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Ethdred
2008-11-07, 09:43 AM
Right, any players from my campaign, leave now 'cos this is for Sunday's game.

Have they gone?

Fine, let's get on with the plotting.

I have just had a slightly odd idea for a one-shot bad guy for my game. The players will be defending a piece of land against attacking mooks, who will be led by a Yuan-Ti. I've been having a bit of trouble thinking what to do with this guy, but I have had a possible flash of inspiration. I want him to be a rear-echelon leader, mainly buffing and so making the mooks a bit more of a challenge, without getting involved in the combat himself, until the end of the session when he'll be the only thing left. I've thought it might be good to give him martial adept levels to enable him to use White Raven stuff - the players don't have ToB, so they won't so easily know what they're up against. I also want him to be a spell caster for buffing spells, and to be able to make use of a Wand of Invisibility. Can anyone give me a bit more help with the mechanics please? (I'm currently away from books, so can't be more specific than this.) The party is 6 level 6 characters - half-ogre barbarian, elven ranger, melee cleric, druid, warlock and VoP monk (yeah, I know). I've mainly only got Core books (and ToB obviously) so can we keep it to them for now.

Thanks in advance.

Eldariel
2008-11-07, 10:00 AM
Bard/Crusader with Song of White Raven seems fairly solid. Use Perform: Oratory if you don't want him to have the Bardic feel to him, flavour it as simply shouting orders. Bard 2/Crusader 4 (if you want him to be level 6 as well - Bard 4/Crusader 4 would be a nice level 8 set-up though for +2 Inspire Courage, and level 2 Bard-spells, but Bard 2/Crusader 4 gets Level 3 maneuvers, which is too awesome to skip).

Note that most of the lower level White Raven-stuff is about gaining benefits vs. the opponents you attack, so I'd mostly focus on casting spells while singing and using a Stance (Leading the Charge early, Bolstering Voice a bit later once the battle is joined) + White Raven Tactics and such. You may wish to give him a Martial Script of Order Forged From Chaos - it's a very flavourful ability (basically use his turns providing his men with the ability to move instead of moving himself), only not available for a few levels, but from a Script, he could use it for one encounter, which is plenty (and the used (and thus powerless) Script could give your players an idea and a tip of what manner of abilities this guy was using to introduce them to ToB - he could drop it before making his escape).


I'd feat him as follows:
Level 1: Extra Granted Maneuver
Level 3: Song of the White Raven
Level 6: Song of the Heart/White Raven Defense (if you intend for him to stand just behind the troops - if further away, skip that and use something else if you don't want Song of the Heart)


You could also give him Leadership for 6 to make the fact that he has troops "a part of his CR" and you could make him level 8 to make Inspire Courage +2/+2 (+3/+3 with Song of the Heart, +4/+4 with Vest of Legends - +3/+3 if you make him a level 6 instead). Have his troops assume flanking positions, focus on a single target and the ones likely to be taking hits fight defensively, open up with a charge (boosted by Leading the Charge and Inspire Courage), then you could use Order Forged from Chaos next turn for a second charge, and White Raven Tactics + a spell on your turn.

Invisibility is a Bard-spell so no worries about the Wand. UMD is also a Bard-skill so you could UMD stuff like Bless, Prayer and so on. Wand of Bless is 750, so it should be affordable. A combination of all those abilities should result in attacks at:
+1 (Bless) +2 (flank) +2 (charge) +3 (inspire) for +8 extra to hit (you can engineer flanks and charges with Order Forged from Chaos and White Raven Tactics)
+3 (inspire) +5 (leading the charge) for damage for +8 extra to damage (Tactics of the Wolf allows you to maintain a decent damage bonus once the combat settles - +3 to damage when flanking)


Oh yeah, and pick a Devoted Spirit-maneuver or two. Worth it. Shield Counter and Crusader's Strike at least - allows him to provide some additional cover for his allies while being overall obnoxious (healing is always annoying) - also, I'd pick Martial Spirit for when his guys start to weather down if he enters the combat himself. Use Shield Counter with White Raven Defense and Aid Another and your troops Just Won't Be Hit (easily) when you're with 'em - conditional +7 to AC.

EDIT: I'm assuming a Pure-Blood. That would make him CR 6, which seems appropriate enough, although with that big party and a Druid (automatically raises party EL by 1), it may be worth it to toss those extra levels. Since they're "unlinked", it'd still only be a CR 7 encounter with the Snake as a level 8 character and 4 racial HD.

Open combat with Inspire Courage (swift action with Song - you're already in Leading the Charge as you can maintain stances indefinitely and that's the logical opening stance), Wand of Bless (standard action - in hand already, the fellow should just casually keep it around) and Order Forged from Chaos (move action - provided he's read it within the last hour; gets your men in the right positions).

Then follow up with Cause Fear (or whatever spell, or Aid Another), Tactics of the Wolf and whatever (maybe just normal movement), using Shield Counter as an immediate action over the opponents' next turns. Then switch to White Raven Tactics+Aid/spell and possible move, recovering the next turn for another Order Forged from Chaos + White Raven Tactics + whatever (you could also use some item for healing with the Standard Actions to keep your mooks standing if some are mildly hurt).

Ethdred
2008-11-07, 11:28 AM
OOOOHHH!!! A bard!! What a great idea! (And that's not a phrase you'll hear often!) I hadn't thought of having him as a bard - I've probably been reading this forum for too long :) But it would be really flavourful (and we have several running jokes about bards in the group) and gives everyone an excuse to curse the cleric for not taking Silence. Also hadn't considered a Wand of Bless - really handy for the multiple attack waves I'd been considering, and also a nifty bit of treasure for the party. I'll probably give him a Wand of CLW as well (and maybe some summoning somehow). OFFC would be a great maneuver - not least for it's ability to really p--- off the munchkins when the enemy start taking more actions than they 'should'. Teach them to use Snake's Swiftness on me. The bonuses to hit will be really good - enough to ensure they start with doing some damage to wake the party up, but not crippling.

All in all, fab advice, thank you very much. Consider yourself in receipt of a patented Ethdred cookie-fireball.