hirou
Adventurer
You know those moments in the anime when you see the character after a long period of training off-screen, and now his powerlevel is over 9000 and he can do new stuff, but still with the same signature technique? I need a bit of that for the best orc-and-elf duo. My party didn't attack Liya Jierre in Pemberton's lair, giving Rush Munchausen and Merton Gonsala an ample time to upgrade their gimmicks. The intent is to get at least 3 shouts of "that's unfair" from players, how would you reach that? My rough ideas follow:
Rush upgraded his immovable rods on a fundamental level. Now they can be fixed not only in relation to the surrounding world, but also only with relation to each other. E.g. if he fixes them 15 feet apart from each other and then swings one of them around, the second one moves as well, effectively giving him incredible range of melee attacks. He also switched from a pair of rods to a dozen, which can be combined together in a variety of nunchaku-like conformations (screaming monk-like "hiiiiiiyaaaa!!!" on top of one's lungs is obligatory to control them). Switching from "loose" mode to "fixed" in a correct moment can completely immobilize a player with a triangle of immovable rods crushing their throat. Of course they are lined with golden wire to block teleportation in such case.
Merton realized that everything in this world is better with dinosaurs. Everyone heard of Bag of Tricks, which can produce small animals to amuse little kids, but few have heard of its higher level cousin, Bag of Tyrants, which releases quickly expanding giant reptiles of variable species. Each of various dinosaurs has "built-in" attack on release (triceratops tramples forward, pack of raptors tries to flank target, T-rex makes "bite and swallow" attempt etc), and Merton can still control them with his technomagical tuning fork on subsequent turns.
I don't actually expect to stop high-paragon party with just a pair of mobs, but these guys are my favorite scoundrels in campaign, so I'm giving them all the toys you and me can invent. The only actual limit is that the gimmick should be clear to the outside observer and be in rough compliance with general magical or other world paradigms, otherwise it wouldn't be fun to the players. I think of them as munchkin-like characters, who try to sneak in dubious builds with cheesy interactions between various game rules.
Rush upgraded his immovable rods on a fundamental level. Now they can be fixed not only in relation to the surrounding world, but also only with relation to each other. E.g. if he fixes them 15 feet apart from each other and then swings one of them around, the second one moves as well, effectively giving him incredible range of melee attacks. He also switched from a pair of rods to a dozen, which can be combined together in a variety of nunchaku-like conformations (screaming monk-like "hiiiiiiyaaaa!!!" on top of one's lungs is obligatory to control them). Switching from "loose" mode to "fixed" in a correct moment can completely immobilize a player with a triangle of immovable rods crushing their throat. Of course they are lined with golden wire to block teleportation in such case.
Merton realized that everything in this world is better with dinosaurs. Everyone heard of Bag of Tricks, which can produce small animals to amuse little kids, but few have heard of its higher level cousin, Bag of Tyrants, which releases quickly expanding giant reptiles of variable species. Each of various dinosaurs has "built-in" attack on release (triceratops tramples forward, pack of raptors tries to flank target, T-rex makes "bite and swallow" attempt etc), and Merton can still control them with his technomagical tuning fork on subsequent turns.
I don't actually expect to stop high-paragon party with just a pair of mobs, but these guys are my favorite scoundrels in campaign, so I'm giving them all the toys you and me can invent. The only actual limit is that the gimmick should be clear to the outside observer and be in rough compliance with general magical or other world paradigms, otherwise it wouldn't be fun to the players. I think of them as munchkin-like characters, who try to sneak in dubious builds with cheesy interactions between various game rules.