Making King, the strongest man in the world

[FabulousFizban]

I want my homebrew to contain a legendary figure that the players can encounter known as King, the strongest man in the world (Yes I got the idea from One Punch Man). King needs to be legit though, not a fraud. Problem is, I don't know what his build should be. I want him to be basically a high-level warrior type based in the actual classes, but far stronger than anything the players can achieve independently. This is the kind of guy who can slay dragons single-handed, but mostly doesn't, cause he is pretty chill. In addition to his basic build, he will have legendary resistance, as well as three unique powers:

Hero's Might - an offensive power
Hero's Halo - a defensive power
Hero's Command - a board control power

So how would you design this character? What would you make his stats, class, abilities, and those three special powers? Bear in mind that I want him to be strong, but not insurmountable against a well-organized high level party (15-20).

Thanks in advance for the playground's help on this. I'll do my best to answer other questions you may have.

[Heavenblade]

Gloomstalker/Assasin rogue and the alert feat is very good for one-shotting things that definetly should have lasted more time than 1 round.

Be an elf with elven accuracy and dip 3 levels into champion for more crit chances, have some way of bonus-action attacking. I'd suggest taking a crossbow with the archery combat style, but dual wielding could work too.

If it didn't die in the first round of combat...run. (or hide and shoot again next turn)


Edit - for some more cheese, get him the sunblade magic item with the great weapon fighting style for some extra fun and rerolls.

[Unoriginal]

I want my homebrew to contain a legendary figure that the players can encounter known as King, the strongest man in the world (Yes I got the idea from One Punch Man). King needs to be legit though, not a fraud. Problem is, I don't know what his build should be. I want him to be basically a high-level warrior type based in the actual classes, but far stronger than anything the players can achieve independently. This is the kind of guy who can slay dragons single-handed, but mostly doesn't, cause he is pretty chill. In addition to his basic build, he will have legendary resistance, as well as three unique powers:

Hero's Might - an offensive power
Hero's Halo - a defensive power
Hero's Command - a board control power

So how would you design this character? What would you make his stats, class, abilities, and those three special powers? Bear in mind that I want him to be strong, but not insurmountable against a well-organized high level party (15-20).

Thanks in advance for the playground's help on this. I'll do my best to answer other questions you may have.

This is for a NPC, right?

NPCs don't have to follow PC creation rules at all, and it's almost always better to not do it.

I would suggest starting with the Empyrean statblock from the MM (who are legit half-gods and have the powers to prove it) and adapt it to your liking.

[Sparky McDibben]

Or any of the giants.

Also, is it intended for the NPC to be a combat threat? If not, don't bother statting them up.

For your offensive power, maybe King can inflict the prone condition or move his target up to 30 feet (his choice) with every attack that lands. Depending on the party he's meant to challenge, I might give King a +5 or +10 damage boost per successful attack.

For your defensive power, maybe King auto-succeeds on Strength saves and all grappling checks. If that's too tame, maybe King can use a reaction to nullify the damage of one attack when someone hits him in melee.

For the area of effect, I'd recommend using the swashbuckler's panache ability.

[Hellpyre]

I heavily second designing them like a monster, not a PC. Even most tankier PCs fall on the 'glass cannon' end of the spectrum as far as encounters go. If you're determined to go that route anyways, I'd start from a Barb 20 with ideal stats and develop additional power from there either by strong magical item boosts or by gestalting them. Either way you go, definitely either include a good suite of legendary actions or give them extra slots in initiative. Action economy is king (pardon the pun) and a solo boss starts at a strong disadvantage there.

But seriously - just build a cool stat block and ignore PC classes except for inspiration for mechanics you like.

[Pex]

My barbarian is the "strongest man in the world" in our game.

20 ST obviously.
Bear totem barbarian. Being resistant to almost everything helps.
6th level bear totem subclass ability.
Proficient in Athletics.
I multiclassed into Rogue and got Expertise in Athletics. You can do it with a feat - Prodigy or there's one in the Tasha book.

It would be nice to have Powerful Build but can't as a human. I'm likely to get it as part of campaign plot point benefit, but that's homebrew stuff. If you don't need to be a human specifically there's goliath. You can use goliath statistics but flavor text human if you'd like.

[CTurbo]

Yeah just simply give the guy a 30 Str and call it a day. Do anything you want with an NPC.