Tweaking a villain?

[Adrienne]

If you're one of my players, shoo! Shoo!

So, I'm running a D&D game which is mostly centered around fighting and loot gathering, with moderate amounts of RP face time mixed in. The game was originally a 3.5 conversion of the old Temple of Elemental Evil, but has diverged from that game plan as I grew tired of the straight dungeon crawl. The group is still centered around Hommlet and Nulb, the two villages in the original adventure, but they've been fighting evil in the forest rather than in the dungeon.

To make a longish story short, I'm about to put an evil priest and his demon helper in charge of Nulb, posing as the new legitimate lords of the area. The plan is for them to use the PCs to strike at their factional enemies, but the PCs will eventually (I hope) discover the ruse and come after them. My current plan is to make the priest a cleric with a couple of Thaumaturgist levels (Clr 7 / Th 2), and his assistant is a succubus.

That's where I'm looking for some help--the succubus is only CR 7, and I'm worried that she won't provide a credible threat or good support for the priest by the time the PCs figure out what's going on. (They're currently 6th and 7th level.) The MM indicates that advancement for the succubus goes by increased hit dice, but that seems a little bland. I was thinking of putting a couple of class levels on her instead, maybe rogue or bard. I glaned over the Fiend of Corruption prestige class in the Fiend Folio, but it actually seemed too redundant to be useful. So, I'm curious what the devious folks on EN World might do with a succubus who needed a raise of two or three in her CR.


Thanks,
Adrienne

 

[Nightfall]

Well she might qualify for a Pr-class. Perhaps Thrall of Graz'zt?

 

[Ryltar]

Give her some levels as a sorcerer: that should stir things up a little .

 

[Piratecat]

In addition to adding prestige classes, remember that she's a succubus; she should have everybody under her thumb. I can imagine that there's no need for her to fight when three beefy fighters are in love with her, and the guard captain would coming running if she crooked her little finger, and even some of the PCs' allies are under her sway.

 

[EricNoah]

Some one-shot magic items might be fun too -- something that summons elementals or more fiends, for example.

 

[Krellic]

I think Piratecat's got the right idea (as you might expect :\ ). She could turn the whole village against the players, especially if she's been masquerading as the beautiful and apparently benevolent lady of the manor.

What if she was running some kind of playgroup for the village children - and then throw them at the party! .

Or if the party start to suspect the evil priest she could pretend that she was his innocent thrall, only to willing to help the party if they can only free her...

Boost her power up by all means but a succubus's strength is in her subtlety.

 

[Adrienne]

Ooh. Thanks for all of the cool ideas.

I'll check out the Thrall of Graz'zt. I'd initially discarded the idea of sorcerer, because a handful of weak spells didn't seem to be worth the CR increase, but I'll take another look. One-shot magic items could also be fun, and I'd gotten out of the habit of using them (so the PCs will be unprepared).

And thank you, Piratecat and Krellic. For some reason, I'd been thinking of her seduction abilities only in terms of affecting the PCs--which I was leery of doing, because at least one of the players is uncomfortable with that sort of play. Obviously, though, I can support her with as many lovesick minions as I'd like.

This is great.

 

[Piratecat]

Yup, I think that's the real strength of a succubus or erinyes: not how they affect the PCs, but how they affect all the important people around the PCs! 'Cause when the magistrate is in love, he might pass a law outlawing adventurers and their weapons....

Your game sounds fun!