Help With a Drow Vampire

[StoryKeeper]

OK, I need to make a seriously challening villain for my campaign, and I want some help figuring out how to make her both fun and hard to kill.

What's Known:
She's a drow vampire and a priestess of Lolth (who is assumed dead in this world.)

My PC's are all pretty over-powered, so aim for CR 20-ish. Any questions?

[Mando Knight]

3.5, right? What I'd do would be to start with a level 17 Drow Cleric of Lolth (CR = 18), and add the modifications to make her a Vampire (CR = 18+2 = 20). Simple. You can also make her a Favored Soul... or possibly even the reincarnation of her patron deity...

If you have Complete Divine, she could even pull ClericZilla on the team...

If it's 4e, then you just make a level 20 Drow Controller and apply the Cleric and Vampire Lord templates using the DMG's guidelines, or alternatively make a level 20 Drow Skirmisher with the Warlock (using FRPG's Dark Pact) and Vampire Lord templates.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

a) Add "Unholy Toughness" property. That gives her charisma modifier as bonus to HP.
b) Add "Savage Vampire" template. That gives her +10 str, +4 dex, -2 int, +2 wis and she only loses her dominate ability (which the PCs might be immune to) and for no CR increase.
c) Add "swarmform vampire" template. That allows her to change into swarms, which make her immune to weapons and single-targetted or ray spells. No CR increase, good for both retreat and recovery and against the usual batmans.
d) Add "psychic vampire" template. That allows her to drain wisdom instead of levels. Deathward or having undead properties does not protect from that so both your cleric and your wizard ae now succeptible. As a plus, she gets a wisdom-drain aura. Still no CR-increase.

[expirement10K14]

a) Add "Unholy Toughness" property. That gives her charisma modifier as bonus to HP.
b) Add "Savage Vampire" template. That gives her +10 str, +4 dex, -2 int, +2 wis and she only loses her dominate ability (which the PCs might be immune to) and for no CR increase.
c) Add "swarmform vampire" template. That allows her to change into swarms, which make her immune to weapons and single-targetted or ray spells. No CR increase, good for both retreat and recovery and against the usual batmans.
d) Add "psychic vampire" template. That allows her to drain wisdom instead of levels. Deathward or having undead properties does not protect from that so both your cleric and your wizard ae now succeptible. As a plus, she gets a wisdom-drain aura. Still no CR-increase.

Where are these templates from?

And if you have complete divine, an ex-cleric Ur Priest would piss off any casters in the party.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

They are from Libris Mortis, the book of the dead. Templates specifically for vampires.

As for Unholy Toughness, it's a property some undead have, not a template. Still from the same book.

[Kalirren]

The number one rule is to never forget that she's not dumb. She has been presumed to survive to become a priestess of Lolth ~20. That just doesn't happen to the dumb ones.

And if despite this, somehow your PCs manage to force a direct confrontation with her, just remember a few Tucker's Kobolds tactics:

With gaseous form or swarm form you can access all sorts of corridors, diminutive passages, whatever that a typical adventuring party can't face. Don't forget the possibility of gaseous form + silent spell + still spell.

In the same line of thought, liberally use both mist and fog, both magical and mundane.

Don't forget about hit and run, over several hours if need be.

Everything is poisoned. Everything. Even the air, if need be. Undead are immune to poison, and this is a spider goddess we're talking about.

[KillianHawkeye]

I'm assuming this is for 3.5 edition...

Gift of the Spider Queen gives you some nifty things you can use your Drow SLAs on. Make sure to capitalize on the fact that they are all immediate actions and can thus be done on your players' turns. Combine with Master of Shadow to gain more daily uses of your Drow SLAs.

Adding the Evolved Undead template will get you some nice bonuses for just +1 CR. Also take a look at the Master Vampire PrC.

And do everything in Belial's post.

[ChaosDefender24]

Wizard 18...

just do the whole wizard thing.

Time stop, gate, forcecage, shapechange, contingent stuff, etc...

[RTGoodman]

I'd go with a Lolth-Touched Drow Vampire Favored Soul 17 with the Unholy Toughness ability tacked on (it's just Cha to HP for Undead, as Belial mentioned).

Lolth-Touched (MM4, I think?) gives +6 Str, +6 Con (which you lose), some bonuses to Hide and Move Silently, and immunity to Fear (which you have as an Undead anyway through immunity to mind-affected effects), all for (IIRC) either +0 or +1 CR. Taking away what you LOSE since your an undead and ADDING Unholy Toughness probably makes it a good +1 CR, though.

Basically, she's like a Cleric (and even has some 9th-level spells), but with spontaneous casting (which is great for a DM). She also mixes it up in melee very well (preferably using a poisoned whip dagger for reach and stuff) but still uses spells quite a bit. The Evolved Undead template might work too, but that means you'd lose out on 9th-level spells, probably.

[StoryKeeper]

Alright, guys and gals, thanks for the help. Now I just need to get her written up and figure out how she would choose to get rid of the PCs.