant a penalty here. (+1)

Wizard ensures a high score in versatility, and plant shape seals the deal. (+1)

Stunning people and turning into evil trees is moderately memorable as far as combat actions go. (+0.5)

I like the idea of an inevitable returning as a human (or alternatively, the parts a human grafted to himself) to complete his mission, but apart from that I can't find any interesting character traits. 'Free the god-killing monster' is also not that special as far as motivations go, though moving Pandorym's prison disguised as salt is a reasonable twist. (+0.5)

Using this villain outside of Eberron will be incredibly difficult. (+0)

I'm having trouble finding a way to introduce Miguel in a story that doesn't end with the PCs killing him. If you think otherwise, feel free to tell me why. (+0)

Well, I guess half-elves are kind of rare as villains (+0.5), but... wait, is this guy is a COMMONER? Have all the points, please. (+1.5) (+0.5).

The fluff is interesting because it portrays the servant as an unwitting, or even unwilling pawn, rather than someone deliberately trying to release the elder evil. That too is worth a point in my opinion (+1).

I'm willing to ignore the deliberate wasting of skill points, but Eyes to the Sky just doesn't work the way you describe it. (+0.75)

Again, the fluff here is top-notch, and I can't see any major holes in Henry's story. (+1)

No dips (+0.5), flaws (+0.5) or templates (+0.5).

However, the build fails to qualify for Never Outnumbered at level 1, and in fact at no point does. (-0.5)

Is Henry the most optimized PC possible? No. But can he at least pick a niche and perform well in it? Also no. Henry is a feeble, weak opponent only threatening during the flashback sequences his story needs. He may get lucky and zap a PC with Confusion, but any such success is purely incidental. (+0.25)

No items and the like are needed to qualify for stuff, though that's mostly because Henry doesn't really have to qualify for anything at all. (+0.5)

Obvious weaknesses... where do I start? Immunity to mind-affecting notwithstanding, there's about nothing level-appropriate that won't kill Henry. (+0)

Some very minor divination and debuffing aside, Henry doesn't have any versatility to speak of. (+0)

For all his overall weakness, Henry has a few abilities that should at least annoy the PCs. While he may not pose a threat, it's likely they'll remember that time the DM made a half-elf commoner to be a minor villain. (+0.75)

More fluff questions, more points. The story of Henry (and to a lesser extent, It), is incredible, and while it may not be 100% original successful adaption is an art of its own. (+1.25)

Using this villain requires a city for It to lurk under, but other than that it could be inserted in any campaign world without much difficulty. (+0.5)

Quite a few ways to deal with the problem Henry poses are given, and the final confrontation with It is nothing if not up to the players in terms of details. (+1)

Grey elf is one of the more popular elf variants, so a small score is the most I can give. Vampire helps, but even that is reasonably common as far as monsters go. (+0.5)

Wu Jen is a reasonable unexpected choice, and while Mindbender doesn't help that originality score combined with Blood Mage it's enough for a slightly above-average score here. (+1)

Grey elf arcane caster isn't an unexpected combination either. (+0)

Finally, the fluff, which is a pretty default story that works when it comes to explaining the Baroness's abilities but doesn't surprise me otherwise. (+0)

Becoming a vampire as a 1 HD-creature may not be explicitly forbidden, but it sure is inelegant when there's no good explanation. Remember, normally a creature with so few hit dice would become a vampire spawn instead. It's not too important to the character, though. (+0.75)

Vampire elf who delves into forbidden lore and seeks to awake Father Llymic to blot out the sun? Par for the course as far as servants of elder evils go, but that doesn't mean it's illogical. (+1)

The mindbender dip is the perfect example of why I penalized them. Talk of creeping players out all you want, we both know it's there for Mindsight. (-0.5)

Feats and PrC requirements appear to be met, (+0.5) no flaws are used (+0.5), and the number of templates is kept within limits. (+0.5)

It's a build that makes some really nice use of Umbral Spell and necrotic cysts, and perhaps no more is needed. (+1.25)

No items seem to be required. (+0.5)

Weaknesses are somewhat compensated for, but anyone who succeeds on a moderately easy knowledge check can exploit every of her vampire weaknesses (other than sunlight). Still, an above-average score is warranted here. (+0.75)

8th-level spells with an expanded list look versatile to me. (+1)

Other than the umbral spell trick, which isn't that noticeable from the player's side of the table, the Baroness has her blood magus abilities, some of which I admit are pretty memorable. It's nothing extraordinary, though. (+0.5)

Heliophobia aside, the Baroness will appear to be just another apocalypse-bringing monster to the players, and her backstory is only moderately engaging (besides, the characters are unlikely to learn about it). (+0.25)

The Baroness can be quite easily inserted in a game, regardless of party and setting. That's worth half a point. (+0.5)

There's at least a possibility of alternative conflict resolution here: the Baroness isn't a fanatic and could conceivably be convinced to, say, not awaken the world-ending eldritch horror. (+0.25)

Doppelganger (+1) I didn't expect at all. Chameleon and Warshaper are fairly common in optimization contests, though (+0.75), and combining the archetypical shapechanger with a class that wants you to change shape isn't a point in your favor either. (+0)

I quite like the fluff, though. Villains with ultimately benevolent goals are always interesting, and it's refreshing to have the antagonist on the side trying to stop the eldritch horrors from invading. (+1)

Throughout the text you refer to half-fey SLAs multiple times, but the Warden can't be a half-fey or he'd exceed the CR limits. Furthermore, you say you can bind Naberius to deal with the damage from Dark Speech, but Bind Vestige doesn't give you the ability needed for that. As a result, your score here is on the lower side. (+0.5)

Narratively, I don't see any trouble. (+1)

Dips are narrowly avoided. (+0.5) No flaws (+0.5) and templates (+0.5) are used. You qualify for everything you take. (+0.5)

An endlessly resurrecting monster with a wide variety of spells, class features, and even shapes are available to the Warden, making it more than capable in whatever it's doing at the time. (+1.5)

No items are needed. (+0.5)

Even in areas of antimagic the Warden will have something it can do well, and it has the magical muscle to protect itself against shape-revealing or -locking spells. (+1)

Finally, versatility, which is considerable enough to warrant a maximum score. See also: nearly unlimited shapechanging and respectable spellcasting. (+1)

With its sheer shapechanging prowess, resurrections, and spell support, an encounter with the Warden will be quite memorable. (+0.75)

If the players get a chance to learn about the Warden's true motivations, which seems easy enough, I'm sure they'll appreciate his story. (+1.25)

Adapting this guy to a setting of your choice is easy, though as you say yourself some details have to be filled in already. (+0.25)

With the Warden resurrecting daily, the PCs are probably best off finding an alternate way to deal with him, and his goals leave enough room for such a thing to happen. (+0.75)

Human is still unoriginal, but the templates make up for it a bit. (+0.25)

I may have expected one or two of the individual classes to feature in at least one build, but not like this, and definitely not in this combination. Classes are nearly as unexpected as can be. (+1.25)

Combining Unseelie Fey and Draconic with options that need charisma, or using human to enter human paragon? Nothing surprising here in terms of race-class interaction. (+0)

Fluff is minimal, though, and as a result I really can't award a lot of points there. (+0)

Here is where a few difficulties arise. You take Leadership, which is explicitly banned according to the first post, and retrain a feat later on in your build. You also tinker with quite a few of the effects surrounding Ghularuk, and at early levels the assumption that hearing about something means being forced to make a knowledge check about it wouldn't come easy to most DMs. Finally, your assumption that the Geas created by your history checks is a (Sp) or spell isn't necessarily true either. (+0)

There's no fluff conflicts or it'd have to be the combination of heavily using sea vessels but wanting to freeze the world and wearing magic horseshoes to get smarter. (+0.75)

One dip (-0.5) and one template too many (-0.5), but you seem to qualify for everything you take (+0.5) and don't use flaws (+0.5).

Is Kelvin (nice pun, by the way) good at his main trick? Definitely. Unless someone's willingly lowering their skill modifiers, they're going to make a debuffed save-or-lose. To not give this beautiful piece of single-minded optimization the maximum possible score here would be an insult. (+1.5)

Three magic items needed? Ouch. No, having an illegal cohort for crafting doesn't save you here. (-1.5)

Obvious weaknesses are moderate. On the one hand, a creature immune to mind-affecting effects doesn't have a lot to fear from Kelvin, other than his diplomanced minions. On the other hand, it's unlikely everybody in the party is immune by the time they first encounter him. (+0.5)

Kelvin is reasonably versatile, as it seems most of his massive skill bonuses can be employed in other skills, and he has a few of the tools needed for first-grade social manipulation. He's nowhere near the level of a character built for versatility, though. (+0.5)

Mechanically, Kelvin is best. Weaponized knowledge checks are worth a full point here as far as I'm concerned. (+1) However, 'guy who got tortured and is now mad at the world' won't win you any Pulitzers. (+0)

As long as a setting has a large port city and one or more madness-cults, Kelvin can be added to it. That's worth the max score here. (+0.5)

No ways to deal with Kelvin other than with repeated forceful attacks are given, and his madness makes it hard for me to come up with something. (+0)

Illumian gets used occasionally in optimization contests, but it's still worth half a point. (+0.5)

Wizard isn't that strange a class, but Geometer and Planeshifter I can't remember ever encountering in this contest before. (+1)

Illumian wizard is illumian wizard: a somewhat-obvious, somewhat-uncommon combination. (+0.25)

Wanting to release an elder evil to destroy creature type X and get beloved Y back? I'll allow it. (+0.5)

I don't see any mechanically weird stuff. (+1) As for fluff: at most one could criticize Karen's roundabout way of freeing her lover, but hey, villains aren't known for being practical. (+1)

No dips. (+0.5) No flaws. (+0.5) No unfinished templates (+0.5). You qualify for the things you take. (+0.5)

9th-level spells with metamagic reduction thrown on? That's worth some points here. (+1.5)

The Bracers of Exit are the only item mentioned, and Karen can simply craft those herself. (+0.5)

No obvious weaknesses I can see: you even took care of enemies trying to shut off your superb mobility. (+1)

Versatility is top-notch. (+1)

Karen can summon stuff, or create some sigils, or locate foes with mindsight, but that's standard as far as casters go. Some of the Planeshifter abilities do help here. (+0.25)

Wanting to save a loved one is a reasonably common villainous motivation, so the low score here should be expected. (+0.5)

You've given an alternate sign, and no large setting adjustments seem required: even Eberron has its own PEP-equivalent you could use. (+0.5)

Fanaticism aside, Karen's goal is ultimately to bring back her love, and the PCs should be able to help her find a middle way where no world-ending god-halves get summoned to the material. You know, theoretically. (+0.25)

Also, honorable mention vote goes to Kelvin Sifuri.

Tiri

2017-06-04, 03:57 AM

I'll take all votes into account, but judges votes will be looked on favourably. :smallsmile:

I also reserve final decision rights. :smallwink:

If that's the case, my vote goes to Two-Headed.

Thurbane

2017-06-04, 05:08 AM

Disputes part one:

Did I miscalculate the number of extra HD the Warden could gain without gaining a point of CR? Yes, I did. Before I get into the dispute I would just like to say that I am heartily ashamed for all the mistakes I made in this build. Not only was the CR miscalculated, but I misread Bind Vestige. If anyone wants to run this villain, please treat him as having 1 RHD less than he does in the entry and remember that Bind Vestige does not do what I said it does. Sorry about that.

Now for the actual dispute. The only problems I really have with your judging, Inevitability, are in the Elegance category, funnily enough. You appear to have penalized the Warden for his Epic Destiny, but if epic feats are explicitly allowed, is it really unfair to pick a powerful one to take? This competition is partly about optimization, after all.

There's also the matter of the Bind Vestige feat, which, again, I am ashamed of misreading. However, since the Warden can easily choose any other feat to fill his floating feat slot, it doesn't affect his actual Elegance, does it?

Finally, thank you for judging.

Inevitability

2017-06-04, 06:32 AM

I'll take all votes into account, but judges votes will be looked on favourably. :smallsmile:

I also reserve final decision rights. :smallwink:

Voting for a pirate round, then.

Disputes part one

Geez, you're placed first with a considerable lead and you're still disputing? Can't a judge catch a break? Just kidding, I'd do the same. :smalltongue:

On Bind Vestige: while you can in fact replace the feat, it's still a part of the build as presented. If you had described some impossible, dysfunctional strategy then claimed I shouldn't penalize you for it because the build could easily use another strategy, I wouldn't remove the penalty either. No change to score.

On epic destinies: I think I'm mostly just afraid of every villain in future rounds having an epic destiny. They are, as you say, incredibly powerful options, and there's precedent for not allowing overpowered epic feats already.

Still, you have a good point there. Score increased by 0.25.

danielxcutter

2017-06-04, 06:53 AM

Let's see... I do want to see the two-headed theme, but on the other hand(or head, whatever) it might be more thematic if that was the 22nd round.

So I'm voting for pirates and wondering how many Dread Pirates we'll get!

Thurbane

2017-06-04, 05:03 PM

Disputes part two:

Hello Inevitability! Took some time off your LA revamp topic, eh? :smallsmile:
So I got a couple nitpicks about my villain, Henry Bowyer.

1. You said, in Elegance:

Also, you technically homebrewed your sign, which is not allowed: be glad the penalty for that isn't bigger.

To this I would argue that it is not entirely true: the question of the homebrewing of the Elder Evil has been raised on page 1 of this thread, and most notably these quotes were a basis of my custom sign:

So Thurbane, if we create our own Elder Evils, we still have to stick with the available pool of published signs/malefic influences, right? Basically, we can home-brew fluff but not crunch?

I think that's probably the best way to handle it, yes.

Thus, I admit I did homebrew my sign.
But ever so slightly: instead of Sertrous' snakes or Kyuss' worms, you have It's hallucinations. The general kind of monster changes, but apart from that (which is a change already more akin to fluff than to crunch, in my opinion), the rest of the crunch has remained perfectly identical: the rate of random encounters, their average CR.
And not only slightly, but also along with a guideline set up by Thurbane that explicitely gives a modicum of leeway when it comes to homebrewing, as shown by the two quotes above.
And to drive my point home:

Optional: you may create your own custom Elder Evil for the entry to be the servant of. If you do so, please use a format similar to the official Elder Evils, and present enough info for your new Elder Evil to be used in someone else's game. WARNING: this may entail a lot of work. This is the first time we are opening up what is essentially homebrew, so try to use a little common sense and don't use this as an opportunity to "break the game".

I do estimate that I indeed did not try to "break the game" with my small homebrew, thus both respecting the spirit and the letter of the comp :smallsmile:

2. That's it. I was going to argue against the action readying problem of the Eyes to the Sky feat, and then I remembered that indeed, you cannot ready actions outside of combat (as the Bloodhound PrC's ability to do so in certain circumstances explicitely tells that this constitutes an exception to the normal readying rules). I think that's because in that Harry Potter and the natural 20 crossover fanfic, a D&D wizard keeps an action readied during a whole Potions lesson, with a Glitterdust ready to fire as soon as the Slytherins start the trouble, and that got me wrong about getting actions readied for hours at a time :smallbiggrin:

Tiri

2017-06-05, 02:46 AM

So, are we still waiting on other judges, or will this be over once the disputes for Inevitability's judging are done?

danielxcutter

2017-06-05, 03:11 AM

So, are we still waiting on other judges, or will this be over once the disputes for Inevitability's judging are done?

I think we had at least one more, but I could be mistaken.

Tiri

2017-06-05, 03:19 AM

I think we had at least one more, but I could be mistaken.

Well, yes, but given that no other judges submitted judging within the deadline, any judging they make is contingent on Thurbane allowing it.

danielxcutter

2017-06-05, 03:21 AM

Well, yes, but given that no other judges submitted judging within the deadline, any judging they make is contingent on Thurbane allowing it.

Mmm... point taken.

Thurbane

2017-06-05, 03:44 AM

I'm always of the opinion more judging is better.

I'm happy to hold it open a little longer to see if any of the others who mentioned possible judging to come forward.

I also want to allow more time for any additional disputes.

The whole forum offline thing threw the deadlines for this comp out of whack to begin with, so I don't want to short-change anyone.

Inevitability

2017-06-05, 04:04 AM

Disputes part two:

Hey, Bowyer-builder! I did indeed take some time off the LA thread, but rest assured: a new update should appear within a few hours.

1. I admit the penalty for your sign was a bit on the high side for such a minor change. Score increased by 0.25 points.

2. HPatN20 was great, wasn't it? That said, even if you could somehow ready an action all day long (perhaps carry a toad with you and nonlethally pummel it every minute so you're 'in combat'), you'd still run into issues when sleeping.

GrayDeath

2017-06-05, 11:42 AM

I expected the judging deadline to be moved at elast as much as the original one, ouch.

So, THurbane, how much time do I have left?
I will get it done this week, but I can`t promise say tomorrowish.

Buufreak

2017-06-05, 11:43 AM

Sorry guys, time doesn't seem to be on my side lately. I'll likely have judging finished by tonight or tomorrow.

daremetoidareyo

2017-06-05, 11:45 AM

I support waiting for the additional judges

Gildedragon

2017-06-05, 12:43 PM

I'll take all votes into account, but judges votes will be looked on favourably. :smallsmile:

I also reserve final decision rights. :smallwink:

I think pirates would be great. I already have an idea...
I'd love to see some land-based or sky-based pirates.
I'd assume that for it the base cost of a ship isn't deducted from wbl?

Venger

2017-06-05, 02:24 PM

I think pirates would be great. I already have an idea...
I'd love to see some land-based or sky-based pirates.
I'd assume that for it the base cost of a ship isn't deducted from wbl?

1) we're npcs, so we don't really use pc wbl guidelines
2) the class allows you to just steal one, so the cost of the ship re: your personal bankroll is immaterial.

Thurbane

2017-06-05, 05:26 PM

I expected the judging deadline to be moved at elast as much as the original one, ouch.

So, THurbane, how much time do I have left?
I will get it done this week, but I can`t promise say tomorrowish.

Happy to do so...let's make it Saturday, so I can post up the new comp Sunday or so.

Tiri

2017-06-06, 08:02 AM

1) we're npcs, so we don't really use pc wbl guidelines

NPCs do have NPC Gear Values, though. You can find them on page 127 of the DMG.

GrayDeath

2017-06-06, 02:20 PM

Happy to do so...let's make it Saturday, so I can post up the new comp Sunday or so.

Should work, methinks.

Thanks.

Buufreak

2017-06-07, 04:15 PM

*Drops the mic

Miguel 12.5

Well, you are using RM to get into warforged qualifications without starting out as one. Nothing too original, but definitely not as lame or cheesy as people using incarnate construct, so I won’t go crazy with my red pen today. I also don’t see wizarding warforges too often, as they all seem to be pigeonholed into tanks or crafters, so I can definitely appreciate that as well. Landforged is also a fairly new concept to me, and I think it makes for some cool things and abilities. I really could see an awesome druid mech character coming out of it, so thanks for pointing it out to me! (I shall call him brambleforge!)

Also using snowcasting -> energy sub -> three thunders. It’s an old hat trick that, while works, is a heavy investment for a few rider effects on some evocations and conjurations.
3

Well, the build seems fairly straight forward. I do take mild issue with grabbing not from separate source books, but from different campaign settings. Southern Magician means literally nothing in the world of Eberron, while anything warforged or dragonmark related means equally little to The Realms.

3

Okay, so I am going to give you benefit of the doubt here. Your breakdown says 5/5/5, but table says 5/10/5. I’ll go with the better of the two and assume the more complete build.

So you are going to end up with Wiz13 casting. I know what you might be thinking “no way, I get the +4 from landwalker!” Nah. You sure don’t. From Southern Magician, pg 168, last paragraph: “The actual source of the spell’s power doesn’t change, nor does its means of preparation.” That means even if you are pseudo casting as a divine wizard (god, those words taste dirty), it is still arcane casting, so you don’t get the +4 casting. So we are looking at a character that was intended to get 9ths, but ends up fairly shy with 7ths.

Now that pushed aside, I do like that your wildshape is based off of char lvl, and not class or caster lvl (because we need CL to be as ambiguous and confusing as possible!). You are also netting some resistances, some armor, and some immunities (and partial for the fort). So this guy is still fairly gish based, and like I’ve said above it is definitely an interesting take on it.

The vile feats also add a nice bit of flavor as well, equating to some extra options in gish. I like a NA gish. I think they are awesome, and personally can’t wait to find a DM that will allow a claw-lock. But until that day, just know I’m standing with you here.
3.5

Eh. It’s a cool robot dude, but still a robot dude. He has some bags of tricks here and there, but not all of them are keying off like they should, which also drains from the guy’s sticking power. I think the best thing is the idea of being a natural warforged, and going through that cycle of life to machine to life again.
3

Henry 17.25

Did you... Did I just... *adjusts glasses* ... Yup. Commoner 20. Well, you’ve got some serious balls rolling in here with that. I don’t have actual words for what is going through my mind. To knowledge it has never happened in a comp, and its unlike to ever again. AND you worked in spelltouched feats, some of my favorite freaking things ever? The only thing I can see here is a bit of a cliché backstory. Carry on!
4.75

This is a nice KISS build here. Hard to go wrong with 20 in a base class, isn’t it? It looks like you paused the vile feat until 3. Nothing says you can’t, and I actually like that. It lets you character freaking live for a while before going totally bonkers, ya know? I mean, really, you kept this whole shebang to SRD and EE. Who even does that? You. You do. And I applaud it. This is the definition of a no mess, no fuss build.
5

... Well, the gravy train had to end eventually. I mean, what were you really hoping to pull off with Commoner 20? But I will give credit. You made a villain who isn’t supposed to be super threatening, and instead is a potential speed bump for players, in hopes they would help him see his way out of this evil spiral he is tumbling down. I like that idea. So for competence, you are doing well.

Power, though? It’s a dude with 10bab, rock bottom hp, super lame saves, and dark speech. He can’t even use some of the abilities of dark speech because he doesn’t spellcast or craft, so that’s out. You are left with a fear, a charm, some swarm command... and gimping item hardness.

I know I’ve called builds out before for being weak sauce, but damn if I ain’t eating those words now. I think he can do what is intended, which helps, and it’s not like you shot for the moon and built a sand castle to reach it. Can we split the difference here?
2.5

Dude. Seriously. If I saw this guy just poking around my entire campaign, I would never forget him. I still remember recurring NPCs from my first game ever. But that is kinda what this guy will end up as. Less villain, more evil NPC that the LG party doesn’t immediately smite out of pity. But that works for you in the long run, and that’s why this is a good character. You made someone totally pathetic, and still made me give a damn about him. Way to go.
5

Baroness 14

Derp, first off. I always get Wu Gen and Shugenja mixed up, so I spent a solid 10 minutes looking for your elemental focus. Again, derp.

Also, I have mixed feelings on the mother cyst. You get it so late game its mind boggling. But it looks like it doesn’t matter when you take it, you get all the spells anyway.

I find the Wu Gen vampire interesting as a concept. I usually get sorc, warlock, dread necro... This is a breath of fresh air. Blood magus is a bit of the cliché, the whole blood thing... But I don’t think I’ve actually seen someone play it out before.
3.25

Alright, this is totally a nit pick. You can’t be Vampire at lvl1 unless created by a Lord, which your backstory doesn’t show. You’d have to wait to HD 5, if memory serves, or you become a spawn instead. Anywho...

The mindbender dip... I get it. I know why ya did it. It offers certain fairly legitimate capabilities. But is it pretty? It’s also very overdone. Don’t worry, all the points are going to go to the right place.

This also seems like the best place to mention your table formatting error. It happens, I’m not taking points, just thought I would point it out in case no one else does.
4.25

Alright, let’s make this one short and sweet. Got the usual nonsense of wishing, PAO, mother cyst spells... Biggest thing I see is most of your spells feel really blasty, which comes with the territory of Wu Gen. Yup, nothing out of the ordinary here.
4

This one isn’t jumping off the page at me. Maybe it’s vampire with regal background who does blood magic? It’s a song and dance I’ve heard before, and while a bit of fresh air here and there, it’s still a dark dank cave we are walking around in.
2.5

Warden 15.5

Well, not a lot original with doppleganger into warshaper and chameleon, eh? I do like the use of UT, though it isn’t exactly out of the ordinary either. Darkstalker is a staple on melees too, got some ToB usage. How does that song go? “Same old story, same old song and dance.”
2.5

So you got all of 2 PRCs in there (though not all at once), some RHD, and started on another. Kinda actually cool that you got all of this in without and base classes. Guess you can have that from time to time with higher RHD/LA races.

That’s really what I look for in elegance, ya know? How straight forward are we building? How messy is it? This? This isn’t messy at all. Hell, even the feats build further into the theme, and it fits the comp well enough. The only thing really throwing me off is the half fey template. I don’t even see it in the build, just mentioned in the CR18 and sources. I’d love some clarification. Besides that?
4.5

Alright, so this is plenty of gish. I enjoy that. Add in the bit of stealth and you have a fairly solid architype. This one will be more comp than power for me, and you execute well. The build is self contained enough, you understand what you are going for, and you compliment it well with use of feats and skills. I particularly enjoy HoS.
4.5

I do love a good gish. I’m not the biggest fan of stealth characters, mind you, but this one seems different. It isn’t that d-bag who creeps in the shadows and wants his own solo story every single game night because we must talk for hours about his sneaking and thieving exploits (because really, screw that guy). No, this is the one that actually gets things done in a timely fashion, and with some flair.
4

Kelvin NA (4)

Na

Template stacking at its finest, eh? Got some fey, some dark fey, some dragon, some human, some better human, some better BETTER human... Wow. I’m actually surprised that your typing came out so clean with Fey (human, dragonblood).

Now now I just found the bit that really is the killer. You took leadership, mate. That’s a no no. I’m walking away from this build.

Na

Na

Karen 16.25

YAY, math wizard. Nay sayers be damned, I love math, and I love all the intricacies, and sacred geometry is probably my favorite cheesy feat!

Alright, exhibition aside, lets dive right in. I’ve never even heard of planeshifter. It looks neat, though, so that’s going for you. Most people avoid that which does the maths, so I’m happy to see that included here. Sorta obvious move nixing evo, but necro is a not as common one, though it isn’t exactly on the list of thou shall not ban either, more of a mid ground. Abrupt jaunt, pretty common. I’m happy to not see persistomancy, because that is just far too common on ANY T1 char. Yea, this is all pretty mid ground. Some new air, some stale air.
3

Grabbed 4/5 for geo, then all of PS. Not perfect, but not bad either. Feats are all orderly, usual mage things. Yup, no sticking out like sore thumb things here.
4.5

Ah, you little dickens, you! “This could be made up by magic items...” I see what you are doing. Saying a fella could rely on items, but specifically pointing out that your char doesn’t teeter on them. Good call. Also liking that you acknowledge short comings and show off how they can be overshadowed by what she does do, and how she does them well. Always a great call in my book and when I’m judging. Its almost like someone saw what I did last time and took notes! /snark

I am almost baffled with the mage using darkstalker. Not that it is illegal or useless, but because it usually seems almost reserved for mundanes on the forums. It totally works, and with mindsight works well! I dig it. In general, I dig this who shebang. Good going. It is almost perfect. I’m not sure which thing is pulling me off of it, but you are damn close.
4.75

Wow, I almost want to put a 5 here just because maths. But I can’t do that, because that’s only slightly biased and will set an example for future entries, and I don’t want that following. Trust me, I want a cult, but not one that are math fanatics. Could you imagine that silliness? I’d be as bad a Steven Hawking!

Okay, jokes aside, I would likely remember this lass for a good while. It uses some interesting things, and well, and she very much stands out against the background. Me gusta.
4

In my schooling years, we had a teacher everyone just called Coach. He talked about his wife often, named Karen, who he referred to as the Warden because how much of a ball buster she was. Glad to see that become a strange coincidental connection here.

edit: had Karen's final score in wrong place.

TerrickTerran

2017-06-07, 04:54 PM

Scores pending disputes
1st Warden (32.75/16.375)
2nd Karen (32/16)
3rd Henry (31.25/15.625)
4th Baroness (27.25/13.625)
5th Miguel (25.5/12.75)
6th Kelvin (12.75/6.375)

remetagross

2017-06-07, 05:13 PM

Great, that's two judges! Thanks Buufreak for it, and thanks TerrickTerran for the ranking :smallsmile:

Thurbane

2017-06-07, 05:29 PM

Thanks for the judging Buufreak .

OK, we've got until end of Saturday to get disputes done and dusted (assuming that's the last judging).

Thurbane

2017-06-07, 09:06 PM

Disputes part three:

Long preamble
I feel this judgment is unnecessarily punitive. Don't get me wrong, you have every right to have judged Kelvin in the manner that you have, but the way your judging was rendered felt abrupt and dismissive. And although my feelings aren't at all your responsibility to manage, I want to take the opportunity to posit alternative ways to have rendered what I think was a more balanced approach.

I am writing this dispute primarily to request that you read the entire submission, as I have a suspicion that the build in its entirety was not considered. If you did indeed consider the entire build and rendered your score on some principled stand that you will not budge on, no hard feelings. You're just a tough arbiter and I can respect that.

But if, in an honest self assessment, you did not bother to parse the build any further than encountering the leadership feat on the build table, I ask that you finish reading the submission because it is both clever and creative, and although we may disagree about how severe ignoring the prohibition of leadership is for an entrant, we can agree that part of the entire transaction of trust between submitter and judge has, at its foundation, the expectation that an entire submission is considered in its entirety. A buttload of work went into producing this novel concept.

Evidence of Lack of consideration
I know I levied quite a claim by asserting that I suspect a lack of textual effort on behalf of yourself, and if I am incorrect in that, please feel free to skip this section and move on to the Justification and alternative options section of the dispute.

The structure of your judging follows linearly with the presentation of Kelvin's statblock. I suspect you saw a buttload of templates, and opened up the elegance section of your elegance score and commented on it. Then, abruptly, you state that you are walking away from the build. No further comment was supplied after that, other than throwing some NAs in EVERY CATEGORY. In the submission, the build table immediately follows the the name, race, and build stub. This leads me to believe that the rest of the build went unjudged.

Justification
Leadership is a necessary pre-requisite for the great captain feat. Banning Leadership therefor bans every build option that necessitates leadership as a pre-req. That limitation seemed arbitrary and undercut some the absolute fun that this Servant of an elder evil could have. Now, I know my expectations of simply taking a hit to a few categories was a bit of a gamble, as it struck me that the likely course of action would have been to penalize elegance, or a penalty to all four categories that was balanced against the novelty of the build. I had expected to have the build be fully considered in contrast of the liberties taken with the leadership feat prohibition.

Alternative options
I know that it's unlikely to affect your decision, but there are a number of alternative strategies to judging this villainous build:
1.) Limit the penalty to a single category, like elegance and blast it to zero, and proceed with judging without considering the additional power bump that leadership proffers to a character.
2.) Penalize every category in equal measure to how taking a prohibited feat affects it.
3.) Judge the build as if leadership and great captain weren't there and then penalize. Rather than throwing a bunch of NAs in every category.

Conclusion
Please reconsider your judgment. If you didn't read my entry please do, even if you don't want to change the score, because I suspect that you are biasing your honorable mention vote by not and at this point. Thanks for reading.

Baby Gary

2017-06-07, 09:15 PM

I know that leadership is banned for many reasons, but I think that if you take leadership just to be able to do something else it shouldn't result in a N/A, maybe a hit to elegance, but not disqualifications or anything of that sort.

P.S. before you ask, this is not my build, I didn't enter any builds in this competition.

Buufreak

2017-06-07, 09:59 PM

Kelvin,

You are absolutely right.

Ya know, this comp has very few rules. Must be evil, no drag mag, but the relevant bit here is no leadership. It has been that way since the beginning, as has it been for every competition here on giantitp. And as such, I feel like I am completely in line for what I did. Its a "can't compare" kind of thing, ya see? Drag mag is about as unregulated as some things come. This fellow here? Well, you have a character build, and then for the low low cost of a single feat, you get to double up. That's really the damnedest thing of it all: you could have just built a cleric that is immune to cold damage one way or another. Instead, you built a skill monkey who has one as a sidekick.

But you are still right. I didn't look it all over. And in the past, I gave out a rather vicious rating, and I seem to have given a much worse one here. But can you blame me that much? Would you expect me to completely rate someone who handed me a LG paladin? No. Because this is a villain competition. And as a competition, there are solidly laid rules that should be adhered to. And I am terribly sorry, but I have zero sympathy for anything that leadership has a pre-req for.

But okay. I'll give it another look. For originality, well, frankly, there isn't much original of template stacking the way you have, and especially something as cheesy and unseelie fey. Even have that nice marshall dip that helps with the motivate X. Given, I am amazed you chose Int over Cha, but that isn't saying much. Even the few levels in truenamer do feel out of the ordinary, and to boost a skill check no less. Originality can net you a 2.5. Alright, so I sat around last night and stewed. You might have caught me in a bad place, so I'm willing to slow down and be more level headed. The idea of actually forcing others to be smart enough to suddenly fall under the control of an elder evil is fairly out of left field. I'll call it a 3.5 instead.

Elegance? Well, no secret here. You have template stacking, paragon classes, dips here and there... then of course leadership. Rules state I can drop a score to a 1 for such things. So I am.

Power? There comes another issue. You can skill check to the sky. Anything else? Not really. And according to your stub, your write up, to everything, a good bit of your power is coming from your cohort. So competently, I can't say you live up to much of any of the expectations. The forcing people to be smart enough to become thralls? That's somewhat interesting, but also super gimmicky. 2.25.

Memorability. Well, that's the biggest let down of all here. We have someone who does everything possible to boost checks for the sake of their EE. I'm not exactly sure how memorable that could be. The cleric? Yea, it would be great, watching them rise to power, start a cult, pull influence across the lands, and in the end, call in the big guy. But sadly, that's your sidekick, not your villain. Again, a 2.

So there ya go. I can update the score to a 7.75. No more. No less. Its a 8.75.

Judgements aside, I do wish that during my extent of doing these judgings, I really hope no ill tidings or harsh feelings pop up. At the end of the day, its a game. We shouldn't hold a grudge over something so small.

As a final note, I said nothing about HM, because frankly I feel strange about doing such. I feel like that should be a crowd favorite, and not left up to judges, but okay. If there was one that really opened my eyes and made me go "what the literal hell," that would be Henry.

Tiri

2017-06-08, 12:45 PM

As a final note, I said nothing about HM, because frankly I feel strange about doing such. I feel like that should be a crowd favorite, and not left up to judges, but okay. If there was one that really opened my eyes and made me go "what the literal hell," that would be Henry.

Out of curiosity, Chairman, would you let a build place and get Honorable Mention simultaneously?

GrayDeath

2017-06-08, 01:54 PM

Thanks for the judging Buufreak .

OK, we've got until end of Saturday to get disputes done and dusted (assuming that's the last judging).

Why would you assume that?

Again: I ill get it done this week, very likely tomorrow but surely until the end of saturday!

And if I have to get a caffeine shock to do so, I will! :smallcool:

GrayDeath

2017-06-09, 08:02 AM

Phew that took longer than I had hopwed....

Originality: Well, aside from the always expected Human Wizard (probably the, counting only players, most used combination ever^^) you aptly combine classes to do something not normally possible...without obvious cheese.
Take 4 points

Elegance: No Dips, no templates (aside from the one the class gives you), no strange classmix to get something, all clear, concise and legal. Southern magician is a bit weird, but Eberron can be argued to fit a lot of stuff by exporting it to another of the Continents, so no large penalty here.

4.5 Points

Power. A Construct Wizard gains a lot of immunities, your prestige classes offer nice adaptable nonus abilities, and aside from some typical construct weaknesses you do what you intend to do (being a blaster/Shaper) very very well.

4.25pts

Memorability:

Nice if a bit inconsistant fluff, great in both actual adaptability and memorable signature ones, good so far!
Only subtractions are its extreme Eberron—Focus and the fact that at lower levels he is not even half as memorable as later on. Still a good
3.75

Total: 16.5

:

Originality:

A Commoner? What? Unexpected Score very high, never seen playerd score very high, Score for „Expected in this comp“ very high.
Lowered only by being single class and not doing much (all of it is IT after all^^) by .5 pts

Still, 4.5 it is

Elegance: Single Class, a bit strange in regard to get rid (!!) of Skillpoints, but npthing illegal I can see.
4.75

Power:

And we reach your worst part. Htere is effectively nothing Henry himself can do well, and since we are not judging IT (luckily, its after all a bit homebrewed^^), all I can give you here is a measly 2.0

Memorability: And here we have a conundrum. This Villain depends IMMENSELY on the players having a personal connection to him/the City/Village. If they do, he will be very memorable, if they dont....he`s a Commoner. That does nothing well, looks ordinary and dies quickly.

I am giving you the average of both here: 2,75

Total: 13.5

:

Originality: Expected Race, but unexpected Template (see Elegance) and Class Combo (Dont see Wu Jen all that often). Standard Cliche Fluff.

3.25

Elegance: The Obvious Dip for obvious reasons hurts you as well as becoming a Vampire at 1 HD (Spawn Territory), but the rest is all legal and not convoluted.

3.75

Power: Versatile Casting, check. Versatile Vampire Powers, Check. Necrotic Cyst and Umbral Shennannigans? Check.
Does what its supposed to do really well, adds a large bunch of „if thats not possible, I also can...“ to the bat. Power good, versatility excellent, makes for a great

4.5

Memorability: Its another Vampire. Out for Revenge/hunting for Power/Love/whatever, And its an Elf on top of that, who made a pact with darker Powers. Its hard to get more clichee than that, but being so clicheed DOES help less attentive players to remember it, so its not a total disaster.

2.75

Total: 14,25

:

Originality: A Doppelganger that actually wants to prevent people from causing massive bad things by delving too deep into better left forgotten Realms? Thats new, Warshaper and chamaeleon not that much. Interesting and unusual concept overall though, I like it!

3.75

Elegance: No Dips, no Template, no cheese (just an oversight, being that you cant bind naberius, bind vestige does not work that way). Otherwise I cant see anything wrong with it, so

4.5

Power: Near limitless Shapechange abilities rock hard, your casting is relatively low in power but also very versatile. For me almost the ultimate example of „does not rock in its area, but is good everywhere“ that you so rarely see in optimization threads.

4.5

Memorability: A recurring/ressuracting villain that can come yt the group in almost any shape? That has a unique motivation thats actually quite easy to find out? That can work in almost any setting and/or adventure, even if its EE is not (yet) central?
Yses, please! Close to maximum here.

4,75

Total: 17.5

:

Originality:

OK, thats a wild ride of varius classes, templates and the fluff and mechanic of punishing people for Being good at knowledge checks? Really went all out here, impressive, if inelegant (see below). PTS for unexpected.... everything but the marshal Dip and Human Paragon are good here.

4.0

Elegance. And the other side of the coin. Wow thats messed up. Dipping, Templating, wild jumping of classes. All that would still leave you a 2.x, but you took Leadership, and sadly thats a complete nogo.
If we had a more detailed prohibition (say no Leadership shenannigans) it would not hurt in this case, but its a clear „dont do it“, so I have to give you minimum score here.

1.0

Power: He is insanely good at his main shtick....but needs magic Items (I`ll allow the Truenamer ones free of charge, because...Truenamer!) to do it, and since your Leadership is not there you`ll need to spend massive amounts of money/time/etc for them. Also outside his main shtick he`s a reasonably competent guy, but he has not much Power going on (the bane of Truenamer).
This was a hard one, at the end I decided the closest was a

3.0

Memorability.
Great Mechanics to be remembered. Can hear players cursing that check that made them lose it for ages^^ Very little fluff/personality/style though.

3.0

Total: 11.00

:

Originality: Ilumian Wizard, that deducts, but Planeshifter? Geometer? What? Never seen any of those played and did not expect them here. Intersting overall concept interactions, and quite unique (if totally bonkers) motivation.

4.0

Elegance: No Flaws, no Dips, no Cheese, no Illegalities. Perfect score.

5.0

Power: 9th Level Casting, emtamagic and Versatility on top, ways to prevent almost any weakness from being an issue and plenty of ways to deal with just about anything.
Very very good.

4.75

Memorability:

Central and understandable motivation, possibility for the players to actually prevent the apocalypse by HELPING her achieve her goals differently/faster, mechanically memorably due to sigils, summoning, flexibility. Good as well, if not outstanding.

3,75

Total: 17.50

Post script: The fact that while reading this one I instantly thought of using it in a campaign helped too. ^^
Honorable Mention for Karen!

remetagross

2017-06-09, 12:31 PM

3 judges for 6 contestants, we're being well taken care of :) thank you GrayDeath!

Thurbane

2017-06-09, 04:59 PM

Disputes part four:

Hi GreyDeath! Thanks for the judging, we get a wide array of opinions now :smallsmile:

I submitted Henry, and I'd like to discuss about a few of your remarks about him.

Originality:

Lowered only by being single class
To be fair, I don't understand why this would be a negative aspect when it comes to originality.
About the idea of a single-classed villain, regardless of what class it is, I find it somewhat less common than a build that works off one base class followed by one or two prestige classes. I can get the idea that taking a single class does not give the opportunity to bring on a greater amount of exotic classes. But on the other hand, I'd say that taking a class from 1 to 20 is exotic per se. This not RHD 10/Commoner 10, this is Commoner 20 :smallsmile:
And then among those mono-class builds, how common is it to see a Commoner 20 ?
:smalltongue:

and not doing much (all of it is IT after all^^)
Here again, I don't get why that would warrant an originality penalty.
If you're talking about "not doing much" in a mechanical, combat-wise meaning, that would be a power penalty, sure, I'd completely agree with that! And you did not miss to do that by the way :smalltongue:
If this is "not doing much" by which you mean that Henry's actions do not really make the plot move forward since he is so passive, and rather, It's do... well, I'd agree with you as well. Indeed, Henry is quite passive for an Elder Evil servant. But I'd argue that this, precisely, is original in its own right: look, in all of the 9 Elder Evils presented in the namesake book, the main villain NPC is each and every time the one that moves the campaign forward, that awakens/bring home the Elder Evil, etc. Here, on the contrary, you have a particularly active Elder Evil, and for which the servant is not willing, but rather forced out. I feel it gives Henry a special vibe that makes him stand out :smallsmile:

Memorability:

This Villain depends IMMENSELY on the players having a personal connection to him/the City/Village. If they do, he will be very memorable, if they dont....he`s a Commoner.
Indeed. Without that link, Henry is indeed fairly bland. But I've thought about this too, and provided a plot tool tailor-made to solve this issue:

If necessary, shorten the 27-year-long cycle so that even the youngest PC was 9 or 10 (for a human - make it appropriately younger or older for another race) last time it happened - while preventing anyone from incurring aging penalties. That can be worked out seamlessy without even having to ask the PCs to say anything specific in their background. If the PCs prefer to declare that they all know each other before the campaign begins, let's decide that in fact, It only erased the memories about their fight and not about their relationships. The only needed thing is PCs who have roughly the same age, either by player decision, or player authorisation to let you decide that.

Since the PCs have forgotten everything about It in their childhood, they also have forgotten about Henry. They also do not remember that they come from the same city, except if the players have already worked that out OOC, which makes things easier but you can make do without. The system is flexible! :smallsmile: That means that you, as the DM, can effortlessly work Henry and Eldorry into their backstory - without even telling your players about this. In fact, you don't even need any particular backstory from them either: you can always invent a set of circumstances that adapts to each and every PC's background, that allows them to all have met up and faced Henry in their youth. Since they have no memories of that, anyway. No need for a complete rewrite: you just need to justify how the PCs have spent about two months together when they were kids.
That might be a little difficult if all the PCs do not start in the same age category or have grown in different planes, but in 90 % of the cases, there will be no problems here.
And then, when the time is ripe, at the beginning of the adventure, the party encounters Henry. And there, their memories snap back:

Only when they see him do the PCs remember. They remember Henry, and they remember part of their shared childhood.
And you make them play the flashback encounter. That allows the PCs to immediately work upon the piece of backstory you just brought forth: by catapulting the PCs right into that invented background, you let them get familiar with it, and customise it. What you say is "And then, you remember that month you spent in Eldorry being chased by mad Henry as kids...", no more is needed. Since you give the players an opportunity to act into this generic frame, they won't feel robbed or dispossed of their backstory. Let the magic of roleplaying roll along. At the end of the flashback session, this will have turned into "You remember that freezing cold winter in Eldorry's nearby forest you spent hiding in the club's secret hideout while Henry was tracking you around, and that one particular time when Erik shot a snowball with a rock inside right in Henry's eye (which is when he decided he would later become a Master Thrower), which drove him threateningly enraged, and then Reedrom managed to talk him down by mentioning that she knew Henry was supposed to be working out in the farm at the moment and that she would tell his father if he didn't let them go and..."
This is the best part: the players get to create in which ways they will remember Henry. So I'd advocate for a higher mark in memorability as well :smallsmile:

Tiri

2017-06-10, 06:20 AM

Thanks for the judging, GrayDeath! So, since you said you'd tell after the judging was done, which were the two entries you felt like using?

GrayDeath

2017-06-10, 02:41 PM

Karen, as I had a remotely similar concept in mind for an upcoming campaign but this way it was finished to use (and quite franky better than the one I had), and Henry, if I ever ran an adventure where everybody had common roots/came from the same city.

Also maybe the Captain, for sheer ludicrousness of "you know, and that is why you fall", now that I think about it. ;)

Thurbane

2017-06-11, 04:21 PM

Once these are wrapped up we can hopefully move on to the next round...

Disputes part five:

Single Class is, no matter how unexpected the Class itself, not as original as a combination of unexpected classes. So I cannot give you full points here but...
You know, you are right. Subtracting a full point from Originality was too much.
Score increased by .5.

As for the Memorability: again, it can be worked in like that, but its not Villain as memorable as, say, the Warlord who conquered all of the realms the player Characters are from 17 years ago, or the guy who caused a 1 year solar Eclipse or....

its not a question of "is he cool if I get the players to be from there and care", its also about how easy he is to get to be memorable.

No change here.

Total +0.5. I`ll edit my Judging Post.

PS: I still like him, it was a close Call for the Honorable Mention. ;)

Hello, Buufreak. Thank you for judging.

So, about the Half-Fey thing, I built the Warden with the template, but I also advanced his HD by one too many and that increased his CR so that the template would actually put him at CR 21 at the end of his progression. I also forgot to note that he had the template in the 'Race' section of the entry. I hope that clarifies things for you. This entry had a lot of little mistakes like that, actually, which I feel a bit bad about.

One thing I would actually like to dispute is the Memorability score you gave the Warden. True, 4 is already a good score, but Karen has the same score, and I can't help but feel that the Warden has more original goals and motivations compared to her. While his methods are extreme, he is doing something unselfish and trying to guard against a real threat, while Karen is ultimately causing large amounts of destruction just trying to save a loved one, not uncommon for villains. Unless the PCs somehow fight villains without ever discovering what drives their villainy, I think this should get the Warden a higher Memorability than Karen.

remetagross

2017-06-11, 05:17 PM

If I had to throw my Honorable Mention vote in the ballot, it'd go for Kelvin. This is the most unexpectedly creative and original piece of PO, bordering on TO,, that I've seen in a long time! :D

ben-zayb

2017-06-11, 06:57 PM

My HM also goes to Kelvin. It's been a few days and I still get that stupid grin on my face whenever I think of what creativity went through this character design.

Tiri

2017-06-12, 07:17 AM

Wait, GrayDeath, did you use a dispute to respond to a dispute? You don't need to do that since judges aren't anonymous, you know.

I'll give my vote for Honorable Mention to Captain Sifuri too, I think.

Also, here's a table.

Entry Name
Creator
Inevitability's
Scoring
Buufreak's
Scoring
GrayDeath's
Scoring
Total
Score
Current
Placement

Miguel Two-Stride
Unknown
13.00
12.50
16.50
42.00
4th

Henry Bowyer
Unknown
14.50
17.25
14.00
45.75
3rd

The Crimson Baroness
Unknown
13.25
14.00
14.25
41.50
5th

The Warden of Reality
Unknown
17.25
15.50
17.50
50.25
1st

Captain Kelvin Sifuri
Unknown
08.75
08.75
11.00
28.50
6th

Karen Greyspark
Unknown
15.75
16.25
17.50
49.50
2nd

danielxcutter

2017-06-12, 07:23 AM

Backing the Captain as HM too.

GrayDeath

2017-06-12, 11:56 AM

Thurbane

2017-06-13, 02:25 AM

Wait, GrayDeath, did you use a dispute to respond to a dispute? You don't need to do that since judges aren't anonymous, you know.

Oops, missed that myself! :smalltongue:

I'll give it a little longer fro Buufreak to reply to the final dispute, then we'll have the final reveal.

ben-zayb

2017-06-13, 03:10 AM

Since we'll be doing Pirates next, I wonder how procuring a pirate vessel (if any) can be done with NPC WBL. I mean I could've sworn even stealing one still counts for that.

Telonius

2017-06-13, 07:43 AM

Since we'll be doing Pirates next, I wonder how procuring a pirate vessel (if any) can be done with NPC WBL. I mean I could've sworn even stealing one still counts for that.

I think in this case, those WBL rules...?

http://www.jasoncjoyner.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/guidelines.jpg

danielxcutter

2017-06-13, 07:46 AM

I think in this case, those WBL rules...?

http://www.jasoncjoyner.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/guidelines.jpg

Plus it's possible for some character to literally make one out of thin air. Maybe even actual thin air.

khadgar567

2017-06-13, 07:52 AM

i dont wanna give idea but did bandana become temporary owner of ship in comics so good old mutiny can solve we dont have ship issue portion of the fluff if you ask me.

danielxcutter

2017-06-13, 07:57 AM

i dont wanna give idea but did bandana become temporary owner of ship in comics so good old mutiny can solve we dont have ship issue portion of the fluff if you ask me.

Now, now. No throwing around theories before the round even starts.

khadgar567

2017-06-13, 08:45 AM

Now, now. No throwing around theories before the round even starts.
no theory mate just question to ask and i am not gonna compete any way

Buufreak

2017-06-13, 10:26 AM

Sorry guys, I didn't even notice the dispute while skimming or I'd already have it done!

Okay Warden, memorability for me isn't a single thing, it's the total package. It's that warm feeling I get when I finish reading it and it sticks around with me, giving me a goofy smile. Does that make sense? If it does, then I hope you can understand that while somewhat hard to quantify, I felt fairly the same level of the warm fuzzies from these two builds, despite their subtle and far less subtle differences.

Nodsiu

2017-06-13, 12:19 PM

Why even bother with disputes? It is first already.

Deadline

2017-06-13, 12:30 PM

Why even bother with disputes? It is first already.

Because disputes are more about correctness and understanding than the rankings in this silly little internet contest of ours.

Thurbane

2017-06-14, 03:43 AM

Without further ado, here's the final reveal.

Entry Name
Creator
Inevitability's
Scoring
Buufreak's
Scoring
GrayDeath's
Scoring
Total
Score
Final
Placement

The Warden of Reality
Tiri

17.25
15.50
17.50
50.25
1st

Karen Greyspark
Telonius
15.75
16.25
17.50
49.50
2nd

Henry Bowyer
remetagross
14.50
17.25
14.00
45.75
3rd

Miguel Two-Stride
Venger
13.00
12.50
16.50
42.00
4th

The Crimson Baroness
The Viscount
13.25
14.00
14.25
41.50
5th

Captain Kelvin Sifuri
daremetoidareyo
08.75
08.75
11.00
28.50
6th

Congrats to all entrants, especially the the place getters, and daremetoidareyo for HM. Also, a massive thank you to our judges.

New comp will be up soon(ish).

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 03:45 AM

Congrats, everyone. This round was awesome.

zergling.exe

2017-06-14, 03:59 AM

1st and 2nd place are nearly unreadable for me, especially 2nd place. Anyone else have problems making it out?

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 04:01 AM

1st and 2nd place are nearly unreadable for me, especially 2nd place. Anyone else have problems making it out?

I suppose it would be better if you changed yellow and light gray into gold and dark gray... seriously, for some reason light-colored letters are hard to make out.

Thurbane

2017-06-14, 04:20 AM

1st and 2nd place are nearly unreadable for me, especially 2nd place. Anyone else have problems making it out?

*sigh* I can't win. When I changed it previously for this exact reason, people complained that the placings weren't in the "proper colours". :smallfrown:

Just highlight the text with your mouse, it becomes readable.

...there's times when I wonder why I even do this.

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 04:23 AM

*sigh* I can't win. When I changed it previously for this exact reason, people complained that the placing weren't in the "proper colours". :smallfrown:

Just highlight the text with your mouse, it becomes readable.

...there's times when I wonder why I even do this.

...You did? Sorry, didn't mean to be such a whiner.

Thurbane

2017-06-14, 04:29 AM

...You did? Sorry, didn't mean to be such a whiner.

All good. That wasn't directed at you as such.

I may have overreacted.

Sometimes though, the pedantry of some forum members and complaining about how I run the comp gets to me.

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 04:30 AM

I'm sorry to hear that.

Tiri

2017-06-14, 04:34 AM

I have an idea. To prevent this kind of complaining, why not highlight the cells instead of the text? It makes things a lot clearer.

Like so:

Entry Name
Creator
Inevitability's
Scoring
Buufreak's
Scoring
GrayDeath's
Scoring
Total
Score
Final
Placement

The Warden of Reality
Tiri
17.25
15.50
17.50
50.25
1st

Karen Greyspark
Telonius
15.75
16.25
17.50
49.50
2nd

Henry Bowyer
remetagross
14.50
17.25
14.00
45.75
3rd

Miguel Two-Stride
Venger
13.00
12.50
16.50
42.00
4th

The Crimson Baroness
The Viscount
13.25
14.00
14.25
41.50
5th

Captain Kelvin Sifuri
daremetoidareyo
08.75
08.75
11.00
28.50
6th

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 04:36 AM

Hey, that's actually pretty cool.

Tiri

2017-06-14, 04:42 AM

Hey, that's actually pretty cool.

Not originally my idea, though. It was first used in the Henchmen round.

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 04:53 AM

Not originally my idea, though. It was first used in the Henchmen round.

Eh, a good idea is still a good idea.

Telonius

2017-06-14, 05:39 AM

Thank you to all of the judges and competitors! In particular ...

The fact that while reading this one I instantly thought of using it in a campaign helped too.

I think this is the best compliment on a build I've gotten in any of the competitions. I hope somebody can take this and make an awesome campaign with it.

danielxcutter

2017-06-14, 05:49 AM

Thank you to all of the judges and competitors! In particular ...

I think this is the best compliment on a build I've gotten in any of the competitions. I hope somebody can take this and make an awesome campaign with it.

Well, I think it's a good build as well. It's a solid Wizard base with a few tricks that you don't see every day. In a way, it's not just good, it's easy to use.

Tiri

2017-06-14, 05:51 AM

Karen was also the only entry whose creator's identity I was unable to figure out.

remetagross

2017-06-14, 01:27 PM

daremetoidareyo

2017-06-14, 01:50 PM

Well done everybody, and Tiri and the judges in particular! Damn Tiri, you're getting better at this guess game, next time you announce you will judge everyone shift their formatting to the guy to their right :D

Nah. As a judge I hate reading through a bunch of fluff showboating and as a contestant I get bored of writing fluff showboating

Nodsiu

2017-06-14, 02:00 PM

What is a fluff showboating

daremetoidareyo

2017-06-14, 03:10 PM

What is a fluff showboating

A ton of flavor text. At a certain point reading through yet another paragraph that isn't about the build but is more tied to demonstrating creative writing, I get real bored. Adult onset attention deficit disorder is a thing.