KidCthulhu's Scarred Lands Needs YOU! (Unless you're in the group. You stay out!)

[KidCthulhu]

In my Scarred Lands campaign, I've recently introduced my players to what I hope will be a recurring villain. He meets many of the qualifications for a good nemesis. He's mysterious, nefarious, and my players HATE him. They call him the Spider, or Spider-Man, for reasons you'll see below.

But here's the catch. He has no real stats. When I introduced him to them, I knew what he was doing in the dungeon, and I had given him the tools he needed for the job, all given to him by his boss. I'd thought all about his personality, but very little about his stats.

As I think about him now, I suspect I'd like him to be an evil bard. He was charming, smooth and had a certain rough charm when under interrogation by the party. Think Bruce Willis in Die Hard only more evil. And his job is go go here and there on missions from his boss, talking various cults and titan sects into working with his boss (and then double crossing them).

Evil bard fits that picture nicely. Say 10-12 level for now, although he'll grow.

Anyone feel like helping me flesh this guy out? The only mandate is that he must have a magical tatoo on his face in the shape of a spider. I gave him that as a present from the boss and a way to thwart any capture and interrogations. The tatoo makes him immune to pain, gives him a +6 to his saves versus charm, truth magic, and mind affecting spells. It gives him +4 to his Bluff & Diplomacy. Finally, if the tatoo is dispelled (and it's cast by a 17th level caster), the wearer becomes invisible, as per the spell. This gives the wearer a chance to get away in a tricky spot.

Any and all suggestions welcome, and thanks.

 

[monboesen]

I'll try posting an attempt tomorrow. Is this a 3.0 or 3.5 game, and what accesory books are available. I'm mainly thinking of Book of Vile darkness and Song and Silence

 

[KidCthulhu]

It's a 3.0 game, but using 3.5 is fine. I have no objections to Vile Darkness, and Song & Silence is game canon. Thanks!

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Hello!

Edit: Looks like I'll end up with some funny results if I use my 3.5 stuff and I don't have any more 3.0 stuff...

It's not a full character - just a combat scenario he could set up with certain fairly common abilities.

Basically the guy has a decent UMD skill and a bag of stuff that he can fetch if he wishes to harm someone.

His preferred methods involve spidery doom!

He will try to lure the players into an area with fairly tight coridoors or possibly a small outdoor area with many trees. Something with plenty of cover - so they can't see the whole area or him. His lying and/or disguise powers should help.


Firstly he uses his impressive Use Magic Device skill to lay down a network of Web spells from his Wand of Web - none of these are too close together - so fire won't catch all of them. Possibly distribute a few beads from a necklace of fireballs to 'persuade' anyone that burning the webs is not a good idea. The webs will last 30 minutes from casting and ought to pose awkward obstacle. He can navigate them freely with his Cloak of Arachnida.

He has a helper or warning system set up to inform him of the players arrival. He can then buff/prep the final stages of the plan:

3.0 Haste - a must for a spellcaster?

Invisibility - he won't be affecting them directly at the start of the fight, so this will be useful.

Major Image - to coat the area with 160 cubic feet of web hiding illusions...

Use several Scrolls of Summon Monster 6 (on the bard list so no Use Magic Device needed) - get some Large Fiendish Spiders (D4+1 per scroll) and Huge Fiendish Spiders (1 at a time). It is over his level, so could backfire entertainingly/horribly!

Buff these with Greater Invisibility, Blur, Bardic music, and so on.

Tactical use of Grease and Silence spells - don't break invisibility and can be nasty with all those webs around. Especially with slopes.

Move around using Move Silent/Hide so they can't find him too quickly


Laugh as players realise bards can be thoroughly unpleasant.


An optional other is to Use Magic Device with Scrolls of Planar Binding - this takes a load off his buffing routine as any spiders from there will stick around - but is really expensive.

It also gives the option of replacing/augmenting the demon spiders with 1 or more Bebeliths - if you're feeling really mean.

Making the area noisy would help him out - make him much harder to find.

Hope that's any use.

 

[Nightfall]

Well my personal favorite is give him the False Lover template and make his boss some powerful necromancer. If you'd prefer he's living, bard sure, but give him access to say something like spider eyes goblins and Narleths. Maybe he's a follower of Belsameth, and can change into a say a werespider. Just an idea.

 

[KidCthulhu]

Al, that's very, very beautiful. Next time you're back in the States or I'm in the UK, I'll buy you the biggest beer I can find. Nice stuff. Bards can be nasty, and they're not always nice!

 

[BSF]

KidC, as a Bard player myself, I would be happy to help! I want to stew on this a little though. Primarily because I am distracted at work. Umm, do you have the Enchiridion of Mystic Music by S.T. Cooley Press? I am pretty sure he has changed the old version (which is 3.0) into a free download, so it would be easy to obtain. I'm thinking some Inspire Despair, coupled with a Point & Counterpoint and an Inspire Courage would be a nice combo to throw at your PC's. Give his allies a bonus while giving the PC's a penalty and all of a sudden the group might find a friendly bard's Countersong to be nice.

Anyway, I will give it a little more thought.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

Al, that's very, very beautiful. Next time you're back in the States or I'm in the UK, I'll buy you the biggest beer I can find. Nice stuff. Bards can be nasty, and they're not always nice!

Glad you like it - most of it's been stewing away for a villan I've been planning... and I might actually have to take you up on the beer at some point!

Bards are great - they tend to get put down a lot, but their versatility is fun. Besides, they have style - which is way more important than substance!

 

[carpedavid]

I'm going to have to steal that combat encounter.

From KidC's initial description of the bard's job, I think he'd need a high bluff skill and enchantment magic (to get the targets to work for his boss in the first place), and the ability to get away quickly (for when he double-crosses them). He doesn't really strike me as the fireball-tossing type, though. I see him more as a suggestion weidling, dominate person using SOB, though that's just me. A high UMD skill would be an interesting suprise for the PCs, but at that point, he might as well be a wizard (or a rogue, and get the benefit of sneak attack and better spell points). Of course, that could just be the inner munchkin in me speaking

I'd focus him more on things that he'll need to do his job, and then survive: bluff, gather information, sense motive, etc. I think, in the end, that would make him a more interesting PC, with a better potential for surviving long enough to become recurring.

From a recent experience in my own campaign, I can say that little is more surprising and frustrating than the BBEG turning to the PCs and saying "You know, you look like you've had a rough day. Might I suggest that you all go home and put your feet up?" and then failing your will save.

I'll try to work up some munchkinized (but appropriate) stats this evening and post them, which you can feel free to adapt or ignore.

 

[der_kluge]

I'm thinking adding the vampire template to him would be a nice touch. And bump his charisma up to nice levels. The vampire template does a good job of that anyway. Domination is a nast ability.