Next BigBadEvilGuy Plot Getting things rolling question - My players stay out!

alsih2o said:
ogre mage rocks, i must agree.

Don't forget to have him polymorph into the PC's favorite NPC from time to time in order to offer them a quest to retrieve an evil magic item or two. Picture this scene from late in your upcoming campaign:

[PC#1] "Whew! That sure was tough retrieving all seven parts of that rod for Goodgulf the White. Now that the last piece has been delivered, we can turn our attention fully on that Bothriechis bastard!"

[PC#2] "Yeah!"

[PC#1] "Say, did you ever notice that we never see Goodgulf the White and Bothriechis in the same place at the same time?"

[PC#2] "Yeah....Oh crap."
 

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Here are my thoughts (stealing your ideas of course!) thus far:

Bothriechis Din Woad, Male Half Ogre Mage/Half Giant Constrictor Sor 2 Rog 2: CR 15?; Huge Monstrous Humanoid; HD 16d8+16 (creature) plus 2d4+2 (Sor) plus 2d6+2 (Rog); HP 105; Init +3; Spd 20 ft, climb 20 ft, swim, 20 ft, fly 40 ft (good); AC 16 (-2 size, +5 Natural, +3 Dex) touch 11, falt-footed 13; Base Atk +6; Grap +33; Atk +25 melee (dam/crit, weapon); Full Atk xxx/xx/x; SA spells, sneak attack, Constrict 1d8+10, Improved Grab, Spell-like abilities (See Ogre Mage); SQ Darkvision 90ft, Evasion, Low-light vision, regeneration 5, spell resistance 19, trap finding; SV Fort +10, Ref +16, Will +10; AL NE; Str 25, Dex 18, Con 13, Int 14, Wis 14, Cha 17.

Skills:76+22(Rog)+10(Sor)= 108 (correct?)
Feats: 6 + 1 (class levels) = 7 (correct?)
Languages: Common, Draconic, Giant, and Infernal.
Spells per day: 0 level 6/ 1st level 5
Spells Known(5/2; base DC = 13 + spell level):0-[cantrip,cantrip,cantrip,cantrip,cantrip]; 1st - [first, first].
Spell-Like Abilities: At will - darkness, invisibility; 1/day - charm person (DC 14), cone of cold (DC 18), gaseous form, polymorph, sleep (DC 14).
Flight: Resume flight as a free action. While in gaseous form can fly at normal speed and has perfect maneuverability.
Regeneration: Fire and acid deal normal damage.
Constrict: On a successful grapple check, deals 1d8+10 damage.
Improved Grab: To use this ability, Bothriechis must hit with both sword attacks. He can then attempt to start a grapple without provoking an attack of opportunity. If he wins the grapple check, he establishes a hold and can begin to constrict.
Possessions: ??
Tactics: ??

I still need your help - I often make mistakes in stat blocks and I know this is second nature to some of you folks. I also will put up a little background information on him later. I'm finishing one of his lesser minions and look forward to your feedback on him as well.

Thanks - You're really helping me out.
 

Rel said:
Don't forget to have him polymorph into the PC's favorite NPC from time to time in order to offer them a quest to retrieve an evil magic item or two. Picture this scene from late in your upcoming campaign:

[PC#1] "Whew! That sure was tough retrieving all seven parts of that rod for Goodgulf the White. Now that the last piece has been delivered, we can turn our attention fully on that Bothriechis bastard!"

[PC#2] "Yeah!"

[PC#1] "Say, did you ever notice that we never see Goodgulf the White and Bothriechis in the same place at the same time?"

[PC#2] "Yeah....Oh crap."

Now that is RBDMing! Yoink!
 

I would make the big bad behind that guy similar to Rezo the Red Priest from the Anime Slayers.

basically, this is a guy who is blind.. so he learns ALL of white magic to try and heal himself... and goes around the world researching more and more, while using what he has learnt on others. Doing things like healing the poor blind, a regular good guy. But of course he can't heal himself. The is like a festering wound. So he starts into the Black Magics, experimenting on creatures, making mutants (explaining your half-ogre magi/snakey dude) all the while trying to find a way to cure his own blindness.

This way, you have a bad guy who's PR is that he is a good guy, who you can feel sorry for, because he is really only trying to fix himself. That means that the players may be reluctant to kill the BBEG. Instead they may hesitate and let him go.

O... and in the series, he can clone people... so let the players kill the snakeydude. More than once. And make it hard the first time, so they get that sense of accomplisment. And up he pops again.

This also gives you dungeons.. or to be more precise, research labs.

Really, it's quite a good basis for a campaign.
 

OK, when I statted him out, I just used the book stats. Let's play with the Elite Array from
the book and see what we can do to his stats. We will make the "dump stat" Strength since it
will be "hidden" by all the bonuses.

Elite Array changes, in order: -2, +4, +2, +2, +0, +4
Better AC, better HP, better skills, better save DC's for Ogre Mage abilties.
For his 4th level Stat increase, we will bump up Dex.
Recomputing skills based on Improved Intelligence
He should get 2 feats for character levels

EDIT: Oh, I just noticed that Spell Resistance is suggested to be 11+CR for creature. If we go with the hypothetical CR of 11 before class levels, that will bump SR to 22

Class skills:
Ogre Mage: Concentration, List, Spellcraft, Spot
Snake: Balance, Climb, Hide, Listen, Spot, Swim
Rogue: Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int),
Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha),
Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex),
Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (local) (Int), Listen (Wis),
Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis),
Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).
Sorceror: Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Profession (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).

It looks like we have a lot of overlap. We probably want to take a bit of Disguise so you can pull off the polymorph gambit convincingly.

Feats: We will take the Two Weapon fighting chain. Add in Improved Initiative and a long sword proficiency and we still have 3 feats left

Spells: I've dropped in Mage Armor since it has good mileage and is an easy one for him to apply before the PC's meet him in combat. Besides, it is a force affect and protects nicely.

Familiar: He is a Sorceror. The only book familiar that makes a lot of sense is a viper. This will give him a +3 on Bluff checks. Alas, the Viper won't have much in the way of HP.

So, what do we have so far?

----------

Bothriechis Din Woad, Male Half Ogre Mage/Half Giant Constrictor Sor 2 Rog 2: CR 15?;
Huge Monstrous Humanoid; HD 16d8+32 (creature) plus 2d4+4 (Sor) plus 2d6+4 (Rog);
HP 124;
Init +10;
Spd 20 ft, climb 20 ft, swim, 20 ft, fly 40 ft (good);
AC 23 (-2 size, +5 Natural, +6 Dex, +4 Mage Armor) touch 18, flat-footed 17;
Base Atk +18; Grap +32;
Atk +24 melee (dam/crit, weapon);
Full Atk +24/+19/+14/+9 melee - single weapon, +22/+17/+12/+7 long sword +22/+17/+12 short sword
SA spells, sneak attack, Constrict 1d8+9, Improved Grab, Spell-like abilities (See Ogre Mage);
SQ Darkvision 90ft, Evasion, Low-light vision, regeneration 5, spell resistance 22, trap finding;
SV Fort +11, Ref +18, Will +10;
AL NE;
Str 23, Dex 22, Con 15, Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 21.

Skills: 95 (Creature - 2+3 * hd+3)+22(Rog)+10(Sor)= 127
Feats: 6 (for Creature HD) +1 (1st level) +1 (3rd level) = 8
Martial Weapon Proficiency: Long Sword, Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Two Weapon Fighting, Improved Initiative,
Greater Two Weapon Fighting, + 3 more
Languages: Common, Draconic, Giant, and Infernal.
Spells per day: 0 level 6/ 1st level 5
Spells Known(5/2; base DC = 15 + spell level):0-[cantrip,cantrip,cantrip,cantrip,cantrip]; 1st - [Mage Armor, first].
Spell-Like Abilities: At will - darkness, invisibility; 1/day - charm person (DC 16), cone of cold (DC 20), gaseous form, polymorph, sleep (DC 16).
Flight: Resume flight as a free action. While in gaseous form can fly at normal speed and has perfect maneuverability.
Regeneration: Fire and acid deal normal damage.
Constrict: On a successful grapple check, deals 1d8+9 damage.
Improved Grab: To use this ability, Bothriechis must hit with both sword attacks. He can then attempt to start a grapple without provoking an attack of opportunity. If he wins the grapple check, he establishes a hold and can begin to constrict.
Possessions: ??
Tactics: ??

Bothriechis prefers to operate with subterfuge in most cases. However, he does prefer to mete out punishment personally.
When encountered in his lair, he will use his spell-like abilities to harass the PC's, finally using his innate powers of invisibility to flank a PC when they are fighting his underlings. When he finally engages in melee, it will be from a flanking sneak attack position. The potential for 7 melee attacks with +1d6 sneak attack on each one should provide some wonderful looks of surprise on your players' face.

Pogre: OK, a huge snake with a blue ogre's torso appears next to your cleric. He is flanking off of mook #3. Let's see, he swings (pogre rolls a d20, then keep rerolling six more times.) What do you know, he hit every time. OK, let's see how much damage that is. (pogre picks up 4d8 and 10d6, shakes in hands liberally, tosses the dice onto the table and asks the players to count up the damage) OK, now add 42 for bonuses. How many HP did your cleric have? (BTW-Average damage with that will be 95.)

Then the PC's will likely turn their attention to Bothriechis. Imagine their dismay as regeneration kicks in. Yeow.
 
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BardStephenFox said:
Then the PC's will likely turn their attention to Bothriechis. Imagine their dismay as regeneration kicks in. Yeow.

Yeow! Indeed!

That's an awesome stat block.

What do you think about the CR?

Drakmar said:
I would make the big bad behind that guy similar to Rezo the Red Priest from the Anime Slayers.

That has some cool possibilities, but I'm looking for a more pure Eeevile. I think you will see what I mean when I post the figure - still working on him. This threas is really helping me put together some nice strands for a web of deceit to use on my PCs. Thank you!
 

pogre said:
Yeow! Indeed!

That's an awesome stat block.

What do you think about the CR?

I am not entirely sure on the CR. I look at it and think "Damn - that guy is tough." Then I think about it some more, flip open the Monster Manual and look at the stats for an Adult Red Dragon (CR 15), a Nalfeshnee (CR 14) and a Nightwalker (CR 16). This guy might be a little underpowered. But, maybe equipment will bump him up. Would I throw him at a group of 15th level PC's? Yes! I would probably expect one character to go down, maybe even a kill. If he starts with a wizard/sorceror, it could be a big kill if there isn't a Stone Skin in play. But, Bothriechis should be ready to flee after that round. They can't quickly kill him, but they can subdue him and systematically apply fire damage and sword blows until he is dead.
 

pogre, keep in mind that two other Ogre Mage abilities are perfect to keep the weirdness and deception at a maximum: Invisibility and Darkness at will. If you're using 3.5E then Darkness loses some of its cool factor. But we're still playing 3E so the first thing I tend to do is have the OM drop a Darkness right in the middle of the battlefield. Then she can hop into the darkness for a round and emerge from it in an unexpected direction. Combine this with Invisibility and Gaseous Form and my players not only didn't know where she was for much of the combat, they also didn't know when she had LEFT the combat.

If they're fighting on his home turf, he could blanket half the battlefield in Darkness using his knowledge of the terrain to maximum advantage. If you're giving him a couple levels of Sorcerer then he could take Silent Image to have images of himself peeking out of the Darkness areas a few times. Once the PC's have fired off their best spells, then he can engage. Or just observe their tactics to use for another day and then float away in Invisible Gaseous Form.

Fun fun! :D
 

This is one of the things that make this board great. From a simple miniature from Legend of the Five Rings, a fully statted out high level opponent. I may actually have to steal this guy for my own use.
 

Rel said:
<massive snip>
Fun fun! :D

Excellent! Just plain excellent!

It's a darn good thing I am powering up the PCs for this campaign. Two TPKs in one year is enough for anyone!;)

JoeGKushner said:
This is one of the things that make this board great. From a simple miniature from Legend of the Five Rings, a fully statted out high level opponent. I may actually have to steal this guy for my own use.

I could not agree more. The painting and is the easy part - it's the putting imagination into the framework of the nittygritty rules that weighs me down. This is such a huge help! I'll post more this afternoon and will lean on your help again if you guys do not mind.
 

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