Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jack Simth" data-source="post: 2982389" data-attributes="member: 29252">If you want something that truely threatens a kingdom, yet can be ended with the elimination of one BBEG, you need something where the BBEG is the keystone - there's a number of strategies that can cause a significant threat to entire kingdoms, while still relying on a single individual BBEG, AND be in range of an appropriet challenge for the party:8th level Gestalt Players?Well, a 8th level cleric Cleric with Brew Potion can make an Oil of Animate Dead (the Cleric's Animate Dead is a 3rd level spell), as well as being able to Desecrate an area.  If the cleric has followers (low-level loyal people) then he can have a true army of zombies and skeletons.  A caster level 8 Oil of Animate Dead, set to be used in a Desecrated area (enough for 32 hd of undead) would have a market price of 2,000 gp (800 gp in material components, 48 xp, 600 gp potion materials).  Each follower, having no spellcasting ability of their own, could then have 32 HD of undead (skeletons/zombies only, but still...) under their command.  Any losses can be replaced by Animating the fallen enemy.  If the BBEG is destroyed, there's nobody to make the potions, so the skeletons/zombies can't be replaced, and the undead can be dealt with normally.  Meanwhile, there's a bunch of squads of fairly tough (for skeletons/zombies) running around under the command of a normal (not necessarily undead) critter such that the strings of the undead can be cut with a single kill.  A 6th+ level cleric could also concieveably Command a Shadow (3 HD).  Shadows have Create Spawn, and all Shadows created by a Shadow are under the command of their creator.  If the original Shadow is under the control of the cleric, well..... infinite undead army, anywone?  Each commoner he kills becomes another Shadow in his legions.  This is a very dangerous tactic, though, as it's a thin chain of command, with no fallback if a commander dies - only those Shadows the cleric has personally Commanded are under his direct control.  The others are under the control of the Shadow that Spawned them... and if the Shadows under the Cleric's personal Command are slain, he loses control of his entire army (also works with Wights at cleric-8 (4 HD), Wraiths at cleric-10 (5 HD), and Spectres at cleric-14 (7 HD) - possibly others).  If the BBEG is slain, control of the undead goes away, and they are no longer orginized.... but they still make for a rather nasty clean-up job.A Wizard (Cognate) of 9th+ (or a Sorceror of 10th+) can cast Lesser Planar Binding (5th level spell; Planar Binding is 6th, Greater Planar Binding is 8th) and get a bunch of 6/12/18 HD Outsiders or elementals (or both; demons, if you want a CE opponent) at his beck and call.</blockquote>

Verification