christmas special bbeg

[riddles]

i've been running a campaign for a little while now and will be doing a one-off christmas game with my party.

basic plot - the fairy on top of the tree (previously an evil elf wizard) has been released from her magical stasis by her goblin minions and is turning on christmas. rudolph's nose has been stolen, frosty the snowman is trapped in a hot room. etc. etc.

should be a lot of fun. but i want the final encounter with the christmas fairy to be extremely tough. the party haven't ever faced a full spellcaster before, but they are chewing through encounters fairly easily at the moment and i want to give them a scare. i don't mind killing one or two of them, it's a christmas game and we can pull off a few resurrections.

so, the party is as follows:
human fighter 8 - the archer. has some serious enchantments on his bow along with archery feats that let him ignore cover and miss chances. a real pain in my side. the build was made by the player of the thief/mage, who considers himself a bit of a whizz with character builds
dwarf cleric 8 - wanted to build a battle cleric (we don't use dmm), so i helped him at first level, but can't really get his head around the idea of casting a buffing spell then wading into combat. not helped by the fact that there are a few other fighters. loves using of the spiritual weapon spell and i have no idea why
gnome wizard 8 - doesn't really know about effective use of spells (my group is still stuck on damage output) but has cottoned on to the idea that a party with 5 melee characters loves the haste spell at the start of fights
human fighter 8 - dual weilds bastard swords. character built by the player of the theif/wizard.
dwarf fighter 7 - sword and board fighter. i recently sundered his magic axe and dropped a 2 handed maul thinking maybe he would discover power attack. i'm not holding out hope though
human fighter 8 - sword and board fighter. uses the lion shield to make up for it
human thief 6/wizard 2 - quite a versitile guy (the most flexible character i've seen from him actually). uses all his downtime to make scrolls

i'm thinking of a level 10-12 wizard with a large group of goblins with 1-4 class levels. be assured that i want this to be a very difficult fight, potentially with the loss of one or two fighters, so if the wizard needs to be higher level, so be it. i'll confess that i know very little about arcane casters, so i need a build, tactics, and a spell list to give my players a very merry christmas :)

[JackMage666]

I'm no good with BBEGs myself, but I can tell you that, with the playstyle, the Goblins should either be Rogues or Sneak-attack Variant Fighters - The ones who rush into combat (seems to be half the group) will find it a bad idea when they're swarmed and flanked for sneak attack damage.

[mikeejimbo]

The goblins ought to be dressed like elves (Santa's kind) and the BBEG like Santa himself.

This reminds me... I had some homebrew I was savin' fer Christmas!

[Doomsy]

The goblins ought to be dressed like elves (Santa's kind) and the BBEG like Santa himself.

This reminds me... I had some homebrew I was savin' fer Christmas!

I am no longer allowed to run Christmas games after I turned Santa into a magically cursed demon that was forced to give happiness to the children it had once consumed between long periods of imprisonment inside a frozen fortress that chilled it to the bone and was manned by compelled but still vicious and bad tempered duergar-esque creatures. So much for combining old German folktale and modern myth.


As for the fairy thing - it sounds good. I'd go for a good number of rogue or ranger type goblins like mentioned above and pick and chose the BBEGs spells pretty carefully. Having them illusioned to look like small frolicking children is a good idea too.

[Tokiko Mima]

Since the elf was a fairy at the top of the tree, have you considered the benefits of having pixie warlock minions with the Flyby Attack feat to sow confusion and chaos while the BBEG casts his spells? One could have a red Eldritch Blast beam, and the other could be green, and keep with the holiday theming. :smallbiggrin:

[OverdrivePrime]

As for the fairy thing - it sounds good. I'd go for a good number of rogue or ranger type goblins like mentioned above and pick and chose the BBEGs spells pretty carefully. Having them illusioned to look like small frolicking children is a good idea too.

Bonus points if you make the goblins scouts, who run by and paste the characters with snowballs. (read - ice balls)

Or even better, if they throw snowballs (1d2 + skirmish non-lethal), have about one in five snowballs actually just be snow packed around a flask of coldfire.

The first few rounds of getting hit by mostly-harmless snowballs, the characters will probably think it's a joke, and not take it seriously. Then all of a sudden, they start getting nailed for 3d6 cold + skirmish. Time to get scared.

Seriously, with how seemingly ineffective your PCs are, I doubt you'd need more than a CR 12 Christmas Fairy and about 2 dozen goblin scouts. The non-lethal snowball damage makes it less probably that you'll have a TPK, but all other parts make it very likely that several characters will be sent to that big revolving door in the sky.

[Mushroom Ninja]

At level 10 - 12, a wizard can be really deadly. For general advice there's the famous epicly awesome guide (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=18500).

I would suggest flying over the pcs (if you can boost your CL somehow, then fly on a phantom steed) and raining Debuffing chaos on them. Have a contingency running in case one of the fighters gets too close.

[Doomsy]

Bonus points if you make the goblins scouts, who run by and paste the characters with snowballs. (read - ice balls)

Or even better, if they throw snowballs (1d2 + skirmish non-lethal), have about one in five snowballs actually just be snow packed around a flask of coldfire.

The first few rounds of getting hit by mostly-harmless snowballs, the characters will probably think it's a joke, and not take it seriously. Then all of a sudden, they start getting nailed for 3d6 cold + skirmish. Time to get scared.

Seriously, with how seemingly ineffective your PCs are, I doubt you'd need more than a CR 12 Christmas Fairy and about 2 dozen goblin scouts. The non-lethal snowball damage makes it less probably that you'll have a TPK, but all other parts make it very likely that several characters will be sent to that big revolving door in the sky.

Snowballs with rocks in them, and they make called shots for the ears.

[Thurbane]

How about throwing Krampus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus#Krampus) into the mix (I've seen him statted out as a fiendish satyr)...

[Prometheus]

Have a magic item prized by each character taken from them (if there is a particularly self-sufficient character, go with something like "her voice" or "fly spell" or "sense of pride"). Have these items stuffed into sacks that are scattered across the battlefield, which have other christmas related items in them (Candy Canes are magical clubs with a bonus to trip and immunity to nausea, Gumdrops are enhanced tanglefoot bags). If they ignore the goblins than they start using them against the PCs.
If you caster focuses on the defensive, than the PCs will have time to play with the toys while being sufficiently annoying (but not threatened immediately) by the BBEG. You could do something even more elaborate- such as making her particularly vulnerable to the player's prized items or making her only accessible by climbing the tree and knocking down Christmas ornaments. The point is to make this combat experience particularly memorable, and above all, lasting long enough to be a memory.

As for the spells, I say pick a theme and stick with it. Winter? Consumerism? Mockery? Wickness? etc. Pick spells that fit the theme, but also refluff spells to match the theme.

[BizzaroStormy]

How about a half ogre Santa for the wizard, and 8 fiendish dire reindeer, one having the ability to cast scorching ray as a SLA.

[Doomsy]

How about throwing Krampus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krampus#Krampus) into the mix (I've seen him statted out as a fiendish satyr)...

That was actually the fiendish name of my evil Santa. Of course, he was more like the incarnation of childrens nightmares given demonic shape. I was serious when I said they banned me from doing Christmas stories.

[riddles]

have been informed this morning that we will be joined by a dread necromancer and one other character, making 9 players in total.

[jcsw]

http://www.wizards.com/dnd/files/Santa.pdf

Can't hurt.

[Kesnit]

How about a half ogre Santa for the wizard, and 8 fiendish dire reindeer, one having the ability to cast scorching ray as a SLA.

You mean 9 fiendish dire reindeer. :smallbiggrin:

Are you set on having the BBEG be a Wizard? If she's a one-time battle, make her a Sorc (or some other sponatanous caster) and just give her whatever spells you would have the Wizard prepare.

[trehek]

Epic plot:

A big fat red pit fiend is sending armies of gnomes dressed up in red all around the kingdom, dropping off some kind of packages into houses. It's a devil, so he can't be up to anything good, right? :smalleek:

[hamishspence]

"Kringus, demon prince of fir trees" :smallbiggrin:

I kinda liked Munchkin's Santa "Forget lumps of coal, now, if you're Naughty, you just get lumps"

After all, the song does begin "You'd Better Watch Out"

[kladams707]

You mean 9 fiendish dire reindeer. :smallbiggrin:

9 only applies if it's a foggy Christmas Eve.

[Enlong]

From your plot, it seems wh/o/at ever is doing this is effectively stealing Christmas.

Therefore, the wizard has to be a green-furred Bugbear, who lives in a cave in the mountains just north of an especially boisterous city, who is doing all this to get some peace and quiet on Christmas. He believes that if he stops the presents and reindeer and stuff from arriving, then the holiday will not come either. Very grouchy, jaded, and all-around scroogy and mean-spirited.

And very intelligent: he must have a good Bluff check, and high intelligence to come up with "wonderful, awful idea"s.

Edit: Oh, wait... Okay, then this guy needs to be the Christmas Fairy's most trusted soldier, in a Starscream kind of way.

[hamishspence]

hee hee hee :smallbiggrin: "you're a rotter..."

however, I only saw clip from the cartoon once- in another movie. So I'm more thinking of the book version and the Carrey version.

[Shishnarfne]

Am I the only one who thought of the Star Wars Christmas special upon reading this thread's title?

/off-topic

Frost giants seem thematically appropriate, somehow...

[Enlong]

Am I the only one who thought of the Star Wars Christmas special upon reading this thread's title?

/off-topic

Frost giants seem thematically appropriate, somehow...

ONLY if they're peppermint-flavored.

[Ascension]

Am I the only one who thought of the Star Wars Christmas special upon reading this thread's title?

Technically it was a Thanksgiving special.

[Prometheus]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy27XS3CDls&feature=related