Creating An Invincible Adversary to Put Up Against The PCs.

[Leliel]

Well, as it says on the tin, I want a Pyramid Head-Juggernaut-Matrix Agent type villain on one of my BBEG's team-You know, the kind of baddie who would be probably be able to withstand a nuke while being barely scratched, able to walk through walls while not being ethereal, and utterly determined to complete his mission. Not so much an obstacle for the PCs, but rather something to run away from really fast (emphasis on really; unlike Pyramid Head, I plan on him being rather fast as well).

The problem is, I want stats that are something other than "higher than yours", so I can codify exactly what his abilites are, and how he uses them. Of course, with stats, there is always the possibility that he will lose, which kind of diminishes the impact.

So, could you suggest ideas on how to stat him with him still being invincible?

Few things:

1) I want him to be a humanoid, albeit in a battle suit. I also want him to be relatively intelligent, so that I have an excuse to use his powers to attack the PCs weaknesses.

2) Yes, they eventually will defeat him, but they're going to have to solve a puzzle during the fight if they want to.

[SurlySeraph]

Give him Regeneration 20/some rare material, so that they can knock him unconscious but he won't stay unconscious for long.

[Signmaker]

Hrm.

First, load up on Con. Seeing how much of a tank this guy is, you want it to be ridiculously high. This also gives you the benefit of a high Fort save, which aids in being 'invincible'.

Second, create an ability, that only he has. This ability states that you use his Con, rather than Dex, for Reflex saves, due to his form (I'm the Juggernaut, *****!).

Third, create a way for Mr. Tank to survive will saves, easily. Nothing bites more than failing a Will save for an unstoppable BBEG. Possibly link his ability survive will saves to his armor, a la Juggernaut's helmet.

Tack on Improved Evasion, Mettle, and SR. DR should not be an issue, because his HP will already be impressive, and you'll likely give him a nice set of AC bonuses.

As to the rest of the stats, totally up to you.

[Kurald Galain]

Third, create a way for Mr. Tank to survive will saves, easily.

There's a feat that lets you apply your con modifier to will saves...

[Squash Monster]

Popular ways to become nigh-invincible:

Ring of Evasion + Starmantle Cloak

Become a shambling mound and zap yourself with electricity

Half-dragon troll or similar nonsense


My recommendation would be to use the shambling mound trick. Two builds:

Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant with Assume Supernatural Ability and a monkey familiar/companion that can UMD a wand that casts the electric version of Acid Splash. Badguy changes forms, monkey rides on his back and starts providing the juice.

Or, since you said battlesuit, how about we just take that up a notch to a full-blown powersuit? Make an artificer with clockwork armor that has some low-level electricity damage over time spell as a continuous effect on the wearer. He casts Shapechange or Polymorph+Assume Supernatural Ability on himself before loading into the suit to become a shambling mound. (He's a badguy, just say the suit is big and mis-shapen. Badguys don't need to worry about the rules for what kind of equipment shambling mounds can wear).

[Kizara]

Sentient Golem, complete with total magic immunity.

-Give him a very large amount of HD, like 30.
-Make him Huge.
-Give him Freedom , True Seeing and Foresight as continuous effects.
-Give him a very high Str and Cha score, such as 40.
-Have him have some kind of aura of power, that allows him to apply his Cha modifier to basically everything (AC, to-hit, Saves, Damage, HP, etc)
-If that isn't enough, give him a +5 luck bonus to AC, attacks, damage, saves and checks as well.
-Give him a very high amount of natural armor, like 25.
-Give him Uncanny Dodge (can't be flanked).
-Regen 30/Epic and Adamantine
-DR 15/Epic and Adamantine
-Fast Healing 15
-If you want, also give him fly 200ft (perfect).


Offense:
Give him a gargantuan 2HDed weapon that you like the flavor of, such as a maul, heavy flail or greatsword. Now, have it be extremely nasty but undisarmable or sunderable (its literally part of him). Some ideas are the negative level effect of the Life-Stealer axe, keen, bashing and some kind of brutal spell effect on a crit (or nat 20) such as disintergrate, slay living, prismatic spray, etc.

For feats, include Power attack, cleave, great cleave, improved bull rush, improved sunder, combat brute, shock trooper, elusive target, awesome blow, dire charge, and other nice epic feats. Remember, 30 HD is alot of feats. :)

Some ideas for SLAs:

Greater Dispel Magic, Dimension Door, Discern Location, Disintegrate, Prismatic Sphere, Gate, Cometfall (its so damn cool), Repair Critical Damage, Etheral Jaunt, Stinking Cloud, Wall of Force, Cloudkill, Prismatic Spray.

And that's primarily using Core + ELH. If you want to include the cheap spells in the SpC, then you have alot more options. :)

[Kurald Galain]

Popular ways to become nigh-invincible:

Play a Black Pudding, preferably a fiendish one...

[Pronounceable]

Give him arbitrarily high stats and be done with it. AC 70, all saves at +45, DR 30 would be enough.

[Dr Bwaa]

Regeneration as the Tarrasque. Stat his other abilities if you want to know what he technically can do. If you're going to make him invincible, like cnsvnc said, just make him invincible and be done with it.

[Behold_the_Void]

Just stat him how you want him to be when he's defeatable. Then, take what you want from there (like his attacks, his move speed, whatever) and keep it for the indestructable form, everything other stat becomes "yes."

[Jacob Orlove]

Don't forget to include a special ability to not fail on a roll of 1. Otherwise, those saves and attacks will bottom out at a 5% chance of failure, and that's simply unacceptable.

Make sure to have high enough numbers that you'd otherwise succeed on a 1, though.

Like others said, DR and/or regeneration and/or Starmantle Cloak type effects are good. Feel free to make the character immune to physical damage.

100% miss chance is good too, as is energy immunity (note: not immunity to particular types of energy, but rather immunity to everything with an energy type).

You'll want constant Mind Blank and Freedom of Movement effects, and probably also True Seeing (although you may or may not want to improve the range). Blindsight is good too.

Lots of skills. Sense Motive, Spot, Listen, and Spellcraft are particularly important, to avoid surprises from the PCs.

You'll need all kinds of movement modes: at minimum, high land speed, high fly speed, the ability to go ethereal, the ability to teleport/DDoor, some form of planar travel (if the PCs are capable of same), and possibly stuff like Earth Glide, a swim speed, etc.

Finally, you'll need a way to ignore all the tricky spells PCs can throw down. SR (or better yet, spell immunity), works, but leaves you vulnerable to no-SR spells (although you'll be immune to many if you've got everything else on this list). Some form of counterspelling might actually be decent here, if you give them the ability to counter spells as an Immediate action (and probably give them a bunch of Swift actions/turn).

Note that you don't need any particularly effective or deadly attacks. I recommend a lot of annoying status conditions (slowed, poisons, ability damage, etc), but nothing that'll outright kill the PCs, even with several hits. You can take your time killing them in a stand up fight anyway. That gives them time to figure out what doesn't work, and then to run away.

[Rutee]

On the note of Regeneration:

Regeneration 20 (Plot) is sufficient. It's the exact same thing as saying Regeneration 20 (UBer Rare Material), since you'll ban the material being obtained until you're ready for it anyway, It also means you don't have to ban something the players might actually want.

[FinalJustice]

Avoid pumping his equips too much, your PCs will loot it.

What about a Crusader/Cleric/Ruby Knight Vindicator? Lots of actions, spellcasting and ToB goodness. Pump up some templates like Half Dragon AND Half Fiend (There's a spell for this), preferrably, on top of some high HD low CR creature, maybe some kind of giant or whatever.

[Emperor Tippy]

Give him continuous timeless body (the 9th level psionic power) as an Ex ability. Then add in any other abilities that you want. He can take a direct attack from the combined power of every deity in the greyhawk Parthenon and not even blink.

[Eurus]

Just on the off chance they actually kill the dang thing before you're ready, it might be prudent to add in a Contingent Teleportation for him to pop off and lick his wounds. Or, better yet, Death Throes like a Balor and keep a few dozen clones around to replace him. If the 'power suit' is irreplaceable, some kind of contingent Teleport Any Object to send it back to his lair to be patched up, or even upgraded. XD I'm willing to bet that it will definitely deter them from trying to smash him more than once, when they see him marching toward them again, even stronger than before, after having mauled their party last time and finally being consumed in a giant freaking explosion.

Actually, Death Throes is a good idea anyway, if you want to make sure they don't get any of that equipment...

[The Sandman]

Why not actually make him a tarrasque, somehow polymorphed into a human form and then awakened? And have the reason he works for the BBEG be simple gratitude for giving him both sentience and a way to control the hunger.

[Curmudgeon]

Ring of Evasion + Starmantle Cloak

Don't do this. It's stinky limburger, and your players will want the same for themselves.

Become a shambling mound and zap yourself with electricity

This is perfectly legal, and comes out of the core books. I like it, because the 1d4 points of temporary CON gain is independent of the amount of electricity damage dealt.

Druid/Wizard/Arcane Hierophant with Assume Supernatural Ability and a monkey familiar/companion that can UMD a wand that casts the electric version of Acid Splash.

That's Electric Jolt; see page 78 of Spell Compendium.

The only problem here is that this form is s l o w : 20' movement. You'll want to use most of the tricks to increase speed.

As Signmakerens already posted, you'll want mettle to use your augmented Fortitude save. I also like the Clerical Pride domain, so that you can reroll any 1 on a failed save, once. With über-CON you should only fail on a 1, so this is excellent. If you don't want to take a level of Cleric, a Domain Draught (Magic Item Compendium) will give you the granted power of a particular domain for 24 hours.

[Naleh]

Avoid pumping his equips too much, your PCs will loot it.

What about a Crusader/Cleric/Ruby Knight Vindicator? Lots of actions, spellcasting and ToB goodness. Pump up some templates like Half Dragon AND Half Fiend (There's a spell for this), preferrably, on top of some high HD low CR creature, maybe some kind of giant or whatever.

Why bother with a spell? Just apply the Half Dragon and Half Fiend templates from birth. It's perfectly legal. (There's no rule that a character can only have two halves.)

[expirement10K14]

Divine Ranks.

[ColonelFuster]

As my first post on these forums, I would like to put in a word for one of my own builds for invincibility... if you merely pump up their Armor Class, there's no way that the heroes will beat them. Figure out the absolute maximum damage that your most powerful caster or fighter can do, then quadruple that amount. Don't be afraid to give them effects that you just totally make up yourself if he's wearing wierd armor- it gives him the ability to cast maximizd magic missile at will/other cheesiness. I heartily agree with DR/plot, (it was originally posted in Heroes of Horror, I believe?) I have used it many times. Who would have guessed that the only way to overcome his DR is by hitting him with a holy symbol or manacles? It's good times, but only if you have smart players.

I believe it would help if you told us the level of your group.

[Artanis]

You could always use the Double Force Dragon trick.

[FMArthur]

I kinda disagree with not letting the PCs hit the guy. I think it leaves a better impression if his AC is low enough that they can hit him sometimes (not always), but that he can shrug off their damage almost indefinitely, via large HP, DR, and regeneration. Make it seem like they can't really affect him in any meaningful way that lasts more than a couple seconds. They can't diplomance him, can't deter him, distract him, frustrate him, etc. He will kill them if they do not flee immediately. Generally a smart player backs off when he/she can't cause any visible or lasting harm and is rapidly (but not instantly!) losing their HP.

One "Nemesis" monster I made my PCs run from in a campaign was a monster that had tarrasque-esque regeneration but reduced to 10, mild DR, was a large sized humanoid in a cloak with assorted weapons, and as long as he was conscious, every round they were near him I rolled a d6 for each player and they all lost 1 stat point in one of the 6 stats depending on the die roll, and gave it to him. They got it back when they were more than 300ft away or knocked him out (thinking they'd killed him, but he'd always regenerate and come back). That last bit added a sense of urgency that they get away, and gave a lot of player-fear when the ability alerted them to his presence, continuing the hunt. I think it worked out well, and he was a long-term villain monster that followed them unexpectedly even when story-arcs came and went. They never knew when he was coming, but dreaded it like nothing else.

[Eita]

Give him a huge con score and say that his armor makes it so that he uses his con score for all saves. Also, make it so that when he dies the armor explodes, rendering it to molten slag that can never be reassembled into what it was.

[Emperor Tippy]

I'm sorry to say this but most of the ideas presented here won't do jack to make the guy invincible. SR is great but it does nothing to Cindy. AC is great but a natural 20 is always a hit, a 5% chance. It's not great but its doable. HP is great, but again it does not make one invincible.

The 1 and only way to make someone truly invincible in D&D 3.5 is to give them continuous Timeless Body as an Ex ability. Nothing can harm them at all, ever.

Then just add whatever other abilities you want on top of that.

[Xefas]

I've always just taken the character I envision them being and adding the Plot Template, which goes a little like this:

----
"Plot" is an acquired template that can be applied to any creature.

Size and Type are unchanged.

Special Qualities:

Plot Death: This creature cannot be reduced below 1 hit point by any means. This quality counts as either a Supernatural or Extraordinary ability; whichever is more beneficial to the plot at the time.

Invincibility: This creature is immune to all effects that do not result in hit point damage. This quality counts as either a Supernatural or Extraordinary ability; whichever is more beneficial to the plot at the time.

Acting the Part: This creature can appear to be hurt or effected by something, even if they are otherwise undamaged or unaffected by it. In addition, this creature can also not appear to be hurt or effected by something even if they are. This quality counts as either a Supernatural or Extraordinary ability; whichever is more beneficial to the plot at the time.

Easy Out: This creature loses this template and reverts to having the statistics of the base creature if it is ever beneficial to the plot for it to do so. This quality counts as either a Supernatural or Extraordinary ability; whichever is more beneficial to the plot at the time.

Challenge Rating: +0

Level Adjustment: -

[Kizara]

I'm sorry to say this but most of the ideas presented here won't do jack to make the guy invincible. SR is great but it does nothing to Cindy. AC is great but a natural 20 is always a hit, a 5% chance. It's not great but its doable. HP is great, but again it does not make one invincible.

The 1 and only way to make someone truly invincible in D&D 3.5 is to give them continuous Timeless Body as an Ex ability. Nothing can harm them at all, ever.

Then just add whatever other abilities you want on top of that.

I dunno, I think my design is a little more creative then that and gives you a creature with very good abilties and defenses instead of just giving it "invulnerable" as a quality...

[Collin152]

Take the Plot creature, force it into an Anti-Magic field.
It's powers become extraoridinary.
Shapechange.
Ah, wait, can't do that to templated creatures.
I was so close, too.

[Emperor Tippy]

I dunno, I think my design is a little more creative then that and gives you a creature with very good abilties and defenses instead of just giving it "invulnerable" as a quality...

Yes but the OP asked for Invincible. Not just hard to kill. And Timeless Body is how you do invincible.

[Dervag]

Well, that depends on what you mean by "invincible."

If you want an enemy who is "invincible" in the literal sense of unconquerable, then allowing them to recuperate from injury very fast and making them immensely powerful will do.

Thus, the Incredible Hulk, who can regenerate from injuries and who is immensely strong, is arguably "invincible." Well, you might be able to disintegrate him or mindcrush him somehow, but you see what I mean. Because he can come back from (almost) anything you throw at him, he creates the appearance of invincibility.

Whereas if by "invincible" you mean "invulnerable," that's different. First of all, a person may be invulnerable to harm and yet be defeated. Siegfried was invulnerable, but once defeated by being dropped into a deep pit he could not climb out of.

What the original poster probably wants is invincible (the heroes can't stop him and he's strong enough to kill them all if they try to fight him). Invulnerability helps to achieve this, but is not sufficient by itself.

[FMArthur]

Then why bother even asking? It doesn't take a stat-block and an eight page character sheet to remember the two phrases "you miss" and "it fails". It's better to just know what your players' limits are and make an enemy that can be killed, just not at their current level.