Kefka (Level 37 Solo Controller)

[eriktheguy]

FF VI is my favorite game, so I made a boss that's so high level I will probably never use it.
I'm thinking of making the 3 goddess statues lower level solos. Each one gives Kefka a major buff while it is alive, so the players have incentive to destroy them.
Anyways, he's cooler than Sephiroth.
"Life... dreams... hope... Where do they come from? And where do they go? Such meaningless things...I'll destroy them all!"
View attachment Kefka.pdf

Edits:
Re-added the trine attack, which will let Kefka attack one or two more times per round (It got deleted during a crash)
Changed his flail attack to allow one additional target per round.
Added the havoc wing attack because Kefka only had one recharge power (and aside from being bloodied he was pretty much limited to standard actions).
Changed ongoing damage from light of judgement and bonus damage from HATE to 20 (because it's generally 5 damage per tier and I just realized this guy is tier 4...)
Wall of light increased to infinite range, because Kefka used it to nuke far away towns in the game.
Kefka's redesigned At-wills now allow him to provoke multiple OAs on his turn to use his bonus HATE damage against multiple targets per turn.
Yes, I realize that trine lets Kefka blind multiple targets a turn with -4 to save, by that level I'm hoping that a party has some serious contingencies they can pull out of their ass.

The battleground is the top of a high tower made of rubble and rocks. The terrain is mostly flat, with a few very tall rocks for blocking terrain (Kefka likes to stand on these when using light of judgement). About half of the terrain hindering rocks and rubble (mostly for show, I doubt this affects most epic characters).

 

[Mesh Hong]

It looks like a good start, but I would really consider designing it around acting at least 3 times in a round.

Also I can't for the life of me work out what all this "Kefka rolls a d20" or "Kefka rolls 3 d20" are all about at the end of powers?
edit: It's pretty obvious once you read the creature properly!

I am also looking at how "Heartless Angel" would interact with "Chaos Aura" and it looks like it would have an excellent chance of killing all or most of the PCs. It is true that some classes will be able to use their "when first killed powers" but it could still cause a bit of a problem.

I don't really have too much of a problem with a level 37 solo being able to slaughter a level 30 group, and by level 30 the PCs may have some stupendous ways of avoiding that fate, but I thought I would point it out.

 

[Kingreaper]

It looks like a good start, but I would really consider designing it around acting at least 3 times in a round.

Also I can't for the life of me work out what all this "Kefka rolls a d20" or "Kefka rolls 3 d20" are all about at the end of powers?

It looks like it's to trigger Mad Clowns Laughter.

 

[Mesh Hong]

It looks like it's to trigger Mad Clowns Laughter.

LOL, how did I miss that?.......

.....if I'd only learnt to read......

 

[SageofMusic]

Seems really cool. I'd like to throw one of my horrifically overpowered PC characters at it sometime, just to see if Kefka could do some decent damage.

 

[eriktheguy]

I am also looking at how "Heartless Angel" would interact with "Chaos Aura" and it looks like it would have an excellent chance of killing all or most of the PCs. It is true that some classes will be able to use their "when first killed powers" but it could still cause a bit of a problem.

Oops, I definitely missed that one!

 

[eriktheguy]

It looks like a good start, but I would really consider designing it around acting at least 3 times in a round.

Yes on this too.

 

[DracoSuave]

Immune to creatures below 20th level? That's already covered in 'Level 37.' Which is too high. 35 should be the maximum, beyond that you're going into 'need 2s to hit' which is not how you should design challenges. Your endgame encounter should not feel like you need to win the lottery 100 times in order to win at D&D. Epic, yes. Random luck, no.

This creature has absolutely no leader capabilities, and does not interact with allies in any way. He is not of the subrole (leader). In fact, his own aura actually damages and hinders his own creatures... not a (leader) subrole thing to do. The aura says 'Use me alone.' (Leader) means, 'use me with others.'

Heartless Angel and Forsaken should be +41 to hit, not more than that. Yes, I know they are his cool ending moves, but you've already pretty much got a 2 or better to hit so at least allow player's defenses to work.

Heartless Angel has the Healing keyword.... why?

Chaos Aura and Shifting Chaos do not work.

Shifting Chaos changes the damage type associated with Chaos Aura, but Chaos Aura has three damage types. The vulnerability/resistance switching ability doesn't work by a specific damage type. Therefore the only thing this guy will do is use a free action to change all three damage types to 'untyped' or whatever he surmises their vulnerability is. Once all three damage types are the same, the aura will only deal one of those bursts of 2 damage. In fact, they don't stack anyways, as it's an Aura doing it. As such, it is inelegant and probably not what you intended. (Not to mention, it feels less like an attempt to replicate the endboss of FF6, and more of just an attempt to get a chaos-feeling aura on the guy)

Mad Clown's Laughter seems... awkward. You're just rolling random dice to accomplish what 'recharge 6' does elegantly. I like the basic idea of it tho, so what I'd do is remove the additional die rolling (which only exists to play slot machine with what is, in essence, a terribly non-interactive ability) and instead, make it interactive:

Mad Clown's Laughter (whenever a creature has scored a critical hit, at-will, immediate reaction)
Kefka may take a standard action.

 

[eriktheguy]

Immune to creatures below 20th level? That's already covered in 'Level 37.' Which is too high. 35 should be the maximum, beyond that you're going into 'need 2s to hit' which is not how you should design challenges. Your endgame encounter should not feel like you need to win the lottery 100 times in order to win at D&D. Epic, yes. Random luck, no.

That's a diety ability, one that they all get. It's not going to make a difference in any case, I suppose its to prevent an army from killing him with critical hits.
Also, by the time I'm ready to throw this at my players, I'm banking on the chance that Wizards will release rules for level 31+

This creature has absolutely no leader capabilities, and does not interact with allies in any way. He is not of the subrole (leader). In fact, his own aura actually damages and hinders his own creatures... not a (leader) subrole thing to do. The aura says 'Use me alone.' (Leader) means, 'use me with others.'

Thats a mistake, I copied the template from Vecna, thanks for pointing out.

Heartless Angel and Forsaken should be +41 to hit, not more than that. Yes, I know they are his cool ending moves, but you've already pretty much got a 2 or better to hit so at least allow player's defenses to work.

Heartless angel was my own call to increase the bonus to hit, I could nerf it back down if I wanted, but I'm sure a high level party can come up with something clever. It was supposed to be 42 though, not 43...
Forsaken gets +1 to hit because the party gets a full round of warning that it is about to activate.

Heartless Angel has the Healing keyword.... why?

Because it's a healing spell. At least it uses the animation for a healing spell in the game, and it sounds kinda cool...

Chaos Aura and Shifting Chaos do not work.

Shifting Chaos changes the damage type associated with Chaos Aura, but Chaos Aura has three damage types. The vulnerability/resistance switching ability doesn't work by a specific damage type. Therefore the only thing this guy will do is use a free action to change all three damage types to 'untyped' or whatever he surmises their vulnerability is. Once all three damage types are the same, the aura will only deal one of those bursts of 2 damage. In fact, they don't stack anyways, as it's an Aura doing it. As such, it is inelegant and probably not what you intended. (Not to mention, it feels less like an attempt to replicate the endboss of FF6, and more of just an attempt to get a chaos-feeling aura on the guy)

The idea IS that he shifts the damage to a type the player's appear to be vulnerable against. He isn't meant to change them all to the same damage type. Also, the wording says that Kefka changes "each damage type to another damage type". I don't see why you think multiple damage types won't stack. If a power does 5 fire, 5 cold and 5 acid damage you would take damage from each and suffer vulnerabilities from each, I don't see why this is different for an aura.

Mad Clown's Laughter seems... awkward. You're just rolling random dice to accomplish what 'recharge 6' does elegantly. I like the basic idea of it tho, so what I'd do is remove the additional die rolling (which only exists to play slot machine with what is, in essence, a terribly non-interactive ability) and instead, make it interactive:

Mad Clown's Laughter (whenever a creature has scored a critical hit, at-will, immediate reaction)
Kefka may take a standard action.

Of course it's awkward, but so is talking to an evil clown that (spoiler) destroys the world. I actually didn't really think too much about this. He gets a 1/10 chance to restore action points per d20 roll. That can easily work out to about 1/2 per turn so I think I'm going to nerf it. Otherwise I'm alright with it.

In any case you are definitely right that Kefka is basically 2+ to hit against any level 30. I don't know if there are rules for level 31+ characters, but that's what I had in mind when I designed him.