jasin
Explorer
A woman like Lianne, however lightly she might try to tread through the lives of common men, is bound to leave some broken hearts in her trail. And following on that trail went an wizened little crone, offering those pining after Lianne riches, oblivion or power, according to their desire... in exchange for the tears shed after the Sword-dancer of Morn.
The crone was in truth Avaia the Obsidian Bitch, a demon queen whose plans have been thwarted by Lianne on numerous occasion. Using unspeakable magic, she used one thousand and one tears shed after Lianne to impregnate herself, and gave birth to a beautiful girl: Nialle, who will come to be known as the Black Swan, and the Mistress of the Silken Chain.
Nialle wanders the same lands as Lianne, keeping far enough out of the paladin's way to make confrontation unlikely, but close enough that Lianne has plenty opportunity to witness her handiwork: Nialle can make brother fall upon brother, father upon son, or daughter turn upon mother with a word... and does, since she's utterly evil. She leaves behind her a trail of ghost villages, the inhabitants fallen victim to each other in jealous frenzies, or to Nialle's demonic powers in sensual orgies. Curiously, there have been two survivors so far: both men that had been, at some time, visited by the wizened crone.
Lianne now hunts the demoness, and the day of reckoning approaches. On the day the two cross swords, much beauty must be lost to the world, regardless of who prevails.
Female succubus Brd4/Blk4; CR ??; Medium Outsider (chaotic, evil); HD 6d8+4d6+4d10+98 (164 hp); Init +5; Spd 30 ft., fly 50 ft.; AC 43 (touch 20, flat-footed 38), BAB +13; Grap +19; Atk +24/+19/+14 melee (1d8+13 plus 2d6 unholy plus human bane/19-20, Nialle's longsword) or +22/+17/+12 ranged (1d8+9/x3, longbow); S/R 5 ft./5 ft.; SA energy drain, spell-like abilities, spells, summon demon, smite evil, rebuke undead 21/day, sneak attack +1d6, detect good; SQ aura of evil, bardic music, bardic knowledge, inspire courage +1, dark blessing, DR 10/cold iron or good, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to electricity and poison, resisance to acid 10, cold 10, fire 10, SR 18, telepathy 100 ft., tongues; AL CE; SV Fort +39, Ref +37, Will +34; Str 22, Dex 21, Con 24, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 46.
Skills and Feats: Bardic Knowledge +9, Bluff +39, Concentration +25, Diplomacy +37, Disguise +36, Escape artist +17, Hide +20, Intimidate +39, Knowledge (religion) +18, Listen +14, Move silently +18, Perform (dance) +39, Spot +13, Cleave, Divine Might, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Snowflake Wardance.
Equipment: Nialle's Breastplate of Beauty, Nialle's sword, belt of Constitution +6, boots of speed, tome of leadership and influence +5 (read), cloak of resistance +4, gloves of Strength +6, ring of deflection +4, amulet of natural armour +4, dusty rose prism ioun stone, pale green prism ioun stone, +2 mighty [Str 22] longbow.
Bard spells known (3/7/5, DC 28 + level):
0--ghost sound, lullaby, mage hand, message, prestidigitation, summon instrument
1st--hideous laughter, silent image, undetectable alignment.
2nd--heroism, mirror image.
Blackguard spells prepared (2/2, DC 12 + level):
1st--corrupt weapon, cure light wounds.
2nd--cure moderate wounds (2).
Spell-like abilities: At will--charm monster (DC 32), detect good, detect thoughts (DC 30), ethereal jaunt, polymorph (humanoid only), suggestion (DC 31), greater teleport. CL 12th.
Nialle's Breastplate of Beauty is a +5 mithral breastplate that grants her a +6 bonus to Charisma and Dexterity, a +1 luck bonus to weapon attack and damage rolls, the effects of a circlet of persuasion, 15 rounds of displacement (as per greater cloak of displacement). When Nialle scratches the surface with her claw, the breastplate produces the effect of a chime of interruption. Market price: 251,650 gp.
Nialle's longsword is a +3 ghost touch, unholy, human bane luck blade (0 wishes) of subtlety. Market price: 138,000 gp.
Powerup Results (heroism, Snowflake Wardance, Divine Might, haste, mirror image, displacement): AC 44 (50% miss chance, 1d4+1 mirror images); Atk +45/+45/+40/+35 melee (1d8+28 plus 2d6 unholy plus human bane/19-20, Nialle's longsword) and +37 melee (1d6+22, claw); SV Fort +41, Ref +39, Will +36. +2 to all skills.
Comments:
First off... Cha 46! She's quite litteraly off the chart: the bonus spells table in the SRD goes only to 45, then just says "etc. . ."
40-point buy, ECL 20, PC-grade equipment (appropriate for ECL 20). Some 30k gp left over for stuff I forgot.
This is a variation on Lianne's theme. Sure, it's an evil succubus, but the basic idea is the same: a Cha-based melee warrior. In the end, she's comparable to Lianne, but misses the deadly iaijutsu first strike ability, and so is weaker in toe-to-toe melee. However, with Cha 46, Nialle can also use her racial spell-likes to devastating effect.
If she were to be used as an NPC, you could do all sorts of funny stuff with her CR, if you wanted to go all rules lawyer: a succubus is CR 7. Blackguard levels are nonassociated, since it's a warrior class, and succubi are not warriors. Bard levels are nonassociated, since succubi don't possess bardic spellcasting. So a succubus Brd4/Blk4 is CR 11! Even with NPC gear, I think Nialle could make a pretty hideous CR 11.
Speaking of NPC gear, what kind of equipment should an NPC Nialle have? To take a simpler example: a succubur Rog1 is a CR 8, ECL 13 creature. How is she supposed to be equipped, if one wants to go strictly by the book? As an 8th-level NPC? As a 13th-level NPC?
It'd be kind of neat if fought with claws: they should work with Snowflake Wardance, by the spirit of it (I can't check the letter right now). But 2 attacks at ECL 20 sucks. Oh well.
Notice the huge amount of bard bonus spells. Going beyond ECL 20, it might be a good idea to focus on Brd instead of Blk, and get Arcane Strike.
Does ghost touch enable you to hurt material opponents while you're ethereal? I was certain it did (that's why she has a ghost touch sword... ethereal jaunt at will!), but looking at the ability description in the SRD, it doesn't mention etherealness at all! What a rip-off. I guess she could always save a better enhancement bonus by +1, or something.
If the ethereal jaunt + ghost touch trick doesn't work, she'd be wise to get some sort of improved invisibility item, modeled on boots of speed or greater cloak of displacement. How much should it cost? The boots follow the (spell level) x (caster level) x 2000 x (uses per day / 5) formula for use activated items, but displacement doesn't: by the formula, it should be something like 18000 gp, instead of 50k.
Anyway, following the formula, 10 rounds of invisibility per day (like boots of speed) would cost 16000 gp and it would let her use her +4 to attack and +4 to damage from her the subtlety even when she's not flanking, or surprising.
Or she could just get a wand of improved invisibilty. Getting wands of some bardic spells might be useful to Lianne too, I only just thought of that now.
I priced the standard abilities for the sword normally, adding +20,000 gp for subtlety (as sword of subtlety) and +20,000 gp for the abilities of a luck blade with no wishes. Sword of subtlety is a +1 sword with the extra ability as described, and costs 22,000 gp, so it should stand to reason that the ability itself should cost +20,000 gp. The same goes for the luck blade.
... hm, wait, it doesn't! I just checked and the luck blade is a +2 sword. That would mean the luck ability is only +14,000 gp! Pretty cheap, no? OTOH, the wishes in the sword are overpriced, IMO. It seems as though they're priced as secondary abilties (+50%) which isn't really fair: there's no real advantage to having a wish in your sword as opposed to in a book. OK, the stat books only have a specific use, but I think it'd be better to give some small discount on the books, and price the wishes as the books now are, at 27500 gp each.
The crone was in truth Avaia the Obsidian Bitch, a demon queen whose plans have been thwarted by Lianne on numerous occasion. Using unspeakable magic, she used one thousand and one tears shed after Lianne to impregnate herself, and gave birth to a beautiful girl: Nialle, who will come to be known as the Black Swan, and the Mistress of the Silken Chain.
Nialle wanders the same lands as Lianne, keeping far enough out of the paladin's way to make confrontation unlikely, but close enough that Lianne has plenty opportunity to witness her handiwork: Nialle can make brother fall upon brother, father upon son, or daughter turn upon mother with a word... and does, since she's utterly evil. She leaves behind her a trail of ghost villages, the inhabitants fallen victim to each other in jealous frenzies, or to Nialle's demonic powers in sensual orgies. Curiously, there have been two survivors so far: both men that had been, at some time, visited by the wizened crone.
Lianne now hunts the demoness, and the day of reckoning approaches. On the day the two cross swords, much beauty must be lost to the world, regardless of who prevails.
Female succubus Brd4/Blk4; CR ??; Medium Outsider (chaotic, evil); HD 6d8+4d6+4d10+98 (164 hp); Init +5; Spd 30 ft., fly 50 ft.; AC 43 (touch 20, flat-footed 38), BAB +13; Grap +19; Atk +24/+19/+14 melee (1d8+13 plus 2d6 unholy plus human bane/19-20, Nialle's longsword) or +22/+17/+12 ranged (1d8+9/x3, longbow); S/R 5 ft./5 ft.; SA energy drain, spell-like abilities, spells, summon demon, smite evil, rebuke undead 21/day, sneak attack +1d6, detect good; SQ aura of evil, bardic music, bardic knowledge, inspire courage +1, dark blessing, DR 10/cold iron or good, darkvision 60 ft., immunity to electricity and poison, resisance to acid 10, cold 10, fire 10, SR 18, telepathy 100 ft., tongues; AL CE; SV Fort +39, Ref +37, Will +34; Str 22, Dex 21, Con 24, Int 18, Wis 14, Cha 46.
Skills and Feats: Bardic Knowledge +9, Bluff +39, Concentration +25, Diplomacy +37, Disguise +36, Escape artist +17, Hide +20, Intimidate +39, Knowledge (religion) +18, Listen +14, Move silently +18, Perform (dance) +39, Spot +13, Cleave, Divine Might, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Snowflake Wardance.
Equipment: Nialle's Breastplate of Beauty, Nialle's sword, belt of Constitution +6, boots of speed, tome of leadership and influence +5 (read), cloak of resistance +4, gloves of Strength +6, ring of deflection +4, amulet of natural armour +4, dusty rose prism ioun stone, pale green prism ioun stone, +2 mighty [Str 22] longbow.
Bard spells known (3/7/5, DC 28 + level):
0--ghost sound, lullaby, mage hand, message, prestidigitation, summon instrument
1st--hideous laughter, silent image, undetectable alignment.
2nd--heroism, mirror image.
Blackguard spells prepared (2/2, DC 12 + level):
1st--corrupt weapon, cure light wounds.
2nd--cure moderate wounds (2).
Spell-like abilities: At will--charm monster (DC 32), detect good, detect thoughts (DC 30), ethereal jaunt, polymorph (humanoid only), suggestion (DC 31), greater teleport. CL 12th.
Nialle's Breastplate of Beauty is a +5 mithral breastplate that grants her a +6 bonus to Charisma and Dexterity, a +1 luck bonus to weapon attack and damage rolls, the effects of a circlet of persuasion, 15 rounds of displacement (as per greater cloak of displacement). When Nialle scratches the surface with her claw, the breastplate produces the effect of a chime of interruption. Market price: 251,650 gp.
Nialle's longsword is a +3 ghost touch, unholy, human bane luck blade (0 wishes) of subtlety. Market price: 138,000 gp.
Powerup Results (heroism, Snowflake Wardance, Divine Might, haste, mirror image, displacement): AC 44 (50% miss chance, 1d4+1 mirror images); Atk +45/+45/+40/+35 melee (1d8+28 plus 2d6 unholy plus human bane/19-20, Nialle's longsword) and +37 melee (1d6+22, claw); SV Fort +41, Ref +39, Will +36. +2 to all skills.
Comments:
First off... Cha 46! She's quite litteraly off the chart: the bonus spells table in the SRD goes only to 45, then just says "etc. . ."
40-point buy, ECL 20, PC-grade equipment (appropriate for ECL 20). Some 30k gp left over for stuff I forgot.
This is a variation on Lianne's theme. Sure, it's an evil succubus, but the basic idea is the same: a Cha-based melee warrior. In the end, she's comparable to Lianne, but misses the deadly iaijutsu first strike ability, and so is weaker in toe-to-toe melee. However, with Cha 46, Nialle can also use her racial spell-likes to devastating effect.
If she were to be used as an NPC, you could do all sorts of funny stuff with her CR, if you wanted to go all rules lawyer: a succubus is CR 7. Blackguard levels are nonassociated, since it's a warrior class, and succubi are not warriors. Bard levels are nonassociated, since succubi don't possess bardic spellcasting. So a succubus Brd4/Blk4 is CR 11! Even with NPC gear, I think Nialle could make a pretty hideous CR 11.
Speaking of NPC gear, what kind of equipment should an NPC Nialle have? To take a simpler example: a succubur Rog1 is a CR 8, ECL 13 creature. How is she supposed to be equipped, if one wants to go strictly by the book? As an 8th-level NPC? As a 13th-level NPC?
It'd be kind of neat if fought with claws: they should work with Snowflake Wardance, by the spirit of it (I can't check the letter right now). But 2 attacks at ECL 20 sucks. Oh well.
Notice the huge amount of bard bonus spells. Going beyond ECL 20, it might be a good idea to focus on Brd instead of Blk, and get Arcane Strike.
Does ghost touch enable you to hurt material opponents while you're ethereal? I was certain it did (that's why she has a ghost touch sword... ethereal jaunt at will!), but looking at the ability description in the SRD, it doesn't mention etherealness at all! What a rip-off. I guess she could always save a better enhancement bonus by +1, or something.
If the ethereal jaunt + ghost touch trick doesn't work, she'd be wise to get some sort of improved invisibility item, modeled on boots of speed or greater cloak of displacement. How much should it cost? The boots follow the (spell level) x (caster level) x 2000 x (uses per day / 5) formula for use activated items, but displacement doesn't: by the formula, it should be something like 18000 gp, instead of 50k.
Anyway, following the formula, 10 rounds of invisibility per day (like boots of speed) would cost 16000 gp and it would let her use her +4 to attack and +4 to damage from her the subtlety even when she's not flanking, or surprising.
Or she could just get a wand of improved invisibilty. Getting wands of some bardic spells might be useful to Lianne too, I only just thought of that now.
I priced the standard abilities for the sword normally, adding +20,000 gp for subtlety (as sword of subtlety) and +20,000 gp for the abilities of a luck blade with no wishes. Sword of subtlety is a +1 sword with the extra ability as described, and costs 22,000 gp, so it should stand to reason that the ability itself should cost +20,000 gp. The same goes for the luck blade.
... hm, wait, it doesn't! I just checked and the luck blade is a +2 sword. That would mean the luck ability is only +14,000 gp! Pretty cheap, no? OTOH, the wishes in the sword are overpriced, IMO. It seems as though they're priced as secondary abilties (+50%) which isn't really fair: there's no real advantage to having a wish in your sword as opposed to in a book. OK, the stat books only have a specific use, but I think it'd be better to give some small discount on the books, and price the wishes as the books now are, at 27500 gp each.
