Interesting Gestalt Villains (DnD 3.5) - OG Myth-Weavers

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Interesting Gestalt Villains (DnD 3.5)

   
Interesting Gestalt Villains (DnD 3.5)

Precisely what it says on the tin. What are some interesting villains you can come up with using the gestalt rules? Powerful is good, but not necessary. How did you use the villain in question? Did your players love or hate the encounter? Or maybe you're just here to theorycraft, and that's fine too.

I suppose I'll start

Arthur Glendenning
Lesser Tiefling Warlock 5//Urban Ranger2/Scout 3
(Modern day 3.5)

Invocations
Spider-walk
Miasmic Cloud
Eldritch Spear

Notable Feats
Swift Hunter
Ability Focus (Eldritch Blast)
Improved Skirmish

The situation: Arthur was 2 levels lower than the party and had just set off an explosion at the local police station before using his eldritch spear ala a sniper rifle to start picking off survivors who were pulling themselves out of the rubble.

The party initially attempted to chase him on foot, but he was quite a bit faster than they were and had the parkour and stealth ability to be a real thorn in their sides.

Since he was constantly moving (and using spiderclimb to make it difficult for his enemies to reach him), he typically managed to activate improved skirmish, meaning that his eldritch blast was doing 3d6 (Base) + 4d6 (skirmish) damage. The +3 bonus to AC he was getting for free every round made him harder to hit with ranged attacks, and when the party decided to stop pulling their punches (After about three rounds), they tried to use flight to outmaneuver him.

At that point, he ducked into an apartment building and led the party through cramped hallways, using his Miasmic cloud to keep them from getting a clear shot on him (and fatiguing them when they failed their saves), and cut the power to the building. It was at that point the party said "Screw it" and decided to just set the building on fire.

Lot of innocent people died. But not Arthur. See, he's a Tiefling. Meaning he's fire resistant. The party of course, didn't know he was a tiefling.

Arthur used the party's brash decision against them, rallying the people's support to take down the "Tyrannical" Government (and the players who were on their side). The party eventually got their revenge, but not until after being outmaneuvered and humiliated three more times).

The best part? Arthur wasn't supposed to survive the original encounter. The party was supposed to steamroll him.

Arthur's Final build
Warlock9/Hellfire Warlock 3//Ranger 9/Scout 3

One of the things that makes not just a great challenge but a great villain is that they are fun not just to fight against but to play against, and it looks like you managed to accomplish that quite well with Arthur, especially using gestalt rules not just for "more power" (not that that's a bad thing) but to fully flesh out the concept and the character's abilities.

I also like how you took an unexpected result of the party not steamrolling Arthur and turned into a memorable villain encounter!

On a related note, I played a sort of Swift Hunter Warlock build in an E6 gestalt game once, and it was a surprising amount of fun.


Here are a few of my favorite villains where gestalt was core to their use, tl;dr and crunch at the bottom of each:






I also enjoy E6, and I threw a "Villain" at my party in an evil game. With this game, the party started at level 6, and then started gestalting their characters (1 level at a time) when they gained an extra 500, 1000, 3000, 6000, 10000, and finally 15000 xp (Gaining bonus feats every 5k as normal).

The party decided to play a buttload of spellcasters. We had a Ray-Wizard/Rogue, A Cleric/Blackguard, a Spellthief/Assassin, and a Duskblade/Ranger.

They had been tasked by their half-fiend employer to slaughter his last remaining descendants (A tiefling woman, her husband, and their young child). The party did so with Gusto, but the Father (A level 1 commoner named Brennan) survived, after randomly stabilizing at -7 after they left him for dead.

So I said screw it. Let's have some fun with this. Starting at Level 1, his build progressed like this

Commoner1
Commoner1/Survivor 1
Commoner1/Survivor 2
Commoner1/Survivor 3
Commoner1/Survivor 4
Commoner1/Survivor 5

Then when he gestalted, he went Forsaker, so his final build was:
Commoner1/Survivor5//Forsaker 6.

He had Spell Reflection, Evasion, Improved Uncanny Dodge, DR 8/- (5 from Survivor, 3 from Forsaker), Spell Resistance 16, Fast Healing 2, and all his attacks were treated as +3 weapons. Finally, he had a +6 inherent bonus spread out among his stats. He had the save boosting feats and the mage slayer feats.

Now the party didn't actually meet Brennan again until near the end of the campaign, but his influence was felt for the majority of the game. He went from town to town warning them about the party. Every time they rolled up somewhere new to cause havoc, the militia was mobilized and had uncanny foreknowledge about the party's favoured tactics. Towns they would have normally roflstomped started putting up incredible fights, and when they (eventually) won, they'd always find a letter from their mysterious foe mocking them.

Eventually, they found out who Brennan was and laid a trap for him. They hit him hard, but Brennan had become a tank of the highest order. Instead of telling the party that their melee attacks had little effect (because of his DR), I told them that no matter how much damage they did, and how much of a mangled mess he had become, he just kept coming. Sword through the chest? He'd headbutt the Duskblade. Teeth knocked out by the Cleric's shield? He'd spit them out and tackle him.

Fireball? He'd be thrown clear of the explosion and land hard, but he'd just get up and throw vials of acid in their faces. Eventually they tried to turn tail and run, but Brennan was implacable. They crashed through the underbrush, trying to get away from this juggernaut of a man who wouldn't stay down. They could hear him panting, shouting and growling at them while they tried to hide, but he always found them.

They didn't survive.

TLR, Evil party inadvertently creates a Fantasy version of the Punisher and gets taken out.





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