Need help with a certain npc to fit story?

[morkendi]

To go along with a story arch we are doing, I need a little help with a build that can hold his own against the party if they try to fight him. I know it’s kind of specific, but I would like a melee cleric into malconvoker. Race has to be silver brow human for story, but seems like it is a little feat intensive. Any builders have some ideas that could help flush this out. I have not been entirely happy with anything I have come up with, so I thought I would ask for some help. This will hopefully be a reoccurring character tied into one of the players back stories. Thank you ahead of time for any help given.

[Inevitability]

What level? And what is your party's makeup?

The best way to handle this is probably to plan the encounter to be against the cleric + several called fiends, so the party has something to fight and score a meaningful victory against even if their main target teleports out. It also makes the fight less tricky from an action economy perspective.

[morkendi]

The basic is this will be the brother of one of the party members that has been framed. Party is around 10th level consisting of Druid, war mage, cloistered cleric/ warlock/ eldritch deciple.

[morkendi]

The idea is the eldritch deciple’s players backstory. She came from a prominent family. Their family was framed for occult practices. The person behind it arranged for it to look like they summoned something that then got loose and wrecked havoc. The player thought she was the only survivor that was taken in and hidden by the church ( her brother will be the one who arranged this through allies.) knowing she was lower level, he remained hidden and on the run. Now that they have some levels in the party, he will reveal that he also survived and what really happened to try and restore their family name. The problem is, the family does dabble in the occult, though what happened is not their fault, but it will cause some issues because investigators have discovered this.

I like to tie players back stories in for a few levels. Plan is to take party from lvl 10 and progress to around 14 with this arc. So it will include city intrigue and such. Just having trouble building her brother.