Ideas on how to play a successful serial killer

[Jowgen]

In the wake of my other (spectacularly unpopular) thread on dark craft rewards (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?578838-Breaking-Down-Dark-Craft-Exp), I've begun to wonder, what would be some good ways to play a given character who just happens to also be a serial killer.

Not a regular murderhobo, but actual serial killer. Let's be obvious and call him Dexter.

To make this a bit more interesting, lets frame it as a challenge to devise the best D&D serial killer profile possible.

Conditions:

- Dexter needs to be a functional adventurer, well liked by his party mates and respected in society
- Dexter can be any combo of race/class/level, but the less dependent his killing is on raw power the better
- The party can be also be any composition of classes/alignments
- The party is assumed to not stay in one location too long, but remain on the prime material
- Dexter needs to kill innocent people, 1 or 2 at a time, at least once every few days
- These kills need to have a properly flavoured serial killer MO
- The length of time Dexter remains undetected and the finesse of his kills is more important than the raw body count

And of course:
- No mortal can know Dexter's secret, with the potential exception of fellow serial killers and love interests

So, ideas anyone? :smallsmile:

[Geddy2112]

Pathfinder did this perfectly with the serial killer (https://www.d20pfsrd.com/classes/base-classes/vigilante/archetypes/vigilante-archetypes-paizo-inc/serial-killer-vigilante-archetype/) vigilante archetype.

On the surface, your character can be anything-their social identity could be joe blow janitor, or a renowned forensics expert. You might not stay in a town long enough to set up your renown, but at higher levels you can. You could also go with the obscurity route vs renown, making your character appear to be just random NPC #37. Regardless, you don't detect as evil unless you choose to put on your evil identity.

Killer wise, you get death attack at level 6, but before then you can be sneaky and do coup de grace/sneak attacks that are enough to kill the random person. At 7th level your kills literally become renown and have your signature flare. The stock vigilante has tons of ways to increase your sneak attack, hiding ability, etc.

Race is irrelevant, and for magic stuff, you just need anything that makes you better at sneaking and killing. The rest is irrelevant.

[Falontani]

Ghost faced killer + avenging executioner into dread witch. Probably necropolitan. Pm me if your interested and I'll get you the actual build I'd use tonight when I get home

[Efrate]

Just be a ranger and go after goblins? Just theme the goblins you kill, leaders, mothers children, whatever. No one looks too askance at a ranger with a favored enemy. Especially if it's a racially hated foe, dwarves and goblins/orcs, gnomes and kobalds, etc. That's the simple answer.

More importantly you need some amount of good social skills and/or sneaky skills or abilities to get away with it.

You could be the mastermind who gets other to do if for you, in which case a beguiler with a dip in mindbender or incarnum for telepathy and mindsight could do it easily. Bard works as well but in this case I like beguiler more. Classic Charles Manson type.

Any cleric with the right domains also works well in this way, especially if nominally aligned with a good/respected church. You could even spin your crimes as necessary or justice, and a lot of people who know would support you. St. Cuthbert is a great vector of this, and you could easily be LE.

Nozomatic chirugeons can also take this road very easily, as can any cancer mage who works in some hospital like settings.

Artificers could be unabomber types making cursed or malfunctioning devices, though magewrights may pull this off easier. It was an accident I swear!

Any caster with gaseous form and any good kill mook spell like cloudkill or even poison can easily get at commoners with little to no impediment.

[rel]

I can help with this, half the characters I play with are murder gnomes for some reason.

Race is ultimately unimportant although unassuming races, shapeshifters, and inherently sneaky types are helpful. Try a Whisper Gnome who are both sneaky and unassuming.
HOWEVER, the template Vecna Blooded for +1 LA is a must. This grants you immunity to divination, erases knowledge of your existence from the world and tells you if anyone tries to track you down magically.
It also removes your face (think The Question) so even if someone catches you, you can never be unmasked.

You need to be able to sneak into places, murder and leave so rogue skills are needed. You also need arcane magic for Vecna Blooded so a gish is a good option.
Classes like wizard or beguiler are good bases with dips into rogue or sword sage for skills and damage.
In terms of PRC's Unseen Seer is probably the best you can do since it progresses casting, sneak attack and has all the rogue skills you are likely to need.

A Whisper Gnome wizard / unseen seer with a dip into rogue or swordsage who has gained the Vecna Blooded template is very hard to catch while out killing and remains a competent adventurer.

[AvatarVecna]

Elf Druid 6 with Natural Spell, a spare Wild Shape use, and a spare Produce Flame prepared when they return to town. Once your friends are asleep for the night, turn into a rat and sneak out of wherever you're staying. Spend 1 hour wandering around observing and looking for a good place, preferably one with only a single occupant, then sneak in once you're sure the occupant(s) is/are asleep. Once you're inside and the occupant is asleep, use Produce Flame in such a way that it is difficult for them to safely exit the building once they smell smoke and wake up. Pepper in more Produce Flame attacks for the next 6 minutes or until you feel the blaze is sufficient for your purposes. Use your adventurer HP to not give two ****s about 1d6/round of fire damage as you're leaving the building and return to wherever you're companions are staying (continuing as a rat until you've re-entered your private room), then turn back into your main form and trance for four hours. By the time most of your companions are up, you'll have been up a few hours with all your resources restored, likely including whatever HP you lost while escaping the fire yourself. It's at this point that the party will probably learn of the tragic unfortunate accident that befell a member of the community in the dead of night.

[Jowgen]

Elf Druid 6 with Natural Spell, a spare Wild Shape use, and a spare Produce Flame prepared when they return to town. Once your friends are asleep for the night, turn into a rat and sneak out of wherever you're staying. Spend 1 hour wandering around observing and looking for a good place, preferably one with only a single occupant, then sneak in once you're sure the occupant(s) is/are asleep. Once you're inside and the occupant is asleep, use Produce Flame in such a way that it is difficult for them to safely exit the building once they smell smoke and wake up. Pepper in more Produce Flame attacks for the next 6 minutes or until you feel the blaze is sufficient for your purposes. Use your adventurer HP to not give two ****s about 1d6/round of fire damage as you're leaving the building and return to wherever you're companions are staying (continuing as a rat until you've re-entered your private room), then turn back into your main form and trance for four hours. By the time most of your companions are up, you'll have been up a few hours with all your resources restored, likely including whatever HP you lost while escaping the fire yourself. It's at this point that the party will probably learn of the tragic unfortunate accident that befell a member of the community in the dead of night.

Arsonist serial killer who goes unnoticed by means to his shape-changing, with his reduced sleep requirement giving him the time to go around burning people (ring of sustenance might be a good alternative to elf).

I wonder how long it would be till the party gets suspicious that in every town they visit somebody dies in a fire. Love it.

[AvatarVecna]

Arsonist serial killer who goes unnoticed by means to his shape-changing, with his reduced sleep requirement giving him the time to go around burning people (ring of sustenance might be a good alternative to elf).

I wonder how long it would be till the party gets suspicious that in every town they visit somebody dies in a fire. Love it.

Oh, and general motive (since I didn't mention it before)...well, it's kinda multiple choice, but a whole lot of them amount to "druid doesn't like civilization and is setting fires either to balance out their own conscience on the idea of helping cityfolk or its some twisted application of a druidic/natural principle to teach a lesson". Buncha ways that could go.

[ben-zayb]

Dexter is a Ghost with Telekinesis, Malevolence, and Draining Touch. Class level could be anything good at bluffing and disguising. The party isn't aware that Dexter's just possessing a body that was unconscious due to having WIS Drain Touched to 0, but he makes himself useful in combat thanks to Telekinesis.

Whenever Dexter is on a killing mood, he just leaves his fake body and sneaks wgerever, maybe possessing a body or two to get to a specific location. He can use Draining Touch to slowly kill someone or turn them unconscious, or he could just use Malevolence and have the possessed victims commit suicide.

[Telonius]

I think shapeshifting (or invisibility, or some kind of illusion magic) is kind of a must here, even at low levels. In a universe where "Speak with Dead" is a thing that any 5th-level Cleric can do, you need to have a way to make sure that your target doesn't recognize you.

Oneiromancy (sadly) doesn't have all that much support, but it would be an ideal way to go about it. It's a very unusual form of magic, not too many people know about it, and it would give the guy a great big alibi. ("What do you mean I did it? I was sleeping the whole time, you all saw me!") Also gives a neat little clue to the team - Elves would never be targets. (Also a possible red herring, since they might suspect an Elf).

[TheCount]

psion telepath with the telepathy ACF, either with 1 level of tatooed monk for the White mask tattoe or full psion with a similar item.

barebones, i know, but he can use sugestion and the like with telepathy (or so i think), psionics being easy to make subtle (dc 15 + power's level concentration check) and can have signature method easily (ritual suicide or poem written in the victims own blood).

[Kelb_Panthera]

So I'll go ahead and be the one to say the obvious with halfling rogue/ assassin/ black dog. A swift blade in the dark is hard to beat for a good murderer. Get an assassin's dagger and some murderer's gloves, pick ability focus and watch 'em drop like stones.

Slink off when nobody's looking, pick a likely victim, desecrate the corpse in a creative, calling-cardesque kind of way and you're good to go. House Ghallandra makes pulling a Sweeney Todd an obvious choice.