The Villian vs. PC's fight. Need help with Villian's goons.

[The J Pizzel]

My players have had a recurring villian since the first session of the game. He has come and gone and made their live's hell for about 7 levels. The time has come to finally let the party face him and take him out. He's not the BBEG, he's the BBEG's second highest in command. The party is now one level above him (hence, why he was always able to escape). Here's the rub: Warlod Denatz (the goblin king / recurring villian) is going to find them (the party) on the road to a great gold wyrm to ask him some questions about an old Draconic Prophecy. It's not going to be an ambush or anything like that. He will calmly be standing in the road with some new friends and some dialogue will ensue. Simply put, he's there to finally put an end to them. He's want no prisoners. He simply wants them dead. Now, he's no fool. He's fought them before and he's done his Gather Information checks. He's knows exactly who's in this party and he also knows what there capable of. That's why he's hired some high level goons to assist him. This is where I need some help. I want to get creative with his group.

Here's the PC's - all level 12
Human Rogue/Warlock (TWF and Inv. Eldritch Blast with SA damage)
Human Swashbucker/Rogue (face of the party, feint and SA in one round)
Human Monk (doesn't contribute much, just some extra damage)
Human Warblade (32 base AC, lots of damage and plays extremely well)
Elf Wizard/IoSFW (pretty good batman, huge fan of Save vs. Die spells)

I want the fight to be nasty, but not one sided. I'm thinking Denatz has at least one guy for each of the PC's plus 2 constructs to help. So I'm thinking there should be Denatz + 5 hired baddie + 2 constructs = 8.

I'd like the baddies vs. PC's to match up pretty decently. For instance,
The TWF rogue could face off against a TWF fighter.
The Swashbuckler could face off against a sword and board duskblade
The Monk - help
The Warblade could maybe square off against a min/maxed Barbarian.
The Wizard against a Wiz or Sorc.

I'm not saying the players are gonna square off perfectly. They might gang up on one at a time. But I'd like the option.

So, feel free to advise me on the baddies and the contructs. Oh, Warlod Denatz is a Rogue/Hexblade.

Books allowed are Core, PHB II, All Completes, and Draco...

[PlatinumJester]

The monk could face off against a drunken master or a Frenzied Berserker. Both would be fun.

[goat]

Divine types would work. Some CoDzilla-ing to face the wizard, and maybe provide some touch attack ammunition against the warblade.

[Lemur]

I like the idea of a cleric going against the wizard. He's just a goon, so he doesn't need to put the hurt on the wizard so much as drain his spells. The more resistant you can make him to magical attacks, with boosting his saves and defensive buffs, the better he'll do his job. The idea here is that the wizard probably has a strong defense (IotSV certainly suggests this) so instead of trying to have a strong offense, the cleric (or wizard/sorc if you want to go that route) should have an even stronger defense to create more wasted spells. Actually, a counterspell/dispel monkey sorceror might also be another idea.

The monk could face a similarly disadvantaged class. I'm tempted to say "samurai" but even that might be a bit extreme.

Another thing, give all the goons really grotesque and exaggerated goon names, like Gimmick, Headbolt, or Goonga Splat.

[cupkeyk]

Flesh Golems posing as undead. Typically, if you describe them right, the IOTSV will not roll an Knowledge(arcana) check to verify if the thing is undead or construct. Keep describing the effects making it seem that the Flesh Golems are making their saves instead of shrugging them off. His save or dies will be failing left and right which will piss him off. He will prolly toss mostly fort save spells since that is the undead weak save. The SA guys will suck at this encounter too.

Throw in a source of constant electricity damage, like a shocking floor that deals 3 hp of electricity damage per round on a failed reflex save. Throw in non magical darkness to abuse the fact that they would rather get an extra feat than better perception.

[BardicDuelist]

As far as CR goes, shouldn't they all be around level 7 or so if there are 8 of them?

[goat]

As far as CR goes, shouldn't they all be around level 7 or so if there are 8 of them?

Nah, this is a boss fight, it should be a serious challenge.

If your players are good (and you say that the warblade at least is), 8 level 11 characters will be a solid fight, probably a hard one as you lack an obvious healer, but it SHOULD be winnable.

[Sir Jason]

Throw in a wizard with sudden maximize and Power Word Pain; he would have him there to take care of the monk, who in theory (?) has a good AC and good saves. Check out my thread 'Why must the good die young?' and you can use it without the book. Its in Races of the Dragon. BTW, your PCs may hate you after using it. Just a heads up. Though we think we fixed it....

[Anxe]

I think the monk should go against an Ogre with barbarian levels or something like that. A big giant with a stick. For the constructs I would go with Two stone golems. The encounter would go something like this.

Denatz has the Linear Guild go in to take out the PCs while he sticks back with his stone golems. When the Linear Guild needs help he sends in the stone golems and finally himself.

[The J Pizzel]

Thanks people. Here's what I'm thinking now.

A Tiefling Scout (sister) to take on the Rogue using "hit and move tactics". This allows the Scout to get skirmish damage and not sit in one place long enough to let the Rogue get his SA off. If he gets bored he'll simply move around the battlefield and start skirmishing other members of the party.

A Tiefling Duskblade (brother) against Swashbuckler/Rogue. Channeling spells through his flail should help offset the damage from the PC's imp. feinting SA. I'll put a few ranks in Sense Motive to help against those Bluff Checks.

An Orc Barbarian power-attacking with a two-handed spiked greatclub for the monk. His increased speed will allow him to follow her around the battlefield (she moves around a lot). I think I'll give him those gloves from MIC that allows weapon one size larger so he'll get some good damage. His low AC will allow the Monk to actually get some hits (her attack bonus is horrible), but his high HP will allow him to stay in for a while.

A (race help please) Cleric to sit back and buff/debuff and Dispel everything that the wizard will be doing. He's going to be a Cleric of Baccob who's being paid nicely for his services. Their leaving a very magic influenced city to justify the cleric.

Now, what In the world to I make to face off against the Warblade. I'll need a high AC high damage goon. The Warblade in my group can pack a pretty mean punch and he has no problem burning a round to get his maneuvers back so he can keep punching.

Denatz will sit back with his two constucts and curse everyone until he is needed to come in and help.

All goons except Denatz will be level 10. I'm dropping them to level 10 as the group doesn't have a Healer. The Swashbuckler/Rogue and the Rogue both have wands of CMW and all party member have a Healing Belt. But we've all learned that those only go so far in the big fights. Haven't decided on the constructs yet.

/help

[KIDS]

I think it would be rather unfair and even lame to have the player "not roll the check because he doesn't mention it since the monster looks like something third". You either know about the monster or you don't, you shouldn't require the player to say "ok now in the midst of battle I'm going to sit down and think about flesh golems... oh wait, I kind of knew that already".
:smallmad:

[Doresain]

against the warblade, make a half-ogre barbarian, wielding a huge greatsword...capable of dealing massive amounts of damage and would hit pretty often, ac would be somewhat mediocre...

for the npc cleric make it something interesting like a necropolitan...undead cleric ftw

dragonbone golems would make for interesting constructs...i also suggest looking through complete arcane and some of the eberron books for ideas on constructs...you could always convert warforged into something else tailor-made for your campaign

[cupkeyk]

I think it would be rather unfair and even lame to have the player "not roll the check because he doesn't mention it since the monster looks like something third". You either know about the monster or you don't, you shouldn't require the player to say "ok now in the midst of battle I'm going to sit down and think about flesh golems... oh wait, I kind of knew that already".
:smallmad:

I don't see this as unfair at all. Simply withhold the information they aren't asking. If the wizard starts using spells that simply wouldn't work, maybe he will get an idea and roll but he can just keep on wasting spells throughout combat. The DM should even ask the player to roll SR just to taunt him into using Assay Spell Resistance and wasting it.

[Telonius]

For the cleric: I suggest Gnome. Likes knowledge, a little greedy, and sufficiently creepy.

[Azerian Kelimon]

There's two things that'll be a real match for the warblade. A frenzied berserker (If he/she has the ability to keep fighting after being reduced to less than -10. Else, see solution 2), or another martial adept. I'm tempted to say swordsage, since I have a soft spot for them, but an optimized swordsage would beat a warblade, so use a crusader. This way, the crusey will also help his teammates with his healing abilities, making the battle that much more challenging, and bringing him down a priority.