NPC builds. CORE ONLY!

[shadow_archmagi]

It has often been pointed out that all that spells in D&D are designed for PC use.
It has also been brought up that a lot of things like traps, magical items, etc etc are far too expensive to be viable.

In short, attacker always wins. So, lets now pretend you arn't the attacker anymore. You're an NPC. In fact, you're an evil overlord. You want to conquer the world, and this time, you arn't going to let those pesky PCs stop you.

How would you go about it? Let us assume, for the purpose of argument, that as a world-conquering monster, you're level 20. But you will have to deal with the occasional troop of two to five bloodthirsty, powerful, creative, heroes who are willing to spend any amount of time, walk any distance, because they think you ought to die.

[sikyon]

Basically you need to do everything that a PC wizard does when he wakes up/goes to bed so as not to be ambushed.

Also I would flood the market with stuff like cheap iron and cause the entire economy to collapse, at which point I would sweep in as a liberating ruler amongst the chaos.

Also, I'd have such a cool background fluff that the DM couldn't help but make me Rediculously super-powerful. Also I'd get an eaisily dominated DM (not that kind of dominated).

[Rodgin]

It is all on the dungeon you own. If I can get a castle, and an army, etc, etc, I only need to be the same level as the PCs. It's in their approach that you win.

If you were fighting another PC in your game, you would be shocked at what you ended up with.

[Miles Invictus]

I would place my keep in its own extradimensional space, with a single entrance. No other visitors would be allowed; whenever I am in it, I will activate an impressive sequence of wards to instantly kill anyone that enters. I will create several of these keeps and acquire spell-like abilities to teleport myself to them any time I wish.

I'd also never reveal myself as the big bad. I will invest in social skills and trick others into being the big, obvious villain. If a scheme fails, I will slip away in the chaos. If caught, I can plausibly explain that I was a mere advisor or lackey.

When forced to act openly, I'd pass myself off as a Lich. Any credible threat would know enough to search for my (nonexistent) phylactery before confronting me directly. I can keep tabs on anyone looking for such an object, and make plans to dispose of said individuals.

[Person_Man]

Build an elaborate castle in a remote area. Fill the castle with traps, undead, constructs, etc. At the center of the castle build an elaborate throne room. Have a powerful undead minion sit in the throne perpetually and pretend to be you. Take a map of how to locate this castle, cut it into four pieces, and have the four pieces guarded by powerful minions on opposite parts of the globe. The castle should also have only one door, massively thick walls, and no windows or sewers. The door should be opened by a custom magic item, which is also broken into four pieces, which should be hidden at four different remote locations. If someone goes through all of this trouble and succeeds, let them. Set up a similar castle somewhere else on the planet, with similarly time consuming obstacles to find it, get in, and clear it.

Live in a modest middle class home in a well populated village. If you want to control an Empire or do something Evil, do it through surrogates, who in turn do each of their tasks through other surrogates. Have daily status reports. If it seems like one or more of your surrogates is being interfered with by adventurers, offer them a job. The job is to find the four pieces of a legendary map.

Run a deli or similar store, where people normally visit without bringing attention to themselves. Move once a year to a different village, opening a new store, creating a new identity, and replacing your surrogates. Go to a Good church on a weekly basis. Never directly confront your enemies. Don't let the different departments of your Evil empire know that they are part of a larger organization. Avoid obvious displays of wealth or power.

[Aquillion]

Build an elaborate castle in a remote area. Fill the castle with traps, undead, constructs, etc. At the center of the castle build an elaborate throne room. Have a powerful undead minion sit in the throne perpetually and pretend to be you. Take a map of how to locate this castle, cut it into four pieces, and have the four pieces guarded by powerful minions on opposite parts of the globe. The castle should also have only one door, massively thick walls, and no windows or sewers. The door should be opened by a custom magic item, which is also broken into four pieces, which should be hidden at four different remote locations. If someone goes through all of this trouble and succeeds, let them. Set up a similar castle somewhere else on the planet, with similarly time consuming obstacles to find it, get in, and clear it.

Live in a modest middle class home in a well populated village. If you want to control an Empire or do something Evil, do it through surrogates, who in turn do each of their tasks through other surrogates. Have daily status reports. If it seems like one or more of your surrogates is being interfered with by adventurers, offer them a job. The job is to find the four pieces of a legendary map.

Run a deli or similar store, where people normally visit without bringing attention to themselves. Move once a year to a different village, opening a new store, creating a new identity, and replacing your surrogates. Go to a Good church on a weekly basis. Never directly confront your enemies. Don't let the different departments of your Evil empire know that they are part of a larger organization. Avoid obvious displays of wealth or power.

No dice. It might work for a while, but the divination abilites out there are good enough that sooner or later someone is going to get suspicious. After one or two false starts with a surrogate's surrogate, they might decide to start using things like Detect Thoughts, Dominate Person, Contact Other Plane, Speak With Dead and so on to confirm that they've found the real mastermind behind whatever plot they're dealing with... and at that point, you're screwed. Even the one-word answers from Contact Other Plane will be enough for a determined caster to locate you. (Using "What direction is the mastermind of plot XYZ in from my body's current physical location?" and triangulation is a good start. And remember, you have no way of knowing that someone is using something like Contact Other Plane to hunt you down until it's too late.)

[Cuddly]

And Mindblank 1/day foils all that.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Here's a core build for my evil mastermind...

Rogue3/Sorc6/Arcane Trickster10/Archmage 1

Important spells of note:

Mind Blank
Overland Flight
Greater Prying Eyes
Improved Invisibility

Important pre-setup tactic:

Hire someone/obtain some method of getting a reliable Wish. Wish that your dungeon/castle/abode/whatever (hertoafter referred to as Place) or anything inside is unable to be the target of any form of divination or scrying. That stops pesky wizards from sneaking peeks while you're in the shower.

Greater Prying Eyes... all of them have True Sight, to eliminate infiltration by invisible or illusioned foes. You've got LOTS of them. Use them to patrol around your Place and the surrounding areas. If you've got patrols of grunts running around, keep one Eye on each patrol.

Now then, Dimension Lock your Place. You'll be using Overland Flight to make your escape anyways. This keeps pesky wizards from popping in on you while you're in the shower.

This makes things a bit more difficult for pesky adventurers to get in and ruin all your fun.

Here's a fendish trap...

This corridor is intersected by two other identical corridors, making an asterisk
The center of the asterisk will detect as Moderate Conjuration if anyone looks.

Basically, it's a Random Teleporter. Everyone who enters in the center hex rolls 1d6. Each number corrosponds to an identical hallway. If you are running, you have to make a Spot check to even realize you went through it.

No, it doesn't hurt anyone, but it will take a LONG time for everyone to get back together. No, flying or jumping over the hex still activates the trap.

[Yahzi]

Cast Divination every week: "Are any of the children born this week going to grow up and kill me?" If the answer is yes, send your minions out to kill all the children born that week, before they become Heroes.

You know, there's a reason it's a classic.

[CasESenSITItiVE]

Build an elaborate castle in a remote area. Fill the castle with traps, undead, constructs, etc. At the center of the castle build an elaborate throne room. Have a powerful undead minion sit in the throne perpetually and pretend to be you. Take a map of how to locate this castle, cut it into four pieces, and have the four pieces guarded by powerful minions on opposite parts of the globe. The castle should also have only one door, massively thick walls, and no windows or sewers. The door should be opened by a custom magic item, which is also broken into four pieces, which should be hidden at four different remote locations. If someone goes through all of this trouble and succeeds, let them. Set up a similar castle somewhere else on the planet, with similarly time consuming obstacles to find it, get in, and clear it.

Live in a modest middle class home in a well populated village. If you want to control an Empire or do something Evil, do it through surrogates, who in turn do each of their tasks through other surrogates. Have daily status reports. If it seems like one or more of your surrogates is being interfered with by adventurers, offer them a job. The job is to find the four pieces of a legendary map.

Run a deli or similar store, where people normally visit without bringing attention to themselves. Move once a year to a different village, opening a new store, creating a new identity, and replacing your surrogates. Go to a Good church on a weekly basis. Never directly confront your enemies. Don't let the different departments of your Evil empire know that they are part of a larger organization. Avoid obvious displays of wealth or power.

What's the point of being an evil emperor when you spend your life running a deli? what you have there is a plan to gain lots of wealth and power by not using wealth and power

Also I'd get an eaisily dominated DM (not that kind of dominated).

i dunno, that might help

[de-trick]

live under the fake Alyse of Joe the dung sweeper

[Idea Man]

Hmm, evil overlords have the disadvantage that they're reactive instead of proactive, but have the advantage of preperation, resources, and information.

Preparation can include lethal traps, eliet guardians (outsiders, undead, golems, simulacrum), and specially designed lairs (with convenient hidey-holes and back up supplies). Resources will be vastly superior to the PCs, up to the entire GNP of the country you've taken over (depending on taste, of course. Some overlords prefer to put a little back in so their economies don't collapse). With that kind of moolah handy, magic items of any power are available, as well as large armies, mercenaries/specialists, and exotic creatures (Bored with guard dogs and trained dragons? How about paragon pseudonatural damn crabs? No? PPD-Cats, then? ).

Information is vital, however. Keep as many secrets to yourself as you can, although it won't be hard (personally, my players wouldn't find out if there were undead in a graveyard untill they were attacked, even if they saw the groundskeeper on the way in). More surprises means more resources wasted by the PCs, less to be used on you. Also, the less the PCs are prepared for your lair, the less likely they'll bypass all your expensive extras.

On the other side of the coin, you need to know all about your enemies, the PCs. Easy, really, since they'll be thwarting your minor schemes and upsetting the border lords. Just take notes as they get closer, and as soon as you can manage a sure kill, do it. Don't skimp; whatever doesn't kill them makes them stronger is literal in this case.

[Aquillion]

And Mindblank 1/day foils all that.

Not really. It won't stop them from realizing that they haven't caught the real mastermind behind the plot, so they're going to be actively looking for you... and you need to have some way of sending out orders to your minions, which carries a risk of being traced back to you in one fashion or another... and your minions aren't all mind-blanked, so the heroes will be able to track down every one of them. No matter how clever you are with selecting them and giving them orders, you still need to learn about them somehow (and if they're sending any information back to you, it gets even trickier.)

How are you going to recruit new minions and maintain a functional operation when the PCs are constantly capturing, dominating, and mind-reading your followers? If you're too cautious, the heroes might manage to kill or capture all the people you were using as links to your operation... even if those links don't have any information that could be traced to you, that'll shut down everything you were doing, and you'll have to start from scratch... while, somehow, avoiding leaving any traces that could be used to identify you.

In fact, the heroes can simply use the methods they'd use to find you, but instead focus on "someone we can find who can identify the mastermind behind XYZ for us" or whatever. By definition, that person won't be mind-blanked... so if there's a single non-mind-blanked person anywhere on any plane who can identify you, the heroes will track you down. They could ask for incriminating evidence, too... whoops! You're mind-blanked, but the documents in your safe aren't. Neither is your spellbook full of your trademark evil spells, your vault full of loot that they know you've taken, or... you get the idea.

Mind Blank is powerful, but it only protects you personally, and your mind specifically. Anyone who has ever seen you, every footprint you've ever left, and every word you've ever written is still right there where divinations can get at it...

And once they've narrowed you down to a reasonably small area, it works against you. After they know the town you're in, they just have to sweep it with a general-area divination while scouting normally, and look for the guy who doesn't show up on the divination.

Cast Divination every week: "Are any of the children born this week going to grow up and kill me?" If the answer is yes, send your minions out to kill all the children born that week, before they become Heroes.

You know, there's a reason it's a classic.

That is just asking to be killed by a Warforged, you know. Or a golem, or a child (they didn't grow up--possibly an undead/vampire child) or one of dozens of other things.

Not to mention anyone older than you, of course.

[sonofzeal]

Ugh. There's no way to win in the long term - whatever you do (short of pun-pun), you're eventually going to run into somebody who can trump that, or beat you at your own game. That said, there's a few things you can do to really screw with people who come gunning for you.


1) AMFs. Any high-level character worth their salt is likely to be loaded to the teeth with magic items and magic powers. Deprive them of that, and you can walk all over them if you're clever, especially since you can more or less choose the ground. One of the key changes is that most AC values are going to be totally nerfed, so either send your pet Frenzied Berzerker (tricked out with grafts and manuals, of course) at them, or rig up some sort of barrage of repeating heavy crossbows. Or both, just for fun. Or, better yet, have your lair mix things up unpredictably between AMF and non-AMF, so they don't know what to expect. MDJ is your enemy, but even that's not very reliable, and at least you know what to watch for. WARNING: don't try this method in the Forgotten Realms.

2) Unusual choice of final battlefield. My vote is for the Positive Energy Plane, assisted by an army of Vivacious Weasels. The whole nature of combat changes there, and again unless they know what they're getting into, you'll be able to walk all over them. Being a Planar Sheppard might help.

3) Become a Lich. Clever phylactery tricks are without number, so pick one and run with it. The key to success here, IMO, is to make yourself a relatively accessible target. Have all sorts of defenses, of course, but your best bet is to take the chance of defeat into account. Once they've taken you out, you'll {a} know who they are, and {b} have an idea of their technique. Now they're in the same position you were in before, namely of protecting themselves against a determined high-level threat, but with the added factor that you know their best offensive already. Proceed to repay them double, and make sure it sticks; a prolonged back-and-forth will be detrimental to both sides in the long run.

[The_Werebear]

For a campaign my friends and I are doing (extravagant malevolence) we lured several high powered good clerics to our half finished keep, killed them and their entire entourage, ground their bones to powder, and added it to the mortar. Everything in the castle detects as good, and the fact that we have a half fiend who desecrated his room living there is drowned out in the aura of niceness.

Best of all- My bluff check in the high 70's and a few patrols convinced everyone around that the group simply got lost and died in the wilderness. Dangerous times, after all.

[Citizen Jenkins]

...In fact, you're an evil overlord. You want to conquer the world, and this time, you arn't going to let those pesky PCs stop you.

How would you go about it? Let us assume, for the purpose of argument, that as a world-conquering monster, you're level 20...

Well, if I'm a evil mastermind set on world domination, I'm not sitting in a cabin somewhere worrying about the big bad PCs, I'm out there evil warlording. I'm leading my invincible army of Shadows across the world, opening hellish gateways to bolster my forces with infernal generals and undreamt abominations, turning every living creature I can see into a skeletal soldier, pillaging anything of value, and probably have a plan to blot out the sun for good measure. Sure, I'll probably die but the life expectancy for those who seek to conquer the world is pretty short. And sitting back just lowers my odds; world conquest requires momentum, genuis, speed, and quite a bit of luck. And honestly, if I just peed on the burnt ruins of the Temple to Pelor, sold my soul to devils for my infernal powers, and am opposed by a Last Desperate Alliance of Men and Elves, I probably have bigger things to worry about than the PCs. Sure they can kill me but there's a big line and they're towards the back.

I could be the suave, cool mastermind behind a long lasting evil empire but in that case I'm probably not out for world conquest, I'm probably out for trade agreements and and general stability. Heck, anything that will keep me in power and keep the good empires from attacking me. Meeting the PCs with a signed peace treaty and trade declarations from the neighboring good kingdom is the best way for me to stay alive and in power.

[Talic]

Rule 1: Be low key. The bloodthirsty ravager is fine for a couple one-shots, but isn't an epic villain.

Rule 2: Ring of Mind Shielding. Don't be evil, if you're in a position of power. Or at least, don't advertise it. This ties in with rule 1.

Rule 3: Low key. The army of zombies is nice, but enchantment makes a better villain. Dominate the lesser peons, and blame the fall on them. Enchantment/Abjuration, with a dash of divination for good measure. That will make the villain who succeeds over and over. It takes a cautious foe to see it, and if used discreetly, allows you to engineer a situation to your advantage.

Rule 4: When you must be overt, do it as fast and thoroughly as possible. Dead men tell less tales. Especially if their remains are incinerated in the magma flows of your volcano lair.

Rule 5: Have a volcano lair. Every arch-villain worth his salt has one.

[shadow_archmagi]

Hm, in response to the "Have someone else obey all my orders" thing, couldn't you use a messenger golem? A few self destruct spells would be necessary, but on the whole...

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Rule 1: Be low key. The bloodthirsty ravager is fine for a couple one-shots, but isn't an epic villain.

Rule 2: Ring of Mind Shielding. Don't be evil, if you're in a position of power. Or at least, don't advertise it. This ties in with rule 1.

Rule 3: Low key. The army of zombies is nice, but enchantment makes a better villain. Dominate the lesser peons, and blame the fall on them. Enchantment/Abjuration, with a dash of divination for good measure. That will make the villain who succeeds over and over. It takes a cautious foe to see it, and if used discreetly, allows you to engineer a situation to your advantage.

Rule 4: When you must be overt, do it as fast and thoroughly as possible. Dead men tell less tales. Especially if their remains are incinerated in the magma flows of your volcano lair.

Rule 5: Have a volcano lair. Every arch-villain worth his salt has one.

Who came to mind while reading those? (well, the first 4) Palpentine. If it worked for him, it's probably a good idea. And if your villain is the lawful authority, you just gained the ability to give paladins aneurysms. That is always worthwhile.

[Duke of URL]

Regardless of build, be active, not passive. The PCs are out to kill you, and simply trying to wait them out or send surrogates to delay or defeat them is just going to let them earn XP and get stronger when they finally do reach you.

Prepare some sort of "hero bait", and mercilessly crush any hero that tries to take it.

[Funkyodor]

I had a great DM who used the Rakshasha concept applied to a standard person, so they didn't look foreign. The first was a very high level Monk and by the time we figured out how to kill him and succeeded, we assumed that that would be the end of that. He designed 'them' to be mirrored into 9 and when one is slain, the others get his abilites (Not stacked but in parallel like he was gestalt'ed or something). So by the time you get to the last, you are fighting a high level Monk, Cleric, Illusionist, Psionic, Fighter, Ranger, Druid, Bard, Sorceror with all the memories of what you did to the others and how they died... Quite a handfull. The great part is by the time we get around to the second or third incarnation, we've started another group because we got more / different members. Jump into a quest involving time travel / holy grail and trying to put down a completely different bad guy (everyone was jumping into each others past Quantum Leap style). No time to rest, no time to recover, and we got to the Evil Chicks backstory. Evil chick was a Drow so Waaaay in the past when she was about 6-7 we inhabit childrens bodies and have to stop her sister from getting kidnapped and well, bad things happened to sis and started Evil Chicks road to evil. Kid was taken by a Mad Astrologer/Jack the Ripper-esque bad guy. By the time we get to him we find out that this is the first Rakshasha, the psionic. We got no protection and we know who he is, and after he finds out what we were doing he figures out that he is doing it wrong and needs to split into 9 parts to get his Mad Scientist Planetary Alignment power infusion stuff going... Long story short WE were the ones that started him toward is global domination path.

[Ellisthion]

Here's a core build for my evil mastermind...

Rogue3/Sorc6/Arcane Trickster10/Archmage 1

You can actually do one better than that: you only need the Rogue for sneak attack, so you can remove 2 levels of Rogue and take Assassin instead, for:

Rog1/Ass1/Sorc6/ArcTrick10/Arch2
Giving you 1 extra level of spellcasting, Death Attack (Usable with Impromtu Sneak, too, but low DC. Still handy.), Poison Use, and another High Arcana, which are always good for your average mastermind.

Anyway, I think disguising your intentions is the most important thing. If you appear to be a good person, no one will even suspect you as you pull the strings.

[Sstoopidtallkid]

Beguiler 20.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You can actually do one better than that: you only need the Rogue for sneak attack, so you can remove 2 levels of Rogue and take Assassin instead, for:

Rog1/Ass1/Sorc6/ArcTrick10/Arch2
Giving you 1 extra level of spellcasting, Death Attack (Usable with Impromtu Sneak, too, but low DC. Still handy.), Poison Use, and another High Arcana, which are always good for your average mastermind.

Anyway, I think disguising your intentions is the most important thing. If you appear to be a good person, no one will even suspect you as you pull the strings.

1) Assassin requires 8 ranks in Hide/Move Silently, which means needing either five levels of Rogue, or a hell of a lot more in Sorcerer.

2) a maximum of one spell (assuming you have high enough int for a bonus spell, probably a good bet) that doesn't progress your sorcerer caster progression does NOT count as one extra level of spellcasting

3) My build has Evasion, which really helps vs all those blaster-casters. Easily worth it over Death Attack and Poison Use. I'm using spells to deal out damage and screw people over, I need neither. Plus, Death Attack is a pain on an NPC. If it works, PC complains, if it doesn't, it does nothing.

[Ellisthion]

1) Assassin requires 8 ranks in Hide/Move Silently, which means needing either five levels of Rogue, or a hell of a lot more in Sorcerer.

2) a maximum of one spell (assuming you have high enough int for a bonus spell, probably a good bet) that doesn't progress your sorcerer caster progression does NOT count as one extra level of spellcasting

3) My build has Evasion, which really helps vs all those blaster-casters. Easily worth it over Death Attack and Poison Use. I'm using spells to deal out damage and screw people over, I need neither. Plus, Death Attack is a pain on an NPC. If it works, PC complains, if it doesn't, it does nothing.

1) No, you take Sorcerer first, for 4 levels, then Rogue 1, throwing all your skill points into the skills in that one Rogue level.

2) Heh. Actually, no. This change gives you 9th level spells. 3 per day. It's the difference between a 17th level sorcerer spell progression, and an 18th. 18th = 9th level spells for sorcerers. Big bonus. Very big.

3) Wait, people use blaster-casters at level 20? I thought we were in the post-Batman world? Anyway... Ring of Evasion, it's, what, 25k? Gives you Improved Evasion. Dirt cheap for a level 20 BBEG. Using Death Attack, I'd use the paralysis one to be nice to the players, but story-wise it would make sense if he can one-shot people.

[CASTLEMIKE]

LE Human Cloistered Cleric -7, Thaumaturgist - 3 (5 without the Leadership feat), Loremaster - 10 (8 without the Leadership feat).

This NPC can summon Efreeti (10HD) for Wishes for a very low cost as per the Improved Ally special of Thaumaturgist with a L6 Planar Ally spell.

He can cast standard Miracles as desired because he is the DM's NPC and his Greater Miracles at 5,000 experience points do whatever the DM wants.

He can easily be the leader or a mover and shaker (Maybe the senior religious official of his faith for a country) of a large religious organization limited to core Hextor and Weejas are rather respectable. Nerull should have a decent sized religious organization with a portfolio of Death. Vecna is a possibility for a more secretive cult leader (Wouldn't hurt if he'd just become a Lich (BBEG Rejuvenation)) at level 20 (+2 CR Not +4LA for a NPC) and still has 18 levels if you insist on dropping the NPC BBEG down to L18. He can appear to be much less.

LE Human Cloistered Cleric -3, Wiz - 3 (I like conjurer using one of the variants for summoning creatures to mess with the NPCs (No Experience points for defeating summoned creatures until they defeat the BBEG since they are only part of his attacks) but whatever you like), MT - 10, probably Thaumaturgist - 1 to the wizard side, ACM -3 to the wizard side although the cleric side will also work basically whatever you prefer. This guy should have the Leadership feat and a special familiar like an Imp.

The NPC can appear to be respectable and law abiding in his public persona.

Just because he is a L20 caster doesn't mean he needs to act like one in public. A L9 - 11 caster is pretty respectable in most places even a metropolis and would have a lot of juice locally if affiliated and supportive of the local government.

The PC can cast Mindblank or Miracle for Mindblank which will mess up a PC divination game.

As a DM run NPC BBEG improperly worded Communes will only reveal the next link in the chain of intermediaries or the alias of the master mind at best not his respectable split personality persona and the Gods don't necessarily need to play 20+ questions with Communes sometimes they are busy.

**Use some of those Efreeti Wishes or Miracles for interrupting or intercepting those communes with bad information (It's the LG King or the Pope.........) as a variant divination "Contingency" effect.

Consider giving the BBEG a split multiple personality he isn't aware of. Everyone thinks he is a devout pious religious leader who spends a lot of time mediating and praying (actually has a standing simulacrum (L12 spellcasting) for emergencies when he is interrupted) but in reality his evil side is busy controlling and directing operations and can have several others in various locales directing underlings and operations.

He can maintain false aliases (Being a well connected mid level intermediary or part time affiliate as a spellcaster in some of his own organizations) and work through intermediaries (even his closest inner circle confidents may not actually know who he is (Little things like Arcane Marked message orders, wearing a Hat of Disguise or using a spell or spells to conceal his identity).

Maintain his own spying/information network (Leadership feat) local Adept spellcasters are great for information sources. Have spy/guerilla cells (Run by those high level NPCs via Leadership). Be affiliated with powerful organizations like the local Thieve's and Assassins guilds in addition to his own church and affiliated religious organizations, local government officials and aristocrats including knightly orders minor and reknowned. Rules his own lands or merchant empire.

He can implant false memories and geas allies and enemies. He can teleport (Travel domain if Cleric - 20) plus Word of Recall lots of options with spellcasting and summoning creatures with spell like abilities. Calling creatures is another option although the PCs will gain experience points for that. He can have Enlarged Unhallowed temples and residences (Consider some of the semi-permanent spells available to be utilized with the Unhallow for a year (No teleporting in or other continuous spells).

P.S. the NPC BBEG should probably get a +1 or +2 CR (perhaps with PC suggested wealth by level) for not being played stupid.

Consider a normally good LE Elf who can trance (more free time during the day or night) who pretends to be another race like human since there are lots of them gets the BBEG several extra hours every day to accomplish things. The BBEG can be a wizard on retainer to a local noble (as per Complete Arcane basically 3 weeks out of 4 left to his own) so he has lots of free time particularly L9+ who can hate to be disturbed and be on call for emergencies only!!! (Reputation for always being working away in his personal lab or tower working on personal research). Demographically in game there aren't very many of these high level spellcasters around using the DMG page 139 default demographics with 90% of the population living in thorps, hamlets and villages.

Another method is the conquering royal ruler or theocracy leader working to create a imperium bringing law and order to the people. Use diplomacy and go to war over border disputes or your divine cause.

[Ramos]

Step 1: Use Genesis to create your own tiny personal plane or employ an extradimensional home of some sort.
Step 2: Cast Dimensional Lock on it.
Step 3: Cast Forbiddance on it.
Step 4: Hang thin chains from the ceiling every 2-3 inches or so.
Step 5: Cast Astral Projection from within the room.
Step 6: ........ ?
Step 7: profit!


You are now inhabiting a projection that can move around in the material plane and affect it physically as if it were real. You can be slain-but it only takes you 30 minutes to form a new body and come back with a vengeance.

The dimensional locks and forbiddance in your home prevent anyone from plane-shifting inside.
Because your home is extradimensional, it has no ties to the ethereal or shadow planes-so no-one can enter that way.
Even if your enemies employ a spell such as Wish or Miracle that disregards magical barriers, the chains hanging from the ceiling occupy the space. No-one can magically travel in the same space as a solid object-and the chains are a solid object.

[Sir Giacomo]

Step 1: Use Genesis to create your own tiny personal plane or employ an extradimensional home of some sort.
Step 2: Cast Dimensional Lock on it.
Step 3: Cast Forbiddance on it.
Step 4: Hang thin chains from the ceiling every 2-3 inches or so.
Step 5: Cast Astral Projection from within the room.
Step 6: ........ ?
Step 7: profit!

You can only cast astral projection from the prime material plane. You can likewise not enter the prime material plane with your astral body, only the astral plane, and other planes.

- Giacomo

[kme]

Well if you know where the heroes are, it shouldn't be too hard to kill them (assuming that you are a caster).

For example: Instead of sending some lower level minions against PC, you can simply cast gate six times and summon six pit fiends to teleport and kill them. Or you can cast time stop, then spam delayed blast fireballs from maximum possible distance, and then teleport away.

There are many other tactics that are also pretty effective. If nothing works, there is still an option to go and kill some high CR but not very smart monsters until you get to level 21. Then, you just have to take epic spellcasting .

[Aquillion]

1) No, you take Sorcerer first, for 4 levels, then Rogue 1, throwing all your skill points into the skills in that one Rogue level.

It doesn't work that way. You can't save up skill points over levels to spend them when you take a class that has the class skills you want. You're also giving up a ton of skill points by not taking Rogue first.

Now, what you could do is take rogue first + able learner... but you'll have to be human.