optimizing necromancer party as big bads for campaign

[Amdy_vill]

So giving the fallowing what would be the most optimal five character party of necromancer(lets not have 5 necromancer wizards.)
1. each character is 20th level or lower
2. each character can multiclass(we would prefer you not as to add more distinctness to each character)
3. each character can use feats
4. each character can have a magic item for each attunement slot
5. each character can have 3 magic items that either do not need attainment or are not attuned
6. the hole party can only have 1 artifact
7. what are the partys tactics in a fight.
8. any books are allowed(dmg,phb,vgtm,xgtet)
9. no unearth arcana
10. some basic character

[Unoriginal]

So giving the fallowing what would be the most optimal five character party of necromancer(lets not have 5 necromancer wizards.)
1. each character is 20th level or lower
2. each character can multiclass
3. each character can use feats
4. each character can have a magic item for each attunement slot
5. each character can have 3 magic items that either do not need attainment or are not attuned
6. the hole party can only have 1 artifact
7. what are the partys tactics in a fight.
8. any books are allowed(dmg,phb,vgtm,xgtet)
9. no unearth arcana

If you're making big bads, they're NPCs, not PCs. And so, there is no "optimization", you just create the NPCs as you wish, within the guidelines.

[Boci]

2 necromancer wizards, 2 necromancer clerics and a sorceror with mostly necromantic spell I guess? Requierung the party to be necromancers rather limits class choice. They need casting, and the half-caster archetpyes like eldritch knight and arcane trickster don't have access to necromancery.

[Amdy_vill]

If you're making big bads, they're NPCs, not PCs. And so, there is no "optimization", you just create the NPCs as you wish, within the guidelines.

me and the other dm i play with tend to make big bads as PCs because our partys tends not to wipe the floor with them when we do that.

[Master O'Laughs]

Well definitely 1 or 2 Necromancer wizards

and 1 or 2 Oathbreaker paladins to lead the army of undead, buffing those in their aura.

Not specifically a Necromancer but the Pact of Tome Warlock/Celestial Sorcerer for the Coffee lock, unlimited spell slots shenanigans.

Maybe a Death Domain Cleric, if the are a lizardfolk they do not even need armor if they have high Dex.

[Dr. Cliché]

Personally, I'd focus less on optimisation and more on what their roles are going to be. I'd also avoid multiclassing as much as possible, to try and make the individual members more distinct.

Maybe use something like this as inspiration: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveBadBand

So we could have:
Big Bad: Sorcerer (Divine Soul)
Dragon: Cleric (Death Domain)
Evil Genius: Wizard (Necromancer)
Brute: Paladin (Oathbreaker)
Dark Chick: Bard (Lore)

(I've avoided the Hexblade because, much as I love Warlocks, I don't think they're as good for NPCs simply because they rarely have opportunity to Short Rest. Also, whilst summoning a Spectre at lv6 is initially nice, I think it's usefulness will trail off somewhat for a lv20 character).

Just off the cuff, the Divine Soul could believe he's been chosen by a dark god to bring about an age of undeath. Making his wings skeletal or rotting could be a nice touch.
- The Death Cleric could serve the same god and believes the Divine Soul is an avatar of such and so he'll be rewarded if he serves well. He may try to attract other followers to the Divine Soul's cause, perhaps with promises of eternal life.
- The evil genius could be a wizard who was attracted by such a promise, being close to death himself (with old age or something else that can't be cured by normal magic). He takes care of the 'day-to-day necromancy', as well as creating magic items, alchemical mixtures and the like.
- The oathbreaker paladin could give the appearance of following the Divine Soul, but really he's just in it for the wanton slaughter.
- The Lore Bard likes making plays where every character is played by an animated skeleton. Strangely, a lot of people didn't like her plays. Especially when they recognised one of the skeletons. The Lore Bard found this rather odd. After all, no one had been using those skeletons - least of all their original owners. However, she then ran into the Divine Soul, who very much liked her plays and promised her many more 'actors' for them if only she'd help him with a few things...

Again, those are just some random ideas, but the point is that I'd try to make a party based around actual characters (rather than just classes/mechanics) and deal with optimisation afterwards.

[Maxilian]

1 Necromancer Wizard, 2 Oathbreaker, 1 Spore Druid, 1 Hexblade Warlock.

Necro being the main out of combat creator of undead with the druid, use the Conjure beast to give the undeads around the Oathbreaker mounts (So the oathbreakers may also take advantage of their own mounts), take advantage of the undead inmunity poison to force the enemy to be/stay at the spreading spore area, the warlock shall be the in combat undead summoner with dance macabre (and with a little help of the druid Fungal infestation ability), the druid is also the main healer of the group (mainly out of combat with the power of Healing Spirit -still works wonders in combat).

One or both oathbreaker should use the shield master feat to push enemies prone (letting undead attack their enemies with adv or grapple the enemy and force them to stay in an area -best if is an area of effect ability like Spreading Spore)

[Amdy_vill]

Personally, I'd focus less on optimisation and more on what their roles are going to be. I'd also avoid multiclassing as much as possible, to try and make the individual members more distinct.

Maybe use something like this as inspiration: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/FiveBadBand

So we could have:
Big Bad: Sorcerer (Divine Soul)
Dragon: Cleric (Death Domain)
Evil Genius: Wizard (Necromancer)
Brute: Paladin (Oathbreaker)
Dark Chick: Bard (Lore)

(I've avoided the Hexblade because, much as I love Warlocks, I don't think they're as good for NPCs simply because they rarely have opportunity to Short Rest. Also, whilst summoning a Spectre at lv6 is initially nice, I think it's usefulness will trail off somewhat for a lv20 character).

Just off the cuff, the Divine Soul could believe he's been chosen by a dark god to bring about an age of undeath. Making his wings skeletal or rotting could be a nice touch.
- The Death Cleric could serve the same god and believes the Divine Soul is an avatar of such and so he'll be rewarded if he serves well. He may try to attract other followers to the Divine Soul's cause, perhaps with promises of eternal life.
- The evil genius could be a wizard who was attracted by such a promise, being close to death himself (with old age or something else that can't be cured by normal magic). He takes care of the 'day-to-day necromancy', as well as creating magic items, alchemical mixtures and the like.
- The oathbreaker paladin could give the appearance of following the Divine Soul, but really he's just in it for the wanton slaughter.
- The Lore Bard likes making plays where every character is played by an animated skeleton. Strangely, a lot of people didn't like her plays. Especially when they recognised one of the skeletons. The Lore Bard found this rather odd. After all, no one had been using those skeletons - least of all their original owners. However, she then ran into the Divine Soul, who very much liked her plays and promised her many more 'actors' for them if only she'd help him with a few things...

Again, those are just some random ideas, but the point is that I'd try to make a party based around actual characters (rather than just classes/mechanics) and deal with optimisation afterwards.

i like this i will add your suggestion to the rules

[Armored Walrus]

1. each character is 20th level or lower


I'm surprised anyone can come up with any ideas when you place such restrictions on them. :P

[Mortis_Elrod]

The way I see it m, multiple wizards are cool and all, but I think a more diverse party can get a lot more done.

I haven’t worked out everything but here’s my line up:

Oathbreaker 20: standard undead commander. Will likely have magic weapon and armor and a ring of spell storing for attunement slots. Maybe Blackrazor.

Necromancer Wizard 20: this is of course the guy with the minions and such. I’d put a Robe if Archmage and Staff of Archmage. Last slot is for the artifact. I’ll get to that later.

Circle of Dreams Druid 20: this one is a little unintuitive, but let me explain. Circle of dreams offers some nice ways of healing that work on undead and at range, Druid alone offers really good control and buff spells, and A level 20 Druid is hard as nails to kill. This combined with the other circle of dreams features like making a really stealthy camp without getting noticed and group travel without much setup AND the new Grove spell is just great for this team. Also you can get some Druid exclusive attunement items (though i don’t think there much)



After that picking a 4th and 5th man is really just preference. But here are some suggestions:


Great Old One Warlock : now this is an odd choice but telepathy, even half, is really good for team coordination during battle. But that’s not we really want here. Creating Thralls plus some smart invocations and spells can bring a lot of souls wherever you want. Take note though that while this is great Goolock isn’t the only charmer out there. This is a flex pick, you could easily use bards but I chose warlock for better attunement items as well as very strong blasting power. Coffeelock shenanigans also work here and there are a few good Sorcerer subclasses that maximize this niche.

Cleric : there are a few good options here. Death while great for necrotic damage and gets some thematic and useful spells isn’t very good with the minionmancy, so let’s just not talk about this one (even though it’s still my favorite cleric).

- Grave: excellent ways to keep team and favorite undead alive.
- Forge: decent at taking hits and can slowly build an armory for your minions
Actually not much in the cleric department. Though clerics do have nice spells so don’t ignore that option, Temple of the Gods is great and having the 3 Fort building abilities plus teleportation circles and dream Druid is really good for covering ground in your undead empire.


Sorcerers: it’s a good idea to have a dedicated blaster, though I think this is better for a potential minion, since any blaster will be target first in battle, can’t have a walking target as a teammate, that’s a liability. Still worth noting though since Sorcerer espescially mixed with warlock make extremely powerful blaster casters by canibalizing 2-4 spell slots to make a lot of higher spell slots. Oh and meta magic. Nuff said.

Bards: Great support with bardic inspiration and a way to heal undead. Besides that you got a few suddenly Bard flavors that all do well at being that extra guy covering anything else.



Well that’s all for class choices that I can see. Adding a second paladin or wizard would be strong, but again variety.

Now I mentioned the Wizard had an Attunement slot open. This is specifically for the groups artifact. Now a lot of people might jump straight to the wand of orcus. But the thing is, while it’s great and powerful it doesn’t DO much more than what you are already doing with summoning undead. And orcus is likely to show up to grab his wand. There’s also the chance of dying with it. Overall there’s another option that is way better for a lot of reasons.

Book of Vile Darkness. There are a lot of benifet for this thing, but most importantly is that it holds Dark Lore, Vile Apotheosis, and True Names. Vile Apotheosis and some reading in the items description, means that the book has the rituals for Lichs, Death Knights, and many other things based on who’s had the book before hand. It’s been around for a long time, so one might safely assume it has a lot of the rituals mentioned in the various 5e books. There’s currently a list of them on this forum I’ll be sure to post a link.

Now with this you can do some things nobody has done before.

Step 1: Find a poor sap. Perhaps a fledgling Necromancer. Really anyone will do but those inclined on this path will be easier to convince.
Step 2: Make a Trap that could bind a Lich into uselessness for a while. Perhaps shunting him to a Demiplane. Make sure to do this without telling Sap or letting him know. Convince him it’s all apart of the ritual for life.
Step 3: make poor sap a Lich .
Step 4: spring Trap.
Step 5:Find another poor sap. He’s going to be something special, no need to convince him, his willingness is not required.
Step 6: Make new sap a Intellect Devourer. This is made via a ritual described in the monsters entry in the MM. Illithids are probably many of the authors in the BoVD plus it’s slmething Vecna would totally make. Not to mention there are Alphoons and Mind Flayer Lich’s, the later of which has a high chance of obtaining the book, either way reasonable to say this is a ritual that’s in it.
Step 7: Dominate the Intellect Devourer. Gain complete control.
Step 8: open up the hatch and let lose a bunch of spells on Lich Sap. Forcing saving throws and eventually make him use all his legendary resistance or force him in a state where he fails Int saves.
Step 9: Send in Dominated Intellect Devourer, Start devouring.
Step 10: when Lich hits 10-11 Int attempt Command Undead wizard ability. You should win even if he has advantage with Max Int and Items (plus tomes and bovd boost).


And boom you now control your very own Friendly Lich. This works on other things and you can even make Demilichs too.

After that amass money and territory, sit back and wait for the heroes to bring you loot.

[strangebloke]

Yeah, for NPCs just do whatever seems cool. Read up so that you don't accidentally make them too overpowered.

As a side note... faced all at once, five 20th level PC-equivalents with an undead horde is going to be kiiinda unstoppable, especially since they're all full casters and they don't need to blow through a bunch of spells to even get to the top of the tower.

[Unoriginal]

Have you considered make one of them a Yuan-Ti Anathema?


Yeah, for NPCs just do whatever seems cool. Read up so that you don't accidentally make them too overpowered.

As a side note... faced all at once, five 20th level PC-equivalents with an undead horde is going to be kiiinda unstoppable, especially since they're all full casters and they don't need to blow through a bunch of spells to even get to the top of the tower.

Individually, they should be around CR 13-15. Four or more of them? Yeah, you gotta need Tiamat to blow them up.

[strangebloke]

Have you considered make one of them a Yuan-Ti Anathema?



Individually, they should be around CR 13-15. Four or more of them? Yeah, you gotta need Tiamat to blow them up.

Especially with minions, which they will have.

25 CR 1 minions (not at all unreasonable, at the level we're talking. Create mummy lord, have him animate undead, etc.) and 5 CR 15 bosses is a CR 30 encounter.

Which is on par with Tiamat.

[the_brazenburn]

Grave domain is not an option (flavor-wise, at least). Their tenets are anti-necromantic, and they consider the disruotion of the natural order to be the greatest possible sin.

I'd say Oathbreaker Paladin, Necromancer Wizard, Death Cleric, Long Death Monk, and Undying Warlock. If UA is an option, check out the Spore Druid.

[Amdy_vill]

The way I see it m, multiple wizards are cool and all, but I think a more diverse party can get a lot more done.

I haven’t worked out everything but here’s my line up:

Oathbreaker 20: standard undead commander. Will likely have magic weapon and armor and a ring of spell storing for attunement slots. Maybe Blackrazor.

Necromancer Wizard 20: this is of course the guy with the minions and such. I’d put a Robe if Archmage and Staff of Archmage. Last slot is for the artifact. I’ll get to that later.

Circle of Dreams Druid 20: this one is a little unintuitive, but let me explain. Circle of dreams offers some nice ways of healing that work on undead and at range, Druid alone offers really good control and buff spells, and A level 20 Druid is hard as nails to kill. This combined with the other circle of dreams features like making a really stealthy camp without getting noticed and group travel without much setup AND the new Grove spell is just great for this team. Also you can get some Druid exclusive attunement items (though i don’t think there much)



After that picking a 4th and 5th man is really just preference. But here are some suggestions:


Great Old One Warlock : now this is an odd choice but telepathy, even half, is really good for team coordination during battle. But that’s not we really want here. Creating Thralls plus some smart invocations and spells can bring a lot of souls wherever you want. Take note though that while this is great Goolock isn’t the only charmer out there. This is a flex pick, you could easily use bards but I chose warlock for better attunement items as well as very strong blasting power. Coffeelock shenanigans also work here and there are a few good Sorcerer subclasses that maximize this niche.

Cleric : there are a few good options here. Death while great for necrotic damage and gets some thematic and useful spells isn’t very good with the minionmancy, so let’s just not talk about this one (even though it’s still my favorite cleric).

- Grave: excellent ways to keep team and favorite undead alive.
- Forge: decent at taking hits and can slowly build an armory for your minions
Actually not much in the cleric department. Though clerics do have nice spells so don’t ignore that option, Temple of the Gods is great and having the 3 Fort building abilities plus teleportation circles and dream Druid is really good for covering ground in your undead empire.


Sorcerers: it’s a good idea to have a dedicated blaster, though I think this is better for a potential minion, since any blaster will be target first in battle, can’t have a walking target as a teammate, that’s a liability. Still worth noting though since Sorcerer espescially mixed with warlock make extremely powerful blaster casters by canibalizing 2-4 spell slots to make a lot of higher spell slots. Oh and meta magic. Nuff said.

Bards: Great support with bardic inspiration and a way to heal undead. Besides that you got a few suddenly Bard flavors that all do well at being that extra guy covering anything else.



Well that’s all for class choices that I can see. Adding a second paladin or wizard would be strong, but again variety.

Now I mentioned the Wizard had an Attunement slot open. This is specifically for the groups artifact. Now a lot of people might jump straight to the wand of orcus. But the thing is, while it’s great and powerful it doesn’t DO much more than what you are already doing with summoning undead. And orcus is likely to show up to grab his wand. There’s also the chance of dying with it. Overall there’s another option that is way better for a lot of reasons.

Book of Vile Darkness. There are a lot of benifet for this thing, but most importantly is that it holds Dark Lore, Vile Apotheosis, and True Names. Vile Apotheosis and some reading in the items description, means that the book has the rituals for Lichs, Death Knights, and many other things based on who’s had the book before hand. It’s been around for a long time, so one might safely assume it has a lot of the rituals mentioned in the various 5e books. There’s currently a list of them on this forum I’ll be sure to post a link.

Now with this you can do some things nobody has done before.

Step 1: Find a poor sap. Perhaps a fledgling Necromancer. Really anyone will do but those inclined on this path will be easier to convince.
Step 2: Make a Trap that could bind a Lich into uselessness for a while. Perhaps shunting him to a Demiplane. Make sure to do this without telling Sap or letting him know. Convince him it’s all apart of the ritual for life.
Step 3: make poor sap a Lich .
Step 4: spring Trap.
Step 5:Find another poor sap. He’s going to be something special, no need to convince him, his willingness is not required.
Step 6: Make new sap a Intellect Devourer. This is made via a ritual described in the monsters entry in the MM. Illithids are probably many of the authors in the BoVD plus it’s slmething Vecna would totally make. Not to mention there are Alphoons and Mind Flayer Lich’s, the later of which has a high chance of obtaining the book, either way reasonable to say this is a ritual that’s in it.
Step 7: Dominate the Intellect Devourer. Gain complete control.
Step 8: open up the hatch and let lose a bunch of spells on Lich Sap. Forcing saving throws and eventually make him use all his legendary resistance or force him in a state where he fails Int saves.
Step 9: Send in Dominated Intellect Devourer, Start devouring.
Step 10: when Lich hits 10-11 Int attempt Command Undead wizard ability. You should win even if he has advantage with Max Int and Items (plus tomes and bovd boost).


And boom you now control your very own Friendly Lich. This works on other things and you can even make Demilichs too.

After that amass money and territory, sit back and wait for the heroes to bring you loot.

this was the kind of ideas i was looking for.

[Mortis_Elrod]

this was the kind of ideas i was looking for.

There’s more, the paladin can use channel divinity on a demilich which is simply made by making a Lich than keeping it locked away from souls until it drys up to nothing but a skull.

Paladin has Find Greater Steed which can summon pegasi. BoVD definetly has the ritual for Turning Pegasi into Nightmares.

While we talk about it, the Death Squad should also be binding demons and devils with those new spells we have in Xanathars.

Best way to use your skeletons by the way is archers (give them a short sword just In case) and then mount them. Preferably on Skeletal Warhorses. Pass Find Greater Steed into ring of spell storing for the rest of the team and make them Nightmares too.

Make sure to pick up mounted combatant for the paladin.

I’ve only dipped into the surface here but yeah there is a lot with this you can do

[Amdy_vill]

There’s more, the paladin can use channel divinity on a demilich which is simply made by making a Lich than keeping it locked away from souls until it drys up to nothing but a skull.

Paladin has Find Greater Steed which can summon pegasi. BoVD definetly has the ritual for Turning Pegasi into Nightmares.

While we talk about it, the Death Squad should also be binding demons and devils with those new spells we have in Xanathars.

Best way to use your skeletons by the way is archers (give them a short sword just In case) and then mount them. Preferably on Skeletal Warhorses. Pass Find Greater Steed into ring of spell storing for the rest of the team and make them Nightmares too.

Make sure to pick up mounted combatant for the paladin.

I’ve only dipped into the surface here but yeah there is a lot with this you can do

let tone it back a bit. this is great flavor but these guy need to be beatable.

[Mortis_Elrod]

let tone it back a bit. this is great flavor but these guy need to be beatable.

Hrm... I would suggest making sure they have some vices and other flaws that can be exploited then systematically going after each person separately.

This is of course next level Epic Campagin territory where at the end of the normal campasign it’s revelead that these guys have been behind everything, hidden in the shadows. Most of the campaign I imagine would be about finding information about these guys tracking one of them down and slaying them, as well as amassing Allied forces to combat the evil Horde they command, while the Good team goes infiltration mode assaulting the various fortresses and demiplanes.


Sounds fun...

[Amdy_vill]

Hrm... I would suggest making sure they have some vices and other flaws that can be exploited then systematically going after each person separately.

This is of course next level Epic Campagin territory where at the end of the normal campasign it’s revelead that these guys have been behind everything, hidden in the shadows. Most of the campaign I imagine would be about finding information about these guys tracking one of them down and slaying them, as well as amassing Allied forces to combat the evil Horde they command, while the Good team goes infiltration mode assaulting the various fortresses and demiplanes.


Sounds fun...

that does sound fun

[strangebloke]

let tone it back a bit. this is great flavor but these guy need to be beatable.

Well, they're already unbeatable as a group (or near enough)

Which is why beating them is a whole campaign and not a single encounter at the end. Maybe the party discovers a ritual that will let them break the casters' control over 80% of their minions. Maybe they convince a God of Light who will intervene on their behalf to temporarily leave the BBEG's vulnerable.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Well, they're already unbeatable as a group (or near enough)

Which is why beating them is a whole campaign and not a single encounter at the end. Maybe the party discovers a ritual that will let them break the casters' control over 80% of their minions. Maybe they convince a God of Light who will intervene on their behalf to temporarily leave the BBEG's vulnerable.

Maybe they can convince Tiamat to drop by and blow everything up. That also sounds like a whole adventure (and fun)

So many good ideas

[Amdy_vill]

Well, they're already unbeatable as a group (or near enough)

Which is why beating them is a whole campaign and not a single encounter at the end. Maybe the party discovers a ritual that will let them break the casters' control over 80% of their minions. Maybe they convince a God of Light who will intervene on their behalf to temporarily leave the BBEG's vulnerable.

i like this idea

[Unoriginal]

Having so many powerful bad guys working together will probably prompt everyone to put their feuds aside for a while and work together to destroy them.

And I do mean everyone. The Yuan-Ti, the Goblinoids, the Drows, the Fey...

[Potato_Priest]

Well, they're already unbeatable as a group (or near enough)

Which is why beating them is a whole campaign and not a single encounter at the end. Maybe the party discovers a ritual that will let them break the casters' control over 80% of their minions. Maybe they convince a God of Light who will intervene on their behalf to temporarily leave the BBEG's vulnerable.

Maybe their goal is to spread distrust and dissent among the members of the evil party, so that they leave each other's company to die alone and afraid.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Having so many powerful bad guys working together will probably prompt everyone to put their feuds aside for a while and work together to destroy them.

And I do mean everyone. The Yuan-Ti, the Goblinoids, the Drows, the Fey...

If Death Squad does things right nobody knows what they are doing until they find a way to become gods. The Wizard will have Clone/Simulacrum and other things that can make him nearly Immortal without the baggage of Lichdom, The Druid if an elf will live to 8000 with Timeless Body. Other Members (say Death Cleric and Sorlock of some kind) and the Paladin can find other ways to long life, or simply be Resurrected or made into Undead and replaced. Point is they have all the time in the world to make sure they aren't noticed. Which is why i say that they are only revealed to party after main 1-20 level campaign, for a 20 and upwards Epic Campaign that probably lasts forever.

[strangebloke]

If Death Squad does things right nobody knows what they are doing until they find a way to become gods. The Wizard will have Clone/Simulacrum and other things that can make him nearly Immortal without the baggage of Lichdom, The Druid if an elf will live to 8000 with Timeless Body. Other Members (say Death Cleric and Sorlock of some kind) and the Paladin can find other ways to long life, or simply be Resurrected or made into Undead and replaced. Point is they have all the time in the world to make sure they aren't noticed. Which is why i say that they are only revealed to party after main 1-20 level campaign, for a 20 and upwards Epic Campaign that probably lasts forever.

Theoretically optimized spellcasters (tm)

And if these baddies are doing Wish/Simulacrum/Clone tricks, why isn't everyone else doing that? Why isn't this game set in Tippyverse?

He's the DM. They can do whatever he thinks suits the dramatic tension. The theoretical capabilities of a spellcaster are only sorta relevant.

[Dr. Cliché]

Do they have to be fought together?

I'm wondering if it would make more sense to have some of them fought individually (skeletal minions notwithstanding), rather than all 5 at once.

[Mortis_Elrod]

Do they have to be fought together?

I'm wondering if it would make more sense to have some of them fought individually (skeletal minions notwithstanding), rather than all 5 at once.

That would be the best plan, divide and conquer.

[Unoriginal]

If Death Squad does things right nobody knows what they are doing until they find a way to become gods.

Yeah, no.

At we're talking about legendary power level here. Those are people who can affect multiple planes of existence.

The might be a lot of things, but gathering so much power is never discreet to everyone. And when the secret is out, the people will do what they can to stop the necromancers.

[Dr. Cliché]

If Death Squad does things right nobody knows what they are doing until they find a way to become gods.

I don't know - I think Necromancy is pretty hard to miss. :smallwink:

If you want bosses who enact their plans undetected, I think you'd want stuff like Diviners, Enchanters, Masterminds and the like.

[Amdy_vill]

Having so many powerful bad guys working together will probably prompt everyone to put their feuds aside for a while and work together to destroy them.

And I do mean everyone. The Yuan-Ti, the Goblinoids, the Drows, the Fey...

that is smart i would never have thought of that

[Amdy_vill]

Do they have to be fought together?

I'm wondering if it would make more sense to have some of them fought individually (skeletal minions notwithstanding), rather than all 5 at once.

this would be a smart idea and probable what i would do have 1 or 2 of them i a fight

[Amdy_vill]

this is what i have come up with for the party

Leader: Crow Ancev Nightgrave necromancer wizard(human)
Brutes: Akil and Alto Malkizid (brother and sister) oathbreaker paladins(aasimar)
Face/Dealer: Bolver Uscro sorcerer(half devil)
Dark Chick: no clue who this will be. Any sugestions?

[Mortis_Elrod]

this is what i have come up with for the party

Leader: Crow Ancev Nightgrave necromancer wizard(human)
Brutes: Akil and Alto Malkizid (brother and sister) oathbreaker paladins(aasimar)
Face/Dealer: Bolver Uscro sorcerer(half devil)
Dark Chick: no clue who this will be. Any sugestions?

Wood Elf Circle of Dreams Druid. Potential Betrayer to the rest of the team.

[Unoriginal]

A Rogue they hired to steal an artifact they couldn't get? Not evil per se, but doesn't realize what they're intending to do with the artifact.

[Amdy_vill]

A Rogue they hired to steal an artifact they couldn't get? Not evil per se, but doesn't realize what they're intending to do with the artifact.

i like this idea but probably not a the dark chick but as a 6th ranger traitor rolll

[Joe dirt]

Conjuration school can actually be more powerful at high levels.... imagine a conjuration wizard with dozens of elementals like say invisible stalkers and devils planar bound to their service. u would have an army too powerful for any standard army to stand against

[Xetheral]

Having so many powerful bad guys working together will probably prompt everyone to put their feuds aside for a while and work together to destroy them.

And I do mean everyone. The Yuan-Ti, the Goblinoids, the Drows, the Fey...

Which sounds like an excellent premise for a save-the-world campaign, with the party happening to be in the right place at the right time to be the ones with the first opportunity to learn of the threat and organize the resistance. (If the party declines to take that path, someone else will undoubtedly organize the resistance, but it will get off to a later start. And now you have one hell of a backdrop for running whatever adventure actually interests the PCs.)