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Campaign's villian

   
Campaign's villian

OK, this is the BBEG for a campaign I'm working on atm. He's a Necromancy specialist Wizard (prohibited schools Illusion and Transmutation), with levels of Cleric. I've got his ability scores set out, and am wanting to give him the best feat selection that I can. Any suggestions? Here's what I have for him so far.

Human
Wizard 17/Cleric 8
Str 12
Dex 16
Con 14
Int 22
Wis 20
Cha 18

Feats I definitely am going to take, Spell Penetration, Combat Casting, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell, Silent Spell and Still Spell

I'd also appreciate suggestions as to the best spells for his spellbook. Fireball will be one of them, for story-related purposes, as will all the Summon Undead spells and Animate Dead, but beyond that I'm open to suggestions.
Any books are allowed except Psionics and the Tome of Battle.

For spells you should definitely use the negative energy spells from the cleric levels to improve your undead basically the inflict wounds spells

Well, what does he do?! That would help in designing him. I mean, if you actually let the heroes charge him and engage him in melee it's different than if they have to wade through monstrous hordes of undead to deal with him.

ok the Min/Maxer in me is cringing on this one.
First off mystic theurge would very much improve his abilities. If you don't want to loose his cleric levels for rebuke undead and domain abilities you don't have to, just drop 10 levels of wizard, you'll loose 2 wizard bonus feats in return for 10 levels of cleric spell casting. I can see one feat you can easily stand to loose: Combat Casting. Serves no real purpose unless it's the prerequisite for another feat.

Since the players will likely be epic level by this point the low level spells won't matter for the most part.
Spell Compendium is THE book for all your spell needs as it condenses a lot of the best of many other books into one book of nothing but spells.
However in epic levels any non-epic spell pales in comparison to any epic level spell.

BBEG's should be stingy on the Save or Die type spells or even the 'just die' spells (with epic level spells this is easily possible). However Save or Suck spells are fair game and should be used often and lavishly. Go for big impressive spells and try to affect as many PC's as possible, there's on average 4 PCs but only 1 BBEG. While you're at it read the Evil Overlords Handbook. You're free to make him a ruthless bastard with the common sense to do things right or break every rule in the book and ham it up with cliche after cliche, or somewhere inbetween.

From the PHB:
Time Stop: Yep people just love this one, unless it's someone else using it then they hate it.
Hold Monster mass/Quickened hold person mass: at least 1 or two of the party should make the save and if they all happen to fail have the BBEG spend a round or two gloating or the "explain the master plan" bit that Big Bad Evil Guys like to do for some absurd reason.
Symbol of insanity: any of the symbols are great if the party has no trapfinder or are lax about it, even better if the BBEG happens to be undead or uses the Spell Compendium spell Veil of Undeath he is immune to symbols and doesn't set them off either.
Polymorph any Object: Useful in SO many situations. Create a Spellwarped Half Dragon Half Fiendish Fire Giant for your opponents to play with if you need a second to catch your breath, create a momentary shield in a dome of iron 5 feet thick, fly above your opponents and turn a coin into a 15x15 foot lead brick.
Mind Blank: Do it
Ottos Irresistable Dance: Do it to anyone who doesn't have Mind Blank up. Then laugh.
Sunburst: Blind them ALL, just don't use it when your undead minions are around.
Moment of Prescience: For that time you just HAVE to make the save.
Inflict critical wounds mass: harm your enemies AND heal your undead minions at the same time
Blasphemy: Requires high caster level
Anti-life Shell: keep the good guys away from you.
Forbidance: Block planar travel and hurts people of a different alignment, scatter it around randomly and just walking down a 30 foot hallway can wind up getting zapped 3 or 4 times.

From the spell compendium: Obedient Avalanch, Summon Elemental Monolith (one of the few summons that will give epic level characters a pause), Reaving dispell (great for those that use large numbers of buff spells), Greater Bestow Curse, Maddening whispers

Well, when the party first encounters this guy, they won't be anywhere near ready to beat him, having just taken down (probably by the skin of their teeth) a 17th level Lich wizard. They think the Lich is the BBEG, but he's actually this guys puppet (gotta love Rebuke Undead, especially with some of the powers this guy has behind it!)

All BBEGs need a good schtick. What's his? There should be some theme he embodies or some overarching goal he feels that only he is qualified to carry out. Does this baddie think he is the personification of death? Give him grim reaper themed stuff. Does he get off on how weak his enemies are? Give him craploads of save or suck spells (particularly level drains with no saves).

I'd also recommend Spell Penetration, just to make sure you get through the PC's spell resistance... or that of extraplanar creatures he'd like to control.

Hmmm. Well, I don't know if it could be considered a shtick, but he wants to figure out the secrets of undeath. Not because he wants to become undead, but because he wants to find a way for people to transcend death without becoming undead. This has only been fueled by his finding a powerful ancient relic (which I came up with), the Necronomicon des Mortes. I'll post it in the house rulse forum and link it here in a few minutes.

Ah, perfect. You've got a nice holier than thou type villain who believes that everything he does is for the greater good. The ends justify the means and all that.

I imagine that such a villain would avoid overtly evil spells (besides creating undead, which I'm sure is easy enough to rationalize away), because he quite likely sees himself as a good person who must do terrible things for a cause greater than himself.

He'll probably enjoy using the agents of evil (demons, devils, intelligent undead) to do his bidding, seeing himself as pulling one over on the powers of darkness. Nevermind that angels wouldn't answer his call anyway...

If he enjoys melee combat, the Death Devotion feat from Complete Champion might be a nice touch. Divine Spell Power from Complete Divine might also be a good route.





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