Villainous Competition XLVI: Nemesis!

[H_H_F_F]

Welcome to Round 46 of the Villainous Competition!

Previous Competitions

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Round One: Leader of Armies
Round Two: Nature's Avenger
Round Three: Double Agent
Round Four: Grave Keeper
Round Five: Crime Lord
Round Six: Ultimate Predator
Round Seven: Wicked Witch
Round Eight: Master of the Tundra
Round Nine: The Power of Villainous Thinking
Round Ten: Henchman Are Villains Too
Round Eleven: The Higher They Rise The Harder They Fall
Round Twelve: Power Comes at a Price
Round Thirteen: The Gadgeteer - You Are Not Batman
Round Fourteen: The Thing That Should Not Be
Round Fifteen: The Horsemen Are Drawing Nearer
Round Sixteen: Burn Baby Burn
Round Seventeen: It's Alive!
Round Eighteen: This is Heresy
Round Nineteen: He Slimed Me!
Round Twenty: Elder Evil
Round Twenty-One: Yarr!
Round Twenty-Two: I Am The Night!
Round Twenty-Three: Two Heads Are Better Than One!
Round Twenty-Four: Wrong For The Right Reasons!
Round Twenty-Five: Keeper of the Gate
Round Twenty-Six: Get In MY BELLY (Swallow Whole)
Round Twenty-Seven: Multiple Personality Disorder
Round Twenty-Eight: Tiny Only!
Round Twenty-Nine: Halloween Special
Round Thirty: One Feat to Rule Them ALL
Round Thirty-One: In Cold Blood
Round Thirty-Two: oh HELL NO!
Round Thirty-Three: The Do Over
Round Thirty-Four: Sword and Board
Round Thirty-Five: I Shall Call Him Mini Me!
Round Thirty-Six: The Broken Man
Round Thirty-Seven: Yin and Yang
Round Thirty Eight: Spooks and Spectres
Round Thirty Nine: Sorta Psuedo
Round Forty: Negative Nancy
Round Forty One: Gojira!
Round Forty Two: Caine?!
Round Forty Three: The Big Dumb Brute
Forty Four: The Sheriff
Forty Five: The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing

We're a little different than most of the optimization threads. We run on CR instead of ECL.

Contestants:
You will need to present a write-up of your build with at least one of the following points: 5 CR, 10 CR 15 CR, 20 CR, and a "sweet spot" that you feel is the high point of the build, as well as presenting a fully-fleshed out 20 CR build in the table below. Feel free to present as many of these as you like, and please give a rundown of the build's abilities and playability at all of the levels you didn't show. It is recommended for new contestants to look at previous rounds and see how things are usually done. The rules are as follows:

Secret Laboratory:
Competitors will be free to use any official 1st party (WotC) 3.5 rulebook in constructing their builds. Dragon Compendium is allowed, but Dragon magazine is disallowed. Unearthed Arcana is allowed. Unupdated 3.0 materials, as well as web exclusives by WotC are expressly allowed, but take care to verify that an updated version did not appear in print elsewhere, as this may cause an Elegance deduction at the judges' discretion. Alternate rule systems from UA such as gestalt or Generic Classes are not allowed, as they create a different playing field. Item Familiars and Taint are also banned from the competition. Leadership and all similar abilities are banned for sanity reasons.
Builds that are fully monstrous are allowed at no penalty. All class levels are to be added on as associated class levels.

Elite array (15, 14, 13, 12, 10, 8) is the assumed ability score generation method.
Monstrous characters can usually qualify for Epic feats as soon as their HD is over 20. While regular Epic feats will be allowed, Epic Spellcasting and all other Epic feats that affect spells, psionic powers, or item creation are not permitted. Including these would give an unfair advantage over standard characters. For Incarnum characters, Epic Open Chakra feats are allowed; other Epic Incarnum feats are not. The Essentia Capacity increases for Epic capacity as described on p. 212. For all characters, please note that Racial Hit Dice do not count towards Epic Progression of BAB and saves; use the regular progression even if the BAB ends up higher than 20.

Deadlines:
Contestants will have until April 27th, 10:00 AM GMT to create their builds and PM them to the Interim Chair. Builds will then be posted simultaneously, to avoid copying. Judges should strive to finish their judgement until May 11th. Deadlines are subject to extension as/if required.

Judging:
Judging will be based on the following criteria, with each build rated on a scale from 1 (very poor) to 5 (exemplary) in each area: Originality, Build Elegance, Competence and Power, Memorable Villainy.
Keep these questions in mind when judging each category:
Originality - Is it unexpected?
Build Elegance - Is it mechanically pretty?
Competence and Power - Can it do what the concept asks of it? Is this a powerfully-built character?
Memorable Villainy - Is this a villain with style? Will it be the BBEG players long to finally kill and then talk about for weeks?
Unearthed Arcana can be penalized for elegance if the specific feature seems unnecessary or makes the playing field unfair (In this case, you can give a 1 if it makes the field unfair.)
Power level is up to you. Cheese is acceptable, but should be kept to a sane level unless you're showcasing a new TO build you've discovered. As the Iron Chef competition states, a little cheddar can be nice, but avoid the mature Gruyere unless you're making a cheese fondue.
You may not judge if you entered the contest, unless you withdraw your submission.

Presentation:
Builds will be posted anonymously, in order to avoid the potential of bias towards a particular competitor. For this reason, please don't put your name in the build, as the chair is likely to miss it when reviewing the entries.

Note:
There is a hard limit on two entries per competitor.

Due to concerns about standardizing entry format, everyone should try to use the following table for their entry. An easy way to do so is to go to the top left of the private message and click the little a/A icon. It allows you to see what you're writing.

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CR	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
2	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
3	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
4	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
5	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
6	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
7	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
8	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
9	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
10	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
11	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
12	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
13	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
14	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
15	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
16	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
17	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
18	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
19	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities
20	New Class Level	+x	+x	+x	+x	Skills	Feats	New Class Abilities

Code immediately below (spoiler).

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[table="class: head alt1 alt2"]
[tr]
[th][B]CR[/B][/th]
[th][B]Class[/B][/th]
[th][B]Base Attack Bonus[/B][/th]
[th][B]Fort Save[/B][/th]
[th][B]Ref Save[/B][/th]
[th][B]Will Save[/B][/th]
[th][B]Skills[/B][/th]
[th][B]Feats[/B][/th]
[th][B]Class Features[/B][/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]12[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]13[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]14[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]15[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]16[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]17[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]18[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]19[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]20[/td]
[td]New Class Level[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]+x[/td]
[td]Skills[/td]
[td]Feats[/td]
[td]New Class Abilities[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

You can use the table below for Spells.

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Spells per Day/Spells Known
Spells per Day/Spells Known

Level	0lvl	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
1st	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
2nd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
3rd	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
4th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
5th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
6th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
8th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
9th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
11th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
12th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
13th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
14th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
15th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
16th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
17th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
18th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
19th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
20th	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

Code Immediately Below,

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[B]Spells per Day/Spells Known[/B]
[B]Spells per Day/Spells Known[/B]
[table="class:head alt1 alt2"]
[tr]
[th][B]Level[/B][/th]
[th][B]0lvl[/B][/th]
[th][B]1st[/B][/th]
[th][B]2nd[/B][/th]
[th][B]3rd[/B][/th]
[th][B]4th[/B][/th]
[th][B]5th[/B][/th]
[th][B]6th[/B][/th]
[th][B]7th[/B][/th]
[th][B]8th[/B][/th]
[th][B]9th[/B][/th]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]1st[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]2nd[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]3rd[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]4th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]5th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]6th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]7th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]8th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]9th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]10th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]11th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]12th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]13th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]14th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]15th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]16th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]17th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]18th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]19th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[tr]
[td]20th[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[td]-[/td]
[/tr]
[/table]

Speculation:
Please don’t post or speculate on possible builds until the reveal, in order to avoid spoiling the surprise if a particular competitor is producing a build along those lines.
Once builds are revealed, please do not comment on errors or rules issues on entries unless you are a judge. If you have such a comment, wait until the final reveal to post it.

Get ready to share those Evil thoughts. This edition’s villain is:

The Nemesis!

Limitations

• Recurrent Rival: Must be encounterable at least at 17 out of the 20 CR points. (In other words, can skip no more than 3 CR in total, though these can be anywhere in the build.)
• Sworn Enemy: Should be an emotionally involved and involving antagonist.
• Defeated, but not vanquished: Should have good means to make a daring escape, to be encountered another day.
• Specialized Opponent: The nemesis should have tactical options unique to the party it's facing. Beyond it's normal capabilities, the Nemesis should be especially good at fighting against a specific type of opponent (Class, Race, Etc.)
• As Usual: Must be evil, of course.

Let the carnage begin!

Submission:
To standardize Entries, please use this format when sending it in:

PM: H_H_F_F
Subject: Villainous Competition 46, Name of your Entry
For Revisions and disputes, do the same thing. It makes it easier for me finding the entries in my mailbox.
More questions? PM me with Villainous Competition 46 Questions in the header.

We will award 1st through 3rd places, and a possible Honorable Mention.

Spoiler: Tips for submitting, provided by Weaselguy:

Show

- Use capitalization and punctuation correctly.
- Make good use of Spoilers, for cleanliness.
- Don't forget your sources. If it's something that can be found in the contents section, then book title seems to be fine. Obscure stuff, may want to include page number too.
- DeviantArt has about 9 billion pictures that you can reference, I can almost guarantee you can find one there to fit your character.
- Make good use of tables. In addition to the Build table and the Spells table, I like doing one for my Ability Scores, just to keep it neat.
- Do a build stub at the top of your Build Table, something like Wizard 2/Fighter 3/Abjurant Champion 5/Eldritch Knight 10

[H_H_F_F]

Clarifications

Unearthed Arcana variant rules are limited: The variant character options (such as Wildshape Ranger and Thug Fighter) should not be penalized. Flaws and traits may be penalized by judges, whereas item familiars, gestalt, alternate skill systems, alternate magic systems, alternate crafting rules, generic base classes, LA buyoff, fractional saves/BAB, and bloodlines are banned. Anything not mentioned here is up to individual judges.

d20 Rokugan is not allowed material.

The Dragon Magazine update for Oriental Adventures is in use.

Leadership is banned. Any material that grants you leadership without you specifically taking it should be ignored and may not be traded away for another feat or ACF. Undead Leadership and Dragon Cohort are likewise banned. Wild Cohort and Obtain Familiar are allowed. If you are not sure if a specific feat violates the 'no leadership' rule, err on the side of caution, or ask me.

However, Leadership may be taken to qualify for another feat or class (such as the Great Captain feat or Legendary Leader prestige class), though a character still doesn't get its usual benefit in those cases. This is to allow characters to access unproblematic material that'd otherwise be made unavailable because of the Leadership ban.

On the subject of messaging the chair (me), a few guidelines:
- You can ask for clarifications on the rules of the round or the competition, but I am not here to give critiques on your build or guess how the judges might score it.
- When submitting entries, please keep the entry to no more than 2 message, if at all possible. That way, it'll fit within one post.
- Also when submitting entries, don't expect me to search through your entry and edit in or out material. Entries should be sent to me complete - if there is a later revision, re-submit the full build. Do not include any text which you don't want posted in your submission.
- Please make sure the name of your entry is clearly present in the message.

[AvatarVecna]

Do...do we have to design a full party for our villain to show he has specific anti-party tactics? Is a hand-wave design acceptable or we talking full-blown 1-20 builds?

[H_H_F_F]

You don't have to build anything other than your villain.

To clarify: your villain should have at least a couple of options that are dedicated to dealing with a certain type of PC - whether that PC archetype be "debuff monkey", "druid", or "halfling". That villain would then be a nice addition against any party that has one (or more) of those.

[Thurbane]

Love the theme for this round - will get a build in if time allows.

[loky1109]

Have two ideas, but don't know how make them work.

[daremetoidareyo]

This is an excellent theme

[Telonius]

I might actually have an idea for this round.

[ciopo]

I got a possibly terrible idea, but I don't think I can deliver it properly, anyone interested in a collaboration? :)

[Telonius]

My first submission since the Before Times is in.

[H_H_F_F]

Gentle reminder that you have less than a week left until the deadline. Good luck!

[H_H_F_F]

Less than 3 days to the reveal! This is looking to be a relatively small round, but that's okay. Is anyone still working on an entry?

[loky1109]

I am. Need one day, maybe two.

[H_H_F_F]

I am. Need one day, maybe two.

You've got time until the reveal... If you end up needing an extension, let me know.

[Metastachydium]

I have a demented idea I began working on, but I'm still tinkering with the easiest bits, so unless you don't care to do the reveal this year, feel free to ignore me.

[H_H_F_F]

Well, if you end up needing something closer to an extra few days than an extra 8 months, let me know.

[Metastachydium]

Sure thing, thanks!

[loky1109]

You've got time until the reveal... If you end up needing an extension, let me know.

It's done.
Awaiting revealing time!

Folks, how many entries are apart from mine?

[H_H_F_F]

Reveal tomorrow. Shaping up to be a smallish round. If anyone could use an extension, please let me know - I'd rather push the reveal by a week if it means getting an extra entry or two.

[H_H_F_F]

And... here come your... uhhh... nemesi? nemesises?

Anyway, here's the reveal! Please, no posting until I give the all-clear.

[H_H_F_F]

What do you mean, you don't know who he was before? Obviously, he was a horse they forgot in the desert.

Spoiler: Beginning

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- You had one simple job, tick! - Baalzephon got so mad he didn’t even raise his voices, - And you screw up.
- Sir, it's not my fault, there are these adventurers...
- I’m not interested in your excuses, tick! I sentence you to exile to the material plane! Your name will be forgotten! You always was a tick inside, now you're gonna be tick entirely!
- Sir! Sir! Avernus is my homeland! Sir, have mercy, I'm begging!
- The verdict is final, without appeal and it will be executed immediately!
- No!!!

I don’t go into the details of the case between my villain and PCs and who he was before on purpose. It can be almost anything. Maybe he was imp familiar of some important wizard and this wizard was killed by the party, or he was a spy and PC broke a conspiracy or coup, or any of a hundred other options. Main idea is that the PC was interfering with his important mission and he was punished.

Spoiler: Sabotaging Animals

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- Alarm! We're under attack!
- What? Again? Darn it! I'm on my way!
...
- Well, it stops being fun. This is the fifth night in a row. Two wolves, viper, dire rat and a freakin' camel! Who's next? If this keeps up, we'll not be able to do... anything! Look at Mark, he can't restore his spells with this sleep pattern. What happens if next time it'll be something more dangerous than animals?

First six CR/levels Noname can't do something really dangerous. With his Wild Cohort feat and being symbiont he can force animals to attack the target of his revenge, and he can hide very well, but in direct fight he is very weak. Even when he found the Mau-Jehe blade. It all will work later. Plus, as an option he can work with some PC's regular enemy as symbiont.
I draw your attention to non-availability of any punishment for cohort's deaths and clearly stated cooldowns to obtain new one.

Spoiler: Ape of Fury

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- Jerry, look.
- What's the matter?
- I think I saw that ape yesterday, think it's watching us. Those animals three years ago, remember? Could it be...
- No, this was that mad druid we killed. Don't worry about it, it's just an ape.
...
- Just an ape, Jerry? Just an ape with a frickin' glowing bastard sword in the mouth! And we couldn’t catch up it! I bet it'll come up tonight!
...
- I was wrong, I admit. We were expecting a monkey with a sword, but not the sword itself! Accursed flyin' bastard! How many times did we sunder tonight? Dozen? Two dozen? We won’t last that long.

This ape is Noname's more constant cohort. Noname raised and well-trained it to be helpful in fight. Its feats and skills are tailored to work well with Noname's abilities. And yes. Noname became a Fiend of Possession. He can posses his ape, or his Mau-Jehe mindblade, or some enemy's gear, but I'll talk about two first options - maybe party all consists of VoP PCs. )
Well, let's expand in more detail.
First, blade possessing. I can give it Skillful or Mouthpick enchants via the Magic item Fiend's of Possession class feature. These enchants allow my ape to wield my blade without penalty. It's unclear and maybe not strictly RAW, but I think possessing a mindblade is considered to be like holding a mindblade. My main goal is Vorpal enchantment. With it, Lucky, Better Lucky than Good and Victor's Luck I can start fishing. So far, it isn't so good, but it is just the beginning. If I work without my ape, it can be dead, or be absent for any other reason, I'll use Fly enchantment. It's only +1, but gives very good mobility. Plus, because of wording, mindblade became an animated object and I can possess it as a creature, not only an object. It's unclear, too. How does it work? Can I possess a single object simultaneously as object and as creature? These questions are especially interesting in the Animate Object ability context. Anyway, possessing a mindblade is an option for the second part of the fight. I'm most often starting inside the ape. It has interesting feats and its Iaijutsu Focus gives me some amount of free damage. While ape itself can't use Call Armor power because of low Cha, but when I'm possessing it I can. It's only +4 AC (chain shirt), but it's free +4 AC. Yes, being inside the ape isn't a very powerful combat option, but is suitable to warm-up and give PCs a sense of false confidence.

Spoiler: Ape

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Master's Level	HD	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats
7-8	4	3	4	4	1	Iaijutsu Focus 3.5	Hidden Talent (Call Armor) (1), Power Attack (3)
9-11	5	3	4	4	1	Iaijutsu Focus 4
12-14	7	5	5	5	2	Iaijutsu Focus 5	Cleave (6)
15-17	9	6	6	6	3	Iaijutsu Focus 6	Instinctive Consummator (9)
18-20	11	8	7	7	3	Iaijutsu Focus 7

Spoiler: Blade of Ultimate Decapitation

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- Screw it! Screw it! Screw it! Have you seen it? Rope trick! Damn death trap! This Bastard just decapitated Mark! One swing, another and all over! How did it snuck into?
- It possessed rope itself.
- What? How did you understand it? Is it even an option?
- Yes it is, as you see. There is a lingering evil aura on the rope, I see it. And it doesn't dissipate...
- We all gonna die!

Well, it's too pathos, I know, in real game high level PCs can deal with this sort of enemy, but it isn't so easy. With 8 levels of Legacy Champion I at the end has 12 effective levels of Fiend of Possession, so I can add my Mau-Jehe +12 worth of enchantments. It isn't clear again how quickly I can change them, but I definitely can, so I'll take something with numbers in a day, use it and change it. Most cheesy version say I can change used enchantments for the same unused ones, but I think it's too much.

Spoiler: Useful Enchantments

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Enchantment Name	How I use it	Price	Source	Book
+1	It's obvious. Plus, every enchantment bonus give weapon +2 hardness and +10 hp. Now my mindblade has 12 hardness, 20 hp.	+1	+1 mind blade class feature (SKn)	DMG
+1	-	+1	Mau-Jehe	DMG
+2	Mindblade 14 hardness, 30 hp.	+2	Mau-Jehe	DMG
+3	Mindblade 16 hardness, 40 hp.	+3	Mau-Jehe	DMG
+4	Mindblade 18 hardness, 50 hp.	+4	Magic item class feature (FoP)	DMG
+5	Mindblade 20 hardness, 60 hp.	+5	Magic item class feature (FoP)	DMG
Ghost touch	I can strike the ghost.	+1	Mau-Jehe	DMG
Keen	It isn't very useful for me. I want natural 20, not just krit.	+1	Mau-Jehe	DMG
Lucky	One attack reroll. Good for me.	+1	Mind blade enhancement class feature (SKn)	MIC
Lucky	Two attack rerolls. Why two? Because of Extra legacy ability use (lesser). Now it's a legacy ability and this is legal.	+1	Mau-Jehe, Replace legacy ability (lesser) (replace Keen)	MIC
Sundering	I don't like weapons. Weapons that aren't my. This is almost always-on enchant after replacing Keen for Lucky.	+1	Mind blade enhancement class feature (SKn)	MIC
Flying	It gives the weapon 30 ft fly and the weapon now "is treated as an animated object with hardness and hit points equal to a typical weapon of its kind". With Sizing it means up to 28 Str and 160+10*Ench bonus hp.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	Magic of Faerûn
Dancing	Four rounds weapon striking on its own. When 4 rounds have expired, I can change it. Action economy.	+4	Magic item class feature (FoP)	DMG
Vorpal	Main theme. Twenty-fishing with a vorpal rod!	+5	Magic item class feature (FoP)	DMG
Bane	Tell me who you are and I'll tell you what kind of Bane weapon I am.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	DMG
Magebane	Did you say you are a wizard?	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Paralyzing	1/day paralyze? It wouldn’t be worth the price if I couldn’t replace it easily	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Dispelling	3/day dispel? Yes please!	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Dispelling, greater	3/day greater dispel? Yes please now!	+1 (S+2)	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Brutal surge	2/day free bull rush? Good. I'll use it, then I'll change it.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Binding	2/day dimensional anchor? It not just ruins enemies mobility, but also helps me qualify for Naturalized Denizen feat.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Fiercebane	I'm not rely heavily on crit damage, but sometimes...	+1 (S+2)	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Stunning surge	2-3/day stun with increasing with level DC? I take it.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Whirling	3/day. Use, then change. And this is a very useful maneuver if you go fly-fishing for 20. Up to eight attacks instead of only three.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Blurstrike	FF enemy? Everybody wants it! Ten times per day? Really?	+2	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Psibane	Did you say you are psion?	+2	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Speed	Extra attack for twenty-fisher! Expensive one, but sometimes can be in place.	+3	Magic item class feature (FoP)	DMG
Transmuting	Don't like DR.	+2	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Metalline	Who doesn't want to have an adamantine sword? Works well with Sundering.	+2	Magic item class feature (FoP)	MIC
Mouthpick	It's for my ape. While I'm possessing a mindblade it can take it in the mouth and strike with it.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	Lords of Madness
Comanding	It gives me +2/+4 to some social skills and Suggestion 1/day. Can be useful.	+2	Magic item class feature (FoP)	Arms and Equipment Guide
Skillful	It gives me +3 BAB. Also give proficiency. Not so useful in my own hands, but if my blade will hold somebody else...	+2	Magic item class feature (FoP)	CArc
Sizing	Must have! Turn possessed weapon into colossal version (6d8 base damage)! Or just change the size of the mindblade created in my natural form - it's fine, too small.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	CArc
Rusting	Mindblade definitely doesn't consist of iron and breaking enemy's armor is a good long game tactic.	+1	Magic item class feature (FoP)	Shining South

Spoiler: Tables

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Spoiler: Stats

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Abilities	Initial	Race/Template	4th, 8th, 12th	16th, 20th	Total
STR	8	-10			1
DEX	10	6			16
CON	13				13
INT	15	4	3		22
WIS	12				12
CHA	14	-2		2	14

LE Soul Tick Soulknife 6/Fiend of Possession 6/Legacy Champion 8

Spoiler: Build

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Level	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features	Legacy abilities
1st	Soulknife 1	0	0	2	2	32: {+4} Autohypnosis: 4; {+4} Concentration: 4; {+4 CC} Handle Animal: 2; {+4} Hide: 4; {+4} Jump: 4; {+4 CC} Knowledge (history): 2; {+2} Listen: 2; {+2} Spot: 2; {+4} Tumble: 4;	Wild Cohort, Weapon Focus (mind blade), Hidden Talent (Chameleon)	Mind blade, Weapon Focus (mind blade), Hidden Talent
2nd	Soulknife 2	1	0	3	3	8: {+1} Autohypnosis: 5; {+1} Concentration: 5; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 2.5; {+1} Hide: 5; {+1} Jump: 5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (history): 2.5; {+1} Listen: 3; Spot: 2; {+1} Tumble: 5;		Throw mind blade
3rd	Soulknife 3	2	1	3	3	8: {+1} Autohypnosis: 6; {+1} Concentration: 6; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 3; {+1} Hide: 6; Jump: 5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (history): 3; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 1; Listen: 3; {+1} Spot: 3; {+1} Tumble: 6;	Sly Fortune, Victor's Luck (B)	Bonus feat
4th	Soulknife 4	3	1	4	4	9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 7; {+1} Concentration: 7; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 3.5; {+1} Hide: 7; Jump: 5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (history): 3.5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 2; {+1} Listen: 4; {+1} Spot: 4; {+1} Tumble: 7;		+1 mind blade
5th	Soulknife 5	3	1	4	4	9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 8; {+1} Concentration: 8; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 4; {+1} Hide: 8; Jump: 5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (history): 4; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 3; {+1} Listen: 5; {+1} Spot: 5; {+1} Tumble: 8;	Least Legacy (Mau-Jehe) (B)	Free draw, shape mind blade	Knife made mind, sneaky intentions
6th	Soulknife 6	4	2	5	5	9: {+1} Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 4.5; {+1} Hide: 9; Jump: 5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (history): 4.5; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 6; {+1} Spot: 6; {+1} Tumble: 9;	Better Lucky than Good, Speed of Thought (B)	Mind blade enhancement +1, Speed of Thought	+1 ghost touch, -4 hp
7th	Fiend of Possession 1	4	4	7	7	7: Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 1; Concentration: 9; {+1} Disguise: 1; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 5; {+1} Hide: 10; Jump: 5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (history): 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 7; {+1} Spellcraft: 1; Spot: 6; Tumble: 9;		Ethereal form, hide presence, possess object	Unspoken contact at will
8th	Fiend of Possession 2	5	5	8	8	7: Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 2; Concentration: 9; {+1} Disguise: 2; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 5.5; {+1} Hide: 11; Jump: 5; Knowledge (history): 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 8; {+1} Spellcraft: 2; {+1} Spot: 7; Tumble: 9;		Curse, magic item	Mind over miles, -1 saves
9th	Fiend of Possession 3	5	5	8	8	7: Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 3; Concentration: 9; {+1} Disguise: 3; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 6; {+1} Hide: 12; Jump: 5; Knowledge (history): 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 9; {+1} Spellcraft: 3; {+1} Spot: 8; Tumble: 9;	Naturalized Denizen	Control object	Stable focus (Speed of Thought), -1 attack, -6 hp
10th	Fiend of Possession 4	6	6	9	9	7: Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 4; Concentration: 9; {+1} Disguise: 4; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 6.5; {+1} Hide: 13; Jump: 5; Knowledge (history): 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 10; {+1} Spellcraft: 4; {+1} Spot: 9; Tumble: 9;		Animate object, possess creature
11th	Fiend of Possession 5	6	6	9	9	7: Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 5; Concentration: 9; {+1} Disguise: 5; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 7; {+1} Hide: 14; Jump: 5; Knowledge (history): 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 11; {+1} Spellcraft: 5; {+1} Spot: 10; Tumble: 9;		Ally or enemy, possess noncontinuous object	+2 ghost touch
12th	Fiend of Possession 6	7	7	10	10	8: Autohypnosis: 9; {+1} Bluff: 6; Concentration: 9; {+1} Disguise: 6; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 7.5; {+1} Hide: 15; Jump: 5; Knowledge (history): 5; Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1} Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 6; {+2} Spot: 12; Tumble: 9;	Darkstalker	Control creature	Penetrating proposal at will, -8 hp
13th	Legacy Champion 1	7	7	10	12	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 10; {+1} Bluff: 7; {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1} Disguise: 7; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 8; {+1} Hide: 16; Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (history): 6; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 5; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 7; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 10;	Lesser Legacy (Mau-Jehe) (B)	Reduced ritual cost (lesser), bond of lore	Cunning, -2 attack
14th	Legacy Champion (FoP) 2	8	7	10	13	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 11; {+1} Bluff: 8; {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1} Disguise: 8; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 8.5; {+1} Hide: 17; Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (history): 7; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 6; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 8; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 11;		Replace legacy ability (least)	+2 ghost touch keen, Unspoken contact at will, Invisibility 1/day, -10 hp
15th	Legacy Champion (FoP) 3	9	8	11	13	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 12; {+1} Bluff: 9; {+1} Concentration: 12; {+1} Disguise: 9; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 9; {+1} Hide: 18; Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (history): 8; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 7; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 9; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 12;	Fortuitous Strike	Extra legacy ability use (least) (Invisibility)	Invisibility 2/day
16th	Legacy Champion (FoP) 4	9	8	11	14	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 13; {+1} Bluff: 10; {+1} Concentration: 13; {+1} Disguise: 10; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 9.5; {+1} Hide: 19; Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (history): 9; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 8; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 10; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 13;	Legacy Focus (BL)	Bonus legacy feat	+3 ghost touch keen, -2 saves
17th	Legacy Champion (FoP) 5	10	8	11	14	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 14; {+1} Bluff: 11; {+1} Concentration: 14; {+1} Disguise: 11; {+1 CC} Handle Animal: 10; {+1} Hide: 20; Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (history): 10; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 9; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 11; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 14;		Replace legacy ability (lesser)	+3 ghost touch lucky
18th	Legacy Champion (FoP) 6	11	9	12	15	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 15; {+1} Bluff: 12; {+1} Concentration: 15; {+1} Disguise: 12; Handle Animal: 10; {+1} Hide: 21; Jump: 5; {+2} Knowledge (history): 12; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 10; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 12; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 15;	Miser's Fortune	Extra legacy ability use (lesser) (Lucky)
19th	Legacy Champion 7	11	9	14	15	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 16; {+1} Bluff: 13; {+1} Concentration: 16; {+1} Disguise: 13; Handle Animal: 10; {+1} Hide: 22; Jump: 5; {+3} Knowledge (history): 15; Knowledge (psionics): 10; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 13; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 16;		Reduced ritual cost (greater)
20th	Legacy Champion (FoP) 8	12	9	15	15	10: {+1} Autohypnosis: 17; {+1} Bluff: 14; {+1} Concentration: 17; {+1} Disguise: 14; Handle Animal: 10; {+1} Hide: 23; Jump: 5; {+3} Knowledge (history): 18; Knowledge (psionics): 10; Listen: 12; {+1} Spellcraft: 14; Spot: 12; {+1} Tumble: 17;	Quicken Legacy (BL)	Bonus legacy feat

Spoiler: Few words about feats

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Sly Fortune, Hidden Talent (Chameleon) and Darkstalker for my Hide. It's a very important skill for FoP.
Victor's Luck, Better Lucky than Good, Fortuitous Strike and ape's Instinctive Consummator are for Vorpal-fishing.
Naturalized Denizen prevents banishment, dismissal and other bad for FoP things, and it coincides with the exiling theme.
Legacy Focus with its wording gives me +1 to DC not only for legacy abilities, but for all weapon abilities. Stunning, Paralyzing, Suggestion or any other options.
Miser's Fortune technically gives +5 on saves me, while I'm possessing my blade.
Quicken Legacy for swift Invisibility.

Spoiler: One more question

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It isn't clear what action are Possess Object, Magic Item, Control Object, Animate Object and Possess Creature. Yes, it's Su, so it should be standard, but! Control Creature has especially worded standard action while other abilities don't. So assumption them are free has right to exist.

Spoiler: Dealing with Limitations

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Recurrent Rival - check.
Sworn Enemy - check.
Defeated, but not vanquished - it's very hard to finally defeat FoP with his own always existing Flying sword.
Specialized Opponent - I have all Bane options to choose from since 8th level and I'm hard-to-reach without magic. All mundane characters will have problems with me. I didn't mention it, but I can possess any character valuable item, favorite axe, material component for spell (and give it some magic options, so it can't be used as material component) or something other. And I'm good in destroying things. Rusting and Sundering can make any regular fighter to cry.
And of course I'm Evil.

Spoiler: Books

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Type	Name	Book	Page
Race	Soul Tick	Fiend Folio	220
Monster	Ape	MM1	268
Class	Soulknife	Expanded Psionics Handbook	26
Prestige Class	Fiend of Possession	Fiend Folio	204
Prestige Class	Legacy Champion	Weapons of Legacy	19
Class variant	Hidden Talent	The Mind's Eye Expanded Classes, Part One	link
Class variant	Bonus Feats	The Mind's Eye Expanded Classes, Part One	link
Power	Chameleon	Expanded Psionics Handbook	82
Power	Call Armor	Complete Psionic	80
Feat	Wild Cohort	Wild Life	link
Feat	Sly Fortune	Complete Scoundrel	81
Feat	Victor's Luck	Complete Scoundrel	82
Feat	Least Legacy	Weapons of Legacy	14
Feat	Better Lucky than Good	Complete Scoundrel	74
Feat	Speed of Thought	Expanded Psionics Handbook	51
Feat	Naturalized Denizen	Unearthed Arcana	94
Feat	Darkstalker	Lords of Madness	179
Feat	Lesser Legacy	Weapons of Legacy	15
Feat	Fortuitous Strike	Complete Scoundrel	77
Feat	Legacy Focus	Weapons of Legacy	15
Feat	Miser's Fortune	Complete Scoundrel	80
Feat	Quicken Legacy	Weapons of Legacy	15
Feat	Hidden Talent	Expanded Psionics Handbook	67
Feat	Power Attack	PHB	98
Feat	Cleave	PHB	92
Feat	Instinctive Consummator	Complete Psionic	55
Weapon of Legacy	Mau-Jehe	Weapons of Legacy	114

[H_H_F_F]

Working in villainy is aweful pay in this country. Tip your BBEGs!

Melissa Adrasteia



The owner of the Black Dragon Inn surveyed the scene of destruction around him. “Listen, Melissa, I’m sorry. Look at this place! I can’t open in these conditions. It’s not you. You’re the best bartender I’ve ever had, but when those adventurers wrecked the place…”
Melissa’s eyes darkened. “Theodoxus isn’t going to take apologies. Only coin. Sten, I’m going to lose my home if I lose this job.”
“I can’t give you an advance. It’s going to take my entire savings just to repair this. Look, maybe you could ask the guys who did this to pay.”
Melissa turned and walked out the door. “Oh, they’ll pay all right.”

Spoiler: Build Stub

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Melissa Adrasteia
Neutral Evil Human female
Expert2/Warlock15/Binder1/Hellfire Warlock3

Rules note: Per p. 38 of the DMG, one NPC level counts as CR 1/2, two NPC levels count as CR1, and further NPC levels are 1-to-1.

Spoiler: Ability Scores

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Str 8
Dex 12
Con 13
Int 14
Wis 10
Cha 15

Increases to Constitution at 4th level, Charisma at every four levels thereafter

Spoiler: Build Table

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CR	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
1/2	Expert 1	+0	+0	+0	+2	Balance 4, Diplomacy 4, Escape Artist 4, Gather Information 4, Listen 4, Perform (Sing) 4, Profession (Bartender) 4, Sense Motive 4, Forgery 2, Ride 2. Starting Languages: Common, Draconic, Infernal	Able Learner, Improved Initiative	Listed skills are selected as Class Skills for Expert.
1	Expert 2	+1	+0	+0	+3	Balance 5, Diplomacy 5, Escape Artist 5, Gather Information 5, Listen 5, Perform 5, Profession 5, Sense Motive 5, Forgery 3	-	-
2	Warlock 1	+1	+0	+0	+5	Intimidate 1, Know(Planes) 1, Spellcraft 1, UMD 1, Bluff 1	Mortalbane	Eldritch blast 1d6, invocation (least)
3	Warlock 2	+2	+0	+0	+6	Intimidate 2, Know(Planes) 2, Spellcraft 2, UMD 2, Bluff 2	-	Detect magic
4	Warlock 3	+3	+1	+1	+6	Intimidate 3, Know(Planes) 3, Spellcraft 3, UMD 3, Bluff 3	-	Damage reduction 1/cold iron, eldritch blast 2d6
5	Warlock 4	+4	+1	+1	+7	Intimidate 4, Know(Planes) 4, Spellcraft 4, UMD 4, Bluff 4	Violate Spell-Like Ability	Deceive item
6	Warlock 5	+4	+1	+1	+7	Intimidate 5, Know(Planes) 5, Spellcraft 5, UMD 5, Bluff 5	-	Eldritch blast 3d6
7	Warlock 6	+5	+2	+2	+8	Intimidate 6, Know(Planes) 6, Spellcraft 6, UMD 6, Bluff 6	-	New invocation (least or lesser)
8	Warlock 7	+6/+1	+2	+2	+8	Know(Planes) 8, UMD 7, Bluff 7, Diplomacy 6	Extra Invocation: Brimstone Blast	Damage reduction 2/cold iron, eldritch blast 4d6
9	Warlock 8	+7/+2	+2	+2	+9	Know(Planes) 10, UMD 8, Bluff 8, Diplomacy 7	-	Fiendish resilience
10	Warlock 9	+7/+2	+3	+3	+9	Know(Planes) 12, UMD 9, Bluff 9, Diplomacy 8	-	Eldritch blast 5d6
11	Binder1	+7/+2	+5	+3	+11	UMD 10, Bluff 10, Diplomacy 9, Concentration 2	Extra Invocation: Eldritch Spear	Soul binding (1 vestige)
12	Hellfire Warlock 1	+7/+2	+5	+3	+13	UMD 11, Bluff 11, Diplomacy 10, Concentration 4	-	Hellfire blast +2d6
13	Hellfire Warlock 2	+8/+3	+5	+3	+14	UMD 12, Bluff 12, Diplomacy 11, Concentration 6	-	Eldritch blast 6d6, Hellfire blast +4d6, hellfire infusion, resistance to fire 10, new invocation (least, lesser or greater)
14	Hellfire Warlock 3	+9/+4	+6	+4	+14	UMD 13, Bluff 13, Diplomacy 12, Concentration 8	Extra Invocation: Eldritch Chain	Hellfire blast +6d6, hellfire shield
15	Warlock 10	+10/+5	+6	+4	+15	UMD 14, Bluff 14, Diplomacy 13, Concentration 10	-	Energy resistance 5
16	Warlock 11	+11/+6/+1	+6	+4	+15	UMD 15, Bluff 15, Diplomacy 14, Concentration 12	-	Eldritch blast 7d6, Damage reduction 3/cold iron,
17	Warlock 12	+12/+7/+2	+7	+5	+16	UMD 16, Bluff 16, Diplomacy 15, Concentration 14	Scribe Scroll	Imbue item
18	Warlock 13	+12/+7/+2	+7	+5	+16	UMD 17, Bluff 17, Diplomacy 16, Concentration 16	-	Fiendish resilience 2, new invocation (least, lesser, greater, or dark)
19	Warlock 14	+13/+9/+4	+7	+5	+17	UMD 18, Bluff 18, Diplomacy 17, Concentration 18	-	Eldritch blast 8d6
20	Warlock 15	+14/+9/+4	+8	+6	+17	UMD 20, Bluff 19, Diplomacy 18, Concentration 19	Extra Invocation: Noxious Blast	Damage reduction 4/cold iron

Spoiler: Invocations Known

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CR	Class	Invocation
1/2	Expert 1	-
1	Expert 2	-
2	Warlock 1	Beguiling Influence
3	Warlock 2	Entropic Warding
4	Warlock 3	-
5	Warlock 4	See the Unseen
6	Warlock 5	-
7	Warlock 6	Flee the Scene
8	Warlock 7	Brimstone Blast (feat)
9	Warlock 8	Fell Flight
10	Warlock 9	-
11	Binder 1	Eldritch Spear (feat)
12	Hellfire Warlock 1	Baneful Blast
13	Hellfire Warlock 2	Vitriolic Blast
14	Hellfire Warlock 3	Eldritch Chain (feat)
15	Warlock 10	Chilling Tentacles
16	Warlock 11	-
17	Warlock 12	Devil’s Whispers
18	Warlock 13	Path of Shadow
19	Warlock 14	-
20	Warlock 15	Word of Changing, Noxious Blast (feat)

Spoiler: Level Writeups

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Spoiler: CR 1 to CR 2

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Melissa is a villain designed to encounter the party at their very first level-one session. At CR 1, Melissa is not a serious combat threat to any but the unluckiest of PCs. She’s a bartender at the local tavern. While she does have a bit of a sassy attitude at this point, she hasn’t gone full-fledged villain. She’s simply an eager, up-and-coming young bartender. Exactly how she gets to villainhood depends a bit on the players’ actions. If one of the PCs shows any romantic interest in her, she’ll respond positively, but will likely be tossed aside without a second thought when the rest of the plot hooks start dropping. Many groups won’t need too much prodding to start a bar fight; if not, some local toughs looking for trouble will accomplish the task. She takes cover behind the bar at the first sign of trouble. If anything catches fire, she’ll duck out the back.

However it happens, the tavern will be wrecked, she’ll be out of a job, out of a home, and looking for somebody to blame. (In the unlikely event that the players inquire about her, let them know that she’s recovering at her cousin’s house two towns over. If they press the issue and attempt to visit, the cousin tells them to go away and calls for the town guards).

After a few nights on the street, Melissa has sworn vengeance against the party. Dark forces, always on the lookout for such an opportunity, have made their offer, and Melissa accepted. At CR2, she’s gained her first level of Warlock. She now has an Eldritch Blast and the Beguiling Influence invocation. For her third-level feat, she’s taken Mortalbane, which gives her Eldritch Blasts an extra 2d6 damage, five times per day. This will significantly increase her damage potential.

While the party could encounter her again at any time, it would be best to wait at least a few in-game days (possibly a gaming session or two) before she reappears to harass the party, so the players have a chance to forget she ever existed. When they meet her again, her appearance would be quite different than when they first met her. In the early levels, she should have access to a horse for quick getaways.

Spoiler: CR 5

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Melissa has gained her fourth level of Warlock, and has two additional tricks to frustrate the party: See the Unseen and Entropic Warding. Entropic Warding, in particular, can help with getaways, since they’ll be unable to track her. She’s taken the Violate Spell-Like Ability feat, which she can apply to her Eldritch Blast twice per day. This turns half of the blast damage into Vile damage, which can only be healed by magic, and only within the area of a Consecrate or Hallow spell. While a 5th-level Cleric has access to Consecrate, it does have an expensive material component, and it’s very unlikely they’ll have it prepared. If one of the PCs is hit with this, it will definitely leave a mark.

Spoiler: CR 10

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Melissa now has access to two Warlock classics: Flee the Scene and Fell Flight. She’s fully capable of escaping under her own power. Brimstone Blast, gained through a Feat, gives her a nice rider to all of her Eldritch Blasts, and an opportunity for additional damage.

Spoiler: CR 15 (Sweet Spot)

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Melissa’s powers as a Warlock continue to grow. She’s gained Eldritch Spear and Eldritch Chain through feats, which gives her additional options for long-range and multi-target blasting. Chilling Tentacles gives her a powerful battlefield control option (and possibly a nasty surprise to parties that are used to her using fire-based abilities). She has completed her Hellfire training, and (thanks to binding Naberius) she is attacking at +6d6 with each blast.

On the subject of Binding: she easily meets the requirements for summoning Naberius, having 10 ranks in Bluff, 12 in Knowledge (Planes), and 5 in Profession (Bartender). Aside from the obvious benefit to Hellfire, Naberius also offers several particularly good options for her. Disguise Self lets her establish false identities more easily, and could prevent an immediate attack from the PCs. She could even disguise herself as one of the PCs in an effort to discredit them. She can select a number of skills equal to her Constitution modifier (+2 at this point) to allow her to treat an untrained skill as though it were trained. She will typically use this on Knowledge or Profession skills applicable to whatever cover story she’s using. Silver Tongue gives a powerful boost to her Bluff and Diplomacy, allowing her to take 10 on the checks even when threatened.

Starting at level 13, her Eldritch Blasts are now Baneful (rather than Brimstone). Baneful allows you to select a type of enemy as per Favored Enemy. Unearthed Arcana gives an option for an Urban Ranger to select an organization as their favored enemy; she selects the adventuring party. (If Unearthed Arcana is off the table, she selects the creature type that would hurt the greatest number of PCs. If they are all different races, she chooses the one who has most annoyed her). Taking into account Hellfire, Baneful, and Mortalbane, she can hit for 16d6 damage five times per day; 14d6 after that. If anyone in the party has Spell Resistance, she switches Blast Essence to Vitriolic Blast, which deals less damage overall but doesn’t have to contend with overcoming SR.

At CR 15, she gains Energy Resistance 5. She selects the energy types that the party is most fond of using.

Spoiler: CR 20

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Melissa is at the height of her power. She has access to Devil’s Whispers (for intrigue), Path of Shadow (the ultimate in escape and recuperate), Noxious Blast (save or lose), Scribe Scroll (access to any spell she’d need) and Word of Changing (just for fun). If she manages to hit a PC with Word of Changing, she’ll choose a form that’s either generally offensive (such as a pig), or particularly loathsome to the PC (such as an animal they hate or fear). Hellfire Baneful Mortalbane Blasts are hitting for 18d6.

Spoiler: General Strategy and Villainy

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Melissa’s goal is not just to defeat the party, but to humiliate them. While her Eldritch Blasts give her offensive punch, especially in an ambush situation, she can also shine as a political or social foe. Her high ranks in key social skills (Bluff and Diplomacy), combined with Beguiling Influence and a naturally-high Charisma, let her insinuate herself into many situations where a political foe would be extremely harmful. At low levels, she’s fully capable of being the most popular person in the room, and spinning any good deed the party does in the worst possible light. At high levels (especially after she gets Devil’s Whispers), she can cause all manner of mischief, turning powerful allies against them, or even framing them for a crime.

After the destruction of her tavern, the first time she meets back up with the party, she should confront them, expecting them to remember her, and becoming infuriated when they can’t. (Think Wanda/Thanos in Endgame). Ideally this will be in a place fairly distant from the tavern, with the players’ main quest leading further away. The DC to find out information about her should be relatively high (I would recommend 30 or so), due to her having multiple different false identities as she works to thwart the party any way she can.

The party could potentially encounter Melissa at any level, but you should use her sparingly for best effect. Once every four or five levels should keep her fresh in the players’ minds without getting too tiresome. Her villainy will be most memorable if she’s treated as a “special guest star,” not a regular character. Save the “big reveal” of her full backstory for an opportune moment close to the end of the campaign. When the players realize that they were the ones who created this monster, it will be something they remember for a long, long time.

Spoiler: Possible Alterations

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While Melissa is written as female, there's nothing particular about the character that requires it. A male version would work just as well. For a more disguise-oriented villain, Melissa could appear as a Changeling rather than a human. (She would drop the first-level Improved Initiative, and sacrifice some of her non-prerequisite skills).

While Melissa's backstory would be best for a slow reveal over a long-running campaign, she could appear as a villain in an existing campaign, or even a one-shot. Any time your murderhobos destroy a bar, you could introduce her as a retired adventurer willing and able to extract some serious revenge.

Spoiler: Sources

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Book of Vile Darkness: Mortalbane and Violate Spell-Like Ability feats
Cityscape: Devil's Whispers Invocation
Complete Arcane: Warlock class, Extra Invocation feat, Invocations
Complete Mage: Baneful Blast invocation
Fiendish Codex II: Hellfire Warlock Prestige Class
Tome of Magic: Binder class
Unearthed Arcana: Urban Ranger

[H_H_F_F]

I have a little shadow, That goes in and out with me. And what can be the use of him, Is more than I can see. The funniest thing about him, Is the way he likes to g r o -

Spoiler: Intro

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We are here to be memorable, aren't we?
Well, I'm putting on grey tinted glasses, and take a trip down the memory lane, about characters of mine both young and old, thinking about what anedoctes and little jokes or tidbits I bring from table to table.

And, like, 80% of this chatter about "what happened this week to my other tables", a good 40% of it is "we almost TPK'd to [insert monster here]

and that monster? the demonic spiders of my TTRPG experiences? the ones that send a chill down my spine and makes me go "oh frell"? It's not the medium bad of end-of-modules or the big bad of end-of-campaigns. No sirs and madams, it's shadows, and wraiths, and sometimes erynies, but mostly shadows and wraiths.

so, this is a tribute to that

Spoiler: Mechanical metathoughts

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So, that nifty spawn ability of shadows and wraiths has this interesting table implication, because it makes the encounter snowball hard if they down a character. There you are fightning for your life against a shadow, or more likely twiddling your thumbs or using the help action if you're of the martial persuasion and it's early enough you don't have a +1 weapon yet, maybe rejoicing that you're actually using combat expertise because you wanted to goof around with a trip build, when that shadow brings you to 0 str (because the GM is nice and wants to make you feel useful instead of ignoring you and attacking the wizard/cleric that are the only ones that maybe can damage the shadow), maybe the shadow goes from almost dead to dead-dead by then.... except you rise as a freshly shadow! and now those spellcaster are out of slots, hasty retreat! I don't know about you but some variation of this happened to me like , almost every campaign, it's pretty much a rite of passage by now.

Originally, I was going to do a switcheroo, a gallery of villains, by banking on the "emancipated spawn" class from savage species, and play pretend that our shadow killed one member of the party before dying itself, thus making the dead party member the "next shadow" after the party retreated, or the shadow was ordered to go hide down a level in whatever multilevel megadungeon this is happening. That sounded cool but turns out it's a lot of work and quite the clunky thing to do for, so instead I'm doing the switcheroo ONCE, or if you don't like that it's a switcheroo, you can pretend the emancipated shadow is a former adventurer that died of cockyness, pretend it's a cleric that went all alone in this infested tomb because "scoff, they're just undead, what are going to do to me? I got turn undead 'till the end of time!"

Spoiler: THE Shadow

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Spoiler: first encounter

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Lawful evil, 3 racial HD
Size/Type:Medium Undead (Incorporeal)
Initiative:+3
Hit Dice: 3d12 (25 hp)
Speed:Fly 40 ft. (good) (8 squares)
Armor Class:16 (+1 armor, +3 Dex, +2 deflection), touch 15, flat-footed 13
Base Attack/Grapple: +1/—
Attack:Incorporeal touch +4 melee (1d6*1.5 Str)
Full Attack:Incorporeal touch +4 melee (1d6*1.5 Str)
Space/Reach:5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks:Create spawn, strength damage
Special Qualities:Darkvision 60 ft., incorporeal traits, +2 turn resistance, undead traits
Saves:Fort +1, Ref +4, Will +6
Abilities:Str Ø, Dex 16 (12 +4 racial), Con Ø, Int 11 (15 -4 racial), Wis 16 (14 +2 racial), Cha 15 (13 +2 racial)
Skills:Craft(trapmaking) +3, Disable device +3, hide +13*, search +10
Feats:Ghostly grasp, Empower Ability damage
Equipment (WBL 2700gp): Bracers of armor +1 (1000), Brooch of shielding (1500)

Spoiler: last encounter

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LE 7 RHD / Abjurant champion 5 / Cleric 3 / Emancipated spawn 2 / Fighter 2 / Ranger 1 / Tomb Warden 2 / Trapsmith 1
unbuffed
Size/Type:Medium Undead (Incorporeal)
Initiative:+8
Hit Dice: 11d12+7d10+4d8+1d6 (128 hp)
Speed:Fly 40 ft. (good) (8 squares)
Armor Class:42 (+8 armor, +8 Dex, +8 Wis, +8 deflection), touch 34, flat-footed 34
Base Attack/Grapple: +16/—
Attack:Incorporeal touch +24 melee (1d6*1.5 Str)
Full Attack:Incorporeal touch +24 melee (1d6*1.5 Str)
Space/Reach:5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks:Create spawn, strength damage
Special Qualities:Darkvision 60 ft., incorporeal traits, undead traits, turn immunity, favored enemy(human), spell resistance(good) 11, trapfinding, Booby traps, master disarmer, trap sense, abjurant armor, extended abjuration, swift abjuration, arcane boost, martial arcanist, rebuke undead, inquisition domain, magic domain, war domain, +6 turn resistance, tomb sense
Saves:Fort +14, Ref +16, Will +23
Abilities:Str Ø, Dex 26 (12 +4 racial +6 item +4 tome), Con Ø, Int 26 (15 -4 racial +5 level +6 item +4 tome), Wis 26 (14 +2 racial + 6 item +4 tome), Cha 26 (13 +2 racial +6 item +5 tome)
Skills:Craft(trapmaking) +34, DD +14, Open Lock +13, hide +38*, search +16, Spellcraft +31
Feats:Ghostly grasp, Empower Ability damage, Toughness, Combat casting, Craft Wondrous items, Craft magic arms and armor, Divine Defiance, Martial Study(Shadow stride), Combat Reflexes, Spellcasting harrier, travel devotion, weapon focus(greataxe), extend spell, persistent spell, divine metamagic(persistent spell), extra turning x3
Equipment (WBL 1500000gp): +6/+6/+6/+6 DEX/INT/WIS/CHA items (144000), +4/+4/+4/+5 DEX/INT/WIS/CHAR tomes (467500), monk's belt (13000), bracers of armor +8 (64000), wands and scrolls of this and that, traps at taste, miscellanea useful items

Spoiler: CR 3-19 leveling table

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CR	HD	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
3	3	3 Racial hit dies(undead)	+1	+1	+1	+3	Craft(trapmaking) +3 (+6CC), Disable device +3 (+6CC), hide +6, search +6	Ghostly graspLM, pg 27, Empower ability damageLM pg. 26	Create spawn, Strenght damage, Darkvision 60 ft., incorporeal traits, +2 turn resistance, undead traits
4	7	3+4 RHD	+3	+2	+2	+5	Craft(trapmaking) 3+2(4CC), DD 3+2(4CC), Open Lock +3(6CC), hide 6+4, search 6+2	Toughness	ASI +1 INT
5	8	7 RHD / Tomb Warden 1LM pg. 57	+4	+4	+2	+5	Craft(trapmaking) 5, DD 5, Open Lock 3+2(4CC) hide 10+1, search 8		Turn Immunity, ASI +1 INT
6	9	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Trap ExpertDs pg. 12 Celestial SlayerEE pg. 20 Ranger 1	+5	+6	+4	+5	Craft(trapmaking) 5+3, DD 5+3, Open Lock 5, hide 11+1, search 8	Combat casting	Favored enemy(human), trapfinding, Spell resistance 11
7	10	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1Ds pg. 53	+5	+6	+6	+5	Craft(trapmaking) 8+5, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft +1(2CC)		Booby traps (simple), master disarmer, trap sense +1
8	11	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abjurant Champion 1CM pg. 50	+6/+1	+6	+6	+7	Craft(trapmaking) 13+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft 1+2		Abjurant Armor, Extended Abjuration
9	12	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 2	+7/+2	+6	+6	+8	Craft(trapmaking) 14+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft 3+3	Craft Wondrous item	ASI +1 INT, Swift Abjuration
10	13	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 3	+8/+3	+7	+7	+8	Craft(trapmaking) 15+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft 6+3
11	14	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 4	+9/+4	+7	+7	+9	Craft(trapmaking) 16+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft 9+3		Arcane Boost
12	15	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5	+10/+5	+7	+7	+9	Craft(trapmaking) 17+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft 12+3	Craft magic arms and armor	Martial Arcanist
13	16	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Spontaneous Domain Casting(Magic)PHBII pg. 37 Cleric 1 of Wee Jas	+10/+5	+9	+7	+11	Craft(trapmaking) 18+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12, search 8, Spellcraft 15+3		ASI +1 INT, Rebuke Undead, Inquisition Domain, Magic Domain
14	17	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 2	+11/+6/+1	+10	+7	+12	Craft(trapmaking) 19+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12 + 0.5(1CC), search 8, Spellcraft 18+2
15	18	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3	+12/+7/+2	+10	+8	+12	Craft(trapmaking) 20+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 12.5+1.5(3CC), search 8, Spellcraft 20	Divine DefianceFCII pg. 83
16	19	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3 / Fighter 1	+13/+8/+3	+12	+8	+12	Craft(trapmaking) 21+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 14+3, search 8, Spellcraft 20	Martial Study(Shadow Stride)ToB pg. 31 , 80
17	20	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3 / Fighter 2	+14/+9/+4	+13	+8	+12	Craft(trapmaking) 22+1, DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 17+4, search 8, Spellcraft 20	Combat Reflexes	ASI +1 INT
18	21	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3 / Fighter 2 / Emancipated Spawn 1SS pg. 75	+14/+9/+4	+13	+8	+14	Craft(trapmaking) 23+1(2CC), DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 21+3, search 8, Spellcraft 20	Spellcasting HarrierDr pg. 74	+2 turn resistance, recall feats
19	22	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3 / Fighter 2 / Emancipated Spawn 2	+15/+10/+5	+13	+8	+15	Craft(trapmaking) 24+1(2CC), DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 24+1, search 8, Spellcraft 20+1(2CC)		+4 turn resistance, recall class abilities

Spoiler: CR 20 leveling table

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Spoiler: The safe pick(official entry)

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CR	HD	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
20	23	7 RHD / T.W. 2 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3 / Fighter 2 / Emancipated Spawn 2	+16/+11/+6/+1	+14	+8	+15	Craft(trapmaking) 25+1(2CC), DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 25+1, search 8, Spellcraft 21+2(4CC)		Tomb sense

Spoiler: The cheesy pick(against op party)

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CR	HD	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
19	40	7 RHD / T.W. 1 / Rgr 1 / Trapsmith 1 / Abj. Chm. 5 / Cleric 3 / Fighter 2 / Emancipated Spawn 3	+28/+23/+18/+13	+24	+14	+25	Craft(trapmaking) 25+1(2CC), DD 8, Open Lock 5, hide 25+1, search 8, Spellcraft 21+1(2CC)		+6 turn resistance, rediscover

Spoiler: Spells, manouvers, recalled feats and features

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From CR 10, we can spontain up dimension door for getting away, from CR 16, we can 1/encounter teleport 50ft as a move action with the Shadow stride manouver

These spellcasting-relevant generic items are assumed at the appropriate levels, remember that it's the ECL and not the CR that determines wealth, our ECL is 3 higher than our CR, and ghostly grasp allows us to use/wield/equip items:
+2/4/6 INT headband at CR 6-10-12, +2 INT tome at CR 20
+4/6 WIS amulet at CR 13-15, +4 WIS tome at CR 20
I will mark with () the ability score and the slots per day without the above items, if you want to evaluate in pretend nakedness

Arcane spellcasting: Trapsmith 1 / Abjurant Champion 5

CR	Caster Level	Intelligence	New Spell Known	1st level slots	2nd level slots	3rd level slots
7	1	15(13)	1st level: Dispel Magic, Fox's cunning	2	-	-
8	2	15(13)	1st level: clairaudience/clairvoyance	3	-	-
9	3	16(14)	2nd level: Lesser globe of invulnerability, Stoneskin	3	2	-
10	4	18(14)	1st level: cat's grace 2nd level: Dimension Door	4	3	-
11	5	18(14)	3rd level: Greater Dispel magic, Break Enchantment	4	3	2(1)
12	BAB	20(14)	-	5(4)	3	2(1)
17	BAB	22(16)	-	5(4)	4(3)	2
20	BAB	24(16)	-	5(4)	4(3)	3(2)

Emancipated spawn: storywise, what I'm selling you is that THE shadow managed to kill one of the heroes at CR 17, ordered the spawn to go hide, then stood and fought until death, this will literally be their former friend being the "big bad" of whenever they come back to raid this temple. I will list here the official for the entry sacrifical hero, I will list alternatives in a separate blurb.
The single classed DMM persist cleric of Diopha is the one we so targeted, thus:
At CR 18, we gain the following feats : Extend spell, Persistent spell^{CA pg. 81}, Weapon focus(Greataxe), Divine Metamagic(Persistent spell)^{CD pg. 80}, Travel Devotion^{CC pg. 62}, extra turning x3. We would have gained Holy warrior too, but we don't qualify for it at the time we gain this emancipated spawn level. The feats are in order : 1st level, human bonus feat, war domain bonus feat, 3rd level feat, 6th 12th and 15th level feats. Holy warrior would have been the 9th level feat.

At CR 19, we gain one spell slot of each level 1 to 9th, on a nominally separate pool from our own cleric casting, plus the war domain. For ease of use I'm going to fiat that we do not also gain a domain slot 1 to 9, but it does mean we can convert those slot to cast spontaneous cast our magic domain spells

most noncore spell will be from Spell compendium, unless otherwise noted, details will be in the CR breakdowns
Divine spellcasting: Cleric 3 / emancipated spawn(cleric 17), a (D) spell is prepared in the domain slot, a (E) spell is prepared in the emancipated spawn slot, Orisons omitted

CR	Caster Level (cleric/Emancipated Spawn)	Wisdom	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
13	1/-	20(16)	3(2)+1D
14	2/-	20(16)	4(3)+1D
15	3/-	22(16)	4(3)+1D	3(2)+1D
19	3/17	22(16)	4(3)+1D+1E	3(2)+1D+1E	1E	1E	1E	1E	1E(0)	1E(0)	1E(0)
20 (cheesy route)	3/17	26(16)	4(3)+1D+7E	3(2)+1D+7E	1D+7E	1D+7E	1D+5E	1D+5E	1D+4E	1D+3E	1D+1E

Spoiler: build decisions/ very short synopsis

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The heroes I'm here to counter are gishes, gishes until the end of time. Divine gishes, Arcane gishes, Wild shaping druids, the works. What they all have in common are buffs, beneficial spells they cast on themself, usually with long duration, that make numbers go up. With that in mind, I'm going hard on a dispel concept.

That the shadow is memorable to me as a low level high danger threat made it an easy choice, especially with the parameters of having to make it last for 17 different CR.
I've chosen to put the CR 20 separately because if I could I'd stop at CR19, consider my entry to be CR 3-19. That way I can coast on the technicality that I didn't stop at emancipated spawn 2, thus avoiding the benefit of having my ECL bump up by the groovy extra HD Rediscover gives us.
On the other hand, again by a technicality, that emancipated spawn 3 is still only 1 CR increase, so it would be within the bounds of this competition. Alas, that is some very strong cheddar here, so I'm declining it for sensible tomb sense instead.

The build originally was something like RHD 7 / tomb warden 3 / ephemereal exemplar 3 / lurking terror 3 / emancipated spawn 2 / trapsmith 5
with the abjurant champion stuff coming from the emancipated spawn levels.
Alas, this was more a "pick shadow, put libris mortis prestige classes on it" build and less of a "nemesis" build, first thing I dropped was the exemplar ("I can simply pick ghostly grasp on my own"), then lurking terror ("I don't really have much that benefit from being sneaky, let's just teleport away when we need to retreat")

Spoiler: Story

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The bumbling fools big damn heroes: gishes, gishes everywhere, as defined as "I beef myself up with divine or arcane spells and (whallop you into submission)/(touch spells you into oblivion)". Vaguely : persistent divine power cleric, "a billion a day" shivering touch ultimate magus, polymorph dude, enabler bard
The location: Dungeontown is a dungeoneering town that sprung out around The dungeon^TM, this mystical location is said to have a floor plan that changes when people aren't inside it, most divination magic is blocked, so is most teleportation and the doorways are very peculiar : only four people can enter at a time, if more try they simply get teleported out.
As such, there is strong competition and a long queue for trying your luck with the place. Because those that survived and came back did so with untold amount of riches!

Nothing like greed to entice our would be heroes, innit?

Spoiler: Early breakdown

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Spoiler: CR 3

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Blurb: It's a running joke, a rite of passage, to fight a shadow at CR 3, just before the first magic weapon!.

that said, the party doesn't really need magic weapons to actually damage our villain, thank yourself for cleverly giving this one shadow the means to prevent magic missiles, right? make them sweat a bit! Give a caress to each of them, at risk of instagibbing with the empowered touch, and skedaddle away 1 round later when the cleric remembers he can try to turn undead. He probably needs a 11+ on the d20 to affect you, but he doesn't need to know that, you're the GM and you don't have to stand ( and die 1-2 rounds later, probably)
Or, do stand and kill one or two of them, then die, your spawns can finish the job! or not if the party sensibly retreated after the first death.
You can potentially do 12 strength damage after all, this is YIKES. even if they got some body ward prepared, that assume sthey prepared for YOU and that's unlikely for the first encounter.

Spoiler: CR 4

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Blurb:They're back! and this time they're maybe a bit more ready for incorporeal shenanigans, they know you're in this general area after all.

Happily with 4 more HD and the turn resistance, we're that much less likely to be affected by turn undead than 1CR ago, we're actually nominally immune, since with the turn resistance we have 6 more HD than the cleric, and the most he can affect is creatures of his level+4.
That's more or less all we got going for us tho, we're not much different than a normal shadow but with bigger numbers. Average 54 HP at least means we can probably survive 2-3 rounds if they haven't gone mad with ghost touch items, and the nice thing about strength damage is that it "stays relevant" in relation to their "strength pool", they're not flat out immune to it yet, so you are still a squishy if deadly challenge.
nominally, we have a WBL of 19000 for this encounter and pumping the AC is probably still the best choice here, or maybe some potions of inflict X wounds?

Spoiler: CR 5

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5th level is that watershed "3rd level spells" moment, maybe they haste, maybe they fireball, maybe they try to cheat a sheltered vitality in but you nu-uh it by stating that spell compendium is the most recent source here, and not libris mortis

Anyway, they're going to try their luck with you again, and they will have better preparation this time around!

Sadly, not much you can do about it right now, we took that level of tomb warden to change our "virtual" turn immunity into a definitive, no question asked turn immunity. (and it flowed very well with prerequisites it has and prerequisites it helps fullfill)

Regardless, at the end of the day they got a major power boost at this level while you... didn't, so you better leverage that 8th ECL wealth to it's fullest to survive (or not) this encounter.

Two possible items come to mind here : a minor cloak of displacement, or maybe a belt of battle. the first to go full gung-ho on the miss chance, the second to have the action-potential to slink away

Spoiler: CR 6

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Luckily for us, 6th level don't significantly increase their power as much as 5th level did, maybe they're getting their first level in a prestige class around now.

Sadly for us, this ranger level is here to beatifically fullfill requirements to enter trapsmith and abjurant champion in a timely manner, at least everything it gives is relevant. Favored enemy because of course they're human, too bad it only increases weapon damage, it would be hilarious if it was also +2 strength damage. Are you asking yourself what good is spell resistance that applies only against spells with the good descriptor?

Well, May I present you the shadow vanquisher extraordinarie : Hammer of righteousness^{BoED pg. 100}, 6d8 force damage is yikes and I don't know about you, but this is the spammable spell every cleric ever I've played with likes to convert to whenever they're unsure how to damage something they usually don't damage. I'm not getting into a debacle here that since it allows for a fortitude save to halve the damage, undead are nominally immune.

The saving grace might be being now allowed to use scroll and wands with ranger spells in them, giving us the potential, ironically, of buffing ourself with some nifty things by passing the caster level check, we're really taxing our wealth to survive the build coming online.

It's only a DC 5 activating a barkskin scroll, or an halo of sand scroll, juicily pumping up that deflection for just 200gp.

Or, if you want to go for the very unexpected option : Aspect of the earth hunter, 700GP, DC 8 using the scroll, 70 minutes of "polymorph-lite" into a bulette, can you imagine their frustation when they've decked out/ prepared spell for dealing with your incorporeal PITA, and you spring "actually, I polymorph into a melee bruiser for this encounter" on them ?

Spoiler: Way of the traps

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Spoiler: CR 7

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Finally we start to do what we purported to do, dispelling!
Too bad whoever wrote the trapsmith prc forgot about the tiny teensy detail of caster level, so barring shenanigans with chamaleon trapsmith spellcasting is kind of useless, we'll have to get a caster level "fixer" right away.
But let's talk about booby traps. it's clearly a feature for letting players mess around with traps without using the already existing and quite expensive trap creation rules. At least the "early level" of dispel and greater dispel would mean we could make a magical trap of dispel magic for only 50gp! Too bad it requires the craft wondrous items for players to designing magical traps, I'm not going to waive this requirements that we technically don't need to satisfy (the DM can simply plop down traps wherever he wants, after all, but we're pretending it's our shadow being annoying with the unexpected, right? :)).

Anyway, digression aside, booby traps are nifty, it feels to me they forgot you can take 20, so at this level our craft "check" is something around.. 35 when taking 20? So that's the search DC for finding/evading it,and the DC or hit bonus of the booby trap is +17, nifty. Not like any serious adventurer has trapfinding anyway ;)

What are we doing with it? Well, for the paltry cost of 10gp and 1 sp, you can drop a dust eggshell grenade^OA , which is a no save 1d4 round of blind, yikes!
This and dropping tanglefoot bag.
Or, since they just got their DIVINE POWER/POLYMORPH this level, and dispelling is suddenly a bit more urgent, what about a bolt trap loaded with dispelling^MiC ammunition?Prepare a nice hallway where you can retreat in, get followed, pronto dispel! You're incorporeal anyway so you don't trigger your own traps unless you make a point of interacting with them

Spoiler: CR 8

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We start our journey toward that juicy CL=BAB that the abjurant champion have.
as for the features themself that we get this level, sadly none of them are of use yet.
Unless you rule that abjurant armor/extended abjuration applies to spell trigger/spell completion items. But even then the ranger list doesn't have much in the way of abjurations, and none that get the benefit of abjurant armor.
So many growing pains before the build comes online :( be memorable by being even more annoying with booby traps! you got wealth, use it!

Spoiler: CR 9

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Now we're talking! while the heroes get their 5th level spell unless they delayed to theurge or something silly like that, we get immunity to spells of 3rd level or less, and it's automatically quickened AND extended too! no combat would last more than 6 rounds anyway.

But, actual dispel magic traps are here, now that we got craft wondrous items! We got the clarvoyance/clauradience in place of alarm for visual/sound trigger instead of proximity trigger, so our only cost is 50gp*CL for single use, groovy, or 500gp*CL for automatic reset! can you imagine how pissed they're going to be if every round they stand in your room one of them get targeted by a dispel? it'll be at only CL 3 for 1500gp, but damn!

Spoiler: CR 10

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At least, now *we* can teleport, in case that shimmying up the wall wasn't enough.
And, you know, more wealth for more elaborate traps or slighty better gear to pad your numbers, the budget for this CR is 110000, plenty enough to be properly challenging, be it more traps or whatnot.

Spoiler: CR 11

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I would be more excited about greater dispel if our CL wasn't only 5, I feel like I'll actually use those third level slots for arcane boost.
At least break enchantment can be used to try to remove all enchantment and transmutation from the whole party in a single (swift) cast, that's a good slew of common buff you can try to "area dispel" all at once. Prayer,Good hope, heroism, polymorph, haste, fly. A lot of them. Except those pesky evocation ones cleric loves, but most others are enchantment or transmutation, so break enchantment is a solid opener

Spoiler: CR 12

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Martial arcanist is here, joy! CL bumbed up to 10, so our dispel magic is now capped.
but let's go back to our booby traps. With the bump to caster level, we have the prerequisites to imbue a crossbow with the greater dispelling property, so let's craft some of that and enjoy setting up targeted greater dispels at CL 15, you don't even need to worry about them stealing these crossbow all that much, since it's a DC 43 search check for finding where it's squirreled away.

More importantly, the bump of CL means we now satisfy the prerequisites to craft our own bigger/better/stronger headband of intellect/gloves of dexterity, numbers going up! You really want to be dispelling that death ward so you can still touch them where it hurts :D

Spoiler: Divine midlife crisis

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Spoiler: CR 13

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Now that we got the trappings set, let's double down! Inquisition domain gives us a chonky +4 to dispel checks, and we can now finagle scrolls/wands from both cleric and wizard list, juicy! Be it shield or whatnot, surely there are cheap things we can use to make surviving an encounter easier, yeah?
plus the spell access to make a little bit of magical crafting on our own, sadly not much as of right now
Cleric spell prepared :1xConviction, 1xEntropic shield, 1x sanctuary Domain: nystul magic aura (hide that sweet dispelling crossbow from detect magic! the traps too, while at it)

Spoiler: CR 15, sweet spot

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the build is nominally complete here, everything after this is gravy.
We get divine defiance to counterspell as immediate actions, fueling it with the trapsmith dispel magic. beware how immediate actions and swift action compete.
Plus, with second level cleric slots, we got the prerequisite to craft ourselves all four generic stat boosting items we care about.
juicy insight bonus to our trapmaking check, too!
Cleric spell prepared :1xConviction, 1xEntropic shield, 1x sanctuary, 1xvigor, lesser, 1x resist energy, 1x darkness, 1x divine insight Domain: nystul magic aura, inflict moderate wounds

Spoiler: CR 16

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move action teleport! more BAB to convert to CL for crafting prerequisites

Spoiler: CR 17

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sadly, the "mage slayer" line of feat require a CON score, except the first feat, but spellcasting harrier is an excellent alternative, and here we are, preparing for that! our touch never stopped being dangerous after all, if we can reliably dispel death ward and the likes, and attacks of opportunity are the only way we can leverage using it more than once a round

Spoiler: What do you mean, I can't be two clerics?

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Spoiler: CR 18

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We got a bunch of feats from the emancipated spawn feature, and the official entry here is being a former DMM persist cleric. Weapon focus greataxe is useless to us, but the divine metamagic persist and 9 more turn attempts comes handy to persist little bits, without tomes and charisma cloaks, we should be at 19 turns, so we can persist two littles, or 3 if we made ourselves at least a +4 cloak
Cleric spell prepared :1xConviction (third persisted), 1xEntropic shield(persisted), 1x sanctuary, 1xvigor, lesser(persisted), 1x resist energy, 1x darkness, 1x divine insight Domain: nystul magic aura, inflict moderate wounds

Spoiler: CR 19

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sweet sweet 9th level casting, much crafting to do!, much stronger stuff to persist!
We got miracle to make our own tomes.
put your magic domain spells on, most of them are antimagic in spirit, so cheers!.
it would be kind of hilarious to persist the antimagic field, but alas, we are an incorporeal undead, we wink out of existence when we use AMF and we don't have the selective to exclude us, maybe that would be the feat to take if we ever go up to CR 21, eh?

Cleric spell prepared :1xConviction , 1xEntropic shield, 1x sanctuary, 2xvigor, lesser, 2x resist energy, 1x darkness, 1x divine insight, protection from positive energy^LM, 1x divine power(persisted), 1x spell resistance(persisted), 1x antilife shell(persisted), 1xspell turning, 1xchain dispel^PHBII, 1x Mage’s disjuction
Domain: nystul magic aura, inflict moderate wounds

Spoiler: CR 20, official

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much as I would love to get another 17HD AND the full casting that emancipated spawn 3 would provide us, I feel it's a tad too much cheddar for nominally only 1 cr, so here we are isntead, going back to tomb warden for that nifty tomb sense feature.
Our nemeses are gishes after all, it's unlikely they have darkstalker, so having absolute knowledge of where they are whenever they are inside your home is nice

Spoiler: CR 20, cheddar edition

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So you want the emancipated spawn 3, uh? I can't fault you for that, our sad undead buttock is quite fragile for CR 20, missing all that constitution bonus to HP, and 17 more HD (that apparently are d12, according to the example) works out nicely to pad our health pool out, not to mention 12 more BAB and 10/5/10 saves.

And yeh gods, all the slots of a 17th level cleric, nutty.

Spoiler: CR18-20 alternatives

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let's pretend you nabbed someone other than the cleric for your emancipated spawn shenanigans! What did I say the wannabe heroes were goign to be? *check notes* persistent divine power cleric, "a billion a day" shivering touch ultimate magus, polymorph dude, enabler bard.

Here's the thing about emancipated shadow : it assumes the poor fool that got nabbed by shadow is a single classed - base class character. Recall feat is "all feat you meet the prerequisites for", so, ironically, if you were a fighter with fighter-only feats, you wouldn't gain those back, because you aren't a fighter anymore, kind of meh, but whatever.
recall class features, however, specifically says you regain all class features of one former class, and this get's tricky when prestige classes enter the gauntlet, double tricky if they are "spellcasting" prestige classes. suppose you nabbed a cleric 7 / wizard 3 / geomancer 10 , and decide to recall the class features of the geomancer. Other than drift and spell versatility, his class feature says "At each geomancer level, the character gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class to which he belonged before adding the prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained". so if you were a shadow with 1 level of sorcerer and are takign the second level of emancipated shadow right now, are you now considered a 11th level sorcerer for the purpose of spell known/spell slots ? or are you a "cleric 17" because what the geomancer advanced was the cleric casting of your former life? or even a "cleric 10" because you don't have that first 7 levels of clerical casting.

What a confusing mess.

Anyway, back to our wannabe
ultimate magus, whose joy in life is spamming shivering touch like there is no tomorrow, let's say he went for wizard 7 / sorcerer 3 / ultimate magus 10, with the first 16 levels being something like wizard 5 / sorcerer 1 / ultimate magus 10.
feat, we get a bunch of metamagic, practiced spellcaster(sorcerer), but sadly no arcane thesis, as we don't have the arcana prerequisite
features.. tricky, but if we do pick ultimate magus, we get a boost of 4 to the caster level of our trapsmith spells, thanks to the Arcane spell power feature, we actually almost cap greater dispel magic at CL 19 at CR 20 with this, (plus inquisition domain bringing the check to 23).
Expanded spell knowledge is nifty too, if we add those spells to our trapsmith casting, it means we gain native access to shield and some other early abjuration to make use of abjurant champion features.
"sadly", under the ruling that ultimate magus has nos pellcasting of it's own, we don't gain any new slot, but more spell known and higher caster level are neat on their own, opening up some different crafting opportunity, and we aren't goign to say no to stronger dispel.
If we pick the wizard instead of ultimate magus, we get arcane sloths up to 6th level, decisions decisions.

Oh, it's going to be hilarious when mister shivering touch tries to shivering touch us, forgetting undeads are immune to physical ability damage :)

Polymorph jockey, I see two way this will be.

if it's of the wild shape persuasion, maybe going master of many form... we will probably miss out on a bunch of the feat, because we won't have the prerequisites, but on the other hand the second level of emancipated spawn gives us wild shape in full on top of some druid casting, or just a big range of wild shaping if we picked the master of many form for our "recall".

depends a lot of what the jockey is, because if he's single classed druid, we get spellcasting AND wild shape AND animal companion, yikes! How did we even survive!

if it's a more "tame" "I'm a sorcerer using polymorph/draconic polymorph and sharing it with my familiar with enspell familiar", then that's very straightly what we will be able to do, too, except we won't have enspell familiar :(, but incorporeal creatures are allowed to share a square with corporeal creatures, so pretend-possess your polymorphed familiar and go nuts with an external "shell" of meat to protect you

Spoiler: Possible controversies

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I feel the only questionable interpretation is what to do with emancipated shadow giving me back limited 17th level cleric casting when I already have cleric casting of a different divinity from normal class level. Personally, the wording "If the former class was a spellcasting class, the emancipated spawn is able to cast one spell of each level available to the character" makes it clear to me that it's one spell per level. fairly clear cut, no extra slot from high wisdom, no domain slot.

Unless you interpret the domain slot to be a cleric feature separated from the spellcasting feature, in which case we have one more 3rd to 9th slots, where we can put ?? spells, are the magic and inquisition domain valid choices there despite being from "a different cleric" ?

At least, spontaneous domain casting says "... You can "lose" any prepared spell (other than a domain spell) to cast any spell of the same level or lower on that domain list...". it doesn't specify that the prepared spell I have to lose must be a cleric spell. Absurd example, a cleric 1/wizard 19 could lose prepared wizard spells to spontaneous convert the domain spells he chose. I feel relatively safe into saying we can convert the emancipated spawn "slots" into magic domain spells.

Another thing that is a bit unclear is if I do or don't gain the travel devotion. the sacrifical cleric got it as a bonus feat via the alternate class feature in complete champion. But it's still a feat that doesn't have prerequisites, so I feel like, who cares that travel isn't a domain of Wee Jas?

I feel the ground is shakier about the war domain, but again, we already have martial profiency anyway, the weapon focus is a bonus feat, and if we don't prepare war domain spell in our 1st-2nd level domain slot then the situation won't come up in play. I have not leeched the holy warrior feat, so we're peachy here

Spoiler: Sources

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BoED: Book of Exalted Deeds
CA: Complete Arcane
CC: Complete Champion
CD: Complete Divine
CM: Complete Mage
DCS: Dragonlance campaign setting
Dr: Draconomicon
Ds: Dungeonscape
EE: Exemplars of Evil
FCII: Fiendish codex II
LM: Libris Mortis
MIC: Magic Item Compendium
OA: Oriental Adventures
Sand: Sandstorm
SS: Savage Species
SpC: Spell compendium
ToB: Tome of Battle

[H_H_F_F]

Not the wasps!

Spoiler: Melissophobia attention!

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Hive was old. Maybe ten years, maybe hundred. It's a lot for generally annual structure. Only several wasps usually survive winter and they base new hives in springtime. This hive is an exception. It is located in deep caverns and doesn't fear the cold. Every spring wasps wake up and continue to live here.
Someday the kobolds' tribe came into the cave and resettled here. Kobolds were respectful and did not disturb hive, even opposite, they made sacrifices to the hive.
But then... all changed. Adventurers came. They want to kill kobolds and they try. They weren't respectful to hive and wasps attacked them. It's very unpleasantly being attacked by thousands of wasps and adventurers ran away, but they somehow collapsed all cave's exits. Almost all kobolds were killed in this attack. Young winged witch doctor was the only survivor. It's unknown what he wants to do. Maybe transfer himself all into wasp swarm, or only his hatred and vengeance, but something different happened. Firstly hive aware of his existence. Secondly, extensive knowledge fell on his newborn mind. Knowledge about far planes and gods, about magic and true speech, about locks and traps, nature and cities, and much more... And yes, hatred and vengeance! Hive not only gained mind, but found his purpose.
Hive was watching these adventurers. Committed minor acts of sabotage. They are weak, hive saw that, but there are another. More strong. Initially he should protect himself. And he knows how. Rebirth into Worm That Walks. Even weak humanoid wizards became almost unkillable after this transformation. Only a single worm is enough to survive and revive. This idea was very familiar for Swarm.

CE Hivemind Worm That Walks Wasp Swarm Warmage 3/Kineticist 2/Sorcerer 1/Anarchic Initiate 1/Cerebremancer 7

Spoiler: Stats

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Abilities	Initial	Race	Hivemind	8th	12th	16th	Total
STR	10	-10					1
DEX	12	6					18
CON	14	2					16
INT	8	-	up to 207	1			208
WIS	13					1	14
CHA	15	-8	202		1		210

Spoiler: Levels

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CR	HD	Class	BAB	Fort Save	Reflex Save	Will Save	Skills*	Class Features
2	4	Wasp Swarm	3	4	1	1	-	Distraction, poison, swarm traits, vermin traits
3	4	Hivemind	3	4	1	1	265 of 392: Spoiler Show {+7 CC} Autohypnosis: 3.5; {+7 CC} Bluff: 3.5; {+7 CC} Climb: 3.5; {+6 CC} Concentration: 3; {+7 CC} Decipher Script: 3.5; {+7 CC} Diplomacy: 3.5; {+7 CC} Disguise: 3.5; {+7 CC} Disable Device: 3.5; {+7 CC} Heal: 3.5; {+7 CC} Hide: 3.5; {+7 CC} Intimidate: 3.5; {+7 CC} Jump: 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (arcana): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (geography): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (history): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (local): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (nature): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (psionics): 3.5; {+7 CC} Knowledge (religion): 3.5; {+7} Knowledge (the planes): 7; {+7 CC} Listen: 3.5; {+7 CC} Move Silently: 3.5; {+7 CC} Open Lock: 3.5; {+7 CC} Psicraft: 3.5; {+7 CC} Search: 3.5; {+7 CC} Sense Motive: 3.5; {+7} Spellcraft: 7; {+7 CC} Spot: 3.5; {+7 CC} Tumble: 3.5; {+7 CC} Speak Language: 3.5; {+7 CC} Use Magic Device: 3.5; {+7 CC} Use Psionic Device: 3.5; {+7 CC} Appraise: 3.5; {+7 CC} Sleight of Hand: 3.5; {+7} Truespeak: 7; {+7 CC} Perform (oratory): 3.5;	192th-level sorcerer spellcasting
4	5	Warmage-1	3	4	1	3	51 of 100: Spoiler Show {+1 CC} Autohypnosis: 4; {+1 CC} Bluff: 4; {+1 CC} Climb: 4; {+5} Concentration: 8; {+1 CC} Decipher Script: 4; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 4; {+1 CC} Disguise: 4; {+1 CC} Disable Device: 4; {+1 CC} Heal: 4; {+1 CC} Hide: 4; {+4} Intimidate: 7.5; {+1 CC} Jump: 4; {+4} Knowledge (arcana): 7.5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 4; {+1 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 4; {+1 CC} Knowledge (geography): 4; {+4} Knowledge (history): 7.5; {+1 CC} Knowledge (local): 4; {+1 CC} Knowledge (nature): 4; {+1 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 4; {+1 CC} Knowledge (psionics): 4; {+1 CC} Knowledge (religion): 4; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 8; {+1 CC} Listen: 4; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 4; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 4; {+1 CC} Psicraft: 4; {+1 CC} Search: 4; {+1 CC} Sense Motive: 4; {+1} Spellcraft: 8; {+1 CC} Spot: 4; {+1 CC} Tumble: 4; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 4; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 4; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 4; {+1 CC} Appraise: 4; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 4; {+1} Truespeak: 8; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 4;	Armored mage (light), warmage edge
5	6	Kineticist-1	3	4	1	5	77 of 100: Spoiler Show {+5} Autohypnosis: 9; {+1 CC} Bluff: 4.5; {+1 CC} Climb: 4.5; {+1} Concentration: 9; {+1 CC} Decipher Script: 4.5; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 4.5; {+1 CC} Disguise: 4.5; {+1} Disable Device: 5; Heal: 4; {+1 CC} Hide: 4.5; {+1} Intimidate: 8.5; {+1 CC} Jump: 4.5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 8.5; {+5} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 9; {+5} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 9; {+5} Knowledge (geography): 9; {+1} Knowledge (history): 8.5; {+5} Knowledge (local): 9; {+5} Knowledge (nature): 9; {+5} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 9; {+5} Knowledge (psionics): 9; {+5} Knowledge (religion): 9; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 9; {+1 CC} Listen: 4.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 4.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 4.5; {+5} Psicraft: 9; {+1 CC} Search: 4.5; {+1 CC} Sense Motive: 4.5; {+1} Spellcraft: 9; {+1 CC} Spot: 4.5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 4.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 4.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 4.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 4.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 4.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 4.5; {+1} Truespeak: 9; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 4.5;	Bonus feat, discipline
6	7	Sorcerer-1	3	4	1	7	60 of 100: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 10; {+5} Bluff: 9.5; {+1 CC} Climb: 5; {+1} Concentration: 10; {+1 CC} Decipher Script: 5; {+1 CC} Diplomacy: 5; {+1 CC} Disguise: 5; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 6; {+2 CC} Heal: 5; {+1 CC} Hide: 5; {+3 CC} Intimidate: 10; {+1 CC} Jump: 5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 9.5; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 10; {+3 CC} Knowledge (history): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (psionics): 10; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 10; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 10; {+1 CC} Listen: 5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 5; {+2 CC} Psicraft: 10; {+1 CC} Search: 5; {+1 CC} Sense Motive: 5; {+1} Spellcraft: 10; {+1 CC} Spot: 5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 5; {+1} Truespeak: 10; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 5; {+2} Collector of Stories;	Metamagic specialist
9	7	Worm That Walks	3	4	1	7	0 of 0: Spoiler Show Autohypnosis: 10; Bluff: 9.5; Climb: 5; Concentration: 10; Decipher Script: 5; Diplomacy: 5; Disguise: 5; Disable Device: 6; Heal: 5; Hide: 5; Intimidate: 10; Jump: 5; Knowledge (arcana): 9.5; Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 10; Knowledge (dungeoneering): 10; Knowledge (geography): 10; Knowledge (history): 10; Knowledge (local): 10; Knowledge (nature): 10; Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 10; Knowledge (psionics): 10; Knowledge (religion): 10; Knowledge (the planes): 10; Listen: 5; Move Silently: 5; Open Lock: 5; Psicraft: 10; Search: 5; Sense Motive: 5; Spellcraft: 10; Spot: 5; Tumble: 5; Speak Language: 5; Use Magic Device: 5; Use Psionic Device: 5; Appraise: 5; Sleight of Hand: 5; Truespeak: 10; Perform (oratory): 5; Collector of Stories;	Spell-like abilities, engulf, frightful presence, blindsight 300 ft., SR, discorporate, immunities
10	8	Kineticist-2	4	4	1	8	47 of 101: Spoiler Show {+1} Autohypnosis: 11; {+3 CC} Bluff: 11; {+1 CC} Climb: 5.5; {+1} Concentration: 11; {+1 CC} Decipher Script: 5.5; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 6; {+1 CC} Disguise: 5.5; {+5} Disable Device: 11; {+1 CC} Heal: 5.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 5.5; {+1} Intimidate: 11; {+1 CC} Jump: 5.5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 10.5; {+1} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 11; {+1} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 11; {+1} Knowledge (geography): 11; {+1} Knowledge (history): 11; {+1} Knowledge (local): 11; {+1} Knowledge (nature): 11; {+1} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 11; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 11; {+1} Knowledge (religion): 11; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 11; {+1 CC} Listen: 5.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 5.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 5.5; {+1} Psicraft: 11; {+1 CC} Search: 5.5; {+1 CC} Sense Motive: 5.5; {+1} Spellcraft: 11; {+1 CC} Spot: 5.5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 5.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 5.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 5.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 5.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 5.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 5.5; {+1} Truespeak: 11; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 5.5; {+2} Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
11	9	Anarchic Initiate-1	4	4	1	10	64 of 103: Spoiler Show {+1} Autohypnosis: 12; {+1} Bluff: 12; {+1 CC} Climb: 6; {+1} Concentration: 12; {+1 CC} Decipher Script: 6; {+6} Diplomacy: 12; {+1 CC} Disguise: 6; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 12; {+1 CC} Heal: 6; {+1 CC} Hide: 6; {+1} Intimidate: 12; {+1 CC} Jump: 6; {+1 CC} Knowledge (arcana): 11; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 12; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 12; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 12; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 12; {+1 CC} Listen: 6; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 6; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 6; {+1} Psicraft: 12; {+1 CC} Search: 6; {+6} Sense Motive: 11.5; {+1} Spellcraft: 12; {+6} Spot: 11.5; {+1 CC} Tumble: 6; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 6; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 6; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 6; {+1 CC} Appraise: 6; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 6; {+1} Truespeak: 12; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 6; {+2} Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;	Chaotic surge
12	10	Cerebremancer-1	4	4	1	12	64 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 13; {+2 CC} Bluff: 13; {+1 CC} Climb: 6.5; {+1} Concentration: 13; {+7} Decipher Script: 13; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 13; {+1 CC} Disguise: 6.5; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 13; {+1 CC} Heal: 6.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 6.5; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 13; {+1 CC} Jump: 6.5; {+2} Knowledge (arcana): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 13; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 13; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 13; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 13; {+1 CC} Listen: 6.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 6.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 6.5; {+1} Psicraft: 13; {+1 CC} Search: 6.5; {+3 CC} Sense Motive: 13; {+1} Spellcraft: 13; {+3 CC} Spot: 13; {+1 CC} Tumble: 6.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 6.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 6.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 6.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 6.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 6.5; {+1} Truespeak: 13; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 6.5; {+2} Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
13	11	Cerebremancer-2	5	4	1	13	55 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 14; {+2 CC} Bluff: 14; {+1 CC} Climb: 7; {+1} Concentration: 14; {+1} Decipher Script: 14; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 14; {+1 CC} Disguise: 7; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 14; {+1 CC} Heal: 7; {+1 CC} Hide: 7; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 14; {+1 CC} Jump: 7; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 14; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 14; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 14; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 14; {+1 CC} Listen: 7; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 7; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 7; {+1} Psicraft: 14; {+1 CC} Search: 7; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 14; {+1} Spellcraft: 14; {+2 CC} Spot: 14; {+1 CC} Tumble: 7; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 7; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 7; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 7; {+1 CC} Appraise: 7; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 7; {+1} Truespeak: 14; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 7; {+2} Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
14	12	Cerebremancer-3	5	5	2	13	53 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 15; {+2 CC} Bluff: 15; {+1 CC} Climb: 7.5; {+1} Concentration: 15; {+1} Decipher Script: 15; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 15; {+1 CC} Disguise: 7.5; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 15; {+1 CC} Heal: 7.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 7.5; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 15; {+1 CC} Jump: 7.5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 15; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 15; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 15; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 15; {+1 CC} Listen: 7.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 7.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 7.5; {+1} Psicraft: 15; {+1 CC} Search: 7.5; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 15; {+1} Spellcraft: 15; {+2 CC} Spot: 15; {+1 CC} Tumble: 7.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 7.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 7.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 7.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 7.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 7.5; {+1} Truespeak: 15; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 7.5; Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
15	13	Cerebremancer-4	6	5	2	14	53 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 16; {+2 CC} Bluff: 16; {+1 CC} Climb: 8; {+1} Concentration: 16; {+1} Decipher Script: 16; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 16; {+1 CC} Disguise: 8; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 16; {+1 CC} Heal: 8; {+1 CC} Hide: 8; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 16; {+1 CC} Jump: 8; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 16; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 16; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 16; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 16; {+1 CC} Listen: 8; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 8; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 8; {+1} Psicraft: 16; {+1 CC} Search: 8; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 16; {+1} Spellcraft: 16; {+2 CC} Spot: 16; {+1 CC} Tumble: 8; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 8; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 8; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 8; {+1 CC} Appraise: 8; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 8; {+1} Truespeak: 16; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 8; Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
16	14	Cerebremancer-5	6	5	2	14	53 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 17; {+2 CC} Bluff: 17; {+1 CC} Climb: 8.5; {+1} Concentration: 17; {+1} Decipher Script: 17; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 17; {+1 CC} Disguise: 8.5; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 17; {+1 CC} Heal: 8.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 8.5; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 17; {+1 CC} Jump: 8.5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 17; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 17; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 17; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 17; {+1 CC} Listen: 8.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 8.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 8.5; {+1} Psicraft: 17; {+1 CC} Search: 8.5; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 17; {+1} Spellcraft: 17; {+2 CC} Spot: 17; {+1 CC} Tumble: 8.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 8.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 8.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 8.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 8.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 8.5; {+1} Truespeak: 17; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 8.5; Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
17	15	Cerebremancer-6	7	6	3	15	53 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 18; {+2 CC} Bluff: 18; {+1 CC} Climb: 9; {+1} Concentration: 18; {+1} Decipher Script: 18; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 18; {+1 CC} Disguise: 9; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 18; {+1 CC} Heal: 9; {+1 CC} Hide: 9; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 18; {+1 CC} Jump: 9; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 18; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 18; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 18; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 18; {+1 CC} Listen: 9; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 9; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 9; {+1} Psicraft: 18; {+1 CC} Search: 9; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 18; {+1} Spellcraft: 18; {+2 CC} Spot: 18; {+1 CC} Tumble: 9; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 9; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 9; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 9; {+1 CC} Appraise: 9; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 9; {+1} Truespeak: 18; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 9; Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
18	16	Cerebremancer-7	7	6	3	15	55 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 19; {+2 CC} Bluff: 19; {+1 CC} Climb: 9.5; {+1} Concentration: 19; {+1} Decipher Script: 19; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 19; {+1 CC} Disguise: 9.5; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 19; {+1 CC} Heal: 9.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 9.5; {+2 CC} Intimidate: 19; {+1 CC} Jump: 9.5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (history): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 19; {+1} Knowledge (psionics): 19; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 19; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 19; {+1 CC} Listen: 9.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 9.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 9.5; {+1} Psicraft: 19; {+1 CC} Search: 9.5; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 19; {+1} Spellcraft: 19; {+2 CC} Spot: 19; {+1 CC} Tumble: 9.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 9.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 9.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 9.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 9.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 9.5; {+1} Truespeak: 19; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 9.5; {+2} Conceal Spellcasting, Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
19	17	Warmage-2	8	6	3	16	54 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 20; {+2 CC} Bluff: 20; {+1 CC} Climb: 10; {+1} Concentration: 20; {+2 CC} Decipher Script: 20; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 20; {+1 CC} Disguise: 10; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 20; {+1 CC} Heal: 10; {+1 CC} Hide: 10; {+1} Intimidate: 20; {+1 CC} Jump: 10; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 20; {+1} Knowledge (history): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (psionics): 20; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 20; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 20; {+1 CC} Listen: 10; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 10; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 10; {+2 CC} Psicraft: 20; {+1 CC} Search: 10; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 20; {+1} Spellcraft: 20; {+2 CC} Spot: 20; {+1 CC} Tumble: 10; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 10; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 10; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 10; {+1 CC} Appraise: 10; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 10; {+1} Truespeak: 20; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 10; Conceal Spellcasting, Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;
20	18	Warmage-3	8	7	4	16	56 of 101: Spoiler Show {+2 CC} Autohypnosis: 21; {+2 CC} Bluff: 21; {+1 CC} Climb: 10.5; {+1} Concentration: 21; {+2 CC} Decipher Script: 21; {+2 CC} Diplomacy: 21; {+1 CC} Disguise: 10.5; {+2 CC} Disable Device: 21; {+1 CC} Heal: 10.5; {+1 CC} Hide: 10.5; {+1} Intimidate: 21; {+1 CC} Jump: 10.5; {+1} Knowledge (arcana): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (architecture and engineering): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (dungeoneering): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (geography): 21; {+1} Knowledge (history): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (local): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nature): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (nobility and royalty): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (psionics): 21; {+2 CC} Knowledge (religion): 21; {+1} Knowledge (the planes): 21; {+1 CC} Listen: 10.5; {+1 CC} Move Silently: 10.5; {+1 CC} Open Lock: 10.5; {+2 CC} Psicraft: 21; {+1 CC} Search: 10.5; {+2 CC} Sense Motive: 21; {+1} Spellcraft: 21; {+2 CC} Spot: 21; {+1 CC} Tumble: 10.5; {+1 CC} Speak Language: 10.5; {+1 CC} Use Magic Device: 10.5; {+1 CC} Use Psionic Device: 10.5; {+1 CC} Appraise: 10.5; {+1 CC} Sleight of Hand: 10.5; {+1} Truespeak: 21; {+1 CC} Perform (oratory): 10.5; {+2} Clarity of Vision, Conceal Spellcasting, Second Impression, Never Outnumbered, Swift Concentration, Clever Improviser, Collector of Stories;	Eclectic learning (Choke)

All skill tricks are from Complete Scoundrel.

* - Skill points... I have 1805 skill points. I can't allocate it all. I allocated only 1060 and got sick of it. All in-class and significant are done. Other... Craft (underwater basketweaving)? So 745 remained. This is about ~35 full ranked skills. I’ve decided not to waste a place. Even this table hardly packed up in one mail.

Spoiler: Breakdowns

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Spoiler: CR 2

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Regular wasp swarm^FF. Mindless and happy.

Spoiler: CR 3

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Hivemind wasp swarm. Well, I almost won the game here. Even hp isn't a problem, I have ways to take temp hp and prevent damage. Only trouble is a wind. And don't forget Epic Skills. I can use Cha and Int.

Spoiler: CR 6

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I take first levels in three classes. Sorcerer^PHB for Metamagic specialist^PHBII and is prec for Worm That Walks. Warmage^CArc has warmage edge. Psion^EPH is a good choice for somebody with Int 207, either.

Spoiler: CR 9

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Worm That Walks. With my number of slots I guarantee ritual success. I take WTW for its Discorporate ability. If somehow they defeat me, I'll return! Other abilities good, but not significant.

Spoiler: CR 18

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One more Kineticist level, Anarchic Initiate^CPsi level to avoid multiclass penalty, and seven Cerebremancer^EPH levels. I qualify for it with Sorc spellcasting, but improve Warmage - Sorc have nowhere else to improve.

Spoiler: CR 20

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Two Warmage levels. I want Eclectic learning^PHBII (Choke). With warmage edge this spell means death.

Spoiler: Overall

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Swarm damage should improve with levels but it isn't valuable for me. BAB, too. Saves aren't problem at all, base saves don't matter.

Cont. in part 2.

[H_H_F_F]

NOT THE WAAAASPS!
(part 2)

Spoiler: How do I qualify for the round?

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Recurrent Rival - Yes. I don't have 1, 7 and 8 CRs, but all others here.
Sworn Enemy - Well... Yes. Story. And I have many ways to show my personal hatred. To kill them is too easy...
Defeated, but not vanquished - Discorporate from Worm That Walks and Psion's Fiery Discorporation.
Specialized Opponent - While I'm Nemesis for everyone, the initial idea was Nemesis for non-magic Damage Dealers. I'm fine vermin swarm, you can't damage me with your stupid swords. If you are a caster - Rouse all day every day. If you try to strike with something that can damage me - Combat Panache and/or Otherworldly Countenance.
As Usual - CE. Trust me.

Spoiler: Feats

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Source	Name	Two words	Book
Hivemind	Improved Initiative	All want more initiative.	PHB
Hivemind	Hidden Talent (Minor Creation, Psionic)	First - minor creation. Second - now I have PP and can take Psi feats.	EPH
Hivemind	Great Fortitude	Well, with several times Cha mod to saves I don't need this feat very much, but this +Cha are dispellable or take actions to turn on.	PHB
Hivemind	Iron Will	All what written above, but I have +Cha bonus with some saves, so this feat can easily be changed.	PHB
Hivemind	Lightning Reflexes	All what written above, but I anyway have Int mod instead Dex, so this feat can easily be changed.	PHB
Hivemind	Heighten Spell	I need it to make a WTW ritual.	PHB
Hivemind	Extend Spell	All metamagic feats are useful, some more, some less. Extend with 193+ CL is very useful.	PHB
Hivemind	Quicken Spell	Not so useful, I have other ways to quick spells, but in some situations it can come in handy.	PHB
Hivemind	Maximize Spell	Yes, please.	PHB
Hivemind	Empower Spell	Yes, please.	PHB
Hivemind	Enlarge Spell	Yes, please.	PHB
Hivemind	Widen Spell	Yes, please.	PHB
Hivemind	Silent Spell	Very little useful.	PHB
Hivemind	Still Spell	Not useful at all. Only prec.	PHB
Hivemind	Persistent Spell	Poor gold!	CArc
Hivemind	Sculpt Spell	Yes, please.	CArc
Hivemind	Twin Spell	Yes, please.	CArc
Hivemind	Repeat Spell	Yes, please.	CArc
Hivemind	Chain Spell	Yes, please.	CArc
Hivemind	Explosive Spell	Yes, please.	CArc
Hivemind	Acidic Splatter	"All reserve feats give me some options. Flexibility. I love flexibility. This one is just damage."	CM
Hivemind	Blade of Force	Just damage for weapons or bolts.	CM
Hivemind	Clap of Thunder	Just damage. Works with Warmage's spells.	CM
Hivemind	Clutch of Earth	Stand still, please.	CM
Hivemind	Dimensional Jaunt	Tactical teleportation!	CM
Hivemind	Fiery Burst	Just damage.	CM
Hivemind	Invisible Needle	Just damage.	CM
Hivemind	Shadow Veil	Take miss chance.	CM
Hivemind	Storm Bolt	Just damage. Works with Warmage's spells.	CM
Hivemind	Summon Elemental	Summon Swarm is summoning and I have Heighten spell, so I have free Large elemental.	CM
Hivemind	Winter's Blast	Just damage. Works with Warmage's spells.	CM
Hivemind	Aggressive Mind	Host feats. Some PLA isn't excess.	CPsi
Hivemind	Antagonist	-	CPsi
Hivemind	Defensive Shell	-	CPsi
Hivemind	Telepathic Affinity	-	CPsi
Hivemind	Host Focus	Extra uses for four feats. Good.	CPsi
Hivemind	Dash	Free +5 ft speed!	CW
Hivemind	Improved Toughness	More hp, more fun!	CW
Hivemind	Danger Sense	All want more initiative.	CArc
Hivemind	Force of Personality	Always on Cha in will saves? Are you kidding me?	CArc
Hivemind	Goad	Hey you! Take your sword and go here strike nobody but me! What do you mean "It's useless"? I don't care, do it!	CArc
Hivemind	Improved Flight	I can fly. I want to fly better.	CArc
Hivemind	Insightful Reflexes	Int mod to Reflex or Dex? +100 or +3? So, what to choose?..	CArc
Hivemind	Song of the Dead	Useful metamagic.	DrC
Hivemind	Spiderfriend Magic	It isn't clear for me, but I maybe have an (augmented vermin) subtype. Even if not, I have summon swarm spell and SLA, so it can come in handy.	DotU
Hivemind	Otherworldly Countenance (beautiful)	"Eight Abyssal Heritor feats. This one lets me turn one or more enemies off for unlimited time. For example, until he'll die of starvation."	FCI
Hivemind	Demonic Skin	Extra 5 or 4 (depends on includes this feat or not) Natural AC.	FCI
Hivemind	Heart of the Nabassu	I don't give a damn about the first 8 negative levels.	FCI
Hivemind	Keeper of Forbidden Lore	Plus 8 no Knowledge (the planes) and Spellcraft and, more important, these skills are now always in-class.	FCI
Hivemind	Precognitive Visions	Floating +4 insight bonus. I think AC, Initiative, or Concentration.	FCI
Hivemind	Primordial Scion	It may or may not work with swarm attack. If work - extra 2d6 or 3d6 damage to lawful creatures.	FCI
Hivemind	Claws of the Beast	Here I have the same issue as with Claws.	FCI
Hivemind	Eyes of the Abyss	Not a valuable bonus, but this anyway is Abyssal Heritor feat and it improves others.	FCI
Hivemind	Evil’s Blessing	Cha mod on all saves for five rounds? With the price of standard action? Yes, please.	EE
Hivemind	Truename Training	I have a +100 Int bonus and very many skill points. Of course I take it.	ToM
Hivemind	Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind (Inertia Surge)	Free FoM.	ToM
Hivemind	Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind (Universal Aptitude)	Free +5 on all skill checks.	ToM
Hivemind	Minor Utterance of the Evolving Mind (Minor Word of Nurturing)	Free many healed hp.	ToM
Hivemind	Extend Utterance	Of course I want my Utterances to work longer.	ToM
Hivemind	Obscure Personal Truename	I wanna protect my good true name!	ToM
Hivemind	Recitation of the Vital State	Heal myself of all diseases.	ToM
Hivemind	Lucky Start	"Luck feats. Another feat type that works the better when exist the more, but here isn't bonus staking, but pool mechanics. Another Initiative reroll!"	CS
Hivemind	Sly Fortune	Rerolls for not my best skills.	CS
Hivemind	Lucky Fingers	Here most valuable is Sleight of Hand reroll.	CS
Hivemind	Magical Fortune	Reroll spell damage works well with uncapped spell damage.	CS
Hivemind	Unbelievable Luck	Two extra rerolls. And +2 on Reflex.	CS
Hivemind	Poison Resistance	I don't like being poisoned.	SK
Hivemind	Poison Immunity	I don't like being poisoned at all!	SK
Hivemind	Virulent Poison	On the other hand, I like to poison my enemies!	SS
Hivemind	Up the Walls	It can be useful if I somehow lose my fly capacity.	EPH
Hivemind	Speed of Thought	Extra speed feet.	EPH
Hivemind	Psionic Body (+20 hp total)	Extra hp. Better than Toughness. Even than the Improved one.	EPH
Hivemind	Deep Vision	+30 ft darkvision.	EPH
Hivemind	Invisible Spell	It's 0-level metamagic. Works well with Arcane Spellsurge. Plus, it helps me hide my spells and myself.	CS
Hivemind	Sculpt Spell	Shapeable spells are a very good idea.	CS
Hivemind	Deceptive Spell	This one helps me hide, too.	CS
Hivemind	Dragontouched	Prec.	DM
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Limited Wish)	I have 98 feats and I'm sorc. Of course I want to expand my limitations.	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Polymorph Any Object)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Sympathy)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Summon Swarm)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Dancing Blade)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Deflect)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Chain Dispel)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Spell (Energy Shield)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Innate Spell (Rouse)	I have a big amount of slots, but some spells work better if you can literally spam them.	CArc
Hivemind	Innate Spell (Caltrops)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Innate Spell (Launch Bolt)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Innate Spell (Open/Close)	-	CArc
Hivemind	Overchannel	Prec. And can be used with some powers. Inertial Armor, for example.	EPH
Hivemind	Extra Slot	Well, my imagination drained away here.	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Slot	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Slot	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Slot	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Slot	-	CArc
Hivemind	Extra Slot	-	CArc
Hivemind	Skill Focus (Concentration)	This is a very significant skill for every caster.	PHB
Hivemind (Psychic Reformation from Extra Slot)	Live My Nightmare	Do you think I just mock my enemies for nothing? No, I bait them to cast some Divination.	UA
6th HD	Practical Metamagic (Persistent Spell)	Metaredaction for Persistent is poor gold!	RotD
Psion 1	Practiced Manifester	My ML is not as good as CL, so I try to improve it.	CPsi
9th HD	Quicken Utterance	I have more than 120 in Truespeech. Yes, I want some improvement for +20 DC.	ToM
12th HD	Extraordinary Concentration	I have only a few spells with concentration duration. Sonorous Hum is a very good spell, but I want to have options.	CAdv
15th HD	Combat Panache	First, I can play dead and return later. Second... You. Yes, you with the swarmstrike sword, -98 to attack against me!	PHBII
18th HD	Practical Metamagic (Extend Spell)	With 193 CL doubling duration can be better than just persisting.	RotD

Okay, let's talk about it.
Hivemind template from BoVD (p. 34). It is 3.0 and isn't designed to work with swarms because there aren't swarms in 3.0, I know, but it's unupdated 3.0 material. I can use it. Wasp swarm is a Fine Vermin (Swarm), this means it consists of 10,000 creatures. The Hivemind of 10,000 creatures gives me numbers that you can see here. 207 Int, +202 Cha, 98 feats, 98*4 skills, casting as 192-level sorc. Cheese? Yes, of course! Did you see the entry's second name?

Spoiler: Subsystems

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Spoiler: Sorcerer slots

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0th	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th	6th	7th	8th	9th
9	6+25	6+25	6+25	6+24(25)1	6+24	6+24	6+24	6+23(24)1-32+7(6)3	6+23-12

1 - 12th level Charisma increase.
2 - Slots used for Innate Spell.
3 - Slots from Extra Slot. One Extra Slot was retrained via Psychic Reformation for Live My Nightmare.

Spoiler: Sorc spell known

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Level	Name	Couple words about	Book
0th	Launch Bolt	Sometimes you need to shoot your enemy with a crossbow bolt. It may be for provocation, or distress, or just from boredom. And it's unlimited, thanks Innate Spell!	SpC
0th	Caltrops	With at least 193 rounds duration and infinite amount of uses I can cover with caltrops about 900 squares. Every caltrop attack with +4 against 10 or 12 AC. Not a bad investment of time and only time.	SpC
0th	Amanuensis	Can be useful for somebody without hands.	SpC
0th	Arcane Mark	They should know their Nemesis!	PHB
0th	Mage Hand	Can be useful for somebody without hands.	PHB
0th	Open/Close	Can be useful for somebody without hands. And unlimited uses!	PHB
0th	Message	Sometimes it's a good idea to talk with somebody. Or have more occasions to incite the enemy.	PHB
0th	Prestidigitation	Little cool tricks.	PHB
0th	Acid Splash	Every damage is valuable.	PHB
1st	True Strike	I'm good at casting, not precision. It's helpful.	PHB
1st	Rouse	Well, I have this spell as Innate Spell: Spoiler: I'm warning you Show	PHBII
1st	Bigby’s Tripping Hand	With my CL this spell names: "You are triped".	PHBII
1st	Bigby’s Helpful Hand	Helpful Hand helps.	PHBII
1st	Thunderhead	Almost 20 minutes of personal storm. Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!...	SpC
2nd	Choke	Hey! Hold your breath! Next 20 minutes, yes.	T&B
2nd	Earthen Grasp	I caught you! Well... About 600 hp, about 16 days, grapple with +257 for 1d6+64 damage.	SpC
2nd	Earthbind	Here I fly, not you!	SpC
2nd	Sure Strike	If True Strike isn't enough.	PHBII
2nd	Bigby’s Striking Fist	Not great damage, but +297 AB and +101 bull rush check.	PHBII
2nd (Extra Spell)	Summon Swarm	I need it.	PHB
2nd (Extra Spell)	Deflect	Hmm... +97 shield AC against single attack? Why did I take it? *sarcasm mode off*	PHBII
3rd	Phantom Guardians	My small illusory army.	RoD
3rd	Spell Vulnerability	SR is bad. I'll save you from SR.	SpC
3rd	Sonorous Hum	Free concentration is good!	SpC
3rd	Steeldance	Two attacks with +295 for 1d4+100 damage every round 193 rounds? I take it.	SpC
4th	Force Missiles	Uncapped CL spell. It even isn't an option not to take it.	SpC
4th	Ruin Delver’s Fortune	Four Persistent RDF and I have no problems with my saves and 104-128 temp hp.	SpC
4th	Phantasmal Killer	First, I can kill with it... everybody who is not immune to fear or illusions. Second, I'll use it to qualify for Live My Nightmare.	PHB
4th	Wings of Flurry	Need I say anything?	RotD
5th	Duelward	Can be useful.	CArc
5th	Dimension Door, Greater	Everybody needs DimDoor.	SpC
5th	Phantasmal Thief	Let's try to defeat me without your... everything!	SpC
5th	Field of Resistance	And you call that a spell?	PHBII
5th (Extra Spell)	Dancing Blade	Third dancing weapon in addition to two daggers.	PHBII
5th (Extra Spell)	Energy Shield1	Look at footnote.	DII
6th	Hardening	Paper with 96 hardness? Yes, please!	SpC/SRD
6th	Dispel Magic, Greater	Of course.	PHB
6th	Shadowy Grappler	I caught you again!	SpC
7th	Antimagic Ray	Here I cast spells, not you!	Drac
7th	Energy Immunity	Five times every day casting.	Drac
7th	Arcane Spellsurge	Free quicken spell for 20 minutes? Yes, please. Invisible Spell without using Metamagic specialist ACF for not swift cast.	DM
7th (Extra Spell)	Limited Wish	I need it. And it anyway is very useful.	PHB
8th	Invisibility, Superior	Unbeatable invis? Wrap it up.	SpC
8th	Prying Eyes, Greater	I see everything!	PHB
8th	Prismatic Wall	It's a good spell, nothing more, but nothing less.	PHB
8th (Extra Spell)	Polymorph Any Object	I need it.	PHB
8th (Extra Spell)	Sympathy	I need it.	PHB
8th (Extra Spell)	Chain Dispel	What did you say? Greater Dispel Magic immunity? It's a shame...	PHBII
9th	Maw of Chaos	And another one uncapped spell.	SpC
9th	Shades	I name it "Versatility".	PHB
9th	Invoke Magic	Do you try AMF against me? I have bad news for you...	LoM

1 - Energy Shield. This spell is from WotC book Diablo II: Diaberie, chair said it's legal source.
This is a personal spell with duration "Ends when caster rests". Spell allows convert spells to hp to negate damage taken. Rate is one spell level - six hp damage and you can convert any amount of spells at once. Unused hp remains until the spell ends. This is a very good spell for me, isn't it?

Spoiler: Psion

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HD	Class	New Powers (Level)	Maximum Power Level	PP
6th	Kineticist-1	Bolt (1), Vigor (1), Inertial Armor (1)	1st	2+49
8th	Kineticist-2	Force Screen (1), Control Object (1)	1st	6+99
9th	Kineticist-3 (Anarchic Initiate-1)	Control Air (2), Cloud Mind (2)	2nd	11+148
10th	Kineticist-4 (Cerebremancer-1)	Biofeedback (2), Control Sound (2)	2nd	17+198
11th	Kineticist-5 (Cerebremancer-2)	Body Adjustment (3), Time Hop (3)	3rd	25+247
12th	Kineticist-6 (Cerebremancer-3)	Tongues, Psionic (2), Touchsight (3)	3rd	35+297
13th	Kineticist-7 (Cerebremancer-4)	Control Body (4), Psychic Reformation (4)	4th	46+346
14th	Kineticist-8 (Cerebremancer-5)	Mindwipe (4), Correspond (4)	4th	58+396
15th	Kineticist-9 (Cerebremancer-6)	Psychic Crush (5), Fiery Discorporation (5)	5th	72+445
16th	Kineticist-10 (Cerebremancer-7)	True Seeing, Psionic (5), Major Creation, Psionic (5)	5th	88+495

Level	Name	Couple words about	Book
1st (Hidden Talent)	Minor Creation, Psionic	This power can create a club for Dancing Blade or poison for Launch Bolt.	EPH
1st	Bolt	Well, I need something to launch with my cantrip.	EPH
1st	Vigor	More temp hp.	EPH
1st	Inertial Armor	Healthy person's Mage Armor.	EPH
1st	Force Screen	Healthy person's Shield.	EPH
1st	Control Object	Int based AB and +Int to damage? And I can cast Hardening before. I can't refuse.	EPH
2nd	Control Air	I'm swarm. Wind is my vulnerability.	EPH
2nd	Cloud Mind	This isn't the wasp you are looking for.	EPH
2nd	Biofeedback	DR is DR. It wouldn't hurt.	EPH
2nd	Control Sound	To fool somebody.	EPH
2rd	Tongues, Psionic	I, alas, know not all languages.	EPH
3rd	Body Adjustment	Healing is gooood!..	EPH
3rd	Time Hop	Just wait a bit!	EPH
3rd	Touchsight	I see you...	EPH
4th	Control Body	You! Yes, you! Strike him! Well, again +Int to AB, Damage, and now to AC. It's fun when enemies fight themselves.	EPH
4th	Psychic Reformation	I have a lot of feats, but sometimes I need something very special.	EPH
4th	Mindwipe	Negative levels for my enemies are positive for me!	EPH
4th	Correspond	Another way to talk with somebody.	EPH
5th	Psychic Crush	Now, you lie down and rest now, all right?	EPH
5th	Fiery Discorporation	You can't kill the fire!	EPH
5th	True Seeing, Psionic	Cannot be overemphasized.	EPH
5th	Major Creation, Psionic	So I don’t need to carry knives everywhere.	EPH

Spoiler: Warmage

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HD	Class	0th	1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
5th	Warmage-1	5	3+25
10th	Warmage-2 (Cerebremancer-1)	6	4+25
11th	Warmage-3 (Cerebremancer-2)	6	5+25
12th	Warmage-4 (Cerebremancer-3)	6	6+25	3+25
13th	Warmage-5 (Cerebremancer-4)	6	6+25	4+25
14th	Warmage-6 (Cerebremancer-5)	6	6+25	5+25	3+25
15th	Warmage-7 (Cerebremancer-6)	6	6+25	6+25	4+25
16th	Warmage-8 (Cerebremancer-7)	6	6+25	6+25	5+25	3+25
17th	Warmage-9 (Warmage-2)	6	6+25	6+25	6+25	4+25
18th	Warmage-10 (Warmage-3)	6	6+25	6+25	6+25	5+25	3+24

Spoiler: Books

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Abbreviation	Book
PHB	Player's Handbook
EPH	Expanded Psionics Handbook
CArc	Complete Arcane
CPsi	Complete Psionic
CS	Complete Scoundrel
SpC	Spell Compendium
CM	Complete Mage
CW	Complete Warrior
CAdv	Complete Adventurer
DrC	Dragon Compendium
DotU	Drow of the Underdark
FCI	Fiendish Codex I - Hordes of the Abyss
EE	Elder Evils
ToM	Tome of Magic
SK	Serpent Kingdoms
SS	Savage Species
DM	Dragon Magic
UA	Unearthed Arcana
RotD	Races of the Dragon
T&B	Tome And Blood
RoD	Races of Destiny
DII	Diablo II: Diaberie
Drac	Draconomicon
LoM	Lords of Madness

[H_H_F_F]

I don't like the desert. It's coarse and irritating and it gets everywhere.

The Build

Thah Rahalar, "The Jackal"
The Hound of Set
The Black Hand of Mulhorand

Spoiler: Presentation Tables

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CR 20 Presentation:
Hound Archon, divine minion of Set 4 / Monk 2 / Warshaper 3 / Assassin 8 / Havoc Mage 3 : CR 20

Size/Type:	Medium Outsider (Archon, Extraplanar, Evil, Lawful)
Hit Dice:	14d8+8d6+110 (204 average, 270 maximum)
Initiative:	+3 (+8 Paranoia)
Speed:	40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class:	28 (+6 armor, +3 dex, +9 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 25
Base Attack/Grapple:	+17/+12/+7/+2 // +22
Attack:	Atavism +26 melee (1d6+9+poison); or Bite +22 melee (1d10+7); or Paranoia +22 ranged (1d4+7+poison)
Full Attack:	Atavism +26/21/16/11 melee (1d6+9+poison); Bite +22 melee (1d10+7). 2 claws +17 melee (1d6+5), slam +22 melee (1d6+5)
Space/Reach:	5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks:	Battlecast (4th), decisive strike,morphic weapons, morphic reach, sneak attack +4d6, Spell-like abilities, unarmed strike
Special Qualities:	Aura of menace, damage reduction 10/evil, darkvision 60 ft., fast wild shape,hide in plain sight, invisible fist, immunity to electricity and petrification, immunity to stunning and critical hits, improved uncanny dodge, magic circle against good, scent, spell resistance 32, teleport, tongues
Saves:	Fort +21 (+29 against poison), Ref +19, Will +14
Abilities:	Str 20, Dex 16, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 15
Skills:	Bluff +11, Disguise +11, Hide +25, Knowledge (arcana) +7, Move Silently +25, Sense Motive +9, Spot +9, Survival +9, Tumble +17, Use Magic Device +20
Feats:	Combat Reflexes, Craven, Darkstalker, Mask of Gentility, Master of Poisons, Snap Kick, Staggering Strike, Stunning fist, Throat Punch. Epic feats: Spellcasting Harrier
Challenge Rating:	20
Alignment:	Lawful Evil
Sample Equipment:	Atavism (+4 toxic virulent short sword of assassination), Paranoia (+2 teleporting warning dagger), +3 shadowed studded leather, collar of umbral metamorphisis, shadow cloak, ring of anticipation, ring of the darkhidden, circlet of mages, ki wraps, belt of battle, boots of sidestepping, phylactery of change Not carried: wooden dummy of the master

*While in canine form, a hound archon gains a +4 circumstance bonus on Hide and Survival checks.

Spell-Like Abilities: At will -- aid, continual flame, detect evil, message. Caster level 22nd.

Aligned Attacks (Su): Thah Rahalar's natural attacks are treated as evil and lawful weapons for the purpose of bypassing damage reduction.

Aura of Menace (Su): A terrible aura surrounds Thah when he fights or gets angry. Any hostile creature within a 20-foot radius of Thah must succeed on a DC 23 Will save to resist its effects. Those who fail take a -2 penalty on attacks, AC, and saves for 24 hours or until they successfully hit Thah. A creature that has resisted or broken the effect cannot be affected again by Thah's aura for 24 hours.

Change Shape (Su): Thah can assume any canine form of Small to Large size. While in canine form, Thah loses his bite, slam, and khopesh attacks, but gains the bite attack of the form he chooses. For the purposes of this ability, canines include any doglike or wolflike animal of the animal type.

Fast Wild Shape (Su): Thah can wild shape as an 11th-level druid into one of the following animal forms: brown bear, constrictor snake, crocodile, jackal (dog), Large giant scorpion, Medium viper, or Medium giant scorpion. Thah can use this ability at will, can change form as a free action, and can spend time in animal form indefinitely. He prefers to keep his shapechanging abilities secret so that he can use this ability to surprise his enemies in combat. Unlike a druid, Thah can use this ability even if he is wearing metal armor.

Magic Circle against Good (Su): A magic circle against good effect (caster level 22nd) always surrounds Thah. (The defensive benefits from the circle are not included in Thah's statistics block.)

Outsider Traits: Thah cannot be raised, reincarnated, or resurrected (though a limited wish, wish, miracle, or true resurrection spell can restore life). Darkvision 60 ft.

Teleport (Su): Thah can use greater teleport at will, as the spell (caster level 14th), except that he can transport only himself and up to 50 pounds of objects.

Tongues (Su): Thah can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level 14th). This ability is always active.

CR 16 Presentation (sweet spot):
Hound Archon, divine minion of Set 4 / Monk 2 / Warshaper 3 / Assassin 5 / Havoc Mage 2: CR 16

Size/Type:	Medium Outsider (Archon, Extraplanar, Evil, Lawful)
Hit Dice:	13d8+5d6+90 (169 average, 235 maximum)
Initiative:	+3 (+8 Paranoia)
Speed:	40 ft. (8 squares)
Armor Class:	27 (+5 armor, +3 dex, +9 natural), touch 13, flat-footed 25
Base Attack/Grapple:	+13/+8/+3 // +17
Attack:	Atavism +21 melee (1d6+8+poison); or Bite +18 melee (1d10+7); or Paranoia +17 ranged (1d4+6+poison)
Full Attack:	Atavism +21/+16/+11/+6 melee (1d6+8+poison); Bite +18 melee (1d10+7). 2 claws +13 melee (1d6+5), slam +13 melee (1d6+5)
Space/Reach:	5 ft./10 ft.
Special Attacks:	Battlecast (2nd), decisive strike, morphic weapons, morphic reach, sneak attack +3d6, Spell-like abilities, unarmed strike
Special Qualities:	Aura of menace, damage reduction 10/evil, darkvision 60 ft., fast wild shape,hide in plain sight, invisible fist, immunity to electricity and petrification, immunity to stunning and critical hits, improved uncanny dodge, magic circle against good, scent, spell resistance 28, teleport, tongues
Saves:	Fort +20 (+26 against poison), Ref +17, Will +13
Abilities:	Str 20, Dex 16, Con 20, Int 14, Wis 10, Cha 15
Skills:	Bluff +11, Disguise +11, Hide +19, Knowledge (arcana) +7, Move Silently +19, Sense Motive +9, Spot +9, Survival +9, Tumble +13, Use Magic Device +17
Feats:	Combat Reflexes, Craven, Darkstalker, Mask of Gentility, Master of Poisons, Snap Kick, Staggering Strike, Stunning fist, Throat Punch
Challenge Rating:	16
Alignment:	Lawful Evil
Sample Equipment:	Atavism (+3 toxic virulent short sword of assassination), Paranoia (+1 teleporting warning dagger), +2 shadowed studded leather, collar of umbral metamorphisis, shadow cloak, ring of anticipation, ring of the darkhidden, circlet of mages, ki wraps, belt of battle, boots of sidestepping, phylactery of change Not carried: wooden dummy of the master

Abilities as above, except adjust caster level for SLAs and Magic Circle Against Good to 18th.

Spoiler: Progression Table

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Hound Archon, Divine Minion of Set 4 / Monk 2 / Warhaper 3 / Assassin 8 / Havoc Mage 3: CR 20

CR	Class	Base Attack Bonus	Fort Save	Ref Save	Will Save	Skills	Feats	Class Features
	Outsider HD	+1	+2	+2	+2	8+1x4	Darkstalker	unique NPC trait: poisonlaced [DMGII] template: divine minion of Set [Web]
	Outsider HD	+2	+3	+3	+3	8+1		N/A
	Outsider HD	+3	+3	+3	+3	8+1	Master of Poisons	N/A
	Outsider HD	+4	+4	+4	+4	8+1		N/A
	Outsider HD	+5	+4	+4	+4	8+1 (totalled below)		N/A
4	Hound Archon	+6	+5	+5	+5	Bluff 4, Disguise 4, Hide 9, MS 9, Sense Motive 9, Spot 9, Survival 9, Tumble 4, UMD 4, Know Arcana 2	Snap Kick*	Aura of menace, change shape, damage reduction 10/evil, darkvision 60 ft., fast wild shape, immunity to electricity and petrification, magic circle against good, scent, spell resistance 16+level, teleport, tongues
5	Monk 1	+6	+7	+7	+7	4+1: Know Arcana 5, Tumble 6	Stunning fist (b)	Decisive strike (ACF: 1st) [PHBII], unarmed strike (1d6)
6	Warshaper 1 [CW]	+6	+9	+7	+7	2+1: Disguise 7		Morphic weapons, morphic immunities
7	Assassin 1	+6	+9	+9	+7	4+1: Bluff 9	Craven	Sneak attack +1d6, death attack, poison use, spells
8	Monk 2	+7	+10	+10	+8	4+1: Tumble 9 Hide 10, MS 10	Combat Reflexes (b)	Invisible fist (ACF: 2nd) [EoE]
9	Assassin 2	+8	+10	+11	+8	4+1: Disguise 9, UMD 7		+1 save against poison, uncanny dodge
10	Assassin 3	+9	+11	+11	+9	4+1: Hide 12, MS 12, Tumble 10	Mask of Gentility	+2d6 sneak attack
11	Havoc Mage 1 [MHB]	+9	+13	+11	+11	2+1: UMD 8.5		Battlecast (2nd)
12	Warshaper 2	+10	+14	+11	+11	2+1: UMD 10		+4 str, +4 con
13	Warshaper 3	+11	+14	+12	+12	2+1: UMD 11.5	Staggering Strike	Morphic reach (+5ft.)
14	Assassin 4	+12	+14	+13	+12	4+1: Hide 14, MS 14, UMD 12.5		+2 save against poison
15	Assassin 5	+12	+14	+13	+12	4+1: Hide 16, MS 16, UMD 13.5		sneak attack +3d6, improved uncanny dodge
16	Havoc Mage 2	+13	+15	+13	+13	2+1: UMD 15	Throat Punch	+1 assassin spells
17	Assassin 6	+14	+16	+14	+14	4+1: Hide 18, MS 18, UMD 16		+3 save against poison
18	Assassin 7	+15	+16	+14	+14	4+2: Hide 20, MS 20, Tumble 12		sneak attack +4d6
19	Havoc Mage 3	+16	+16	+15	+14	2+2: UMD 18	Spellcasting Harrier	Battlecast (4th)
20	Assassin 8	+17	+16	+16	+14	Hide 22, MS 22, Tumble 14		+4 save against poison, hide in plain sight

Lore & Background:

Thah Rahalar (pronounced taw, like paw), known to the masses in whispered corners and on hushed tongues as simply 'The Jackal', is a consummate liar, cold-blooded killer, and the Black Hand of the Church of Set.

Unbeknownst on the prime, The Jackal was once a Hound Archon in the service of Nephetys, Thah was captured by the servants of Set barely over a century ago. Tortured, starved, and made to fight in the slave pits in the lower planes of Set's domain, he was driven to the brink of death and madness, and finally infused with Set's essence in a last cruel irony. He is now a twisted mockery of his former glory, his eyes sunken and gleaming with hatred, his body, once tall for his kind, is now gaunt and lithe, his fur now an inkish, mottled black, with his fingers ending in jaundice-boned claws.

Nowadays, Thah is no longer the favored plaything in the lower realms, for the centuries are brief to his immortal captors. These days he usually can be found on assignment by Set, called by a high priest capable of casting the requisite *planar ally* spell. Thah is sent topside by Set as the god's preferred solution to 'extended problems' and persistent threats to the secretive sects existence, as well as for retrieving items of great importance to the faith.

Thankful for his reprieve from the lower realms, (where he has earned some grudging respect for his skills but is still something of an outcast), and enjoying his souljourns in the mortal realm, Thah likes to draw out his contracts as long as possible. All the while, he parleys his expertise and strikingly similar appearance to the dark god himself to demand high fees and all the respect and support due to an Aspect of Set among the faithful. Most mortal worshippers, even the high priests themselves, have hardly ever come face to face with something as uncanny or otherworldly as this 'divine gift from Set' (as he is so fond of reminding his benefactors), and they interpret his appearance a sign of Set's great approval, while granting him nearly every concession.


Thah in the world:

The Jackal has at his disposal almost all of the assets of the Church of Set in the area he is sent to operate, on account of his obvious divine connection to the deity himself, and his uncanny resemblance to an Aspect of Set, coupled with copious lies, a little blackmail, and the right encouragements by the priesthood and their followers.

The Jackal will draw on the networks of spies, thieves, and the churches ties to underworld groups in the local area, often employing wererats, werewolves, and mortal thieves to aid in misdirection and reconnaissance and to serve as a smokescreen for his own activities. He may also draw on cults of Zehir, and the yuan-ti in areas where Set's snake aspect is worshipped, using them to procure exotic poisons for his arsenal and purebloods for infiltration and assassination. In areas where the Church operates more openly, or in situations requiring a show of force, the sect will employ blackguards, human assassins, and clerics of Set with called Marruspawn in tow bearing the fiendish template, as an unmistakable display of their deities might.

Thah likes to sow misinformation in the areas he operates, for pleasure as much as profit. His moniker of The Jackal was born from his dealings with lycanthrope gangs, where they speak cautiously of him as having made a devil's bargain for his power, should the PCs seek to gather information on him in the underworld. They are likely to even mistakenly believe him to be a lycan variant, until the first combat goes poorly and their silver weapons prove useless against him.

This is a useful ruse that Thah perpetuates among the public, even going so far as to recruit disaffected werewolves from the cults of Malar, targeting weaker breeds who have failed to rise through the ranks in that cult of brute strength. Plying them with lies, and ingratiating himself as a fellow lycan with his shape shifting abilities, The Jackal promises them greater esteem in the service of his God, who some might believe is just another form of Malar.

In truth, Thah merely adds to the Church's reach and sends some of them on dangerous missions, where more than a few do not return. This leads to the rumors that The Jackal himself cannot be killed, for he's been 'slain' many times by mistaken guardsmen who mistook the errant, inexperienced, and often scrawny lycans to be The Jackal himself. This suits Thah just fine, further adding to his legend and mystique among the faithful.

The players are likely to encounter The Jackal while on a parallel mission to retrieve (or destroy) an unholy relic, a murder of a prominent person in danger of exposing the Church's secrets, or some other plot at first nominally related to The Jackal's aims, prior to incurring his ire. Once the players investigate Thah's origins and the Church's activities, they become targets themselves.


How to use him:

In public, Thah assumes one of two aliases using a combination of various mundane disguises and alteration magics, most commonly that of Khetis, a female Tiefling Rogue with many criminal contracts. His perfected Mask of Gentility makes him all but unreadable in his dealings with mortals, and if ever challenged on his disguises, (s)he unabashedly concedes that they are for everyone's protection (slipping by a discern lies with such an admission). Less commonly, The Jackal will appear as Mala, an Aasimar female noble with an all-too often conspicuous amount of coin. He uses this alias to move in monied circles to acquire the whereabouts of artifacts and other antiquities for the Church of Set. Lastly, he prefers the stalking form of the regular or Dire Jackal, with his Mask ability allowing him to register as the alignment of a normal animal in either form, all the better to track his targets.

Thah may even appear to the players under these guises, they may feel stalked in the alleys or from rooftops by unseen predators, his Darkstalker ability allowing him such freedom. The player rogue character might be contacted by Khetis on reconnaissance, or as Mala to divine characters such as paladins or clerics, who tend to be overrelliant on their detect evil abilities, which his Mask of Gentility can fool. He typically avoids arcane characters, distrustful of them and well aware of their penchant for detect magic that might reveal his alteration magics.

Thah possesses numerous weapons caches inside respites secreted away in concealed rooms in the temples to Set across the region. Each cache is identical in design, though the contents may vary. Largely unknown to most everyone in the temple, Thah uses them to replenish his supplies and tackle tougher marks with more specialized kit. Thah has ample resources at his disposal after nearly a century of extended planar ally contracts, and this coupled with the black networks available within the church means that The Hound of Set can acquire any medium or less magical item he may need in one to three days, with major magic items taking a tenday to procure.

In addition, from twelfth level onwards, Thah has a contract with a particular powerful high priest in the Church, a former satisfied customer, who casts commune once per week on his behalf, either for Thah to speak to Set, or for the priest to ascertain the jackal's fate in his absence should he not have returned in the alloted time. If he discovers Thah has been slain, he will cast a prearranged (and already paid for) true resurrection on Thah's behalf (a modest sum to him at this point). Thah is increasingly meticulous, and more than a little vengeful should this occur. Thus, if the players wish to put an end to The Jackal for good, they must first discover Thah's origin, investigate the church's activities, and locate the high priest before confronting the pair directly, and thereby end the grip tof terror hat the Black Hand of Mulhorand has built for himself over the Church of Set.


Roleplaying The Jackal:

Thah is craven in every sense of the word, but he likes to appear haughty and imperious, he projects an air of mystery and power regarding his status with Set himself within the Church, all of which is a carefully carefully constructed pall of manipulation, subterfuge, and fear-mongering to cajole compliance and support for his schemes. Ever the coward at heart, Thah assuages his fears through meticulous planning. He is perfectly willing to spend time gathering intelligence on his marks and their allies and abilities, and waiting for an opportune time to bring his dark machinations to bear. If Thah seems unpredictable or somewhat unhinged at times, it too is a ruse designed put his foes off balance. The Jackal's psychosis is one born of desperation, cunning, and drive for survival, and madness, though perhaps not so far off, is for now simply another tool to bring to bear.

Voice acting Inspiration:

Thah alternates between Jeremy Irons as Scar, with a silky tongue full of forbidden truths and half truths, fit only for your ears, in any non-combat situation or any combat situation where he has the clear upper hand. He devolves into the Hyenas once the battle-frenzied blood of combat starts to flow or when things begin to go poorly for him, as best reflects his carefully hidden psychosis and often jarringly manic temperments.

***********

Spoiler: Design & Meta Analysis

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Design & Meta-analysis:

The Jackal is designed with the intent of overcoming most of the inherent weaknesses of the lone wolf (no pun intended) Assassin archetype. The classic issues beleaguring this iconic trope from a gameplay standpoint include:

• middling Hitpoints and Armor Class
• Low fort and Will Saves
• susceptibility to brute force (pile-on) combat
• lack of reliable escape mechanisms
• excellent casting list but hard to bring to bear in combat, without sacrificing output
• general lack of action economy in a 1v4~ scenario, difficult to use solo without minions

Many of the above problems are solved mechanically, as follows:

• 14d8/8d6 hit dice and an eventual 20 Con put him at 204 avg, and 270 max hitpoints, before items, w/large NA to AC (+9). Very solid.
• Retaining DR/Evil makes the default holy weapons and avengers a lot less scary (and you can't relalign them to break Evil, tough luck).
• Outsider HD and synergy between classes gives base saves in 15~ range across the board.
• Permanent Magic Circle does a ton of work to make Will saves pretty irrelevant by blocking descriptor effects, regardless of alignment. [Read: All hold, dominate, and charm spells, the main culprits, without being mind affecting immune (and thus fear immune) also, thereby allowing Craven to function].
• At-Will Teleport as an SLA (can't be counterspelled, no components, can be cast while grappled) makes for a superb escape button
• In order to 'even' the playing field for the lone wolf, we need to maximize on-turn as well as off-turn actions [immediates, AoOs]
• Further, we're looking to stack as many action-trading* debilitators** onto those actions as possible.
*action-traders, any action taken that reduces your opponents available options, and/or robs him of a turn or action.
**debilitators, this word is going to come up a lot shortly. For the record in this build I'm referring to Staggering Strike, Stunning Fist, Throat Punch, and applied Poisons (sleep, unconsciousness, Con damage, or other nastiness), or any combination thereof, all of which are free to low-cost to apply from an action standpoint, and stackable.

The last two problems above mainly relate to action economy, and are far more difficult to solve. So in that case: we're going to 'cheat' like hell (or in this case, like havoc):

Sidenote: There's one thing you need to know about The Jackal, he's meant to feel a bit unfair. He's meant to be a slippery, frustrating opponent to fight, particularly if your group enjoys a lot of heavy tactical combat. He's meant to *feel* like he breaks all the rules of tactical combat. This has the psychological effect of throwing the players for a loop, not knowing how to deal with such an unpredictable threat. This, coupled with his dirty fighting tactics and debilitating techniques, his terribly opportunistic timing, and his general demeanor will earn him the enmity of nearly any table.

The last thing The Jackal will do is fight clean, or on even keel. He'll show up prepped when the the party is battered and beaten and low on spells, he'll backstab them from the shadows just as they pick up the mcguffiin in seeming triumph, he'll harry them from complete darkness in a Twilight Pall or Nightmare Terrain until they're dead and won't even feel bad about it the next day. He's a right git. Got it? Okay. Let's go.

Enter the Havoc Mage: a normally rather obscure class that happens to fulfill most of our needs in only three levels, has low reqs and synergizes surprisingly well with the Assassin's shtick and spell list. Battlecast basically gives us two standard actions, (one Std or less* spell, and one attack**) at the price of our move action, and nearly uninterruptable melee casting through not provoking at all.

*can even be used to cast two swift spells in a round (because, again, The Jackal is a dirty cheater).

**Any attack, very open ended. Hurl poisoned daggers and cast? Sure thing. Drop an eggshell grenade or smoke bomb, toss a bola and still cast? Yep, yep, and yep. The Jackal cheats, and savvy or tactical-minded players *will* notice it, all the while struggling to predict his assaults.

The Assassin spell list is full of either next attack or 1 round swift spells that are designed to either be balanced by not interrupting your standard actions routine (in the case of swifts), or are balanced by taking a standard to prep a next attack spell (deathsight is a prime example). The Havoc Mage's battlecast lets us stack all of that while maintaining our output and lone-wolfness. Alternatively, it's great for throwing up concealment, battlefield control, Invisibility, or just Deep Slumbering the nearest angry thing in platemail, all without sacrificing output or debilitators for a round.

Finally, there's Snap Kick. This feat is pretty ridiculous on it's own TBH. Normally, it's balanced by it's middling damage, implicit limitation to monks, and flurry style penalty, but it lacks a 1/round clause that makes a lot of people think it also functions like Double-Hit on an AoO as well. By RAW it does. Is that over the top? Maybe. Maybe not. That's really dependent on the power level at your table. Where it gets feeling dirty is when we stack Sneak Attack and multiple debilitators onto it for free. Then it's ubiquitousness starts to become really apparent.

Note: Personally, I'm playing snap kick as a mid-op 1/round, only on-turn effect, and I removed Pain Touch from the build as well (two rounds out of meaningful combat on basically one fort save just feels bad for players IMO), just to make this build less rough to deal with. However, If you have a bunch of munchkins at your table and/or you run that type of game, feel free to play snap kick as written and/or work in Pain Touch and this build gets markedly nastier.

So to recap, in order to solve our lone wolfs action economy woes we have the following movesets:

Full Attack with naturals:
Bite (primary) Claw, Claw, slam (secondaries), plus Snap Kick, Swift Action spell, Up to 10ft Adjustment*
Mostly used to deliver raw Sneak damage and deliver multiple debilitators a bit more reliably than BAB iteratives. (Plus invisible claws are just scary).

Else:
Full-round Action: Cast any spell at anything, attack at anything with anything, snap kick to stagger or stun a thing, Swift spell. 10ft. Adjustment to set up for AoOs.
The 'solve all my nearby problems in one round move set'. Apply liberally.

Else:
Move action, Tumble, or MoveEQ to HiPS Hide, Standard action anything, Snap kick a thing again, Swift a thing
Find a thing to kill and start doing that, upgrade to the above move sets ASAP. Close and set up initial debilitators with this.

Off-Turn: the 3-4 Reach AoOs are quite a surprise, even though he's only medium size and doesn't carry reach weapons (the filthy cheater) [Warshaper 3], loaded with more debilitators. Plus Immediates and Invisible Fist cloak for defenses.

*10ft Adjustment: From Dummy of the Master item (A&EG) [monks only] (again, because The Jackal is a dirty cheater who cheats at everything).

Basic Tactics:
The Jackal's assault should almost always begin with a suitably nasty surprise round, at the seemingly worst possible time. He will aim for any noticeably arcane user first, followed by anyone who is visibly casting or healing after that. Thah aims to keep at least two characters debilitated with a combination of his Staggering Strike, Stunning Fist, applied Poisons, garrote attack (throat punch feat), and spells, allowing his havoc casting and full attack output to equalize the playing field against the remaining two combatants, while using his superior reach, adjustment, and debilitating AoOs to deter piling and avoid full attacks on his person.

Spoiler: Sample Engagement

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Sample engagement:

A typical engagement against a relatively unprepared group (Wiz, Clr. Rog, Ftr) looks something like this.

*group fails three rolls against a stealth check*

Surprise round: Death attack from Invisibility on a primary caster. SA damage, Save vs Death Attack. Save vs Stagger, save vs initial poison,
Apply Throat Punch debuff, Complete iteratives, if not dead, Snap Kick for extra SA, else Stunning Fist / stagger nearby enemy.
*Swift still available to cast, or use to reapply poison.

Tally: one possibly dead, 2nd or 3rd injured, (depending on marching order/proximity) combination of staggered, stunned, poisoned, garrotted (Throat Punch).

*Init rolled*

Party r1: casters buff for see invis or blindly dispel, melee attempts to close, squishy is in a tough spot if alive, either moving/eating AoO and losing turn to stagger, or staying in range at low HP for certain death.

Off-Turn: melee suffers reach-based AoO and staggers / poison / and/or stun from closing. Likely loses turn to stagger. Else Jackal suffers single attacks.

Immediates: Recloak with Invisible Fist if needed, or to avoid targeted spell from secondary caster if invis was dispelled.

Jackal r1: Liberally applies debilitators and 10ft. Adjusts to weaken and outmaneuver melee if primary threats, else tumbles away onto secondary caster, landing stagger/poison/snap kick to stun. Puts him out of range of meleers.
*Swift available if not used for recloak Off-Turn.

Party r2: healer hard at work, melee either recovering or chasing, single attacks at best. Secondary caster soon to be in trouble. Same quandry as primary caster, either eats stagger AoO to move and loses rest of turn, or risks AoO / Conc cast & throat Punch failure.

Off-Turn: threatens Reach AoO to closers, applies debilitators to any takers.
*Recloak available if mot used*

Jackal r2: Either Full Attack to drop secondary caster, else chase / repeat, putting himself out of range of melee again. Repeat until secondary caster is dead. Swift for utility / more poison.

*Off-Turn 3 Invisible Fist cloak cool down resets if needed/used.

Jackal r3-4: repeat until secondary caster is dead Else, Start havoc casting Will spells against melee bruisers while targeting debilitators at anything with a poor fort. *Swift available to apply poison or recloak after attacks once the two casters are downed.

Party r3-4: probably examining their options as half the party is dead or incapacitated at this point. Retreating starting to look good, else more of R2-3.

Jackal Finale: Havoc cast Deathsight against the next squishiest target, force a bunch of saves just like round 1 above: really drive the point home that retreat is a good option.

**Off turn: Secondary saves from poisons start being rolled from surprise round/round 1 (from virulent weapons).

Party r4-5: party likely retreats in shambles. The party licks their wounds and gathers their fallen.

**Hyena laughter and howling in the distance**
**Fade to black**

Spoiler: Disclosures & Fixes

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1: The base NPC of Thah Rahalar is an invention of Sean K. Reynolds in the Divine Minion web article, available online. Although Sean had him merely guarding a spellbook for Set at CR 4, I was inspired by the character of a fallen Hound Archon in the service of the Jackal-headed god and expanded on the concept. Rather than pass it off as an entirely original work (which would be disingenuous), I decidedly kept the name and paid homage to the original idea.

2: As I was building I had Mask of Gentility originally at level 6, mindful of the Charisma requirement, but forgetting about the skill requirements until I built the skill loadout.
There's not much wiggle room in the class based feats in the sense that he can't take ambush feats before his assassin levels, and can't take unarmed feats before his Monk levels, putting the earliest he can take either at HD 9 (CR 7). He also doesn't have the skill requirements to take Mask of Gentility at HD 6, even though I had plotted out 3 outsider feats and 4 class feats. I was wrecked. Hence came about the fix: The bracers of sure striking (MIC) 1310gp gives Improved unarmed strike allowing him to qualify for Snap Kick at HD 6, and swap Mask of Gentility down the line. It's an imperfect fix, but it's the best of an 11th hour problem.

Thah already relies on one other monk item, The Dummy of the Master (AE&G) for his adjustment and reach-oriented death dealing, so having him rely briefly on a second monk item didn't seem out of character for him. I had even considered writing them up as a pair of blood-soaked handwraps that over time become unholy wraps of Mighty Fists from all his time fighting in the slave pits, and the blood of slain fiendish creatures being absorbed into them. But it would just be a (admittedly cool) way to hide the dirty fix, but I still might do it outside of this as the idea continues to grow on me. It also got me thinking of the ways his warshaper powers and claws developed, starting from bloody fisticuffs in the arenas for all those years, and awakening within him a twisting of his Change Shape ability, as a form of self-actualized survival instinct (a concept in older planescape literature)

[H_H_F_F]

This is it! 5 Nemesi/ses to vex your players for your amusement!

Do we have any judges in the crowd?

[loky1109]

Do we have any judges in the crowd?

At least we have a table! )

Name	Alignment / Race	Class Levels	Chef	Judge 1	Judge 2	Judge 3	Total	Place
Noname Sword	LE Soul Tick	Soulknife 6/Fiend of Possession 6/Legacy Champion 8
Melissa Adrasteia	NE Human	Expert 2/Warlock 15/Binder 1/Hellfire Warlock 3
THE Shadow	LE Shadow	Abjurant champion 5/Cleric 3/Emancipated spawn 2/Fighter 2/Ranger 1/Tomb Warden 3/Trapsmith 1
Sworm That Wasps a.k.a. Casu Martzu , Part 2	CE Hivemind Worm That Walks Wasp Swarm	Warmage 3/Kineticist 2/Sorcerer 1/Anarchic Initiate 1/Cerebremancer 7
Thah Rahalar	LE Divine Minion of Set Hound Archon	Monk 2/Warshaper 3/Assassin 8/Havoc Mage 3

[AvatarVecna]

My HM goes to Melissa Adrasteia.

[ciopo]

My HM to Melissa, too.