Quest for the perfect villian

[Grimmjow]

Im running a campaign centered around undead invation (The Outbreak from open grave). The cleric in the group has come from the shadowfel to hunt down a shadari-kai witch named Ioana. I decided i wanted her to keep coming up in the campaign. The problem was she had no melee potential and the players would go straight for her. What i did is gave her two templates, wizard (to give her the arcane fill) and fighter (so she can go toe to toe with the minator) along with the blazing skeleton graft and the wight's claw graft. Now i know this is going to screw the group but thats the point they've killed her twice already, its time she won for once. Ive already got a plan to save them so they dont all die but i want to know how to expand on her for the future. Im going to add one more template before the group kills her and some powers from the orcus Blood cult, any other idea's to make her feel more real and more dangerous??

 

[Unwise]

As far as making her feel real and dangerous, I suggest that the PCs defeating her has made her desperate, she makes a terribly pact that she really should not have made.

If you can humanize her at all, you can turn her into a tragic figure, controlled and tormented by the spirit/whatever she has made a pact with. The PCs have little hope of defeating her while she is empowered by this 'patron'. They need to find a way of weakening the bonds and maybe even helping her break the contract/bond. This is also a good way of alluding towards a BBEG in the next tier.

P.S. The PCs could even be present when she makes this pact. They could be kicking her butt, then she cheats and sells her soul for the power to defeat her. Now she is now enslaved but undefeatable.
Maybe she regrets the decision though, if the PCs can later find her soul and help her get it back, it would break the contract and she would become killable again.

 

[Arctic Wolf]

To expand on Unwise's idea, why not have them meet her in a ritual chamber. In this chamber, there are a ton of carved up bodies leaking blood everywhere ( you would know that the blood is actually filling up glyphs on the floor). As the fight goes on her sanity starts to turn south (up to you), and when she becomes bloodied, there is enough blood to activate her ritual and form her pact. Thus the PCs, who thought they would rack up another win, find that she has gotten stronger then they could have concieved and have to high tail it out of there otherwise they WILL DIE. Hope this at least gives you an idea and good luck

 

[Grimmjow]

Ya thats great lol, i know i want to her to side with ORcus being thats who the lpayers are going up against in the end, that'll be ballin